On some days, 38-Across.
But today will not be one of those days. Today Jessie and I will venture forth into the first snowfall of the year and return home with an impractically tall Christmas tree. Photographs to follow.
A couple of thoughts and spoilers for “Lack of Effort” after the jump.
As a committed “Star Wars” geek, I eventually consume basically all content that franchise puts out. And I have to say that Baby Yoda (of “The Mandalorian”) is a delightful and compelling little character. He’s so hungry! And mischievous!
THERE IS NO TRY, the famous Yoda-ism from “Empire Strikes Back,” struck me as a pretty lovely revealer for a deletion puzzle. And I was pleased that I was able to find some cute-sounding whacky -TRY phrases, all of which deleted the -TRY from the very end of the phrase.
As for [What you might get out of a successful lab experiment?] (PET), when we were kids our parents let us board litters of lab puppies for the weekend. They probably should have foreseen that certain puppies were just going to be too cute to send back…
Happy solving, friends.
-Ross
Fun puzzle! Loved the theme, but either I’m being completely dense about 31a or something is not right…probably the former!
You’re not dense, Jay. Well, maybe you are, but this doesn’t prove it! I think there was a backend formatting issue. I reset the works; hopefully it’s presenting right now.
Another fun and clever puzzle. I admit to not seeing the connection on 31 Across, however.
Hey, Neil. Glad you liked it. A couple other people had issues with how the 31A clue presented. Were you solving on the site? It may be a backend issue.
Yes, I was solving on the site. I just looked at the PDF and saw the full clue, which now makes sense. In the puzzle app I was only seeing the first word of the clue. (And now it shows in full.)
Ooh, I just love the Baby Yoda — and the puzzle. And your clues. I’d never heard of 14 Across and educated myself on it. Uh…especially good clue. 🙂 Thanks, Ross!
I was moderately disappointed to learn his name is Grogu, but you can bet I added that to my word list!
My “aha” moment came very late. But I managed to finish the puzzle. Big smile! And a great theme. Very clever. I particularly loved 25D and 39D.
Cheers, Jean. Have you Deckered the halls yet?
Good one! Nope, not yet … hopefully by December 20th or so!
This was the trickiest of your puzzles, that I’ve done. Maybe, I’m just tired from all the Christmas decorating. If only, I had thought of another way to pronounce “try”. 31a wasn’t my problem; it was 62a and when I finally got it, I could have kicked myself.
By the way, the baby is not eating Girl Scout cookies! (Sold many, many over the years with my daughters and I know that’s not a color they go for.) Anyway, my family says they are macarons.
The idea of little Baby Yoda getting into some fancy macarons tickles me even more than the alternative. Thank you for this, Kathy! 🙂