Geoffrey King
Seattle
GAMMA is somewhat obscure as a magnetic flux density unit ... I had Tesla until I got the 'G' going down and was then certain it was Gauss.
I enjoyed this puzzle. Filled it in pretty quickly but then spent a minute afterward staring at 33D asking myself "What in the world is THE ME PARK" until it dawned on me.
I found this quite difficult for a Thursday but also immensely satisfying to get the trick and enjoyable to solve. A brilliant puzzle -- I could never have constructed this in a million years.
Wow, things were going smoothly until I got stumped in the NW corner and ended up spending 60% of my time there! I tend to prefer puzzles where the difficulty is more uniform throughout but this was still a well-constructed puzzle and an enjoyable (if slightly slow) solve.
I was worried I wouldn't be able to complete this due to my lack of pop music knowledge but everything was ultimately doable from the crosses. Loved "Bumpy ride?".
I knew I was in for a tougher-than-average puzzle when I saw Sam's name, and for the first 17 minutes I could barely fill anything in and worried my long streak was in jeopardy. But eventually it all came together and just had to spend a few minutes at the end finding my typo (sTILE for ZTILE). Fun challenge!
Loved everything about this puzzle, especially the DIALUP clue and the Parks and Rec reference. Actually kind of a slow Tuesday time for me but had a blast anyway. I entered TEAMS for SKYPE and never questioned it until the end.
@Bob T. I noticed. The comments seemed pretty negative (though maybe more toward the technology than the puzzle itself) and I wanted to leave something nice for the constructor saying I enjoyed it. Maybe they'll see this comment.
I absolutely loved this puzzle but didn't think anyone outside my industry read '!' as BANG.
Tough, satisfying puzzle. I had only learned of TALLCHIEF from my trivia league in the past year or two. Haven't seen SCROD on the menu since I lived in New England. Thanks for the shoutout to the Washington HUSKIES! (Okay, okay, maybe some day they'll be a powerhouse.)
Great puzzle! Was scared when I saw Sam's name but managed to finish. I probably shouldn't have started at 1:00 a.m., which led to some funny mistakes like Nate (the statistician) instead of ADAM SILVER.
Enjoyed this one and I was mostly on the same wavelength as the constructor, except in the NW where it took me a while to break through the logjam there.
Loved this puzzle, but now I'll have the ADA TWIST, Scientist TV show theme song stuck in my head all day.
Loved this. A pleasure to solve and got a new Friday personal best. Would've been neato if OCELOTS had been clued as cats in MINECRAFT!
Fun puzzle! I don't watch much TV, so imagine my surprise when CJ CREGG shows up from one of the few series I've actually watched in the past 25 years. I "confidently" filled in APLOMB across the top and then erased it when I decided 6D was draINS, causing myself a bit of a headache in the NW.
I've probably only read the original poem once and it didn't stick with me. But I enjoyed the resulting challenge of trying to fill in the "modern" version without remembering the original.
Fun puzzle. I didn't know MANSE or RILKE so was stuck on the __T for the W.W.E. personality for a long time. I had just resigned myself to running the alphabet for the missing two letters when it suddenly came to me. Very satisfying.
OLD BAY! Folks should do themselves a favor and seek out the limited edition Old Bay Goldfish crackers.
@BamBam I thought the theme was computing, with cache EVICTS, IDEMPOTENT operations and Kara SWISHER.
@LStott It's the only Wordle score I've never seen, so I entered it by process of elimination.
Enjoyed the bit of extra challenge on Monday, and did the puzzle with a BEANIE Baby from my youth on the nightstand next mo me. I wonder if we'll ever see HUNDO clued in its Pokémon GO sense.
Finally finished in well over my average Saturday time, but it was time very enjoyably spent.
Enjoyable, but found it fairly difficult for a Wednesday!
Enjoyable puzzle, but I have to say those Yalies have some odd traditions! Almost a personal best but I couldn't find my d'oh/duh mistake for several minutes.
A little bit extra challenging for a Monday but I loved it. Maybe we didn't need both MOMMY and MAMA (along with NANA?) but I had so much fun with this one it's easy to forgive.
@Ron I thought I was going to lose my long streak to a Wednesday puzzle. First I checked that all the theme entries obeyed the symmetry rule. Then I spent forever in the upper right corner. Then I checked the entire puzzle over twice including rechecking symmetry. Finally on the last pass I saw it had to be ABYSM instead of ABYSs and have no idea how I missed the S symmetry problem several times.
A lot of stuff I was completely unfamiliar with (WALTHER PPK, NOT CRICKET, DOPE SHEETS) but it was a satisfying challenge and never felt like a slog. I loved the intersection of SQUEE and SQUIRCLE. Difficulty: 4.5/5.0 but quite enjoyable.
Monday morning in the PNW pre-coffee ... I was thinking SALMON instead of COD and REDMOND instead of JAPAN even though neither remotely fit.
Enjoyable puzzle -- got a bit slowed down in the SE from not knowing the Glasgow river or "This Is Us" but got unstuck before not too long. Amusing "MacGyver" reference in "Stargate: SG-1" (both starring Richard Dean Anderson): <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Stargate/comments/w9bzqf/otd_25_years_ago_stargate_sg1s_first_macgyver" target="_blank">https://www.reddit.com/r/Stargate/comments/w9bzqf/otd_25_years_ago_stargate_sg1s_first_macgyver</a>/
I'd like to thank my high school Latin teacher for knowing Passeridae via the Catullus poem that begins "Passer, deliciae meae puellae ..."
Fun puzzle! I didn't get a personal best like so many others here but it was way easier than yesterday's. I've been to the National Cryptologic Museum but misremembered its location as Laurel, Md. I thought Annapolis Junction would be closer to Annapolis and put USN.
On the first pass all I could fill in was ALTA. After that verrry slow start I was relieved to finish in "only" 14 minutes over my average time. I enjoyed this one but am ashamed to admit (as a Seahawks fan) how long it took me to come up with GENO SMITH!
Loved this one. I'm not sure I would've thought to scrutinize the clues for something funny going on instead of the answers if not for yesterday's funny business.
Love any puzzle with a G&S reference.
@john ezra In my experience, more divas are found over in the violin section than the violas.
@Michael Every caching algorithm I've encountered talks about its eviction strategy?
@Gold At least this time they had the decency to give us seven letters. Last time it was five and I tried filling in TEAMS but the correct answer was SKYPE.
Fun puzzle. I filled in DIEs (nominative case) instead of DIEM (accusative) without hesitation and without reading the cross then it took several minutes to spot my error. Either answer agrees with the clue since "day" is the same in either case in English -- I just need to slow down!
@Michele Merriam Webster not only lists "panini" as a valid English singular, but lists "paninis" as the plural.
@David Impressed you can type that fast on a phone keyboard! I got a personal best today too but can only do these speedily on a real keyboard.
@v As an American, yes, the last vowel is pronounced differently, but it's close enough to be amusing.
Any puzzle with an Orioles reference is an automatic A+ in my book.
Thanks for the shoutout to THE O'S, currently leading the Yanks by percentage points.
Enjoyable puzzle. Haven't thought about inverse trig functions in a while but it was fun to enter ARC immediately and come back for the last three letters later.
I enjoyed this one, and now realize that when I recently saw "meeple" in board game rules they weren't just making up a silly-sounding word.
Enjoyed this puzzle but had the most minor of quibbles: Even in the US where we sometimes refer to the sport as "crew" instead of "rowing," I've never heard the crew referred to as a "CREW TEAM."
@Grant I saw Interstellar on 70mm film when it came out, but they've since converted that IMAX theatre to digital and I'm a bit sad. Also nostalgic for the elementary school days when they'd break out the film projector. I can still hear the sound of it.
@HEK I've seen it in the puzzle a number of times and it still manages to flummox me.
@Bill I loved it. Princess IDA was an instant get for me and then when I got to 5D my brain parsed the clue as "1972 Gilbert and Sullivan ..." and I was momentarily flummoxed.
@Andrzej @Katie When I was young, we had no way to look up anything video game-related. It was a godsend when I got a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine. Nowadays I have very limited free time and unapologetically look up hints when I get stuck in a video game for any great length of time.