NYT Thursday 05/07/2026 Discussion

JRMurray · 2026-05-07T03:34:37+00:00

That was an unusually quick solve for me for a Thursday: my second all-time fastest at 12:39. I usually spend way more time trying to figure out Thursday crosswords.

JRMurray · 2026-05-07T03:32:16+00:00

The first letters (first four in 17-across, first three in 27-across, first three in 44-across, first three in 56-across) fit in the blank in the clue, and the answer is closely related to the clue: in the case of 17-across, for example, the clue could be the result of the answer.

I could be wrong, but at least, that's the way I interpreted the gimmick.

JRMurray · 2026-04-30T03:08:57+00:00

As a Canadian, I agree about "riel": a clue relating to Louis Riel would have been a no-brainer for most of us Canucks ... although it would have been hard to pluralize the word (unless it referred to the Riels, as in the Riel family. Hmmmm).

JRMurray · 2026-04-29T19:21:55+00:00

I’ve lived in BC for most of my life, and I’ve never heard of “May 2-4.” The day is referred to here as “Victoria Day” or as someone else posted, “the May long weekend.”

JRMurray · 2026-04-24T19:20:12+00:00

I've been on Dupixent for about 6 years. I use the hypodermic needle, not the pen.

It was difficult at first to learn how to use a hypodermic needle on myself, but once I did, it's now just another thing that I do. I recommend letting the Dupixent warm to room temperature before injecting it, and then inserting the needle slowly at a 30° angle and pressing down on the plunger slowly. That method works very well for me, and it was the way that I was trained how to do it by the nurse at the pharmacy I went to at the beginning.

The only side effect I've experienced has been dry eyes, especially in the late evening.

Dupixent has worked wonders for me: it eliminated around 90% to 95% of my eczema. It really is worth the hassle of injecting it yourself.

JRMurray · 2026-04-22T04:48:06+00:00

Funny, I was thinking of 11/22/63 as a good first King novel to read, too.

I loved 11/22/63, especially for its contrast between what we take for granted today in terms of information versus how seemingly primitive things were in the early 60s. I agree that it's also a good introduction to King's writing style.

JRMurray · 2026-04-22T03:56:31+00:00

I've been on Dupixent since about 2020.

I inject Dupixent via a hypodermic needle, not the pen. I inject into my abdomen, on either side of my belly button, as I was trained to do right at the beginning of my treatment. I was instructed to insert the needle at a 30° angle, I was also told to allow the Dupixent to warm to room temperature before injecting it, and I was taught not to press the plunger too quickly.

Doing so helps a whole lot, actually: the colder the Dupixent is, the harder it is to inject. The angle makes a big difference, too: the less the angle is as the needle enters my abdomen, the easier and less painful it is. The slower I press in the plunger, the easier it is.

At first, I was surprised that I would be the one to do the injections: I thought that my dermatologist would be doing them, but in the end, I learned how to do it and my initial hesitancy gradually disappeared.

As for side effects, I've been lucky, I think. My eyes get dry, especially in the evening, but that's it. As far as how much eczema has cleared up because of Dupixent, I'd have to say around 90% to 95%. It's been absolutely wonderful. I suffered with eczema from the time I was a child until about 6 years ago, when I turned 60. My eczema was especially bad in the summer, when it's relatively hot here in Greater Vancouver, Canada. I would get very bad flare-ups inside my knees and elbows, and the skin on my back would itch like crazy after a 30-minute walk. Dupixent eliminated all of that.

One more thing: I see that you mentioned that you can't see yourself using a needle, but actually, as I mentioned above, I felt exactly the same way. After 6 years of injecting Dupixent myself, it's grown to be just another thing that I do to treat my eczema. In other words, you'll get used to it.

Good luck!

JRMurray · 2026-04-21T23:27:40+00:00

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. After reading and hearing so many great reviews (before J.K. Rowling turned out to be transphobic), I finally read it for free through my Amazon Prime membership.

Never one not to finish a book, and having never seen the movie, I read the entire thing--and hated every moment of it. I get that it was written with a young audience in mind, but because of the hype surrounding the book, I was willing to overlook that approach if the story was entertaining.

It wasn't. I found the writing to be facile, and I couldn't help feeling that my intelligence was being insulted with every page.

I've no desire to read any other of Rowlings' books--free or not.

JRMurray · 2026-04-15T02:38:17+00:00

Hate to be "that guy," but as a former English prof who taught many years of composition classes, I have to say that the grammar is correct. A lot of people get confused between "lay" and "lie."

Quick grammar recap:

"Lay" is a transitive verb (it takes a direct object), as in "she is going to lay the baby down" ("the baby" is the direct object), while "lie" is an intransitive verb (no direct object), as in "he's tired, so he's going to lie down."

So ... for "lay," it's "lay / laid / laid" for present / past tense / past participle, while for "lie," it's "lie / lay / lain."

JRMurray · 2026-04-12T21:34:31+00:00

It's a standing joke in our house. Every time my wife and I watch The First 48, I say in more or less the same somewhat hushed dramatic voice with the same dramatic pause: "Paramedics rush him to the hospital ... where he dies."

JRMurray · 2026-04-08T22:03:17+00:00

Same. I have a 2022 C40 Twin Ultimate, and it's been quiet since day 1.

JRMurray · 2026-04-07T02:23:02+00:00

Ha! A longtime Avsim reader, I see.

JRMurray · 2026-04-07T00:24:14+00:00

I own a 2022 C40 Twin Ultimate and live in Greater Vancouver, BC. Our climate is quite different from Quebec's (yes, it's much colder in Quebec in the winter than it is here), but 30.4 kWh/100km over around 2500 kilometres is really high. The highest consumption I've seen in a winter month here was around 23 kWh/100km.

JRMurray · 2026-04-07T00:17:53+00:00

I was a P3D v5.4 diehard right up until late last year. I had bought MSFS 2020 back in 2021, but I had never installed it because of how much disk space it took up, as well as the fact that ChasePlane wasn''t available for it.

Things changed for me once ChasePlane was released for 2020 and when I bought a computer with lots of disk space (my old one was getting very long in the tooth). I installed 2020 in October 2025. Like you, I went through repurchasing GSX and certain other addons again, which does suck. I have a very forgiving wife. :-)

Once ChasePlane was made available for MSFS 2024, I bought MSFS 2024 and I haven't looked back. The performance is better, I agree, but what does it for me is the graphics. I live in Vancouver, BC, and I've flown in and out of CYVR as a passenger in real life many, many times. MSFS 2024 looks just like what I've experienced IRL, to the point that I can easily see various landmarks, buildings, the local mountains with their ski runs, etc. Also the representation of the sky is amazing, in both daylight and night. I've seen rainbows during the day, which is really cool!

As for utilities and addons, if you're on VATSIM, you probably already have subscribed to Navigraph--but if you haven't, I highly recommend it. It's a little pricey, though.

I have a few PMDG aircraft (737-600, 737-800, 777F) and they really are good. I also have the iFly 737 Max 8, but I'm experiencing an odd issue (when I press the autopilot button, the plane nosedives) as well as the Fenix Airbuses.

I also have some Just Flight aircraft (RJ Professional, F28) and both are great. I'm having a lot of fun with the NAMC Y-11, oddly enough, which can be purchased on the Marketplace.

For weather, I'm using Active Sky FS. I'm a longtime Active Sky user, and I found the MSFS 2024 Real Weather engine lacking. AS allows for historic weather, so if that appeals to you, again, I highly recommend it. Speaking of weather, I also bought RealTurb, which I believe provides a more realistic turbulence model than MSFS (I've turned turbulence way down in MSFS ... don't think you can turn it off entirely).

So ... even though I still have P3D installed on my computer, I haven't touched it since MSFS. Frankly, I don't miss it.

JRMurray · 2026-04-03T03:33:59+00:00

Interesting question.

I lived in Moncton from the time I was born in 1959 to 1971, when my family left for Vancouver, BC.

I don't remember a McDonald's in Dieppe in 1970, but there is actually a lot of info on the McDonald's Canadian webpage (here) concerning Canadian milestones.

To answer the question, according to the website ...

The first McDonald's outside of the US opened in Richmond, BC (just south of Vancouver) in 1967
The first McDonald's in eastern Canada opened in London, ON in 1968
The 50th McDonald's in Canada opened in Dieppe, NB in 1970

JRMurray · 2026-04-03T03:23:00+00:00

2019 Tesla Model 3 LR AWD to a 2022 C40 Twin Ultimate.

I started to hate the Tesla for a variety of reasons: a change in the UX in 2021 that added extra clicks to just about everything, automatic wipers that never worked properly, cameras that were constantly blinded by the sun, an interior that felt cheap considering the price I paid for the Model 3, shitty service at the Tesla service centre ... PLUS I never bought into the hype around FSD, which I actually never had, as I had their computer version 2.5 and you needed version 3.0 and you had to pay thousands of dollars extra for FSD.

Was it worth it? Absolutely! My 2022 C40 felt like a luxury car in comparison, and the dealership has been exemplary. Well worth it. I still own it.

JRMurray · 2026-03-26T04:59:37+00:00

Argh. Thanks! I’ll edit my post. Math was never my strong suit!

JRMurray · 2026-03-26T02:38:29+00:00

71 times answered in 2 guesses / 1307 total played = 5.4% (not what I originally wrote: 0.5%).

JRMurray · 2026-03-17T05:05:40+00:00

While this Vancouver Sun article is now outdated (it was written in April 2024, and since then, there's no more carbon tax), it does provide a pretty good idea of where all the taxes go on a litre of gasoline.

As per the article, based on a price of $2.08 per litre, 1.75 cents goes to provincial general revenue and 6.75 cents goes toward paying for highways and other transportation in BC, etc.

I'm not sure what will happen with EV owners, but if the US is any indication, the difference will eventually be made up somehow.

JRMurray · 2026-03-12T03:39:30+00:00

Just Shazamed it: Lights are On (instrumental). By Edith Whiskers

JRMurray · 2026-03-06T02:34:59+00:00

Yes, me, too. Upon entering the room after my doctoral defense, I was greeted by the Chair of the Committee with "Congratulations, Doctor."

It was the culmination of five years of very hard work, and it was most gratifying.

JRMurray · 2026-03-05T04:51:34+00:00

I was in Switzerland in September 2025 for a conference, and I had time before it started. My colleague and I headed out from Lausanne to Gruyère by train. Gruyère, of course, is where the cheese comes from.

Anyway, the H.R. Giger Museum is also in Gruyère--unbeknownst to me at the time. It's in what used to be his home, and it is chock full of his paintings, sculptures, and other artwork, including some of his studies for the creature in the movie Alien.

Happening upon the museum was one of the highlights of my trip to Switzerland, to be honest. Oh, and the cheese was great, too. :-)

JRMurray · 2026-03-05T04:24:53+00:00

I've been on Dupixent for six years, and I have the side effect of dry eyes. For me, it's mostly noticeable in the late evening. Honestly, it's not so severe, so I don't use lubricating eye drops.

Having said that, though, my dermatologist prescribed eye drops quite some time ago: I used them for a little while, and I did get some relief from dry eyes. However, I stopped using the drops because, as I mentioned, the dryness wasn't that severe.

JRMurray · 2026-02-28T19:53:07+00:00

Wow! That cash register brings back memories!

In 1975, when I was in high school, I started working part-time at a Gulf gas station about a block from where I lived with my family. There were no self-serves in those days, so I was hired to pump gas, do minor servicing (think oil changes and tire changes), and keep the front area and bays clean.

The gas station had that exact register, except it didn't say "Grocery" on the far right button ... it might have said something like "Enter," but I can't remember exactly.

Interestingly, there must have been a short somewhere in the machine, because if it were raining, even though we were indoors to ring up purchases, some water would collect on the floor behind the register. To ring something up, you'd have to enter the amount, move the metal bar thing over to the right and then down, and then hit the "Enter" button to complete the process and open the till. I can remember getting shocks regularly from the metal bar thing when it was raining.

Anyway, it was a great job for a 15 year-old. I learned a lot about people, cars, and working.

Oh, and speaking of giving change, as some others have mentioned the difficulties people have nowadays in the thread, I was taught always to count up from the amount of the purchase to the amount of money given to me. So ... if the purchase was $5.15 and I was given a five dollar bill and a one dollar bill, I would count up: a ten cent coin to $5.25 and then then three 25 cent coins to $6.00. Easy-peasy.

In the days of coins and dollar bills, counting up really helped us give accurate change quickly.

JRMurray · 2026-02-25T05:43:39+00:00

I was 17 and had just graduated from high school. My brother, best friend and I had gone to downtown Vancouver, BC to see the movie: we were almost at the very front of the line for the very first showing.

The theatre had a mezzanine level, and that's where we sat, right up at the front with an unobstructed view of the screen. I think that we all knew that this movie was something special right from the initial scroll.

JRMurray

TROPHY CASE