Spanish discoverer of the Pacific 1513 / MON 3-28-11 / English pirate captain / Diplomat Annan / Food thrown to lions / Fawn's father

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: CHIPS (69A: Things that 18-, 27-, 46- and 60-Across may have)


Word of the Day: BALBOA (48A: Spanish discoverer of the Pacific, 1513) —

Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1475 – January 15, 1519) was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World. // He traveled to the New World in 1500 and, after some exploration, settled on the island of Hispaniola. He founded the settlement of Santa María la Antigua del Darién in present-day Colombia in 1510, which was the first permanent European settlement on the mainland of the Americas (a settlement by Alonso de Ojeda the previous year at San Sebastián de Urabá had already been abandoned). (wikipedia)

• • •

Solving on paper now, so I'm far less certain of how difficult puzzles are. Today's felt very easy from the NW straight through to the SE, but the NE and (esp.) SW corners really thwarted my speedy forward progress today. At high speeds, it doesn't take much (for me) to get derailed. In the NE, I simply couldn't come up with DIVERGE (22A: Branch off), even with D-, then DI-, DIV-, and DIVE- in place; brain wanted only DIVERT. Bah. Crosses finally forced me to see the (now) obvious. Stutter-stepping so much cost me valuable seconds. But the real tripping took place in the SW, where neither BALBOA nor AT RANDOM (39D: Haphazardly) would come, and so I just couldn't sweep straight into that corner at all. Had to reboot—Always a dicey proposition, and a time thief. First few clues I looked at were too vague to be gimmes. Finally saw KOFI (64A: Diplomat Annan) and worked that corner from there. BALBOA just isn't in my first (Monday) tier of explorer names. No idea why ATR- didn't trigger AT RANDOM. It just didn't. Dangerously wrote in some answers without looking at clues. Worked fine for BRITISH PUBS and RED MEAT. Didn't work so fine at BRUIN (had BR-IN, wrote in BRAIN) (51D: Boston N.H.L.'er). Had SORT instead of SCAN (67A: Copiers do it). Wrote in SIRE (!?) instead of STAG (34A: Fawn's father). I have a Lot of work to do to become an effective speed solver on Easy puzzles. I'm just a mess.

To recap: The puzzle was not hard by any means, but speeding caused much tripping.


The theme is fine. Don't like OLD DISHES as a theme answer (not a thing), but the variety of CHIPS is impressive.

Theme answers:

• 18A: Much-used dinnerware (OLD DISHES)
  
• 27A: Centers of casino action (POKER TABLES)
  
• 46A: Places to drink and play darts (BRITISH PUBS)
  
• 60A: They're shrugged (SHOULDERS)
  

Bullets:

• 29D: English pirate captain (KIDD) — along with BALBOA, another proper noun that just wouldn't jump out of my brain and onto the paper (brain wanted KIDD, actually, but then vetoed it when the only KIDD it could identify accurately was Jason KIDD)
  
• 5D: Like living with Mom and Dad, perhaps (RENT-FREE) — like this answer. Can't recall having seen it before.
  
• 38A: Food thrown to lions (RED MEAT) — I'd have thought RAW, but ... yeah, probably also RED.
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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