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.

@Hugh clearly another case of too many cross words for crosswords

@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

@bayonetta there's always some spoilsport finding a silver lining 😎

@Rahul TIL of the existence of the country of Nauru, & of its Yaren district. Thank you!

@SC my s'more technique: 1) collect the ingredients (including the vital selection of the proper forest wand for my marshmallow skewer. Manufactured implements? Heresy.) 2) eat the chocolate while devoting intense concentration to the charring of my marshmallow. 3) ingest said morsel oyster-style 4) leave the disgusting graham cracker for whatever woodland creature could stomach it. 5) digest while stargazing

@TLC lol

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

@John that's the spirit

@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!

@Cat Lady Margaret "Coming to grief on the double diamond again?" you can't spell fallacy without fall

@Petrol Feels like you may have partaken of some of what may have made those hippy campers happy 😎

@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

@Walj this exhillarating discussion of the properties of a slippery slope certainly went down hill f a s t

@Ace in some circles, this kind of diversion was sometimes described as "one toke over the line"

@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.

@Francis this one crosswords

@Nitpicker hmmmm. I completed today's puzzle successfully & did none of what you suggest is necessary. but you seem so certain

@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