Denim Dan

The theme was completely lost on me. But that's my fault, not the constructor's. However, I found the fill to be clunky and too name-based. This one wasn't for me.

Great theme with very clever clues. For me, this was the perfect difficulty for a Wednesday, and I came in just on my average time. 10/10 puzzle. Well done to the constructor.

Too many names. And Names should NOT cross with names.

BOOTYCALLS is one of the best clued answers I've seen in a while

I am always impressed by puzzles with theme answers that include two-word phrases wherein the former and the latter words are all related, as in this puzzle. A nice theme, with good theme answers, and very nice fill. For me, this was a 10/10 Monday puzzle.

This was pretty good. Except for the crossing of names EVIE and VIEIRA (always a no-no for me), I found this to be a nice, breezy puzzle.

Very nice. I appreciate clever use of black squares. And in this puzzle the use of the black squares was nicely tied together with the theme. Great Thursday puzzle.

Way too easy for aThursday. But the theme was interesting

Some nice clues in this puzzle. Besides, I will like any puzzle that has FESTIVUS in it.

Not a bad Tuesday. Took me a while to understand the theme clue, despite there being no problem with it, maybe because I couldn't parse the EW part of the first theme answer. Slightly harder for a Tuesday for me, as I came in a bit slower than my average. But overall I think this had good fill and was quite enjoyable.

This was far too easy for a Friday. I liked the fill and some of the clueing, but the lack of difficulty left me very unfulfilled, and rather disappointed. After an easy Thursday yesterday, I hope tomorrow's puzzle is more challenging, and worthy of a Saturday.

Nice, punny theme. Good fill. All-around good Monday puzzle.

7 down - best clue in a while.

I liked this for a Wednesday. I finished at about 2/3 my average, so it was slightly easier for me. For any new solvers that might not be aware, a hyphen/dash as a clue usually indicates that the answer is a continuation of another answer. Usually it is horizontally on the same row, but today it was vertically, running on from the horizontal, which is a nice difference.

Too easy. Weak/obtuse theme. Average clueing. Sorry, not a fan.

Very tough Friday. I liked it a lot. No Naticks and there was some nice clueing. Very good.

Nice puzzle with some nice clues. Well done to the constructors.

Not bad at all. I'm always impressed with themes whose answers find linguistic relationships with pairs of words. Clever theme and good fill.

A clever theme with many layers, and some nice clues. Not the hardest of Thursdays, but just hard enough to me worthy of the daily slot. I wasn't a fan of OMIGOSH, but that's a personal gripe. Overall, pretty fun.

Nice theme and good fill, again. But this was far too easy for a Thursday. It was more like a Tuesday level of difficulty. The editors need to do better at, well, editing.

This was not a novel theme, and it was much too easy for a Thursday puzzle. A disappointing 2/10 for me.

Tough but good. Solid Friday puzzle. Well done to the constructor.

Great Friday puzzle with its clueing and difficulty.

Nice puzzle. Very solid fill with no names or obscure trivia. The SW was tough for me because I entered PLEB for PEON, but everything else was smooth. My only gripes were its lower difficulty and high number of black squares. 8/10.

Nice puzzle, but too easy for a Friday. The clues for answers SOBSTORY and BOOTYCALLS were great.

As much as I like a Thursday puzzle that plays with the grid, this one felt odd, and forced to me, so I wasn't a fan. Also there were a few awkward crosses of clues. Overall, a strange theme with simple fill.

Very challenging for me (it took me 50% longer than usual), but never unfair. Slowing me down were having ROTE instead of BORE in the SW, and confusing entomology with etymology and having INSECTS instead of ORIGINS in the NE. Oops.

I really hate US brands/products in crosswords. It makes it very difficult for non-US solvers (KCUP, BRITA). Also, STEWMEAT? The rest of the puzzle was fine. But consider this solver's gears grinded.

WAY too many black squares IMHO. And as much as I like a rebus, this one fell flat for me.

As the constructor said, this is not a new theme. but it was a new take and a good puzzle nonetheless.

Tough puzzle. IMHO, names shouldn't cross with names, on principal, but they weren't hard to discern here. The clueing was fine, but nothing standout for me. 7.5/10

Not bad. Nice clue for XAXES. I haven't seen it before, any idea if it is a novel clueing?

I don't mind the fill, and some clues were nice. But I think the rebus (I am a big fan of rebus luzzles) was far too easy to spot, and the overall difficulty level was far too low. I finished this at less than 40% of my Thursday average. I think the editors could have done a better job with this one.

Same. I was completely thrown off after I attempted to start with ENG for the "Bridge Expert" clue (engineer). And thrown off still after I tried changing it to ENT (ear nose throat). Not knowing FISHEYES and ETONIC didn't help, either.

I didn't fully get the theme until it was complete, but it was cute and had a nice animation at the end. Merry Christmas to all

A very disappointing week, in terms of difficulty. Also, I have said this before, but OCTOPI infuriates me. Maybe add a "(var.)" at the end of the clue to placate the sticklers like me, who, believe that the accepted plurals of 'octopus' are 'octopuses', or the less common (but more correct) 'octopodes'. OCTOPI is plain incorrect, and is always given as the second, or sometimes third, choice for the plural in dictionaries. 🙂

This was another puzzle that did not pose a challenge worthy of a Friday. The difficulty has dropped off considerably recently. Very disappointing.

Far too easy for a Saturday. BEANO and EBT crossing was unreasonable for a non-American.

Good thing the fill was easy, because I didn't get the theme at all

I don't mind rebuses at all, and this one was fine for a Wednesday. This took 65% of my average time, so my only minor gripe would be to change some of the cluing to make it slightly more challenging. But overall, not a bad Wednesday puzzle.