Fill In The Blanks

CROSSHARE

I.O.U., for example

Horizontales

1A
I.O.U., for example
5A
Ascribe an age to
9A
Poker hand that beats two pair
14A
Tube at the firehouse
15A
Vessel blocker
16A
C3PO or R2D2
17A
Vacant parcels of land
19A
Novelist Calvino
20A
The newest Skywalker
21A
Something many want to grind
22A
Junk
23A
Polloi preceder
24A
Fact, like a batting average or median income
27A
"A-one and ___": Welk
30A
The competition that kept the USA starry eyed in the 50's and 60's
35A
Popular Manhattan or London area
36A
What I have none of when making puns
37A
Astronaut Bean or Shepard
38A
Sitting on
39A
Soviet co-op
40A
Place to store a missile or grain
41A
Deb's dance
42A
Orphan girl saved by Don Juan in the Byron epic
43A
Room at the big house
44A
Bus the table after dinner
46A
Santa ___ (winds)
47A
Not incl.
48A
Range of sizes, briefly
50A
Fling the bed cover?
54A
Inhabitant of a bonnet?
55A
Confused utterance
58A
Give up a right
59A
Common event in real estate
62A
Beasts of burden
63A
___ Beaumont, hero of King's "The Dark Half"
64A
Introduction to Romeo?
65A
Dead tired
66A
A very large amount
67A
Sated

Verticales

1D
Singer who lost her Sonny disposition
2D
Roaming site for buffalo we are told
3D
"___ with my little eye..."
4D
Holiday in Hanoi
5D
V more and this would be a hell of a number to use
6D
Botanical soother
7D
Small child
8D
Visitors from another planet
9D
It's sad to say this in France, Spain or Italy
10D
Campus org. for commanding individuals
11D
Letter shaped bridge beam
12D
Vamp Negri of "Forbidden Paradise" and "Passion"
13D
Word on an octagon
18D
Former Huston Rocket and now Chinese politician Ming
23D
Big to-do
24D
Space related
25D
In a gentle manner
26D
High-speed Amtrack East Coast train
27D
"Easy ___"
28D
Vitamin packed cereal that advertised itself as the ___ difference
29D
Complete
30D
Clever and cunning
31D
Mischievous one
32D
Supposed Roswell autopsy victim
33D
Kind of lily
34D
Organic compounds popular in cleaning and crosswords
36D
Dish that is often tossed to the side
45D
Least cooked
48D
Conveys
49D
So-so
50D
"___ the night before ..."
51D
Chest fastener
52D
What cream and hot air have a tendency to do
53D
Place to put your dough
54D
Chicago reflective landmark
55D
Where to watch "The Handmaiden's Tale
56D
80's gridiron grp that failed but has been resurrected with Stallions and Maulers
57D
Get better
59D
Baseball's Mel
60D
Soup so often pronounced incorrectly
61D
Clumsy sort

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Darth 14:39 · 2024-07-17T11:30:17.577Z

Nice idea! Thanks, DrTom.

DrTom constructor · 2024-07-17T11:30:17.577Z
The early Darth gets the blankety blank worm!

Thanks for solving

rjy 4s · 2024-07-17T12:06:50.086Z

Clever idea, DrT... I needed to back solve for the E and am still unsure. There's ETS and ENOLS - thinking ETS as in a Euro Touring Series RACE? Is that ITALO? or ALFA? or.........?

hoover 3s · 2024-07-17T12:39:50.958Z
I think it is SPACERACE -> ROBOTRACE -> ETS.
- rjy 4s · 2024-07-17T14:33:35.845Z
  Someone mentioned to me that it might also be ALIEN RACE -> ETS
- MatthewL 🤓12:48 · 2024-07-17T14:39:27.767Z
  I think it's ALIENRACE to get to ETS.
- Hector 7:01 · 2024-07-17T15:10:31.443Z
  ALIEN RACE, maybe?
DrTom constructor · 2024-07-17T13:49:08.809Z
EMPTY LOTS > WHOLE LOTS = TONS

SPACE RACE > ALIEN RACE = ETS

CLEAR AWAY > THROW AWAY = SCRAP

OPEN HOUSE > FULL HOUSE = TRIPS

Or at least that was my intention.
KayW 🤓3:38 · 2024-07-18T01:50:05.276Z
I thought it was ALIEN RACE -> ETS

hoover 3s · 2024-07-17T12:40:39.067Z

Whew! I went through a couple #2 pencils on that grid, but I finally got there! Thanks for the puzzle!

Cindy Heisler 2s · 2024-07-17T12:42:23.143Z

Very nice. I appreciate that the answer was not inferred! Thanks, Dr Tom.

Meg 2s · 2024-07-17T13:38:39.799Z

Took me a while to find ________ LOTS, but it showed itself eventually.

MatthewL 🤓12:48 · 2024-07-17T14:38:46.427Z

Had to back solve for ____LOTS, but I eventually found it. Very clever meta, Tom! Thanks for the puzzle.

woozy 🤓10:23 · 2024-07-17T16:24:09.471Z

Full metanism to figure out and a nice AHA moment.

But very hard to complete as there are sooo many options. (Was WHOLE LOTS= TONS the way to get the first T?)

Bit of a misdirection with the opposites of EMPTY, SPACE, CLEAR, and OPEN being FULL, TOTAL, WHOLE and ... well there isn't really a forth and using them for FULL HOUSE and WHOLE LOTS (I think) but not the other two.

DrTom constructor · 2024-07-17T18:11:01.144Z
Yes, WHOLE LOTS = TONS

Maybe a colloquialism?

kurtalert 🤓6:23 · 2024-07-17T15:49:42.302Z

Very nice! Had to backsolve LOTS- I'm assuming it's WHOLE LOTS -> TOTAL?

boharr 3s · 2024-07-17T13:26:47.252Z

Went back to school for a bit, but finally passed. Thanks, DrTom.

HeadinHome 🤓1:06 · 2024-07-17T18:09:50.713Z

Got tripped up by trying SCRAP LOTS… which of course had no companion entry to finally looked again. By that time I had _ _ ST and thought of TEST. ET fell quickly (ALIEN RACE) —though ASSES RACE was a fun idea for a second. ( :

woozy 🤓10:23 · 2024-07-17T18:58:47.294Z
I tripped on Tot lots? Maybe Ball Lots?

This puzzle is interesting in that you have to do two connects "what goes with LOTS" and "what is the matching entry".

Slightly ironically I noticed the similarities of ALIEN and ETS when I was doing the grid long before even thinking of about trying to solve the meta, yet ALIEN RACES was the last I got. I got it be reading each entry and adding "races" to it and "alien races" was a strong hit.

I got the meta as soon as I had filling in FULL. I had had a discussion with the other about poker hands and had to confirm "trips" was a word I had heard of so I had poker hands on my mind. But FULL being the opposite of BLANK led me to the erroneous assumption we should fill in with opposites of BLANK.
DrTom constructor · 2024-07-17T20:43:47.676Z
Well you almost went down a deep burro there!

Thanks for solving

Sharkicicles 2s · 2024-07-17T19:04:47.334Z

Fun one (disregard my wrong answer- iPad autocorrect). Once you understand the mechanics, the alternate answers are 100% clear unlike a few other puzzles people have talked about lately.

Bird Lives 5s · 2024-07-17T21:40:01.593Z

Nice mechanism and well done with the replacement words being the same length as the "empties." I had the last three letters and was looking for an N to make NEST with the answer being Empty Nest --i.e., something one might want to fill. Then I noticed that EMPTY was already taken. In the end, I had them just the way you intended.

imontoo 6s · 2024-07-18T00:34:05.759Z

Drew a total blank this morning. But was able to fill in the blanks tonight.

Enjoyed the mental workout, Tom.

And, FWIW, I’m voting 5D as my favorite clue.

DrTom constructor · 2024-07-18T05:36:02.820Z
I had fun cluing that one!
Sharkicicles 2s · 2024-07-18T22:03:17.474Z
Seconded!

KayW 🤓3:38 · 2024-07-18T01:56:07.396Z

Fun one! Good job coming up with 4 sets of phrases that worked - the replacement words even had the same number of letters. Well done!

DrTom constructor · 2024-07-18T05:32:59.168Z
That was intentional, took me a while to find the ones I needed that would exactly "fill" the blank and not have an impossible to fill grid.

Thanks for solving.

whimsy 🤓14:26 · 2024-07-18T02:35:09.070Z

Full House let me in -- the proximity in the grid probably helped. I too found Tot Lots, and also Cell Lots --- wondered if Acela has cell lots.

Fun puzzle; Thanks DrTom!

DrTom constructor · 2024-07-18T05:37:37.566Z
I hoped to eliminate a lot of possibilities by making the fill the same length as the blank, but crossworders are far too ingenious, they find things I never saw. Glad you enjoyed it.

Tyrpmom 2s · 2024-07-18T03:34:22.873Z

Yay! I passed.

omnilynx 🤓10:31 · 2024-07-18T16:31:22.244Z

Count me as another who got stuck on the ___ LOTS (I thought it was "HOME LOTS"). In fact, there were so many options I thought for a while I needed to find two fitting words for each themer (e.g. home/whole LOTS, alien/robot RACE, throw/sends AWAY, full/cell HOUSE) and combine them somehow. But then I finally connected FULL HOUSE to 9A and got it pretty fast after that.

DrTom constructor · 2024-07-19T01:35:10.206Z
It finally worked out as I had planned, super!!

Thanks for solving.

markhr 🤓11:13 · 2024-07-19T04:19:34.951Z

Searched diligently for a match to TOT LOTS. Finally concluded that WHOLE LOTS => TONS worked. Clever idea for a puzzle.

ajk 10:56 · 2024-07-19T19:38:21.345Z

Nice one. Needed the fifth nudge because even though I was doing the right thing I was trying to just add one letter (and thus wasn't focused on using other grid entries). Had to backsolve the first T because I had HOME LOTS instead of WHOLE LOTS, and (unsurprisingly) that didn't match anything.

Fun stuff, thanks.

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