Judy

Loved this rebus! I wish there was a way to enter the phi symbol on my device, but the physical play on the letter and how it fit the clues was soooo good. Thank you!

That was fun! It also made me feel old, because I actually know the slang and trivia. Presumably, someone my age is authoring puzzles now! (I tried to Google James but couldn’t find a bio to confirm). The iCarly reference earlier this week was in that camp too. It’s amazing how quickly pop culture changes. I’m 5 hours in to that 1940s puzzle they released, and my next plan is to seek help at a retirement home…. The slightly uncommon terms - Derma, gene set - didn’t bother me. Yes it’s atypical. But isn’t that true of much crosswordese? We’re all about the obscure and old fashioned :)

How many days this week has “ELITE” been an answer? Feels more like a Wednesday puzzle

Quick and cute fill. Love the theme! (is it absurd to say that we should have switched Monday and Tuesday this week? They are both easy early week puzzles, but Monday had that proper noun cross 😅) STP up again just a few days later 😂 Hopefully I remember it forever now. Same with how to spell UEY

Another easy one. Perhaps a generational thing? Thank you Times Rita for explaining where I can see the constructor pictures. I loved all the Qs! And Holy Smokes was cute. After reading “who’s asked ‘do you want to build a snowman’” three times, I decided it’s ambiguous. It could be “who has asked” or “who is asked” so I just filled the A on the bottom and kept going. Overall, quick and fun ending to a quick week!

Lovely Monday! Like others, TIL Shiso. I searched up some images, seems vaguely like mint. It’s crazy to me that there are adults out there who have never heard of ”be kind rewind.” I continue to struggle with the 1945 puzzle (almost 6 hours…) and I like to think that this is why. Maybe a Chinese Buffalo nut was slang for a costume party or something. The app forced me to update - how do you see recent puzzles now? Have a great week everyone ❤️

Fun theme! The app was a little glitchy for me - usually it highlights the associated clues when listed in a revealer - this time I had to count 😂

Lovely! Laughing all the way ❤️

Second Friday in a row that was way too easy. Is it a generational thing? More trivia from my era? This is Tuesday/Wednesday cluing in my opinion.

My iPad no longer supports the games app, so I tried the online portal instead. It’s not terrible. But the timer is way off in terms of knowing when you get a phone call or close the app. LOVE LOVE LOVE the theme today. Not immediately obvious and greatly rewarding

I try to avoid writing comments that boil down to “this was too easy” but boy, this was *absolutely egregious*. It would have been a nice Tuesday or Wednesday. I don’t understand how this happened. NYT - if you want puzzles to be more accessible, just publish two sets of clues. The sudoku and pips easy/medium/hard filters have something for everyone. But please don’t lower the bar this much. Do you really want to be the new USA Today puzzle?Were you going for a V Day break? Favorite clues: Takes Badly, short rows Last square: The A in Agha/Lea I spent more time writing this comment (and rewriting it with different words after it got blocked) than I did on the puzzle. Cute grid shape.

I quite enjoyed this one! I have nothing of note to say, just jumping in to mention that this was pleasant in case the constructor is reading these comments. Happy Tuesday everyone

Love it! Fun theme, great Qs, lots of lines with multiple possibilities, Can someone explain misdo? It wasn’t in my dictionary. Is it just miss do? ❤️❤️❤️

Fun and slightly tricky! Perfect Friday. TIL Jink. How does one use a fan during tai chi? Favorite answers: SinkorSwin (I thought for sure it would be single…something), fake plants, tends Last square entered: The F in Fir/Fan. So much time spent on oak/elm/ash - is there a reason we have so many 3 letter tree names in English??

Lol, a ‘G’ row. Easy clues mostly. I think I like the theme, very dad joke ❤️

So close to a new PR. I had mATEbATCH, with Atta Boy and mash. I even tried HATEbATCH. Spent ages on it. New term for me. Incogmeato is hilarious and I hope they reference this puzzle in a future ad! I had Beyond Meat in my first pass. Second easy Saturday in a row, but at least there weren’t any absurd proper nouns. Lovely grid. :)

On my app, no blue squares. I did find them ok, just made it trickier. Still well under my average Sunday. For anyone still solving - entering the letter three times as a rebus does NOT work.

I wish I knew what my PR was before today, because I think I shaved 10 minutes off of it. I never would have imagined a 12 minute Friday. And it could have been 10 - I was stuck for a while on ‘In HD’…probably partly from the pressure I was feeling as the seconds ticked by. I got too excited about having 1 square left at less than 10 minutes and totally fell apart. This is why I’m a terrible golfer.

Fun! I loved the theme. I realized I know nothing about mustaches when, after spending a few seconds trying to remember the name of the indentation between your nose and upper lip, then giving up to try the crosses - the answer turned out to be chin 😂😂😂

Fun and on the quick side. Lots of AHA moments. Still mooing, fives, shake on, solar. Why is Agasi so much more famous than Sampras? Had never heard of him - I was thinking tech brand 😂 Perhaps “still mooing” is regional? My dad has said it since I was a kid. Did anyone know Krewes before today? Where had you heard of it?

Lots of fun clues. I love the Emily Dickinson quote ❤️ The aha moment on diddly squat was great Going to ask my friend Noam if he’s ever been compared to a radio before I didn’t understand bad singer for RAT until I read the comments - I was thinking it would be something to do with burning or with making unpleasant noises. Which led to many brainstorming discussions like “do alley cats sing” and “have bats been know to set fires” 😂

Loved it! Nepotism and Proletariat had such epic clues. What is a label union? A union label? I didn’t know any of the trivia, but was able to figure them based on crosses. Really fun puzzle

Too easy for Thursday, but a fun theme. My favorite clue was “go for the gold” Happy new year everyone!

Almost my Saturday best, just missed it. Overall wayyyyy too easy for a Saturday. Something I liked about it: the clue for Rice Cooker! I thought they just had a timer. Knowing that they actually monitor the rice in some way, I might just buy one :)

Loved this one! Very clever Thursday. Great aha moment. I was pretty sure Marie Curie had a very Polish middle name and that her husband was Piere. So I was trying to think of magazines with a P name for a long time. Luckily had an epiphany with Sol eventually. What is the deal with rod?

Was anyone else stuck with MIDSTREAk at the end? The SMITS/MIDI cross was an unknown to me, so I assumed that was wrong while MIDSTREAk seemed reasonable.

Guys, if you keep commenting that you liked that the puzzle was “gentle” they’re going to make all the puzzles easier…with LLMs reading the comments and market research, we’re doomed to turn NYT into USA Today. (Which is a great source for breezy crosswords if you’re looking)

Way too easy for a Sunday. Now what am I supposed to do today? =( I loved the fun theme clues, for a Wednesday. The clues for FLEA and GAVEL were awesome!

What a great theme! Buy a vowel and the associated clues.

Love it! Cute puzzle and cute theme. To @Adrian from Canada who asked me a question on Monday - you can see all the old puzzles in the Time Machine as images in their original context - usually towards the back of the very long Sunday paper. Just take a screenshot and print it out. I’ve been finding them very very difficult.

What a fun theme! TIL NOODGE, which was not in my dictionary. I’ve also never heard of “get up steam”, usually I see pick up steam or maybe build up steam. 16A shocked me - I didn’t think the editors would go there. Excited to learn more about this New York Islander dynasty - I’m going to guess that they’re a shop or a sports team? Do they still exist? Thanks Joe for the lovely theme 💕

A bit easy for a Saturday- I continue in my “it’s generational” horse though. The closer you are in age to the constructor, the easier. I feel this could be easily proven in a study. Ochs/pluth would have been a natick for me, but I’ve seen ochs in other puzzles. No idea who he is, but I know the shape of his name, Nice how all the long rows (what do you call the ones that go edge to edge again?) came together. Favorite answer: renew for roll over. Thought it would be a farming reference for a while. Last square: the Y in Trey. I had guessed S there and forgot to overwrite it when I realized security blanket.

Not remotely Thursday difficulty. I wonder if NYT uses AI to mine our comments and decide whether to make puzzles easier or harder. And as such, whether bot brigades try to influence the comments here the way they do on news stories. I’m seeing more positive comments than usual about simple puzzles… Anyway, should have been a Wednesday at most. I like the Pan clue, and the fact that “the magic dragon” would also have fit in the row. Made me smile. But just to make sure any would-be scraper flags my comment sentiment as negative…harder puzzles on Thursdays please (or I will be sad and leave more sad and angry and sad comments) ❤️

Another almost PB, and I’m sad not happy about it. I like the tricky ones. As a wise commenter said yesterday, we spend far too much time thinking about the date rating of a puzzle 😭😭 I need to touch grass.