Seth

What in the world was that? Not sure where to begin. Wrong difficulty level. Impenetrable theme. Vague clueing. Worst one in a while.

As someone who is usually lukewarm on Thursday shenanigans, let me say this puzzle was an absolute pleasure. What a treat!

Kinda fun. But plum job crossed by sal (soda)? What?

Big ZZ Top fan here, so I appreciated the tribute. But Pardo crossed by Nazca and AT BAR? Really?

Now THIS is what I’m talking about! Wonderful and challenging Friday. 10/10.

Good one. Droplet for driblet had me running in circles for a minute.

Here to pick nits regarding today’s mini. A large drum played by hand is a conga. A bongo is a small drum played by hand. The similar spellings make this a pretty bad thing to miss in a crossword. It’s a common confusion, but come on. Just look these things up before publishing.

Well, like many others, I leaned how to spell Marcia today. All in all, an enjoyable Thursday sans rebus!

Spending most of an hour solving a difficult NYT Crossword on Saturday is one of the highlights of my week. Who decided this was a Saturday puzzle and not a Wednesday puzzle? An 11 minute solve on a Saturday is not what I’m after….

This was my favorite Friday puzzle in recent memory! Wonderfully clued and constructed!

A fun puzzle, but a little easy for a Saturday. PR for me at 9:38, which puts it in Tuesday range, average wise.

Well, now that the app is crashing over and over, the NYT has stopped nagging me every day to leave them a review in the App Store. Weird.

Haka, Akela, Syms, Horae? Really? On a Tuesday?

Anyhoo, hethey, foxy, exult WOOF. This may be the first time I’ve been forced into auto check on a Tuesday.

Ugh. This was downright painful. And not in a good way! Too much obscure fill and bad clueing.

Having a theme this cute on a Monday was a treat!

Here I am again asking for Fridays (and Saturdays) to be more difficult. This was a fine puzzle and all, but it felt like a Wednesday.

App crashed, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying this delightful puzzle!

Really enjoyed this puzzle. Felt like the right amount of stumpers for a Friday. Cheers!!

A shade under nine minutes for a Friday? This just wasn’t the difficulty level that I think most of us expect from a Friday. It’s usually a pleasure to spend most of an hour sorting out a Friday. It was a fun puzzle, and all (Cheers, Abigail!). It just belongs on a Tuesday.

Got through it easily enough, but if you’re going to go to all the trouble to put this type of theme together, why leave out the yellow light?

Isn’t it kinda strange to have the same word in two different answers? Especially when one of them crosses a proper noun I’ve never heard of and seems to originate in another language?

Seems like I may be in the minority, but I really enjoyed this one. Was pretty much right on my average time for a Tuesday. Cheers!