Great puzzle, just the right amount of freshness for a Friday night. I want to say how much I appreciate this group — it is a good place, full of warmth and goodwill. Also. I think I just completed the archive — 11,227 puzzles as of tonight. An excellent form of therapy, crosswords and the Spelling Bee have made every day better and helped me through the tougher days. There is of course an endless supply of fresh puzzles elsewhere, but it’s not the same. Thanks to everyone who contributes to this excellent community.
@Sierra That is truly impressive! Please accept my congratulations!
@Sierra Wow! Congratulations!! How long did it take you?
@Sierra Amazing, congratulations!! How long have you been working through the archive?
@Sierra Crikey that's impressive, well done! Imagine if it somehow got reset and you had to start all over again... Careful deleting your (oreo) cookies!
@Sierra A bold and impressive feat! Wowza! 👏 👏 👏
@Irarelycomment I’m guessing around 2013 … lots of puzzles helped me through the loss of a spouse to cancer, covid, politics, and lots in between.
@Sierra WOW!!! I'm working my way through doing just Thursdays - Sundays and have gotten up to August 1996. I have been doing the crosswords electronically since ~1998, but used AcrossLite until it was discontinued. I'll count myself as done when they start to be familiar.
@Sierra You are amazing! #lifegoals
@JennaG Thank you all for your kind comments!
"I love Altoids." "So do I! We were mint for each other." (This pun gets a tin out of tin.)
@Mike Would Kiwis get the pun? It sounds perfectly normal in NZ English.
@Mike Altoid Shampoo? A breath of fresh hair.
Mike, That pun seemed curiously different, but not completely unusual… sorta alt-oid.
@Mike I Mento tell you how much I liked York ontribution yesterday but didn't have a chance; I was Eclipsed by my neighbor needing some help, Andes asking for more.
I had ice pack before gel pack and it threw me off. Once I got through to the correct first three letters I had an easier time with the nw corner. Enjoyable Friday puzzle. Happy birthday to me today
@Megan Happy Birthday to you. Hope you had a slice of cake or other appropriate goodie. Me too on ice pack
@Megan , Happy Birthday!! 🎂🎁🎈
@Megan I’d have gone for ice PACK if I hadn’t already had the E from OREO COOKIE. Happy birthday!
(Second attempt.) I noticed that Deb steered away from the spot that I'm sure will generate most of the complaints today. Even if you were totally familiar with [Comedian Glaser], you might still not be sure if she spells it NIKKI or Nicki. And if you weren't into skateboarding culture, it would be possible to guess that the trick mentioned could be called a "facie" rather than a FAKIE. Either one of them sounds ridiculous to me, but somehow I intuited the right one. Maybe FAKIE sounds just a tad less ridiculous... Of all the crosses I've seen in recent memory, this one seems closest to me to what Rex Parker originally meant when he coined the term "Natick", even if the skateboarding term isn't actually a proper noun. Neither answer is easily inferrable, and they cross in just the wrong place.
@Steve L SEAR/ITSY was much worse since TEAR/ITTY was literally a valid answer pair. Nicki is much less common than Nikki, both of which are far less common than Nicky
@Steve L. The K in Nikki my last correction. Voila.
@Steve L : Are you spreading fakie news?!
@Steve L I suppose, but there were many recent articles about Nikki Glaser - she successfully hosted something and is known for roasting. (And I don't think I have ever seen the name "Nicki" anyway.) The skateboard move was a mystery. But for me there have been lots of other Naticky situations before this. It's very much a personal YMMV thing and thus not a particularly useful term to me.
@Steve L Wow, now that you point it out, that was a really tricky area that I somehow glossed over. I think I just lucked out because in the last couple of days I stumbled on some of Nikki Glaser's you tubes. And of course in skateboarding lingo I find no pattern whatsoever. I dodged a bullet there.
@Steve L That area defeated me with huge unknowns of NIKKI and FAKIE. I also didn't know Sue the TREX, PALOMA the jewelery designer, I had no idea what a Playa Bowl is, and I thought a bold tat might be neon. It took checking the puzzle and revealing several entries to finish the puzzle because of that accumulation of trivia clues.
@Steve L I lucked out there because my husband snowboards. Riding FAKIE is how snowboarders refer to leading with the tail of the board. But I got thrown off by the [Chop chop] clue, which I didn’t read as kitchen prep. “Chop chop” was an answer in another puzzle (not NYT) Wednesday, and I had read a few comments that pointed out the racist origins of the phrase.
@Steve L Agreed. I had intentionally left it as Ni_ki because I wasn’t sure about the name and the skateboarding clue was no help at all. But at least I was pretty confident that if it wasn’t a C, it was a K.
@Steve L Rex indeed identified this as a Natick.
PWNED?? I’ve since looked it up and I get it now, but at the time… I guess sometimes it pays to just shove some letters together and hope for the best. OREO COOKIE felt like a little good-natured trolling. As in, “You’re tired of entering ‘Oreo’? Ok, so how about we just make it loooonger…” Made me laugh, anyway.
@Heidi I learned PWNED from past puzzles, and the n00bs in the clue made it a gimme today. Put it in your pocket for future use. p.s. pronounced PONED, apparently
@Heidi Agreed on the gentle Oreo trolling, and we had DEEP-FRIED OREO just last weekend. They know the repetitiveness can be annoying, and we know the vowels are helpful, and that's all there is to it.
Woo-hoo, a 300-day-streak! Just two more months and change before the big, once unimaginable milestone. Loved today's puzzle too. Fridays might be my favorite now that the novelty of Thursday/Sunday tricks has worn off. I think I disagree with Steve L that NIKKI/FAKIE is a Natick, just because FAKIE is (even to somebody like me, who has never seen or heard of it, and who is more likely to learn to fly than to ever do it) so much more likely to be the right answer than FAcIE. If nothing else, FAcIE would probably be clued via "prima facie". In a true Natick, at teast for me, several letters are equally likely if you don't know at least one of the two answers.
@Turing Well, as I mentioned above, Rex Parker identified this as a Natick, and as he coined the term, I’d say he has the last word.
A toast to the Rescue Answer, that St. Bernard that saves you amidst a sea of white. There you are, lost in a sizeable area of the grid, not certain of any answer so far, with few left to go, and suddenly you hit the R.A. – the answer you know, and the longer the better – which breaks that empty mass open. ZERO TO HERO in a blink. Here’s to you, R.A., for the smiles you bring. In the box today with its chunks o’ white in the corners and sash, those Rescue Answers made several visitations, resulting in “Whee!”-filled splats, and let me tell you, that charges up the spirit. Oh, the grid held beauty (TIME TO KILL, I KID, ONE MAN BAND, SCAVENGE), freshness (six answer debuts and seven only-once-befores), and the lovely STEP up from the bottom – and I’m grateful to Colin for a fun and satisfying fill-in. Thank you, sir! I extend that gratitude to the Rescue Answer, bringer of jubilation. You are my Crosslandia friend for life.
First, I would like to thank PhysicsDaughter for studying VIOLA for all those years (12, counting from 4th grade through college. Grad school meant a hiatus, but she's now back performing with the Vicksburg Symphonic Society after recovering from surgery and radiation. Bravo for all amateurs who are still making music!) ICE PACKS before (duh) thinking of all those GEL PACKS in our freezer. We have at least a half-dozen. Pogonophobia? Srsly? DHubby had a BEARD when I met him, and has had for most of our 45+ years of marriage. The time he shaved it off and walked into the kitchen for breakfast, he looked SO different that I went and put on my bathrobe.
@Mean Old Lady i can top that beard story. When my bearded not-yet-spouse took me to visit his family for the 1st time, they lost no time in bringing out the album with some pre-beard photos. Back story was that one of his sisters had been engaged to a bearded young man who for some reason chose to shave it off. Revealed a weak chin and she promptly broke things off. (To be fair, she'd apparently already had doubts.) Family didn't want to take chances with me. And he hasn't ever removed the beard though he has a nice chin if he ever did.
@Mean Old Lady - As a pogonophilic and pogonotrophic marine biologist, this was a gimme. The Pogonophora, for most of my career, were considered a phylum of animals. They're called the "beard worms" and included the giant tube worms that are found at the deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Now, they're considered a Family within the Annelida -- the phylum that incudes the earthworms and leeches. Having worked back in the day on these critters, the clue was an easy one for me. I do recognize that it would not be so easy for most other solvers.
@Mean Old Lady Brava to your daughter! The old middle school orchestra joke: What's the difference between a violin and a viola: A viola burns longer.
@Mean Old Lady - Early in our marriage, I shaved my beard, just for the heck of it. My wife looked at me and, without a smile, said my face looked like Porky Pig's butt. I grew that beard back as fast as I possibly could.
Wow! I don't know why I loved this one so much, but it just hit the spot for me. Hard enough to feel meaty (I had to work on the top two quadrants for a few minutes to get them to fall into place), but smooth enough to feel fair and delightful. As a lover of Spelling Bee, I'm always gratified to see NENE show up in context. PWNED and ZEROTOHERO were favorites of mine (and the latter has now put me in the mood to watch Disney's Hercules).
@J.S. i'm gonna post a link shortly. ;)
I almost looked up 52 across. I think that counts as irony.
I, too, laughed at ONE MAN BAND. Great clue, and it evoked the amazing almost-centagenarian Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Haven't seen it? Here it is: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OwnBuPbMqc" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OwnBuPbMqc</a> Fun and fabulous Friday - now on to the weekend!
@Chungclan yes! Love Dick van Dyke’s one man band in that movie
First 100 day streak. I guess that’s an accomplishment. Solved this particular puzzle in average time after getting tripped up in the upper right. Spent at least half my time on a quarter of the puzzle.
I(didn’t)NEEDAHINT to complete this one. I started slowly, but soon found a mess of clues that were in my wheelhouse, like PINACOLDA and WETMARTINI sitting side by side, and a variety of music related clues including a sublime Mozart ARIA. I did get fooled a bit by trying boas instead of BOTS for Amazon nuisances. I liked the clue for ONEMANBAND and I liked ZEROTOHERO just for itself. Fun puzzle over too soon.
Good puzzle. I enjoyed it. Impressed with myself that I actually knew the word pwned.
@Asher funny that was one of three answers I was able to initially get correct
@Asher I wondered if it was a Rebus but the crossword didn't take a Rebus. How the heck is pwned pronounced?
Well done Colin Adams! This puzzle put many smiles on my face - I had to google two things (yes, one of them was AZOV), but this was my first time confidently filling a Friday and being pleasantly surprised when the finale jingle arrived. Happy Friday everyone!
“One man band” right next to “zero to hero”? In a puzzle with “pwned”? You, sir, are a baller.
@Deb Congratulations are your ingenious solve of 44-Down (or Dpwn, as I sometimes like to spell it): [Its name in Botswana is the same as the word for “money”] I suspect you may be the only solver who came up with the answer in this way. For the rest of us, it was pure crosses. Anyone have a smoother solve on this clue?
@The X-Phile Botswana--isn't that where the Kalahari Desert is located? In a desert, what is the most precious thing? VOILA!
@The X-Phile Oh, this was an easy one for those of us who read Alexander McCall Smith's "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" books! Precious Ramotswe often mentions that "pula" means both the type of currency in Botswana and "rain."
@Wendy, that's exactly how I knew it! Love those books!
I drink wet martinis, because vermouth is delicious. The best bartender response to dare was "like, what, d'you want some water in it?"
Well... typical tough Friday for me, and had to cheat a bit to get through it, but ended up being a pretty enjoyable solve as answers finally dawned on me with enough crosses. Some rather remarkable puzzle finds today, initially inspired by NAM (been there, done that). I'll put one here and the others in a reply. First - a Sunday from February 27, 2011 by Peter A. Collins with the title: "V-2." Some theme answers in that one. VIETNAMVETS VINCEVAUGHN VESTALVIRGINS VILLAGEVOICE VARICOSEVEIN VICEVERSA Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/27/2011&g=59&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/27/2011&g=59&d=D</a> .....
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Sunday from December 10, 2006 by David J. Kahn with the title: "Putting on heirs." A couple of clue/answer examples: Old Roman's boast after a deer hunt? : VENISONVIDIVICI Breakdown on a Hyundai assembly line? : SONATASTANDSTILL And some other theme answers: SONNETPROFITS VIRGINMASONRY PARSONFORTHECOURSE WATCHYOURSTEPSON Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/10/2006&g=47&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/10/2006&g=47&d=A</a> ...
I had to sleep on this one. Sometimes I finish the crossword in one spell but the eyelids grew heavy. Woke up, resumed, and like magic, everything appeared. That made the solve all the more fun. Lots to like in this puzzle. Thanks, Colin, for the smiles! Even though I was able to figure out the trivia, I see in the comments that many struggled with it. I lucked out. Quite a few things I hadn’t heard of but the crosses revealed them. I could see, though, how others would have trouble.
@Mark that’s exactly how I typically solve Friday and Saturday puzzles…start in the evening and finish the next morning. The clues marinate over night and the answers just bounce off the page the next day. It never ceases to amaze me how our minds work like that!
@Mark My usual method now for late-week puzzles is to start them in bed the night before, work on them until I'm either stumped or sleepy enough to drop the phone, then resume the next day with a 16 oz mug of coffee. Every morning I do this I immediately fill in at least three answers that I couldn't see the night before. It works with math, too...I once figured out the crux to a proof to a theorem in a dream, woke up, and wrote it down.
I have a persistent fear of clues that reference James Beard Awards. btw, the incredibly handsome fella in my profile pic was Nicky.
I confidently entered pula for the word for money in Botswana, because it is the word for rain in Botswana. Nothing is more precious in Botswana than rain, not the diamonds, so it was made the name of the money when the country gained its independence.
@Ettagale Thank you for that explanation! I got rain through the crossings, and wasn't really sure why. Now it makes perfect sense.
@Phishfinder Absolutely delighted to be able to share this bit of information. Even though my first answer turned out not to be correct, it may have contributed to getting my personal best for a Friday puzzle. A good chunk of Botswana comprises the Kalahari desert, so pula is very much appreciated.
As a martini fancier I define a wet martini as one that's heavy on dry vermouth. In fact I like those more than the so-called dry ones. And olives are de rigeur for any true martini.
I almost quit when it seemed to say that bats were Amazon nuisances. Lol. Good puzzle. Fun steady solve.
A quick Friday for me, with my hangup being the one mentioned by Steve L earlier. Let's just say that my orthopod would probably get a lot of business if I took up skateboarding, and I don't know the terminology unless I see it here several times; and I don't know Ms. Glaser at all. Other than that, despite the fear of all the white space, I started filling things in fairly readily. Eels, then BOaS, before BOTS, but then the NW filled in as I recognized a new clue for an old friend. I thought briefly, I NEED A HINT, but I got through the rest of it with not much difficulty other than that already mentioned, and ended up with some TIME TO KILL. Thanks, Colin, it was a fun puzzle.
@JayTee I had BOAS for "Amazon nuisance" for most of the 40 minutes I needed for this puzzle. An excellent puzzle. One of the best in weeks.
Bobbled it again. Oh well, It's me, and I'll just do it over: I went tripping through the grid, BARHOPPING like a puzzle wizard, top here, bottom there, middle filling in, thrilled when I knew CORINTH and I didn't NEEDAHINT, getting tipsy with the proximity of a PINACOLADA and a WETMARTINI going down on the same page, wowed by the cheekiness of the ubiquitous biscuit hogging ten consecutive squares, then somehow got bogged down and didn't have the MIENS to wind it up. Felt like a ZERO HERO, with no upward progress until I pried my stubborn brain off some lousy fills and wound it up at 46:06, a joke for the real puzzle dazzlers, but I hope respectable enough for the C- or a D+ of an average human being. Cool puzzle, Colin Adams. I hope putting all this together wasn't too taxing and left you some TIMETOKILL MANSCAPING. Thanks! ( I think I'll have a drink now, and it won't be milk with you-know-what.)
A few tricky spots, like the aforementioned Natikki skateboard move, and Sue Azov Trex (thought here the vexations were the keys). But speaking of going backwards, despite the above, it played about like a Tuesday from 1995 - for me. A fun puzzle.
Nice one Colin. Speaking of solving abilities. I, a bear of little brain, am always happy when I guess S for the plural clues. Thank you
When I were bar hoppin' a rack was something else... Arrgh!
Isn't very martini wet? And how do you turn a hoe into a cake? Wouldn't the metal and wood be unpalatable? The top half, and especially the NE corner contained too much stuff I simply didn't know to solve unaided. AZOV was a gimme, but Sue and Playa Bowl confused me in the clues (the latter clue sounded to me like it was about some sportsperson called Berry), and FAKIE, PALOMA and NIKKI were unknowns.
@Andrzej my understanding is that wetness alludes to the amount of vermouth. Wasn’t aware the presence of an olive contributed to the nomenclature.
@Andrzej A wet martini is one with more vermouth (50:50 or more), than the dry variety which can range from 20:80 to infinitesimal proportions. Na zdrowie! Sue the TREX got a lot of media coverage when it was discovered in the US by an American woman. Here is the start of the Wikipedia article: Sue[a] (stylized: SUE), officially designated FMNH PR 2081, is one of the largest,[b] most extensive, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossils ever found, at over 90 percent recovered by bulk.[4] FMNH PR 2081 was discovered on August 12, 1990,[5] by American explorer and fossil collector Sue Hendrickson, after whom it is named. After ownership disputes were settled, Sue was auctioned in October 1997 for US$8.3 million, one of the highest amounts ever paid for a dinosaur fossil. Sue is now a permanent feature at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.[6]
@Andrzej Yeah, I think @spurious is correct. A standard martini contains a "bit" or "splash" of vermouth. A dry martini has less vermouth. Now, one of the most famous old time bar orders was a dry martini, dry as the Sahara, so dry that water molecules are terrified to be anywhere in the area. But all that means is "no vermouth". It's not like you can add anti-vermouth to move to a drier than dry state. Martinis do have a lot of variations for such a simple drink--gin and vermouth (old style martinis, not vodka martinis). It's a dirty martini if you use an onion as a garnish. I think there are other variations. (At one point I was thinking about ditching programming to be a bartender, and I am a proud alumnus of the Minnesota School of Bartending.)
@Andrzej Hoecakes date back to the "pioneer days" when people were headed West in their covered wagons. I'm not sure how much is truth and how much is legend, but hoecakes were cornmeal mush that were/could have been grilled on the heated blade of a hoe. There is an old song, Kansas Boys. "Come along girls, listen to my voice. Don't you never marry no Kansas boys. If you do your doom shall be, hoecakes, hominy, and sassafras tea."
@Andrzej I vaguely remember learning about the origin of hoe cakes in elementary school as being Native American and also popular among slaves working in the fields. Of course much of what I learned back then is being dispelled, so who knows. But the answer came easily enough based on my childhood learning.
@Andrzej Hahahaha!! As you may remember, from a few days ago, I am a martini fan and I laughed out loud at your first sentence! Indeed, though I like only a normal amount of vermouth, every martini I've ever drank has been wet. And I've never even had to ask for it wet. It just comes that way!! 🍸 😂🍸 If you can see the emojis I just posted, the second martini is the one I'm drinking for you, since you're not having them anymore.
@Andrzej Also, I saw the comment you left for me on Thursday's puzzle about not continuing with books we hate. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I am glad to be in good company! Once I freed myself just a little from the occasional burden of my sticktuitiveness, I said to myself, "Self, there are more truly wonderful books in this world than you will ever have the opportunity to read during your lifetime, why continue with this truly cringe-inducing experience!?" Ahh! ☺️
Now at last I have a name for my childhood ailment. One of my earliest memories is being terrified of Santa Claus and the Dutchmaster commercials
@SP Cute comment. I actually have fond childhood memories of Dutch Masters cigar boxes. My father was a big fan of these and he let me have the old boxes to store stuff in (small toys, art supplies, etc.) It was a great thrill years later to see the Rembrandt painting, Syndics of the Drapers Guild, at the Rijksmuseum. If you look closely, however, maybe only one Staalmeester has a significant beard. Perhaps it was something else about these guys that set you off. See: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/mwayxbyy" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/mwayxbyy</a>
I must have been on the constructor’s same wavelength because I was only 30 seconds longer than my PB for a Friday. I’ve attended many bachelorette parties that included BAR HOPPING, although my own did not. My boys were both into video games, so PWNED was a gimme. NIKKI GLASER has become a fave of mine since the Tom Brady roast 😆 SWAK was a flashback from my elementary days. I immediately thought of Post Malone and Jellyroll when reading the clue for FACE TAT. I woke up my husband when I entered VENI for Caesarean boast 😬 So many clever long entries as well. So much love for this puzzle, so thank you, Colin, for starting off my weekend with a huge smile.
I really REALLY liked today's puzzle. Great job Colin!
Last summer, I tried to go frontside FAKIE on my nephew's wakeboard, and promptly faceplanted. I felt that for a week; when did I get old? So yeah, that was a gimme, even if I didn't know the comedian. NIKKI Sixx I would have gotten easily. Hmm, two cocktails before breakfast? Too old for that too.
@Grant If, after a faceplant, you're still around to write about it, you're younger than me. I figure my next faceplant will be my last one
When someone with a good reason for using my Username has trouble with a four-letter rare state bird, even after finding out the first letter is N, we know that one won't be here much longer.
Bart, You remember your Username and you remember why it is your Username. You're doing better than many, and you've probably forgotten more than most ever know. Stick around; you're in good company.
Fun, and also (for my money) one of the more difficult Fridays in recent memory. Really got stuck for a while in the NE, and this is *after* I input NENE on a whim despite knowing nothing about the bird except its handiness in Spelling Bee — which finally unlocked 12D for me. I still clung to “TREe” for 18A for far too long (unfamiliar with the Field museum, though of course it made sense when I got it…my brain just couldn’t shake the idea of a one syllable word) and was equally unfamiliar with (non-Pablo) Picasso and the sea near the Kerch Strait, though I had hunches. All this combined to make 14D look like an impossible “[X]EE[Y]TION” word where X could be any letter and Y had to be a vowel. Anyway, is there a lesson to my stream of consciousness play-by-play? I’d say: A) Sometimes it pays to input a guess just to see where it takes you B) Beating your head against a wall does eventually bear fruit C) There’s no shame in Googling proper nouns you don’t know (especially in the rare case of a genuine Natick), but I’d argue the game is significantly more fun if you resist the urge to.
Had the whole left side filled in quickly. Spent twice as long on the right side. I just couldn't see it. For example, WARNS didn't click until I had figured out WINKSAT. It was like 2 separate puzzles, one I vibed with and one I didn't. Overall, one of my quicker Fridays.
Sadly, almost impossible for me. A combination of being of the wrong generation and nationailty. Do people really use the ghastly word "bachelorette"? Although not worse than "hen party (on a pub crawl.") Just so many mysteries, either clues or solutions - PWNED, HOE, REMY, ZEROTOHERO, OREOCOOKIE, FACETAT, NIKKI, TREX, first subscription service, DENIS, NAM, BIPOD, BEARDS, FAKIE, a shovel holder, (don't hands hold a shovel?) EDNA, DWEEB, NENE, MANSCAPED, PLAYA BOWL, (I thought, maybe a sports clue?); know nothing about cocktails, (although I guessed something + MARTINI) poker or The Crown. Is a very dry martini not just a glass of neat gin? The word POOPED to me means eh, something your children have done in the loo? Trying to be polite. I've watched a lot of soccer since the age of about 10, but never heard of a DONUT! I last used SWALK (add 'loving') when I was also about age 10. I did remember ALTOIDS, and I did what I could and looked up the rest, out of curiosity.
@Jane Wheelaghan I’ll respond while I’m here: yep, people definitely use the word “bachelorette” but almost exclusively with “bachelorette party”. “Bachelor” still gets used a little more I guess with the phrases “bachelor pad” or maybe by older people saying “he’s still a bachelor” or “eligible bachelor” (oh, and also “bachelor party”).
Jane, Bachelorette? We even have a TV show! <a href="https://abc.com/show/2294c465-f2ed-45e0-954f-d994c0efc1dc" target="_blank">https://abc.com/show/2294c465-f2ed-45e0-954f-d994c0efc1dc</a>
@Jane Wheelaghan To be fair, a "goose egg" is far more common than a "donut" for a score of zero, but putting "soccer" in the clue made NIL a given, as no other sport uses that. Okay, sometimes ice hockey, when the announcers are trying to be cute. "One donut to the Arsenal" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Smooth solve. I was surprised to see that PWNED was a debut because I knew I learned it from a previous puzzle. As it turns out, it was used in a clue for noob twice in recent years. ONE MAN BAND gave me this: <a href="https://youtu.be/YCoRoqGz5so?si=g-KOILXUwAYsgioK" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/YCoRoqGz5so?si=g-KOILXUwAYsgioK</a> Oddly, when I played the video just now, the ad that preceded it showed someone doing a FAKIE.
@Nancy J. It's a debut for PWNED, but PWN debuted on September 27, 2020 and has appeared two more times since then. That's how I, and probably others who didn't already know it, learned it. As I vaguely recall, there was much discussion.
I was literally thinking yesterday that OREO hadn't appeared in a crossword for a while, and then today it returns in its full glory, even with COOKIE as an extra bonus! I don't think we need to put "pot growing" clues in the Tricky Clues section any more by the way - I immediately think of poker when it comes up these days. Fun puzzle. Yes, some tricky (maybe even frustrating) entries, but that's all part of the appeal. Thanks Colin!
Oh G.d, not those OPERAARIAs again! Well, Mr. Golofeev may qualify as a ONE MAN BAND, but only because of overdubbing: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u-jUDte9_k" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u-jUDte9_k</a> Which makes me think, wasn't there a frequent commenter with the handle Bratschegirl? I wonder what happened to her.
Thank you for including the clue about Edna Lewis. What a fascinating person!
This was the easiest Friday in memory. Although I didn't know NIKKI or FAKIE, K seemed like the most likely letter to go in the center. I'm trying to figure out why my completion rate never gets to 100%. It's been 99.9% for as long as I can remember. I have completed 3432 puzzles and .1% of 3432 is 3.43. Shouldn't it round to 100% at some point? Or is my math that bad?
@Cyndie And if K doesn’t work, there is only one plausible alternative. I went with C at first thinking FACIE would be a good term for skating facing backwards. As for 99.9 percent, I don’t think it ever rounds. I can recall tediously searching for an old archive puzzle I was interrupted during and never finished. I just couldn’t stand the forever 99.9. I found the puzzle terribly difficult at first, so much so hat I dozed off after two words, then in the morning I roared through the NE to SW diagonal so fast that even though I don’t fret much over speed I regretted all the sleeping time on the clock, but then I stalled for a long time in the NW. Good puzzle IMHO. I didn’t get pwned.
@Cyndie Regarding your completion rate, it’s possible there is one puzzle that is incomplete. There used to be a way to find incomplete puzzles, in a previous app version. You may want to send an email to nytgames. They’ve always been super helpful for issues like this.
@Cyndie As to your completion rate issue: I have had the same issue for over 4 years now. Every 6 mos or so when I am truly bored, I write another email. to the games folks and ask why? why? And they always courteously respond, " you must have an uncompleted puzzle somewhere". And I always say that. I have looked and looked for that puzzle and that I no longer think it exists. I always ask them to prove this theory by showing me that uncompleted puzzle. They have always said they will look into it, and I never hear back again..... It has to be a bug in the code or a ghost in the machine.... We have learned to live with it, but check our Connections completion rate every day, waiting for the moment it drops below 100% Any emus out there care to comment?
Deb, I really enjoyed your column today. Lively and humorous, just the touch I needed to start my day.
I'm a little surprised that more folks were tripped up by PWNED than SWAK, but I guess that just reflects my personal experience. Not a gamer but somehow I knew PWNED. Never, ever used or heard of SWAK. Fun Friday!
@Dave Munger My dad used to write SWAK on the back of the each daily letter he sent to my mom when he was in the service during WWI. So it's at least that old.
@Dave Munger it was so romantic when your junior high or HS crush passed you a note or sent you a card and wrote SWAK. And that was still into the 70's. And of course there was the Bobby Vinton song. Well, I guess that's a long time ago now! It's an oldie, and so am I. LOL
@Dave Munger I learn things almost every time I do a crossword. Never heard of 'PWNED' until today. Who gnu?
@Dave Munger When I had SW_K I thought it was going to be one of the tons of new initialisms, like PWN(ED) which I still don't know, but it suddenly came back to me. Sometimes being old doesn't hurt that much.
@Dave Munger Who knew? Apparently at age 58 I'm still too young for SWAK.
Excellent Friday puzzle, one of those that seems impossible until it isn’t
It was almost a perfect Friday puzzle. Difficult enough to take a long time for me to fill in all the answers. But in the end, they were all gettable. At least I thought so, until I read Rex Parker's blog before coming here. And I share his rage. I have no idea who Nikki Glaser is, and that's on me. But to have it be a Natick with an arcane skateboarding term, arcane most likely to the majority of solvers, is just wrong. As in Nicky MInaj, I put a "c" in that box. And I'm p.o.'d.
@Times Rita 🙋🏻♀️ for being pwned by the “k” instead of “c”. I’m not up on skateboarding slang, but I think I may have heard the term fakie at some time, so why it never occurred to me to try the “k” during my several run throughs is just incomprehensible to me! I was just so set on NIcKY- with-a-“c” that I somehow (?) missed seeing that NIKKY was even a possibility. 🤦🏻♀️ I’m never one to simply throw up my hands in defeat— but I’m embarrassed to admit I did this time. 😖
Anyone else experience a dramatic spike in difficulty for the NE/E side of the puzzle? I was cruising along easily thinking I had a new Friday record in the bag until I got to the north/east side and hit a major brick wall. Turned a 7 minute solve into 17. Not that I’m complaining about that section, Fridays should be somewhat difficult, so if anything I think the rest of the clues should’ve been a little tougher. I just found it to be a very jarring shift. Still a fun solve, though.
@Adam Not a huge slowdown in the NE for me but definitely a hiccup. I did get AZOV, PALOMA and FACETAT first pass through so had enough to solve the downs. But yeah, agree it was otherwise pretty easy. But still a lot of interesting not obvious words amongst the answers and decent clueing so I’m not complaining. 13 minute solve for me. Would prefer a Friday to out up a little more fight.
@Adam Yep, the west side went in with ease. In the east I had PPV for the subscription pioneer (my brain was moving too quickly) which led me to plunk down pet peeves for the annoyances (in spite of MACARONI), and I had BIcep for [Gun support?] (clever and more pleasant). That led me to lots of other possible but wrong answers. It was hard to let go of very plausible answers but once I deleted those and fixed HBO I was off to the races.
Was this puzzle easier than usual or is my solving improving? Another thought: Deb wrote "we may believe that being hard on ourselves spurs us to achieve our goals, but, most of the time, it really just holds us back." Reminds of a quote I clipped from a magazine years ago (and cannot find the speaker anywhere on the internet): "Nobody ever f'g hated themselves into being a better person." So true, with or without the expletive.
@CalGal Is that really true? I hated my lack of fitness and my obesity, and that got me to start rigorous exercise and dieting, and I managed to maintain a healthy life style up until my present old age. I don't know if I frickin' hated myself or not, but it surely wasn't out of love.