The theme of today's
Los Angeles Times crossword by Frank Virzl is MOTOWN, "Record label founded in Detroit." When divided as M O TOWN, the name describes the theme answers: MELOTT, MARIEOSMOND, MIDNIGHTOIL and MORALOBLIGATION. I can readily see the M-O connection but I don't understand how the theme answers form a "town." Regarding my subject line, "My Own Musings On the September 22 crosswords," I thank you for your applause. I'll be here all week.
The
Daily News crossword by Bill Thompson uses the clue "World hot spot" for MIDDLEAST and the long answers have EAST in the middle: GONEASTRAY, ADELEASTAIRE, FEASTS, YEASTY ("Like baking dough") and STAGEASTRIKE ("Walk out").
46-across, "Game with a 'perfect score' of 3,333,360" is PACMAN. I used to play Pac-Man and I was lucky to be able to get 50,000 points before I lost all my lives. The arcade version of Pac-Man has 256 levels. If a player can manage to gobble up every dot, every fruit and every blue ghost on every level and not lose any lives, his "perfect score" will indeed be 3,333,360. In 1999, Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, Florida, became the first person to achieve that score.
Wired magazine has the story:
http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/07/dayintech_0703Another man reached that perfect score in 2012 and posted a video of himself completing the final two levels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQBOKGQECHoThe
Times puzzle included ANIS, ATOI, MER and TIOS. The
Daily News puzzle included ESTADOS, ESTE, FREI and LES. To quote someone we all know and love, those words are "not used in English."
