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Didn’t love this one. The Frost rewrite wasn’t obvious to me (and still isn’t after the solve), so I had to solve it via the very ambiguously clued crosses. Lots running through the alphabet to brute force many of the answers. Never heard of YUNG Gravy, but that’s on me apparently. Spotify says he has 5.3M monthly listeners. I’m going back to my rocking chair.
Please pass on to Editor Joel Fagliano to stop with the puzzle gimmicks that aren’t universally supported by the app. Like the “combo lock” puzzle the other day: It’s awful. Not every cute idea for a puzzle should make it to publication if the app can’t clearly handle it. Just…no.
A DEBUGGER is a program used to identify and diagnose errors, a programmer does the actually fixing. In my Philly experience cheesesteaks are usually ordered wit or witout wiz. So I kept trying to make WHIZZ work, instead of ONION. Sigh.
Clever theme, poorly executed because of the limitations of the app. What I don’t enjoy about puzzles like this is that when I complete the grid and it has the inevitable error somewhere, I don’t know if the issue is a typo or that I didn’t execute the theme correctly. In the case of today, I thought, “Oh I actually need to spin the dials to the alternative answers.” So l dutifully changed every square. No love. So I combed the rest of the grid for errors, found and fixed them. Still no love. So I then reverted every single theme square back to the original solve. Finally, my Gold Star. But I had to do all that work to find out there’s essentially no theme that I need to concern myself with.
I was told there wasn’t supposed to be any math on this test?
Echoing what others have said here, my main issue with this puzzle is that the theme is not a “modern reimagining” of Frost. There’s nothing modern about the language in the answers. Horse transportation and “GIDDYUP” aren’t modern. I kept trying suss out some legitimately modern language from the blank spaces when there was none. No “LOL”, no “bestie”. Something like “minimalist reimagining” or “basic reimagining” (in actual modern slang) might have clued for a less frustrating solve.
BOOK ON CD? Was this puzzle written in 1995? I smiled at NOT CRICKET because I learned the expression from the English rapper Professor Elemental. You never know what’s going to be useful…
I like a pun as much as the next guy, but these needed more clearly clued crosses since the themed wordplay was really obscure. Cute when you actually got them, but I didn’t get a single one of the themers cold.
@Carol Yes! That’s exactly why I don’t like this type of puzzle theme too.
@A Ah, I like the cut of you jib! “you're rap's Piers Morgan…”
Noteworthy that the 10/24 Spelling Bee accepted a five letter word for a specific SEXTOY. Coincidence? I think not. PS. I didn’t say the name of the SEXTOY not because I’m a prude, but I don’t think it would survive comment section moderation. PPS. Not to get too political, but I can’t stop thinking about Florida Rep Matt Gaetz in the context of this puzzle.
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