Amanda

That was fun! I really like when each theme answer plays out differently. It keeps things from becoming too easy once you figure out the trick. Took me longer than I’d like to admit to get the NOQUARTER/PERCENT pair, but now I think it’s genius.

I normally don’t use a comment to whine about other commenters, but the number of people who think this was a bad puzzle because “using a rebus makes more sense” is just baffling to me. The revealer is literally to color “INSIDE the lines. How would using a rebus next to it be inside the lines? And how would that make the down answers make any sense? I myself have been stymied by not understanding how they wanted me to enter a rebus, but this one just doesn’t seem to be the hill to die on….. INSIDE the lines…. Sorry for the negativity! I thought the puzzle was good, although it still took me awhile even after getting the theme. Fun though! Agree they should at least put a “make sure overlay is on” warning for people who don’t know theirs may be off.

Am I the only person who thought today’s puzzle was hard? Man, I could not get anything going on the whole west side. BOFFO, BAS (I kept trying to make “tax-relief” fit but knew it was unlikely with the placement of the X), OCULU, FORA, OLMEC, and multiple authors I wasn’t familiar with… I powered through and kept the streak, but this one tested the bounds of my internal rules for being considered “not looking something up”….

Can someone please explain why the clue for ECONOMY was in quotations? I.e. “Coach”. I usually think of quotations for answer that are spoken or somehow colloquial. This seems like a simple synonym.

I remember a few years back when I first learned about rebuses and thought “but that’s not fair!” Then I learned about out-of-bounds grids and prayed to the crossword gods I never came across one. But it happened, I figured out what was going on, worked my way through it, and survived! I thought it was well done, challenging, and a good way to mix it up! Nicely done. And I feel like every time I check the comments, half the time it’s people complaining about how the puzzle was too easy and bemoaning the “dumbening” of America, and the other half its people complaining about how it was so hard it was unfair. Sure hope some of those commenters aren’t the same people!