Northernmost capital in continental South America / WED 12-7-22 / Six-time M.L.B. All-Star Mookie / It might say "Scam Likely"

Theme answers:

• Vintage car, in German ... or veteran, in English-- OLD TIMER
• High school, in Danish ... or building for indoor sports, in English-- GYMNASIUM
• Competition, in French ... or agreement, in English-- CONCURRENCE
• Plywood, in Dutch ... or theater with several screens, in English-- MULTIPLEX
• Vacation, in Swedish ... or half of an academic year, in English-- SEMESTER
  

Word of the Day: MRES (G.I. food packs) —

Some of the early MRE main courses were not very palatable, earning them the nicknames "Meals Rejected by Everyone,""Meals Rejected by Ethiopia" (during the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia), or "Meals Rarely Edible." Some individual portions had their own nicknames. For example, the frankfurters, which came sealed in pouches of four, were referred to as "the four fingers of death." Although quality has improved over the years, many of the nicknames have stuck. MREs were sometimes called "Three Lies for the Price of One ... it's not a Meal, it's not Ready, and you can't Eat it."

Good morning, squad! Today's another Malaika MWednesday, and I am peering out of a thick World Cup Haze in order to write this post. I hardly know what day it is or what time it is. I'm still recovering from the Japan PKs and the Morocco PKs. I'm considering tattooing Mbappe's face onto my forearm. Today is the first day in seventeen days that there will be no games for me to watch and I'm already going through withdrawal. I haven't even written a paragraph yet and I'm already switching to another tab to watch the Richarlison goal for the one hundredth time.

Anyway, let's talk about this puzzle. The theme is not my favorite type... I'm always disappointed when there's no revealer. This was sort of "collection of things that have a thing in common, but you didn't know what that thing was." I was hoping I'd put in one of the answers and be like "Oh yeahhhh, I remember learning that MULTIPLEX meant plywood..." (or whatever) but nope. I basically said "Huh, okay" five times and that was the puzzle.

I wonder if I would find the double meanings more impressive if I hadn't just watched Richarlison's bicycle kick but to be honest there is very little that can impress me after that. That's not the puzzle's fault. My bar has been set impossibly high.

I'm very intrigued by the layout of this puzzle! Those stacks in the corners and the four pyramids of black squares are what I'd associate with a themeless puzzle. Kameron Austin Collins is always busting out the pyramids. This layout is probably influenced by the central answer which is 11 letters long-- it forces a lot of blocks into place. I think my favorite non-theme entries were SAMOSA and SWOOSH. What about y'all?

Bullets:

• [Six-time M.L.B. All-Star Mookie] for BETTS-- I KNEW THIS ONE!! ATTENTION FOLKS! THERE WAS A BASEBALL CLUE THAT I, MALAIKA HANDA, KNEW THE ANSWER TO! BOW DOWN, PLEASE!!!
• [Tooth holder] for JAW-- I had "gum" and then I had "saw" for sooo long
• Little EVA, who sang "Locomotion"-- Let me tell you, I made it through this whole freaking puzzle and was like "Aww man was it really only men??" and then got to this clue and was like "Phew!!"

xoxo Malaika

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