Brady

There is Sam, and there is everyone else. I like wordplay, and his is amazing. Like drinking through a fire hose, though. I usually forget to look at the constructor's name first, and when I get so stuck I feel my brain's gone dead, I look up to see Sam as the constructor and think "Phew. I'm OK." With everyone else, I hold myself to a "naked" solve. i.e., as if I'm in a room, naked (lest I look up something off a clothing tag out of desperation), with nothing else but a pencil and the puzzle, and had to submit it a la the computer punch-cards of yore. No music when the last cell is filled? No solve. With Sam, I give myself complete latitude to do whatever I want to solve the puzzle, and I give myself a win as long as my laptop is in 6 or fewer pieces when it is all over. (Kinda like Wordle.) I count 4 pieces today. Win!!!

I am trying to get better at seeing the good in all things. Today, for example, I found myself grateful that so much entertainment-based trivia was packed into one puzzle, which hopefully will prevent said trivia from polluting many other puzzles (by the law of the conservation of uselessness--whiich I suspect does not, but I hope for humanity's sake does, exist.) blah blah emus

Nice puzzle--a fun solve that paid (more than) fair returns on the opportunity cost of the time spent with it. Rather the opposite of yesterday's, I'd say.

Strong debut! I didn't know award-winning journalist Linda, nor do I know much about comics... so I was really, really, *really* hoping for the brainwave device to be the CEREFRO. I had a nice visual and everything.

I can't imagine how difficult this puzzle must have been to construct. Jaw-droppinglyy brilliant. The last puzzle to awe me like this was a Sunday Texas-hold 'em rebus. I don't know my artists, so I only spent a couple of minutes on it before revealing things. But that's just one benefit--there are many, in this gamified world--of refusing to build a streak ;-) Huge shout-out, by the way, for the ability to reveal words on the e-versions of these puzzles. Lets me enjoy some amazing puzzles that I don't have the time, desire or knowledge to solve. Worth it for the Zamboni puzzle animation alone! Side note: skimming these comments, I find it odd that apparently, a rebus not reading both ways and "covering up" another letter (part of a nice punchline) is somehow supposed to be a bridge too far... if it's Thursday or Sunday, it's the Wild West, right? I figure rules for puzzles like these are binary: no monkey business, or an arbitrary level of monkey business.