Sunday, January 21, 2024

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 21, 2024): There Is No Time Like The Present

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 21, 2024): There Is No Time Like The Present
Q: Think of a familiar saying in seven words. The initial letters of the first three words in order spell a type of container. And the initials of the last four words in order spell something edible that might be found in this container. What's the saying?
No comment.

Edit: The title starts TIN... I thought giving it as a joke answer would lead people astray, but in retrospect it was too close so I deleted the hint. Unfortunately the title is in the URL which I couldn't change without deleting the whole post and comments.
A: There Is Nothing New Under The Sun --> TIN of NUTS

163 comments:

  1. The British call it, "Standing in a queue."

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  2. More than 1100 entries last week.

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  3. Fitting for a Sunday. Nice work Lego!

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  4. I can imagine this puzzle inspiring lunacy!

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    Replies
    1. (When there's nothing new under the sun, turn to the moon.)

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    2. And lunatics are nuts. A rare twofer!

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  5. Wisdom offers knowledge that orders facts usefully.

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    1. I wish I could claim that I was thinking of the fact that the saying comes from one of the "wisdom books" of the Bible when I wrote the above, but that would not be true.

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  6. Children are naturally suspicious of unscrupulous parents.

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    1. Yours make more sense than a lot of the old favorites!

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    2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    3. Sorry. I didn't know the answer when I posted that homemade saying, and I had a reason to believe that it was safe!

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  7. I haven’t solved it yet, but on this date, a mini-milestone (millstone?) birthday, I thank all of you for helping me to, in the words of one of my favorite writers, “keep it bouncing.”

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    1. Happy mini-milestone, Dr. K!

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    2. Good day for a birthday. I have multiple relatives and friends with a birthday today. Happy birthday Dr. K!

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    3. Thanks, jan, Lorenzo, and JAWS. I had a splendid day. Now if I can only solve the puzzle...

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  8. Good puzzle! I solved it quickly while still in bed because time and tide wait for no man.

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  9. As often happens, I wasted an hour poring over lists of familiar sayings, gave up, went to brush my teeth, and the answer came to me.

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    1. That's reassuring. I was wondering if I was overthinking things.

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    2. Like you... it came to me while washing up this morning!

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  10. Be always grateful, feel in good spirits.

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    1. Boys and girls are not the same (chocolate covered)

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    2. Thanks! I haven't solved it yet, but figured that was safe.

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  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. Playing a new Sunday puzzle ante meridien.

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  14. Sometimes a cigar . . . Egads! Good God, Sigmund!

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  15. Got there. I wonder how many correct answers there will be this week.

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  16. Take those seven initial letters, add a vowel, rearrange, and you get a medical term.

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  17. Everything seems new to me on this Sunday

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  18. Think of a famous fiction author of the last century. Pronounce the title of his major work and phonetically it will describe how law enforcement might categorize loud disturbance reports in North Portugal or Cambridge and Oxford, U.K.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Author's name anagrams to a movie from Dec. 31.

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    3. Thanks, I thought so, but wasn't sure.

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    4. Here's a riff on your puzzle:

      The last name of a 20th Century American writer, minus one letter, sounds like what a past US president’s tailor would do. The name is also associated with a second past president. What is the name of the writer?

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    5. Nodd,
      I thought this was going to be difficult, but it was the very first author that came to mind. I like it. I might just go outside and put up the flag to celebrate.

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    6. Another riff: The last name of an esteemed English poet sounds like something that would require vigorous pressing to remove. What is it?

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    7. Pretty good answer. My answer was Coleridge.

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  19. The last and first letters of the food are relevant.

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    1. Especially if you have a certain common medical condition.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. The last and first letters of Nuts are Sn, the symbol for Tin on the Periodic Table.

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  20. Succulents are common in the southwest, but here in New England, we see less cacti.

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  21. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    3. This is a little TMI, I think. (But I agree with Margaret.)

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    4. Oops - I said too much. Sorry, Blaine!
      --Margaret G.

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  22. The Doors, The Beatles, and Weezer.

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  23. This puzzle was a fun diversion from working on my taxes.

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  24. I'm reminded of a recent trip on IndiGo.

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  25. I know the container and can taste its contents, but I'm not good at familiar sayings.

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  26. No offense against Lego, but since this one's turned out to be as tough as a lot of his regular Puzzleria! fare(if not tougher):
    Puzzles Of This Sort Torture Everyone Weekly.
    pjbAlsoMightSay"ContentsAreNaturallyShaken,OftenUnderPressure"

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    Replies
    1. The first cut is sometimes the deepest. Lego on the heels of Steve Baggish.

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    2. Do you really think people here could do one of your Crosstics?

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  27. I'm out this week. I'm not sure which is denser, the puzzle or my brain.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  28. I was able to come up with the familiar saying by piecing together all the clues from Blainesville, but I doubt I would have succeeded otherwise. I'm thinking the over/under this week should be about 200.

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    1. Lancek's post helped me search again for clues. Thanks.

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    2. An eleventh hour solve (I think) thanks to Lancek! (Not TMI, just the right amount of encouragement!)

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  29. I'm sure I have the intended answer, but I understand hardly any of the clues... I don't even get Blaine's, which apparently some commenters think might be TMI!

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  30. Okay here's my clue:
    Near where The Lost Generation hangs out.

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  31. It was 19 degrees in DC over the weekend. I feel this this puzzle must have been used before, by its very nature.

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  32. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  33. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  34. Really a misstatement, Diamond notwithstanding.

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  35. What is the difference between Oppenheimer and Barbie?

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    1. I've found a couple of answers:

      Barbie's product was first manufactured in Japan and released in America. Oppenheimer's product was first manufactured in America and released in Japan

      One's about (a toy for) little girls, the other's about Little Boy.

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    2. That's a great answer, Jan. But since Oppie's *actual* product was the Trinity Test, it was really released in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

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    3. The goal of the Manhattan Project was a weapon, not a demonstration.

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    4. One is a bomb maker, and the other is a...

      Now see if you can discover what they both have in common.

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    5. They both had Manhattan Projects they kept secret.

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  36. IMHO, some popular sayings are cute, some true, some kind of preachy.

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    1. . . . And some false, like this one, IMHO.

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    2. "Some kind of PREACHY" Ecclesiastes 1:9. Qoheleth,
      "Preacher" is the Hebrew title of the Bible book called Ecclesiastes.

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  37. Moody Blues, Seventh Sojourn.

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  38. Last week, Nodd mentioned "Billy Jack". Crazy!

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  39. I think I finally got it...a lot of the hints make sense to me. I was about to give up hope!

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  40. I do love a puzzle that provides fertile ground for silly and contrived wrong answers.

    Until recent nuptials, Nadia ate noodles alone.

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  41. Anyone know who published Donald Trump's guide to speechmaking?

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  42. Destructive Danny grabs his six-Hooters, puts on his bonespurs and derides again! Hi ho, Fibber, away!

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  43. Kindness engenders good behavior, earning earthly rewards.

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  44. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. I'm surprised this was deleted. Next time I'll "Be a gentleman, post only obscure pointers."

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  45. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  46. You can try to solve this one, but it will all be in vain.

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  47. THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN; TIN, NUTS

    "Got there. I wonder how many correct answers there will be this week." >>> In other words what is the over/UNDER.

    "This puzzle was a fun diversion from working on my taxes." Taxes include a TIN or Tax Identification Number.

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  48. THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN —> TIN, NUTS

    Phew. Admittedly, I struggled a bit with this one.

    As I’m certain almost everyone knows—
    Ecclesiastes 1:9 (KJV) : “[T]here is no new thing under the sun.”

    Possible musical hints galore, too, from Earth, Wind, and Fire, Lionel Richie, Van Morrison, and Tracy Chapman to Nas and Snoop Dogg.

    I removed a comment at Jan’s suggestion, although I too had had second thoughts before posting it as possibly TMI. Nevertheless, it was in fact true. At the instant I solved the puzzle, I blurted out in exasperation, “Nuts!” (I have a witness.) My comment of course only alluded to the “something edible” and did not mention “nuts” explicitly, but I saw the wisdom of removing it.

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  49. THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN: TIN, NUTS

    > As often happens, I wasted an hour poring over lists of familiar sayings, gave up, went to brush my teeth, and the answer came to me.

    Nothing new here, either.

    > SSDD

    Same shit, different day -- same idea, basically.

    > Succulents are common in the southwest, but here in New England, we see less cacti.

    An anagram of "Ecclesiastes", whence the familiar saying.

    >> This puzzle was a fun diversion from working on my taxes.
    > Certainly!

    Christina Rossetti's poem, "The One Certainty", containing the familiar saying, is about Death, but as an Englishwoman she may not have been familiar with Ben Franklin's familiar saying about The Two Certainties.

    > Brass balls!?!?

    No, just TIN NUTS.

    > Last week, Nodd mentioned "Billy Jack".

    That movie's theme song was "One TIN Soldier".

    > Crazy!

    NUTS! (Also clued in today's New York Times crossword by "Phooey!" Not that Will ever does that.)

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  50. There Is Nothing New Under The Sun…Tin/Nuts

    The quote is from Ecclesiastes 1:9.

    What the British call, “Standing in queue,” an American might call, “Waiting your turn.”

    The lyrics of Pete Seeger’s song, Turn! Turn! Turn!, are from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

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  51. Our good friend Chuck takes the spotlight on this week's edition of Puzzleria! His "Conundrumbstruck by Chuck" features a quartet of puzzles involving acronyms, cities and singers, an early TV series, and a palindromic number transformed into a historical event.
    We upload Puzzleria! at Midnight Pacific Standard Time, between Thursday and Friday, but likely earlier.
    Also on this week's menu:
    * a Schpuzzle of the Week titled “Turn this 'couplet of claptrap' into a 'legitimate limerick' ”
    * a Biblically Proportioned Hors d’Oeuvre titled "Changing sea water into red wine?"
    * a Violently Detestable Moronic Slice of a Puzzle titled "Feline fish? Piscine pussycat?"
    * a Cinematic Dessert titled "Big screen larger-than-life actor becomes even larger!" and...
    * 17 riff-offs of this week's NPR puzzle, titled “Nothing is Young under the sun,” which includes contributions from accomplished puzzle-makers Peter Collins, Ecoarchitect, Nodd and Tortitude.
    That's five-squared foursquare puzzles!
    Come, all ye bright Blainsvillians, and catch some "Conundrumsticken Lightning" in a bottle tonight!

    LegoWhoThanksAllWhoCommentedFavorablyAboutHisThereIsNothingNewUnderTheSunPuzzleOnNPR(AndWho,HadHeGivenAHint,ItWouldHaveBeen"TheHollies'Jennifer+ARearrangementOfTheLettersInASouthOfTheBorderNap")

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  52. There is nothing new under the Sun.

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  53. I wrote, “Take those seven initial letters, add a vowel, rearrange, and you get a medical term.” That’s TINNITUS.

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  54. There is nothing new under the Sun, TIN, NUTS

    My musical clue of David Bowie was due to his project TIN MACHINE

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  55. “There is nothing new under the sun.” Hints:

    (1) “Really a misstatement, Diamond notwithstanding.” (In Diamond v. Chakrabarty, the Supreme Court said a genetically-engineered organism could be patented, because a patent “may include anything under the sun that is made by man. . . ." But “under the sun” is a misstatement, because nothing on earth is “under” the sun in any physical sense.)

    (2) “Moody Blues, Seventh Sojourn.” (On their “Seventh Sojourn” album, in “You and Me,” the Moody Blues sang, “Under the sun there’s a homeless man.”)

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    1. Nodd, you take me back to 1983 and the "legislative veto" controversy. Back in the day when immigration and law were not so antithetical

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    2. Sorry, wrong case I was thinking INS v Chadha

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  56. My clue was: "Near where The Lost Generation hangs out."
    That was the working title of Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises", which phrase can be found four verses from "There is nothing new [or: 'no new thing'] under the sun" in Ecclesiastes.

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  57. There Is Nothing New Under The Sun.

    You can put nuts in a tin.

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  58. My made-up saying "There is no tomorrow unless night arrives" was posted before I knew the answer. It was later censored by Blaine. Ironically, I thought "tin" was the one container I could safely reveal, since Blaine had used it in his own hint before he decided to censor himself. He replaced his clue with "no comment," while subtly leaving the tin-infused title in place. Kudos to Bobby for working the unexpected chemical symbol into his hint (and to Lego for a nice puzzle).

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  59. Blaine's hint spelled out Tin but I started out ignoring it as TMI and then it was deleted. The religious clues led me to a list of biblical phrases. I found it immediately. Thanks for the clues.

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    1. What was Blaine's hint? I did not see it, and have been wondering all week.

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    2. It was something about a TIN of TLTP, referring to his title for this week ("There Is No Time Like The Present").

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    3. I think it was something about Billy Jack ("one tin soldier")

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    4. Blaine had the same picture and title : There is no time like the present. then where is now has "no comment" he had "TIN (and I think he had NTLTP). I did not connect with the title of picture so forgot the second group of letters. The he removed that due to someone suggesting TMI. I could not understand why the title remained if TIN was too much info. I was searching for CAN too like you were at first. Then I decided TIN was the correct way to go.

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  60. I found it unexpectedly easy to solve while still in bed. I used a bit of logic and right away thought CAN might be the first answer word, but got nowhere with that. I then tried working it backwards, thinking NUTS are frequently canned. When I saw that it worked with ...new under the sun, I went back to finding a way to make that old saying work and then thought about the Brits who refer to cans as tins more often than we do. Like, tinned beer which they laugh at us for drinking, but not me, I am happy to say. I always seem to remember that saying as, nothing is new under the sun. Easy, but a good puzzle all the same.

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  61. I just now came across this gem via Yahoo News compilation. Some of the photos are priceless.

    https://news.yahoo.com/trump-getting-ruthlessly-roasted-over-132022383.html

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  62. My clue was “ Everything seems new to me on this Sunday”…. Thought Blaine would delete!

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  63. Think of a well known person you do not want to succeed. Now think of an 8 letter word that would describe his succeeding. Remove HIS to reveal who this objectionable person is.

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  64. I also got "There is Nothing New Under The Sun."
    I figured "tin" must be the three-letter container; given that others had jokingly come up with phrases using "bag" or "sac" or "can," and given that I couldn't fathom there being a phrase that had a word beginning with x (ruling out box), I started trying to think of phrases that started with "there is no ____" I struck out, so then I shifted to looking for phrases that begin with "there is nothing" and then the answer came to me.

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    1. Courtney, that also describes almost exactly my seriatim cognitive meandering. I didn't find Ecclesiastes' phrase in any list of sayings I googled.
      I also wrestled with the box/x paradox till I had to let it go. Even when I got "tin" I was convinced the contents was "fish" until the phrase filled itself out. after I flashed on T-I-N must be "There is nothing..." (Nothing what?)

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  65. I had the answer relatively early but was thrown by Blaine's original clue, since he included 'TIN' as the first word in his clue. After a lot of second guessing I posted that his clue was TMI. I felt more sure of the answer when he removed his hint.
    For his part, it might have been a good diversion since seeing 'TIN' might have had others looking elsewhere for 'the answer'.

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  66. The bands I mentioned all have songs about the sun.

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  67. Blaine, about your “Edit,” i.e., the removal of your original “joke answer” and its replacement with “No comment,” I can only quote Horace: Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus..

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    1. Dr. K,
      You mention Homer. Isn't it true he was the inspiration for Babe Ruth? Or was it Candice Barr, the famous rapper he could not keep his hands off?

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    2. Sdb, in my callow undergraduate days I once wrote a parody of Keats’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.” I just searched for it in my library, but to no avail. It’s probably better that way. I’ll have to leave it to your imagination.

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    3. Dr. K,
      Should you, or your dog, happen to locate it, please do email it to me. I promise to go easy on the grammar feedback. As to Homer, I hope I did not strike out with my baseless conclusions. Now I have mounds to do.

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  68. It's only $83.3 million folks. If everyone here on this blog chips in just one million each it should take no time at all to help the big guy out. Now, don't be stingy.

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    1. What are the chances of E. Jean Carroll ever getting one penny out of the orange menace??

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  69. Anyone in nyc? Two off-broadway shows you might want to see. My cousin wrote the book for the musical The Connector and his wife wrote the documentary that is basis for the other "How to Dance in Ohio". Great reviews!

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  70. This week's challenge comes from listener Laura Kozma, of South River, N.J. Think of brand name in seven letters that you might find in a pharmacy. Drop the last letter and rearrange the letters that remain. You'll get another brand name, in six letters, that you might also find in a pharmacy. What is it?

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  71. About 200 correct entries this week.

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