Inchoate But Earnest

@dutchiris when the 'answer' for "Troy setting, for short" isn't actually short -- to give just one example of the too-clever-by-half clues in this puzzle -- it's garbage, in my book. you don't like my book? don't read it.

@Andrzej most negative person? Oh, if you could SEE the comments I never post.....

@Andrzej If there were no puzzle at all, I'm confident I would still enjoy your comments about it ;-)

@Steven M. I refuse to believe anyone who could do this Friday puzzle in 20 minutes has never encountered the word "surfeit".

@Eddie I'm new to noticing it, but count me a fan of your laconic, distinctive note of puzzling triumph

@TLC lol

@Stephen you do know that no one believes you, yes?

@Andrzej I'm American, so you know that I know no language well. And I don't have the tools you wield so capably to deconstruct, and I imagine re-construct, terms and phrases and idioms etc etc. And still here we are, enjoying unraveling word puzzles together. Also, "Ditto prius and priori" belongs in someone's poem someday

@DLB You may be a huge baseball fan, but also a young one - Steib was a stellar hurler for the Toronto Blue Jays, many years ago. No less an eminence than Bill James thought him possibly the best pitcher of his generation.

@Andrzej "I likely won't post for 3 weeks" 😟 at least you hinted at your likely return. Thanks for that!

@Puzzlemucker I, too, find sleep is often an effective crossword 'solvent'

@Steve L "...there I saw a note...." the number of half-baked attempts I made trying to get the first to work in 69A....

@Steven M. In Reddit world, Wednesday is pretty tough for a Wednesday

@A. Mulroney Congrats! 9 in a line for me, too - tho whether a personal high mark, I've no idea. Tho I suppose this means now I'll HAVE to at least attempt tomorrow's puzzle...😎

@Shan it was a singer not a song for me - & not Mel C... (29A). Got it eventually by peering at the far end of 8D.

@Lewis Small quibble; bit's more of a computING than a computER unit, but otherwise, what you said

@Tim In LA To the contrary, it's the only word that DOES "belong" in that place in the puzzle - minus the extra "t" you added, of course ;-)

@Mu Just so we're even clearer, something imagined is not predicted (can I really predict that I will imagine a particular thing? And of course that I - or you - WILL imagine SOMEthing is not a prediction - it is a certainty) , even as a prediction can surely be imagined.

@Jamie come, come Steib might more accurately be described as having been "good often great" #guynamingdude

@Dave K. do you know how long I sat flyspecking this puzzle, confident that I needn't turn my *r*oving eye to the obviously correct "*r*ockumentary" ? DO YOU?!?!? 🕺🎸🤗 ;-)

@Andrzej "...SHAKSHUKA is my favorite breakfast at Turkish bars...." Keep going....

@MBM rebus (plural rebi? feels like one should know). You could look it up. You probably should look it up.

@Mean Old Lady My synopsis, MOL: I fear we've been relegated, without benefit of due process, to the coven of the "smug" & "derisive"

@Helen Wright FlautAs, Helen

@Beth I agree with your sentiments, Beth -- AND with those who groan about multiple proper-name crosses (probably only because, via sheer luck, I did complete the puzzle with neither lookups nor reveals, keeping a months-long solve streak alive 🤗)

@Steven M. the way I score these things, I got over 13 times more pleasure out of solvng today's puzzle as you did. 😉

@Andrzej "It does not help that KOOPA would be transcribed as kupa in Polish, and that means poop..." It may not help solve today's puzzle, Andrej, but your timely lament helps all of us enjoy it that much more 🤗

@Petrol and that, right there, is why I ever scan the comments. Merci!

@CCNY came here specifically to point out that "BOLDfaced" is simply not correct -- an minor illiteracy, if there is such a thing. I liked the puzzle otherwise.

@Katie dunno, but I know what the Cowardly Lion would say

@Michael I used to sometimes feel this way when I was less experienced at solving crossword puzzles. Free your mind, & the rest will follow (today's puzzle includes a 'supplement' that some claim may help with that 😎)

@Chet consider that crosswords may have more affinity with poetry than reality

@Andrzej I haven't yet read enough of your comments to know for sure (that probably will never happen; certainty is hard), but I like to imagine on many days you might have instead have chosen to describe how A Note registers "the life in mundanity" (a word I suppose we must have after all).

@Lynn I'm unclear how those who race through crosswords obtain the peculiarly pleasant free-associative mental state that xword puzzles -- and few other ready-to-hand artifices -- can induce

@KC I admire your reasoning, but will neglect it here 😎. The game can be enjoyably played many ways. As with most human endeavors, most of the rules are mostly suggestions