I get the complaints about too many clashing consonants but for me it was refreshing to see more currently relevant cultural entries like TSWIZZLE, VRHEADSETS, DOJA, POKEBALL, TTYL (text speak) rather than references from 50s and 60s that I have no clue about. Doubly awesome that it’s a double pangram. Kudos to the constructors!
mimi, We both liked the puzzle, but I didn't see in the comments "the complaints about too many clashing consonants." I did see one or two posters noting them, but I didn't read the notes as complaints. YMMV
@mimi We all have different knowledge banks. I'm 74 years old, so the old pop trivia works well for me. I know who Taylor Swift is, of course, but know none of her nicknames, let alone that she was Time's 2023 POY. I always have to look up rappers. Etc....
@mimi But if you saw those references to the 50s and 60s in a crossword puzzle, then you did indeed have a clue about them. A main one and some crossers.
When I drink my boba, I don't use a wide straw, but I do stir it up with a TEA SWiZZLE. Great humor evident across the grid, especially so in the clues for USS, FLU and BAR MENU. Great crosses, too: the marine trio of AHI, AQUA and SPRIT crossing SUSHI; USS's bow/sprit also caught my eye, as did the BRUISING MEN piling on top of QB SACKS -- that can only lead to lots of BOO BOOS. Nor is it easy to POKE BALLS away from any of the MAVS. And these days when traveling by plane have you noticed the only way to walk down the aisles is by sidling? Or am I being a little crabby? I tried to fit FEMINIST ICONS into the four squares for Barbie and Ken, had to settle for TOYS. Sometimes a toy is just a toy. Kind of deep, makes me REFLECT a bit. Double pangram -- and as Caitlin said, a fever dream for a Scrabble player -- that's a feat sure to AMAZE even the most jaded player. I love lanolin! Although lately when I use it as lip balm I get a little sheepish about kissing anyone. Finally, today I learned that when does are in heat, their tails stand up and wave back and forth, which is called "flagging." I do not believe that's what was happening at Iwo Jima, however. Because of this puzzle and 354 million other reasons, I'll sleep well tonight. TTYL.
@john ezra Great summary for a great puzzle!! And I love lanolin too - it’s the only thing that keeps my poor dry hands from cracking in the cold weather.
The first thing I noticed about this puzzle was the number of odd consonant combinations there were: VRH, TSW, NTJ, along with the texting acronyms TTYL and SMH. A long time ago, when I was new at solving crosswords, I would immediately assume that I'd had something wrong if, say, TSW or VRH came up at the beginning of an entry. Now I realize that these combinations don't have to be parts of one word. These combinations were a little disconcerting anyway, throwing me off just a little, despite the fact that I didn't get seriously stumped in any part of the puzzle and finished with a rather good time for a Saturday. The second thing I noticed that there were a lot of uncommon letters in the puzzle and I wondered whether this was a pangram. Not surprised to find out that it's actually a double pangram. However, this is not even close to a record; the Aug. 10, 2016 puzzle was a quintuple pangram!
@Steve L Going to have to dig that one out of the archives! Thanks for mentioning.
Pangram schmangram, this puzzle scores high points for “thing I’d never heard of, that sounds disgusting, but after looking into it now I want some”. Yep. SUSHI PIZZA. Emus, I’ll save a slice for you.
@Cat Lady Margaret I think I'll stick with disgusting. Ick!
@Cat Lady Margaret totally agree. After reading about it I went online and there's a recommended place a block from my apartment that I've never heard of. Today's lunch? ;)
@Cat Lady Margaret - I fell in love with sushi pizza in the early aughts during a weeks long work trip to Toronto. I ordered it at a hole-in-the-wall sushi joint because it was something I'd never heard of. Sure, it sounded weird, but after enjoying it once and realizing how delicious it is, I went back for more again and again. I still crave it and order it any time I see it on a menu. For those to whom it sounds unpalatable, it might help to know that the only thing that's remotely Italian/pizza-like is the circular shape, the way it's sliced, and the crispy/chewy foundation. All the ingredients and flavors are decidedly Japanese. Enjoy!
I found this puzzle to be appropriately hard for a Saturday and had to rely on the crosses in several places. Case in point: I've never heard of DONEZO, nor SUSHI PIZZA. But I trusted that the latter must be a thing, which gave me the Z I needed. In the NW, I experienced another instance of priming. I entered STEADY GIG and then turned to the entry right above it, 16A -- "Going after the big bucks, say." I thought to myself, "Oh, another clue about jobs." But I needed the crosses to solve it, and even then, I stared at the answer -- IN HEAT -- and scratched my head. It was only minutes later that the light bulb came on. Good one. I completed the grid but there was no happy music. I spent many minutes flyspecking, checking each clue/entry one by one. Finally, I spotted the bug in my grid -- I had FLy instead of FLU. GEE WHIZ.
@Henry Su Hey, your post got me to thinking - do you think it's a coincidence that the blue star is blue, and BLUESTAR® airline flYs solo - no happy music on board?
Random thoughts: • Never used DONEZO in my life, but I fell in love with it immediately and will try to get it in my rotation. • This puzzle is popping with freshness, especially that SW corner with NYT debuts DOJA, BRUISING, QB SACKS, T SWIZZLE, and only-once-used-before BAR MENU. • Funny how a clue eludes me, laughs at me, torments me actually as I struggle, until I finally get it. Then, at puzzle’s end, I look at it again, and it seems so obvious. • BOOBOOS echoed yesterday’s answers-with-pairs-of-double-O’s fest. • Sparkling long answers: ON TOP OF IT, STEADY GIG, DON’T JINX IT, SUSHI PIZZA, VR HEADSETS. • This being a double pangram, remarkably difficult to pull off, makes the Wednesday, 8/10/16, offering by David C. Duncan Dekker, a NYT-record *quintuple* pangram – deeply-bow-down worthy. • A faith-solve for me, where I knew that if I just stuck with it, it would fall. A most satisfying fill-in from blank to donezo. Top-tier experience for me, Spencer and Jem. Thank you for a scintillating Saturday!
@Lewis Thanks for sharing the quintuple pangram - and without the extra area offered by a Sunday, too! At the end I was flyspecking and resorted to counting to see if any letter was underused.
@Lewis So, Lewis ... tell us what the clue was: "Funny how a clue eludes me, laughs at me, torments me actually as I struggle, until I finally get it. " I don't believe you said. Great post! I have never used DONEZO in my life. Let us try to work it into today's converstion and report back. Will be easy for me because I am having dinner with my husband. I can say DONEZO many times for things I have accomplished! tee hee Later!
@Lewis Ditto! My experience exactly. A party in a puzzle! With musicians, a bar menu, and pizza! …
"I knew you could scale that mountain!" "Oh, I'm on top of it." ("Just don't peak too soon!")
@Mike But you have to admit, things looked Rockie for a while. Best I can do at 3 AM.
@Mike I used to imitate Twitter, but now I just ape X. I wonder if the emus will come back acme for this.
@Mike Some of these puns don't amount to a hill of beans...
I have 365 in a row as of yesterday. Longest streak ever. I've done over 2100 puzzles, but a couple of years ago I started looking up answers instead of turning on auto-check. I think of look-ups as learning opportunities, not cheating. :o)
@Sue I’m with you. In my world, research is allowed when called for. It’s always fun to learn something new. Congratulations on your streak.
@Sue Indeed so! We're not getting graded on this stuff, they're meant to be fun, and I think you get to do whatever gives you the most fun out of them.
The puzzle sent me off in multiple directions, as Spencer and Jem meant it to, and my hat is off for some creative and funny clues. Going after the big bucks? Grinning from ear to ear when I got that. Thanks for a a cool Saturday solve. Loved it.
Sign of the Times: Hadn't really noticed it until my significant other commented, "Your crossword words are changing" Huh? What? "You used to chuckle and say, AHA and WOW and WOWIE, but lately it's more UGH and NOWAY, and WHATTHEHE.." Upon reflection, I feel the widening chasm between answers to clues I should've known and/or forgotton, and words I don't have a rat's chance in Hades of wrassling to the ground, much less roping in on a crossword grid. Cue the squeak of my walking frame. Oh well, might get all swole from the exercise! 😉
@Whoa Nellie That's really very funny, WN! It is great to have your husband to monitor your crossword puzzle love/hate status. Where can I get one of those? Actually, it wouldn't work for me as I do not chuckle aloud! hehe Lator, dear Whoa Nellie!
When I finally understood the Grumpy companion clue, I couldn't help but chuckle. I got the crosses to get it and could not figure out how the clue and answer were related for a bit! Good clue.
OK, fine puzzle. Just one quibble. There’s colloquial, and then there’s just made up. DONEZO is the latter. Too long a stretch, even for Saturday.
@ThankYouPhilly Paul Ulibarri says DONEZO often during disc golf commentary, so that one came easily to me. But now back to flyspecking for something that obviously didn't...
@ThankYouPhilly Like so many other commenters whose names are unfamiliar to me, you have fallen into the trap of "I've never heard it, so it is made up." Apparently, at least 15 recommenders agree with you. People associate with others in their same age group, social status, and often, race and ethnicity. What younger (or older), richer (or poorer) and differently cultured people say may not reach your group, but that doesn't mean they're made up. It just means you've never heard it. (My wife has said DONEZO occasionally, so I was quite aware of its existence.)
@ThankYouPhilly it didn't come to me immediately, but I smiled when I recognized DONEZO and thought of Parks and Recreation, where Tom Haverford issues his DONEZO list.
Not sure why, but I really dislike those ‘playground retort’ clues/answers.
@Louise I'm thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea to create a matrix of sorts...they're almost always 2 words, the last one being either NOT, TOO, or SO, the first being DID, AM, IS, or ARE. Of course, once you have something like that and the constructors throw a curveball, then you've literally got to think outside the box!
@Louise I don’t care for them, either. Maybe it’s just as LordBottletop notes, there’s a lot of possibilities. But there’s also nothing fun about them. You might not like the clues with exclamation points (which I call “declarative definitions”), but “Drinks are on me!”/BAR MENU is clever in a way “Playground retort” is not.
@Louise I'm not a fan of those either. Just once, I'd like the answer to be, "So's your old man!"
I was in mid-composition when my comment disappeared. I don't know whether the partial will somehow appear, but I will try to reconstruct: I confess that I'm not up on pop culture, current slang, or sports. This made today's puzzle difficult for me. Gimmes: IWO JIMA AISLES SORBET Never-heard-ofs: SUSHI PIZZA (shudder!) TSWIZZLE SMH POKEBALL DOJA QBSACKS DONEZO Errors: MASS before MAVS ONESEC before INASEC I did have a moment of pride, followed by an "oops!" I instantly guessed that the "Grumpy" part 62A had to do with "Snow White." Alas, I entered SLEEPY instead of SNEEZY. I only corrected because I figured the second part of that disgusting-sounding fusion dish had to be PIZZA. Likewise, the last letter I ented before the "congrats" was the crossing of DONEZO and PIZZA. Before my long absense, my knowledge of pop culture and other current stuff (and sports) came from XWPs. While I was gone, new stuff came along. I hope I can catch up. (I'll never get sports.) Thanks to the lovely collaborators for the lovely collaboration. When can we expect another?
@Deadline I'll never get sports either. Or opera (a frequent Jeopardy! category). Did Mathew Perry et al. used to say DONEZO on Friends?
This was a fun puzzle. Felt fresh. Some challenges, but everything resolved pretty easily with crosses.
Excellent puzzle! Lots of new words for me: POKEBALL T SWIZZLE DONEZO I *love* it when puzzle includes stuff I don't already know! Or uses words in ways I fond new and interesting. And some excellent cluing. I'm torn between the clues for 16A, 61A, and 43D for my favorites.
The FLU beat me down. I really wanted to FLY but in the end, I was DONEZO.
@AllenI finally got it, was two seconds away from giving up
@Allen That got me too!!! Definitely the cleverest clue!
@Allen I had FLY in there longer than I care to admit. It was deviously simplistic.
My first Saturday ever without lookups! Took my sweet time with it, and honestly it was a bit of luck because my pre-coffee thought for 45A was “wouldn’t it be funny if it was TSWIZZLE?” And found it fit, so left it…. was totally surprised to find it was right! I didn’t even know she was person of the year, but it tracks. Maybe I’ll buy a lotto ticket… but now I’ve probably JINXedIT.
@Jack Congratulations on your solo Saturday! I’m sure it’s just the first of many.
I actually didn't notice the Scrabbliness of it as I was solving, other than noticing the four Zs. Is DONEZO really a thing? Overall, it was entertaining. And doable.
@Liz B It's what the cool kids said in the 2010s, but ironically, it seems to me that the term itself is DONEZO. !!! !!! !!!
@Liz B I have also seen it spelled DUNZO. But yes, it was in usage not that long ago.
I call a Natick. There’s no way an average person living under a rock can get from DOJe, oNe SEC, and TSWoZZLE to what it needs to be without hours—hours! (okay, 5 minutes… but it was a very long five minutes)—of scanning the grid for typos. Before I get mobbed: I have nothing against Taylor Swift and appreciate her immense talent—even if I miss the twang in her guitar now. But I read my news instead of watching it so I miss the entertainment stuff (we like it quiet down here, under our mossy rock). Now, before y’all say there was a hint down there below with QB SACKS because, yeah, I get it, from QB to wide receiver, to Taylor S., etc., I’m going to stop you right there: QB SACKS does *not* make one think of my man Mahomes. Go Chiefs! (P.S. Good puzzle. Enjoy your Friday night, everyone.)
@Sam Lyons I was all set to disagree with you because IWO JIMA gave me the W for TSWIZZLE which somehow was the clue I needed, although I also live under a no-tv-news rock, but then I looked again at the clue for ONE - Half and half. Huh? I don't get it. Wait - yes I do! Good one! 1/2 + 1/2 = 1. I see what you mean, though. Never heard of DOJA, so if TSWoZZLE had sounded right to me, I'd probably have ended up at onesec instead of INASEC too. I think it's a faint memory from an old episode of Just Shoot Me, because I hear that "izzle" ending in David Spade's voice.
@Sam Lyons I loved that corner of the puzzle. Once I corrected THE MENU to BAR MENU, the rest was easy. Signed, Your average 68-year-old who also reads news, along with watching it.
I had "fly" for the bug. Took me a little while to find that error, even though I knew "YSS" made absolutely no sense. Sometimes you just go puzzle-blind.
@Amy Same here. Then I had YSL for a minute, thinking the "bow" could be clothing. Got the music eventually though.
After getting IWOJIMA and INASEC early, I had ___ME__ when I first read the "Drinks are on me!" clue and happily filled in imaMEss ☺
That took a few minutes. A few self-misdirects and a few huhs were salvaged with crosses. A certain amount of EERINESS but not really BRUISING. No BOOBOOS. Thanks, Spencer and Jem.
I got a little caught up in the east, thinking that the "Port letters" (39A) were USs leading to AsIp for "Not that much" (34D). (I had FLy for FLU (37A), leading to ySl instead of USS for "Letters on a bow" (38D). Yves St. Laurent makes bows, right?) I had no idea what the "Pole used for extending a sail" (47A) was, but I knew lPRIp was not a word. I eventually got the FLU and ended up with two USS answers - a big BOOBOO in the Xword world - and knew I had to AXE ONE. I finally got ONTOPOFIT and heard the happy DONEZO music. A fun solve all around and not DRAB at all!
@JenL Well, even when I was done, I had no idea what ONTOPOFIT was so I looked it up lo and behold it was ON TOP OF IT. I just laughed at myself.
Grumpy companion. Going after the big bucks. Drinks are on me. Small part of a window. Plopping down j, x, and z multiple times. Nice. Haven’t read 👇, but like yesterday, I’m gonna believe I am, in fact a genius, and that everyone else struggled with this and thought it was the toughest Saturday ever. My story. I’m sticking to it. Happy weekend to all!
@CCNY Among my areeas of ignorance discovered today: What does the mushroom stand for?
@CCNY Gosh, gotta love that confidence! I'd buy oceanfront property in New Mexio from you. 🙃
Way too easy for a Saturday. Just kidding, but relieved not to be reading it today, as for the most recent puzzles. Needed lots of help as usual for end of week puzzles, but lots of interesting new words and I am impressed by the double pangram. About the only thing I knew (and remembered) was 41D, IWOJIMA. Looking forward to more from Spencer and Jem.
@suejean As today's puzzle needed a whopping fifteen cheats, I don't think we'll hear that whine today! I had no idea about the 'double pangram' until I read the Wordplay. All I knew there were a a lot of unusual letters. A good mental work out for a Saturday. (I suspect we'll see more puzzles by this duo.)
"Going after the big bucks, maybe?" Bwahaha, that is a great clue! Well done on the entire puzzle, gentlemen.
SUSHI PIZZA? Blame Canada. From Wikipedia: Sushi pizza is a Canadian dish that originated from Toronto and a fusion of sushi and pizza often served in the Greater Toronto Area, conceptualized by Kaoru Ohsada no later than May 1993 as a Nami Japanese Seafood Restaurant chef. It uses a slightly crispy yet chewy fried rice patty as the base and is topped with a layer of sliced avocado, a layer of sliced salmon, tuna or crab meat, a drizzle of blended mayonnaise and wasabi powder and is served in wedges. Nori, pickled ginger, and roe are sometimes also served as toppings or sides.
@Vaer Maybe I'm hungry, but that sounds really good. Excellent late night snack.
@Vaer A restaurant here has pizza with slices of Sushi salmon. Husband and I both gagged. BUT, I discovered poitine while in Montreal and it has become a favorite Canadian meal! Tried it at local spots (airports), but they were all horrid BTW I am ready to watch War & Peace 2016. Will get back to you and the others who commented.
Great puzzle but a DNF for me. Has BAstED instead of BAWLED and GEE sHIZ and PIXEt seemed acceptable enough to me. So I ultimately checked puzzle after a few minutes of flyspecking. Oh, the shame. I don’t pay attention to streaks anymore but I had a long one going. I mean if 34,345 is long (yep, almost a hundred year streak down the drain). Very little came easily to me. Which is the best kind of Saturday. Seemed about as hip as a NYT Xword gets, which is not very, but still hipper than me. Hope these constructors don’t get basted out (see, it rolls right off the tongue) for using their heads for slang.
@Puzzlemucker Agreed, and commiserations! Some might find it tempting to chalk up a DNF to the constructor, but my DNF is usually OE* ** *Old English **operator error
@Puzzlemucker Ditto. Except I did finish. Don't ask how long. I've never paid attention to the time or to streaks anyway.
A puzzle designed to make one feel old. Years of having to pre-scoop French palate cleansers into chilled martini glasses for the zita an five hundred of her best friends made SORBET a gimme. And there it stopped.
@Bill from the Wikipedia entry on Ziti: "Ziti are a shape of extruded pasta originating from Campania and Sicily, southern Italy." Hey! Who ya callin' extruded! "Ziti is the plural form of zita and zitu, respectively meaning 'bride' and 'groom' in Sicilian. For this reason, ziti may also be rendered as zite in Italian (with the regular plural form for feminine nouns in -a)" Yes, and that "E" held me up for way too long. "In the crime-drama series The Sopranos, the phrase box of ziti is used as a euphemism for one thousand dollars. This term has spread to become colloquial in New York." I never watched The Sopranos, but I like that. I will have to start using it. (Like I ever have a thousand dollars just hanging around.) I expect to see it as a clue in next Saturday's puzzle, replacing the hackneyed THOU. "They are also used to make pasta alla Norma." And Damn, you, Nico's (in Windsor, ON) for dropping my Partner's favorite item from your menu! "There’s also zitoni, or zitone, which are a thicker cut than ziti, being in-between ziti and rigatoni" And haven't we all known a zitona or two?
Grumpy companion was easy: Sleepy. This made finishing the puzzle quite the chore.
A fun, clever, hard puzzle. I have to SMH about either my age or how out of touch I am with current popular culture. Things I don't think I have ever seen or heard: POKEBALL, TSWIZZLE, DONEZO. Names I didn't know: OLAV, DIAZ. The crosses provided enough glue for me to finish, though. Nice job, Spencer Leach and Jem Burch.
Also, I was looking askance at "AS IS" up to the very end. Could someone give a sentence in which the phrase means "currently"?
@RSA “When are you planning to leave?” “Currently, the plan is to leave by noon.” “As is, the plan is to leave by noon.” Or Purchase with “As is” means in its “current” condition.
Whew. Really tough one for me with a number of complete unknowns. Had to google a few things, but then it was just a lot of pondering and considering crosses and coming up with my best guess. Ended up with a wrong square but managed to find it (ICS instead of ACS). Just a long, long, long workout. Some puzzle finds today. I'll put a couple of them in replies, but one of them was inspired by 62a. And... yep - there was a Tuesday puzzle from January 4, 2005 by John Underwood with SNOWWHITE as the reveal and seven other theme answers. Here's the link to that one: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/4/2005&g=13&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/4/2005&g=13&d=D</a> More in some replies. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Sunday puzzle from March 7, 1976 by Maura B. Jacobson (one of my all time favorite constructors) with the title: ""Impertinent Questions." Some sample theme clues and answers: "What does Lee do outdoors?" MARVINGARDENS "What does Grange do at dusk?" REDSAILSINTHESUNSET "What hangs next to Johnson's credentials?" MASTERSDEGREE Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=3/7/1976&g=124&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=3/7/1976&g=124&d=A</a> One more in another reply. ..
One of my favorite puzzles in a long time!!! Perhaps a bit easy for a Saturday but very deserving of a weekend slot. Provided me chuckle after chuckle after aha moment during the entire back half of the solve on a beautiful snowy morning here in NY. Loved it! Thanks Spencer & Jem!
Lots of elegant touches in the fill. 37A could be FLY but is FLU, leading to USS. That makes you realize 38D’s bow is the ship part, not clothing part, hinted at by 47A’s SPRIT, with which it shares the S. And of course the alliteration with DIDSO and DUNEZO. A gem.
@Dan Solovay Note that the clue said "was", not "is in the air". And the question mark at the end hinted that it was not going to be an actual insect. Definitely a good misdirect for the unobservant or inexperienced.
Had the hardest time getting a foot hold last night. Thought, for sure this puzzle was going to need a few look ups. Slurped down black coffee with a BOBA straw this morn and sailed into battle on the USS Caffeine. It took some work, but I finished right around my Saturday average (no look ups, no fly speck). The right side started off as a slog but suddenly it just fell like dominos.I love it when that happens. I think SUSHI PIZZA was the key to unlocking the south east and something as simple as that final little G in STEADY GIG unlocked BLOG which unlocked the north east. Perfect Saturday. Thanks, Spencer Leach and Jem Burch
I don’t think anyone has pointed this out yet, I apologize if it has. The clue for BARMENU is really nice although it is essentially the same as a clue used 8/19/2022 (The drinks are on me !) The beauty of it is that there are no quotation marks used in the clue. On numerous occasions when quotation marks have been used it indicates the answer will be another phrase that means the same thing. Like “I’ve got this”, “It’s on me!”, or “I’ll get this one” which have all been used to clue for MYTREAT. The absence of quotes is key here. I know this is obvious to any experienced solver, but I was a little surprised that Caitlin didn’t take advantage of a teaching moment for novices.
@Hardroch I didn’t remember that earlier clue. Thanks. A similar example is from last week, when “Suck it!” clued STRAW. I’ll buy you a drink the next time you’re in town.
@Hardroch Thank you! I appreciate this! As a pretty inexperienced solver, I technically knew that but it's not obvious to me yet and I struggled mightily to finish off that clue crossing with onus, which I wasn't connecting with weight but I get it of course now that I get it. Those were the very last things I got. When I finally figured it out, then I thought it was a delightful clue! And kind of kicked myself for not getting it.
@Hardroch Thank you! I couldn't for the life of me make sense of that answer. No quotation marks - doh! Rookie mistake, Catherine!
Some very clever fill and clues.
Lovely puzzle but flu instead of fly was mean :(
@Tracy I've never seen a Navy ship with its name painted at the bow, much less with the abbreviation U.S.S. A stretch.
@Tracy Note that the clue said "was", not "is in the air". And the question mark at the end hinted that it was not going to be an actual insect. Definitely a good misdirect for the unobservant or inexperienced.
Oof, that was BRUISING. So many unknowns; the sports references as clear as mud to me as usual, but also the linguistic tics SMH DONEZO etc 🤷♀️ we don’t get out much down here, too much rain. On the upside TSWIZZLE and DOJA cat were gimmes, thanks to young adult offspring. Didn’t Ms Cat once give a red carpet interview entirely in meows? The useless things one’s brain holds onto; Greek or Latin conjugations? No. Useless pop trivia? Oh yes. Hey ho.
This one really clicked for me, though I had no idea who T.S. WIZZLE was until I read Wordplay.
In our home and on our shopping lists the half-and-half is called 1. I don't think emus drink coffee.
While solving this puzzle I was very much aware t hat I was navigating through a pangram sea. I could see that TSWIZZLE was in IWOJIMA probably looking for Cameron DIAZ. I thought to myself, "DONTJINXIT! SNEEZY'S hanging out by I don't know how many SQUAREFEET of SUSHIPIZZA. My head was spinning! Thank you Spencer and Jem, this was exhilarating! I need a BARMENU, BBQ chips and a big squeeze of GEEWHIZ!
I put USS for Port Letters and that messed me up pretty well. Especially since I accidentally pressed “y” instead of “u” for FLU… I still got in at 21 minutes but what a mess I made.
As with a couple puzzles from this week, I started out fast with this one and thought I’d be finished in short order…only to find myself staring at a ~75% completed grid for a while, and eventually ending up right around my daily average. In today’s case, I was too confident with “steady job”, (and “jee whiz” didn't look totally wrong), “fly”, “aero”, and “sleepy” in my initial pass…and paid for it later. Fun puzzle!
Took me a full hour, but, to my utter amazement, my grid was fully correct when I filled the final square---the Z shared by DIAZ and ZITI. The Scrabble score for this one must be phenomenal. Never heard of POKEBALL or DONEZO, but I suppose they're things. Had IBEAMS right from the start, but took me a long time to understand the clue. Kept thinking currency or capital city. Hardest puzzle for me in a while---but now I feel like I've accomplished something.
This was an amazing Saturday - lots of great clueing and misdirection (I was trying to make FLY work for FLU for far too long). Well done!
Really fun clues here. Good mix of difficulty in this one too. The BARMENU clue took me for a loop!! Haha
@Erick I got MENU fairly easily, but the first word I could think of to precede it was THE. When I realized it was BAR MENU, it made a lot of things clearer.