28 Comments

oh man, the "winners" weren't nearly as good as some of the honorable mentions. "All flag, no constitution" is terrific! "Wordle in 2" is fantastic, but probably only to other NYT puzzlers. "We're under the same bus" is an improvement on the original

"Talking on Mute," though is gold. It should go right into the usual lexicon or...phrasicon?

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>>>You are wrong. It’s not generally called a “car cigarette lighter.” It is called a “car power outlet.”

Nope, I'm with my brother on this. It was, is, and probably always will be a "car cigarette lighter," at least as long as it still has a heating element in it. I once altered a car I owned so it had a 110 volt AC outlet in it to plug in power tools. The engine had to be running, but it worked. Now THAT was a "car power outlet."

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Out of curiosity Don. What were you operating, a mobile chop shop ?

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Not nearly that interesting. I just wanted to be able to run power tools outside the house without 89-foot long extension cords. Worked beautifully.

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You had to keep the engine running, correct? Were the existing wires servicing the lighter of sufficient gauge to do the job, or did you have to re-wire?

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I don't honestly remember. This was a LONG time ago. My best recollection is that the wires were adequate.

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Have to say that the Stormy Daniels “cross” was sleazier than porn-acting could ever be. Conflating: 1) dancing with inviting sex 2) willingly having porn sex with unwillingly being cowed into having sex. It might have been a desperate gamble to evoke a lack of empathy from jurors, but, though irrelevant technically from the crime, rather emphasized the moral crime not on trial, even though it was committed on a porn actress. Rick Scott today exhibited his own porn.

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Ineffective assistance of counsel is looking like Orange 1's best bet for grounds for an appeal more each day. And here Necheles had some cred previously as a decent defense lawyer as opposed to Blanche. But, as they say (or at least I do...) have a lemon --- make a Trump criminal defense.

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I think that "Took him to the gravel pit and shot him in the face," could have been shortened to "Took him to the gravel pit."

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Some readers might not get the reference from that alone, since neither the taker and the takee is mentioned.

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What is the best curse you know? Not like profanity, like wishing ill on people. There are some great ones in Yiddish like “May all his teeth fall out but one and may that one have a toothache” and “May they name a small child after him.” (For context, Jews do not typically name children after the living.)

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There's the Chinese "May you live in interesting times."

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Actually, it lost a great deal in translation over the centuries. The original is: "May you live in intestines."

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I first heard Aunt Ethel's "poke" in the lyrics of "The Dimpton Drinking Club" routine by Benny Hill. The punchline is in the 12th verse.

Charlie, oh Charlie, he got so high, he laid down in the sty next to a pig,

And a passing priest was heard to say,

"You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses."

And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

https://benny-hill.fandom.com/wiki/The_Dimpton_Drinking_Club

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It's funny--I'd thought recently of a similar idea for a contest, but one where we'd have to come up with Not My Job topics, i.e., "President Biden, you're famous for riding Amtrak, but what do you know about Amstrad? We're going to ask you three questions about the defunct British electronics company."

(that's a terrible example, but you get the gist)

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Sounds as if you need to enter this contest!

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2RU- "As useful as tits on a bull"- This is the first time (I think) that I have ever encountered this phrase so I am unsure how it meets the standard of being overused. I will just offer "I don't get out much" to explain my lack of knowledge because I'm homebound and only leave the house for doctor and hospital visits. BUT I do watch a lot of cable tv and movies, streaming tv and movies, read a lot of online content of very broad-ranging topics, and listen to a lot of audiobooks through my local library's website.

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Great Willie Horton article. “Riot is the language of the unheard.” -MLK Those days of Steve Garvey, Johnny Bench, Jim Palmer, etc. being our regular heroes in UN salary capped daytime baseball. Mine after seeing him in my first MLB game was Mike Greenwell, every bit in the line of the great Red Sox LF’ers. .303 career, 130HR, 726RBI. Would have been ‘88 MVP with .325-22-119 except for Jose Canseco’s steroid-fueled 40HR-40SB season.

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Also an unjuiced baseball.

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Thanks much for the link to Paul White's tribute to Willie Horton. I remember him as a very good player, but had not known how much he contributed to his hometown. And I didn't know that he saved Al Kaline's life. It it were possible, a good prank would be to relocate the Willie Horton statue so that his statue is swinging his bat at the head of the Ty Cobb statue. Not that the real Willie Horton wold ever do such a thing. But Ty Cobb would deserve it.

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Re: gambling: Though it is legal and promoted, it is not allowed for athletes to even bet, and especially not to throw games of their team.

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A conspirator is someone who participates in the conspiracy. In any role. A co-conspirator participates in a complementary way to the conspirator, in a way that together they generate the particular act of conspiracy.

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I think it’s used to identify that the co-conspirators’s degree of the act is the same, in that they conspired together in a similar or together in the same act, whereas the conspirator is part of the conspiracy, but may have acted differently or to a different degree. It especially heightens if only one is indicted for some procedural reason, thereby the other is just as guilty but for some reason is not yet indicted.

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I loved so many of the HMs!

All flag and no constitution (Leif Picoult)

The hetero and cis (Kevin Dopart)

He's Talking on Mute (Jeff Hazle)

A riddle wrapped in clamshell packaging (Frank Osen)

Play for the Wizards (Leif Picoult) <-- did a spit take

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Your comment made my day! If I can make someone do a spit take, that is the ultimate compliment. Cheers!

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Your Aunt Ethel's poem reads like it could have been written by Robert Service, it has a similar cadence.

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It's a lot older. Probably some version was in original Gaelic.

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I remember Harry Belafonte singing that poem. It's on an album of a live performance at the Greek Theatre. https://genius.com/Harry-belafonte-pig-lyrics

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