Number of U.S. states without any straight borders / MON 8-5-24 / Word with Double or Planet / "Yippee!," in internet-speak

Theme answers:

• [Garnish for a glass of iced tea] for LEMON WEDGE
• [Appliance at a hotel breakfast bar] for WAFFLE IRON
• [Expensive cabinet material] for CHERRY WOOD

Word of the Day: DINERS CLUB —

The idea for Diners Club was conceived at the Majors Cabin Grill restaurant in New York City in 1949.[6] Diners Club cofounder Frank McNamara was dining with clients and realized he had left his wallet in another suit.[7] His wife paid the bill, and McNamara thought of a multipurpose charge card as a way to avoid similar embarrassments in the future.

Hi friends, it's Malaika here, subbing for what I hope is a Relaxed Rex! I thought this puzzle was very, very easy-- I did not have to stop and think for any entry. I solved exactly as fast as I was typing, and honestly my time was a little slow because I was distracted watching the Olympics. That's a sign that the grid was super "clean," aka contained lots of recognizable vocabulary, and very few obscure terms or abbreviations. (IGA and FAO were the toughest entries for me.)

This was a perfectly nice and cute theme. I don't particularly like or care about golf, but I have heard of all three of these types of clubs. The foods in question would pair together really well-- waffles with some sweet and tangy lemony ricotta and cherry compote?? Yes please! Or maybe topped with a lemon curd and a cherry French 75. Sorry for this food tangent, but I'm thriving right now in the lush embrace of late summer produce. I have a shirt with cherries and lemons (and tomatoes and oranges) that I call my Summer Bounty Shirt and I adore wearing it in the summertime.

When a puzzle has four theme answers of "easy" lengths, ("easy" meaning there are plenty of options to arrange them in a grid-- if you don't construct, ten-letter entries are significantly easier to build a puzzle around than fourteen-letter entries) I like for there to be a couple of "bonus" entries, aka long down answers with no relation to the theme that are still fun. Here we didn't get any of those, but that might be because the letters (Ws, Fs, C, H, Y) are deceptively tricky to integrate smoothly. And there was still fun mid-length stuff like MEDUSA and COBRAS and ROOMBAS and even JAPAN.

Random final thought which will give y'all a lot of opportunities to comment on my age-- I have never heard of DINERS CLUB. (Shouldn't it have an apostrophe, btw??) I have heard of a "supper club" and wondered if it was similar, but that's not the case. Anyway, I don't want to hear you comment on my age. I'd rather hear you comment on what your favorite Olympics event is! I love gymnastics' floor event (for men and women), and women's beach volleyball. Also it's always fun to see what the W/NBA players are up to.

Bullets:

• [Actor Driver] for ADAM— ADAM Driver is so funny to me because, through no fault of his own (except I guess being a hot actor), he has become the hero in a bunch of different contemporary romance novels. What happens is that women write fiction about him (well, usually his character Kylo Ren), it becomes popular, they change his name, and then publish the book. I've read a couple books where I'm two chapters in and realize "oh my God this is ADAM Driver, isn't it??"Here's a fun article about the phenomenon.
• [Number of U.S. states without any straight borders] for ONE — I immediately looked up which state it was, and then felt dumb for not figuring it out (Hawai'i)
• [Last-resort button in a cockpit] for EJECT — Maybe this is a silly question but.... do all cockpits have this?? Does like.... a random commercial Boeing plane have an EJECT button??

xoxo Malaika

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