Inchoate But Earnest
Northeast
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Northeast
That was awful. I loved every last minute of it.
35A: for future reference, pool balls are RACKED, while brains are WRACKED. Tricky idiom.
time to completion: 2:44:45. what's the infernal rush anyway.
100 consecutive puzzles completed without lookups, reveals, etc. Today's took an hour (?!) longer than average, but it finally yielded. I'm tired, boss.
@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
43 1/2 minutes (!!) slower than my average -- but a puzzle completed without a lookup is a puzzle completed without a lookup. Worth every second.
@Andrzej most negative person? Oh, if you could SEE the comments I never post.....
Sunday's triskaidekaphilic puzzle puts me in mind of the chorus of an Elvis Costello tune " Thirteen steps lead down Thirteen steps lead down There's commoners and kings And everyone's a prisoner of Paper and glue and a decent pair of scissors So tonight I'm drinking to your health Because I just can't stand myself Thirteen steps lead down Thirteen steps lead down" Congrats to our puzzle kings who conquered this one -- I'm drinking to your health. And no worries, I'm sitting, not standing.
@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 😎
some say easy; I worried it like a loose tooth (& it's been years since I've had occasion to do that)
@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
@Stephen you do know that no one believes you, yes?
@John that's the spirit
that's one good-looking puzzle
25 minutes to fill, about an hour to flyspeck. NE * a fitting finish(?)
@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.
Finished a mere hour & 3/4 over my average. SW corner was ..truculent.
@Andrzej "I likely won't post for 3 weeks" 😟 at least you hinted at your likely return. Thanks for that!
rebus thingie won't let me correct an entry. keeps replacing my 1-letter correction with 2 letters.
@Cat Lady Margaret "Coming to grief on the double diamond again?" you can't spell fallacy without fall
today's was a curious session; 20 minutes of pleasant ruminating & review of every clue yielded one word across, & one down. Then BAM! the gears meshed. 20 more minutes & the thing was complete. if I've ever had such a "zero to 60" finish before, I can't remember it. But I WOULD remember it. Exhilarating
@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
Photo (& caption) heading today's comments is pretty d(ough)roll
@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
Bleep Who doesn't enjoy an abyss? Boink
@Mean Old Lady My synopsis, MOL: I fear we've been relegated, without benefit of due process, to the coven of the "smug" & "derisive"
I figured out the theme. I entered the rebus-y "two word" solutions. The completed puzzle stared back at me, indifferent to my triumph. Nary a hint of congratulations. I edited the rebus-y cells, eliminating in each the space between the two words. Still nothing. I edited the rebus-y cells AGAIN, removing the descriptive term entirely, against all reason & intuition. Voila? [Left, muttering]
@Helen Wright FlautAs, Helen