Count me in the Crete crew. I had never heard of vagarious, but assumed it was similar in meaning to vagaries as in the vagaries of life.

Only the middle was easy: C, NW, NE, SE, SW.

Steve
Steve Manion | 11.29.08 - 1:55 am | #

My path was nearly the opposite of Steve's -- I started with AM I TO BLAME and the SW, then SE, NE, center, ending with NW. The LITMUS TEST was the final entry.

Orange can take off those 13 seconds if I can likewise discount my first 13 minutes of blank-mindedness. Antarctica fits nicely where Silk has MADAGASCAR, for example.

Entrees from one section to another were key, yet scanty. ABRIDGE's final E gave the start for EMCEE, GRISSOM's G let me guess GREER, R in ROAMED gave ARTY rather than edgy, etc.

Smooth as Silk as ever, though evoking a bit of a wavy moire pattern in my half-awake brain.
ArtLvr | 11.29.08 - 7:15 am | #

SW got me good. Had DRAM then DROP then DRAM etc. DREG was my final word. Didn't help that I dithered on EDY and DAS.

ANTARCTICA also got me as well as SENSATION for SENTIMENT. All this knowing that ATTN and AMEN were eventually going to go into their respective places. When I finally broke down and entered them I figured 25D was some form of WAS...ME using AMEN's M.

BESHAME also fits where ABRIDGE goes (thus DRAM).

Good Saturday challenge for me, really enjoyed it and found the LAT almost as puzzling.

Ever get the feeling that you know too many words?
rick | 11.29.08 - 8:06 am | #

Rick, what, you didn't also try DRIB? That's the one I started with, then considered DROP, and finally DREG.
Orange | Homepage | 11.29.08 - 8:51 am | #

I thought the SW corner was gonna be a piece o'cake when I got WATERMELON for [Smooth-skinned fruit] and OZONELAYER immediately came to me for ["The eight continent," to ecologists]. Silly me.

Like ArtLvr, the NW was the last to fall for me as I had CAMP for TENT, LASER for MASER, SEAT for TIER and ETTE for ENNE. (I did have TRE right, though!) Once I got changed a few of those and got UNCROSS the corner fell into place PDQ.
Tuning Spork | Homepage | 11.29.08 - 8:54 am | #

CHAOS seemed just as likely to be a Greek island to me as CHIOS and I couldn't remember if accessible was spelled with an i or an a - guessed wrong.
Garymac | 11.29.08 - 11:57 am | #

Glad I wasn't the only one who briefly considered Dan Savage's SANTORUM as a possible response to 22-Across in today's NYT, before I realized this wasn't The Onion.
Evad | 11.29.08 - 12:35 pm | #

Couldn't decide whether 50D was "KHIOS" or "CHIOS" (my London Times Atlas lists both spellings, favoring the K beginning) especially since Mr. Cage could be "NIC" or "NIK".
LAURENCE WALKER | 11.29.08 - 1:05 pm | #

Orange-

In the New York Times, we had a puzzle not unlike this one a couple of months ago, I think, where each corner was cut off from the others with only one or two entries into the adjacent quadrent.

Technically, what is the nomenclature for this type of puzzle? My thought is closed-off type but I think I recall it being called a wideopen puzzle. Can't be both.

Could you help he with the name?

edith b
edith b | Homepage | 11.29.08 - 4:01 pm | #

Finally got back to the LAT, having completed the right half and then had to leave it... Tried "et al" for [All the rest: abbr.] and was irked to have to change it to MISC -- which doesn't necessarily mean all, IMHO. MIFF is good though, as are OBNOXIOUS and WISEACRE. Lots of attitude here!

i still don't get SLALOM as [Street event?] -- unless there's a skier named Street I never heard of? Otherwise, lots to like in this puz.
ArtLvr | 11.29.08 - 5:06 pm | #

@ArtLvr-

Yes there is a skier named Street with the peculiar first name of Picabo (pronounced Peek-a-boo). She was Olympic caliber several Olympics ago.
edith b | Homepage | 11.29.08 - 5:19 pm | #

I'm waiting for Orange's comments on the Newsday Saturday Stumper, a puzzle I look forward to each week. (My favorites each week are the Thu NYT as there is usually a clever trick to uncover, then the difficult ones, all around, from Friday on. Monday is a hand-eye coordination day -- no thinking involved -- where I make an attempt to reach at least double the time Orange makes.)

The Saturday Stumper today has eight 12-letter answers, some made up of quite simple phrases. You wonder why it took so long to get them! I'm not giving anything away but one of these is [Entertainment debut of 1883]. 1883(!) and we are supposed to have some memory of it? Well, it turns out to be obvious and it hasn't anything to do with burlesque, which I was trying to make fit.

My favorite was the obscure [Literally, "little goose"] because I knew it had to be related to the anatomical term "pes anserinus" (goose's foot) which every 1st year med learns in gross anatomy. The fill and the anatomical term, indeed, are related.
Mel Park | 11.29.08 - 10:55 pm | #

I never do the Saturday Stumper but I was flying, so had printed out the NYT, LAT, and the Saturday Stumper and Newsday. I agree that the simple answers took an extraordinary long time to figure out. The goose clue stumped me for quite a while because the letters I had in it seemed to fit the French for goose, whereas it turned out to be one of the Spanish terms for goose, OCA being a childhood board game I used to play. I don't remember anything about the game. The other Spanish word for goose is GANSO, related to German.
Zulema | 11.29.08 - 11:39 pm | #

Thanks to Edith for being STREET-wise!
ArtLvr | 11.30.08 - 7:19 am | #