Ethermac Exchange-Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Hands Down

There are Ethermac Exchangespoilers ahead. You might want to solve today's puzzle before reading further! Hands Down

Constructor: Dylan Schiff

Editor: Amanda Rafkin

What I Learned from Today’s Puzzle

• SPAWN (27A: Start a life in a video game) I generally associate the word SPAWN with salmon. This was a new usage of the word for me. According to Wiktionary, in video games SPAWN means "to appear, or cause (something or someone) to appear, spontaneously in a game world at a particular place and time."
• DOUG (12D: Nicktoon whose alter ego is Quailman) I learned about DOUG Funnie – the pre-teen title character of the Nickelodeon TV series DOUG – from the October 27, 2022 puzzle. DOUG has several alter-egos, including Quailman, a superhero who harnesses the powers of the quail. DOUG's dog, Porkchop, accompanies Quailman as Quaildog.
• NO CAP (53D: "I swear!") I really wanted the answer here to be "NO lie!" It fit and it made perfect sense to me - I swear! Crossing answers informed me that this was not the case. Today I learned that NO CAP means "no lie" or "for real." The phrase originated in AAVE (African-American Vernacular English).

Random Thoughts & Interesting Things

• IDK (11A: "Shrug") IDK = "I don't know"
• DINGO (23A: Wild dog found in Australia) The Australian DINGO is basically a feral dog, having descended from dogs introduced from Asia 5,000 to 8,000 years ago.
• AOL (37D: Co. for whom Elwood Edwards voiced "You've got mail!") I just mentioned Elwood Edwards a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully you remembered his name today. Even if you didn't, "You've got mail!" is a pretty good hint that the answer here is AOL. Elwood Edwards recorded the iconic "You've got mail!" message for AOL in his living room using a cassette deck. Although users of AOL in the United States heard the voice of Elwood Edwards, AOL users in the United Kingdom heard the voice of Joanna Lumley tell them, "You have e-mail."
• PELE (38A: Footballer who called soccer "The Beautiful Game") PELÉ (1940-2022) is considered one of the greatest soccer players of all time. During his career, PELÉ averaged a goal per game. He popularized the term, "The Beautiful Game," to describe football, and the term is widely used in his native country of Brazil. I'm sure you know that the game Brazilians (and many others) refer to as football is called soccer in the United States. I like that the clue contains both the term "footballer," and the word "soccer."
• NEAT (39A: Kempt) Kempt is not a word I hear often. It was kind of fun to see it here.
• FONDA (52D: "Grace and Frankie" co-star Jane) Grace and Frankie is a Netflix TV series whose seven seasons originally aired from 2015-2022. Jane FONDA (Grace) and Lily Tomlin (Frankie) portray the title characters, two women who become unlikely friends after their husbands divorced them to marry each other.
• COGNAC (64A: Brandy in lobster thermidor) Lobster thermidor is a dish in French cuisine. It consists of lobster meat cooked in a rich sauce often made of COGNAC and egg yolks, and then topped with cheese.
• PETTED (71D: Stroked gently) My cat, Willow feels she deserves to be PETTED on demand, no matter what I'm doing when she makes that demand. (She usually gets her way...)

• LIN (5D: "Hamilton" playwright ___-Manuel Miranda) In addition to creating the Broadway musical, Hamilton, LIN-Manuel Miranda also wrote the musical In the Heights.
• TUNDRA (10D: Biome north of the taiga) A taiga, also referred to as a boreal forest, is a biome characterized by forests of pines, spruces, and larches. A TUNDRA is a region with limited tree growth due to frigid temperatures and a short growing season. There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra (located in the far Northern Hemisphere), Antarctic tundra (most of Antarctica) and alpine tundra (mountainous regions at high elevation).
• AS A (22D: Light ___ feather, stiff ___ board) It has been a long time since I've heard the phrase, "Light AS A feather, stiff AS A board." The phrase is chanted as part of a levitation trick particularly associated with slumber parties. Essentially, the game involves one person lying on the ground while a number of others gather around them and attempt to lift them using just two fingers of each hand, while chanting, "Light AS A feather, stiff AS A board." The game can actually work (though it often doesn't because it requires coordination and working together...), but it's not actually a trick, it's physics, as this Literary Hub article explains.
• ALLEN (26D: "Chopped" host Ted) When I am staying in a hotel, one of the things I like to do is binge-watch the Food Network. Chopped is one of my favorite Food Network shows. Ted ALLEN hosts the cooking competition on which four chefs compete against each other for a chance to win $10,000. There are three rounds of competition - appetizer, entree, and dessert. For each round, contestants are given a basket of four "mystery" ingredients that must be incorporated in their dish. At the end of the round, a panel of judges weighs in on each dish, and one contestant hears the fateful words, "You've been chopped."
• TIMERS (48D: Components in Scattergories and Boggle) I like the games Scattergories and Boggle, and I enjoyed this clue.

Crossword Puzzle Theme Synopsis

• FLUSH WITH CASH (4D: Abundantly wealthy)
• FRESH PAIR OF EYES (7D: New perspective)
• SIT UP STRAIGHT (19D: "Don't slouch!")

HANDS DOWN: Each vertical (DOWN) theme answer contains a poker HAND: FLUSH, PAIR, and STRAIGHT. Additionally, the location of the HANDS in the theme answers are moving DOWN proceeding from left to right.

It took me a little bit of time to spot the theme today, which made for a nice "Aha!" moment when I finally saw it. I kept trying to combine the last word of each DOWN theme answer with the word HANDS, but HANDS CASH, HANDS EYES, and HANDS STRAIGHT didn't make sense, although it did make me laugh. Finally I spotted the FLUSH, PAIR, and STRAIGHT – Aha! Thank you, Dylan, for this enjoyable puzzle.

For more on USA TODAY’s Crossword Puzzles

• USA TODAY’s Daily Crossword Puzzles
• Sudoku & Crossword Puzzle Answers