LearnedLag

Q3: A capybara is a literal Rodent Of Unusual Size, so let's go with that.

Q4: Still don't know it.

Q5: The Powerpuff girls all had B-names. Buttercup (oh, right, the title character), what else... Blossom! That's about Mayim Bialik.

5/6, reasonable. Except I got beered on, and I can't get green.

What character in The Wizard of Oz has more fingers-- the Six-Fingered Man. It's The Princess Bride. Okay, let's cross-check.

Q1: Same island? No idea where Archimedes was from, but I know that's Archimedes.

Q2: A literal Mays? Maze? Maise? No idea, but I know that's Willie Mays.

Q6: Huh. Okay, this is going to take even more time. What classic film... I spent a lot of time trying to fit this to The Wizard of Oz, but finally went back to Q4 and the "unusual feature". Hemingway's cats were famously polydactyl (more than the usual number of toes)...

Missed Connections 5 Match Day 10

Q1: This is the Archimedes Screw.

Q2: The "Say Hey Kid" was Willie Mays.

Q3: Dunno... maybe capybara? Llama? We'll put capybara in
there for now.

Q4: No idea.

Q5: Okay, this is gonna take some time. There were a lot of guest hosts...

58 The words in her poem “We Real Cool” can all be found in this grid

goddammit, today’s Apple News crossword

Barack Obama tweets: More and more Americans are voicing their outrage at the tactics being deployed by federal agents in Minnesota. But it's important to understand the broader implications of what this administration is doing, and the threat it poses to the basic freedoms of every American. Here's a podcast that does a good job of laying out what's at stake, and why all of us need to [the tweet is cut off there]

Look, I'm not saying we *thought* this was about us, but we never thought we would be in the New York Times either.

Online Content 2 Match Day 2

Nothing interesting here in how I got anything. I knew Q3, Q4, and Q5; I didn't know Q1, Q2, or Q6.

Luckily, I defended perfectly and my opponent thought I'd know about a grouchy unicorn more than I'd know about Area Man, so it's a 4(3)-4(4) tie.

Going back to Q1, it's one word, which doesn't help any, so... "night"?

3/6, (3)3-1(2). I'll take it and be happy with my defense.

Q5: This refers to Juneteenth, ergo it is "june".

Q6: No idea, but I got "june" and "real" and maybe "rum"... Wait, that means the Ken Burns doc has to be a one-word title, and "jazz" fits that and the other words. Maybe it's a Langston Hughes poem?

Hidden Connections 5 Match Day 9

Q1: ugggh I should know this, but I don't.

Q2: I think this is "real" numbers, since it excludes imaginary ones (square root of -1).

Q3: No idea. Rum, maybe, since it was so closely linked to slavery?

Q4: Okay, this is Ken Burns PBS docs, but I don't know which.

So that's a 3/6, but my opponent bageled it, and I will take the win.

...maybe even seen some clips back when I was on TikTok (it's a fascist data funnel now; I beg you to get off of it), but I can't remember what it was called, so I'll just go with "troy".

Q6: I don't know the first two off the top of my head, but I've at least heard of Battle.net.

Q3: I have probably posted the sealion comic a dozen times over the years responding to trolls.

Q4: No idea. Who's a Disney character who would play baseball? Well, any of 'em. Who would be hilarious to watch playing *difficult* baseball? Donald Duck, obviously.

Q5: Oh, man, I've heard of this...

Online Content 2 Match Day 1

Q1: This is Tom. I was briefly on MySpace, but I do remember Tom's smiling face.

Q2: No clue. I know that "-core" has become a suffix for aesthetics, so maybe "form of higher education" is obfuscating "college" and it's "collegecore".

Wow, did I not get any of them. I still don't get the blood one (I said "Bradshaw") -- who the hell is Carrie Drew OH wait, it's Drew Carey riiight got it.

Anyway, 3/6, but hey, my opponent only got the first one, so I'll take a 3(3)-2(1) win.

...so this must be carries. What do carries and grant-- Cary Grant. dammit. It's all "carrie". What was the other one I mighta had... Public Enemy and Sonic Youth, a word their albums had in common, right? Must be Carrie *Nation* (...of millions to hold us back).

Okay, what are the others?

So it's Lee or Grant or something like that. Lee was an excellent student, Grant something of a middle-grade fuckup. Okay, we'll put a pin in that. What was the other one that I can remember... something about a stat where Walter Payton had like 3K. He had way more yards than that...

Hidden Connections 5 Match Day 8

I had maaaybe 1/6 on first read-through, and then I went on a five-hour drive, and around hour four, I was thinking about Q1. Okay, it's going to be someone notable, not like General Longstreet (54th of 56, class of '42 (no, I didn't know that)).

5/6, then.

8(5)-9(6) loss, keeping me at a hard 6th in my group.

Q2: André must have been talking back to the people booing him, I figured. So this is about the "Ant" part of "Antarctic". Would "The ants got somethin' to say!" make sense? Oh, maybe it's about "anti", and he was making a pun, saying the boo-ers were old women. So maybe "aunties"?

Q5: Polaris is in the Little Dipper, which is part of Ursa Minor, so this is "bear".

Q6: Origins of names... peace, [something], Atlas, India... oh, this is Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and "bear" is "Arctic". Okay, so this is "oceans", and that means Q2 is... something about "Antarctic"?

Hidden Connections 5 Match Day 6

Q1: Obvi the peace sign.

Q2: I went the wrong way on this one. Didn't really have a good grab on it until the theme dropped, so we'll come back to it.

Q3: Atlas, presumably.

Q4: I seem to recall this is India. I don't know why, but that just landed for me.

I hate hate hate partial-word questions, and that's all I'll say.

Q5: This is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I read the original trilogy and have the next one but never got to it.

Q6: No idea. None at all. Can't pick out the theme either. Eventually I gave up on both this and Q1 and went with "Australia" and "The Little Mermaid".

4/6, lost it 6(4)-7(5). Fair.

Q3: A Nuyorican (a.k.a. a person of Puerto Rican descent who is also from NYC) who would be asked to judge something... Sotomayor, I guess.

Q4: I don't know a lot of CFL stuff, but I know that the Toronto team is the Argonauts.

Hidden Connections 5 Match Day 6

Q1: Nooo idea, even of location. There's some French territory off Canada, also some in the South Pacific, also some in South America. Let's see if the theme helps us.

Q2: Eventually, this popped into mind -- Rimsky-Korsakov did The Flight of the Bumblebee.

Eventually, I type "spider" into the blank and submit.

7(5)-7(3). A perfectly wrong defense, saved from Bucknering only by the fact that my opponent didn't believe my actually-pretty-decent-against-the-average Pop Music score.

And of course, Aquaman. Okay, so it's all "[blank] man" answers. Let's go back.

Q1: I had thought of, say, Encino or Reseda for this. Encino Man. Gotta be.

Q2: Rain Man or Snow Man. Probably Rain Man.

Q3: Iron, right? Iron Man. Sure.

Okay, that leads us back to Q6... Nope. Nothing comes to mind.

Q6: No idea. None at all, either way. Okay, let's come back much later in the day and see what we can figure out.

[several hours later]

Well, all I know at this point is "bicentennial" and "aqua". What the hell goes with "bicentennial"? Wait, Bicentennial Man was that Robin Williams movie, right?

Hidden Connections 5 MD04

Q1: Oof, gonna have to come back to this one. There are lots of LA neighborhoods and I don't remember the song at all.

Q2: No clue. Let's come back to it.

Q3: ugggh no idea. We'll come back.

Q4: Oh, this has got to be [counts out] bic-ent-enn-ial.

Q5: Aqua, definitely.