Chris

This is easily the hardest Tuesday I've ever played. Naticks all over the place. Lots of obscure proper nouns like ADOLFO, SARA, IMAN, lots of extremely awkwardly phrased words that still don't make complete sense to me like AT A LOW EBB and every theme clue. A lot of really nichey knowledge like GESSO, ONIONSKIN. This took me as long as a Thursday or Friday but without any satisfying lightbulb moments, not a good puzzle at all IMO.

This was not my favorite puzzle today. Way too many proper names and trivia and anyone not a fan of particular movie genres needs to fill spanning clues almost entirely with crossing clues. Then TRANK should have been TRANQ. And a bunch of other clues just didn't make total sense to me after getting them. REV? DOTER? Not the right clues for those answers. And SLEEKEN, really? That feels like something you would try in Spelling Bee after getting Sleek but not really expect it to work. And OGREISH? Just a frustrating puzzle for a Wednesday.

I was not a fan of today's puzzle. All the hyphenated Ms kind of gave me a headache and made it hard to focus on the clues I as trying to read. Also the main spanner of the puzzle was a very specific piece of Harry Potter trivia MISCHIEF MANAGED. Such an odd phrase you can't even really piece it together without almost all crossers, and half the crossers were weak. Weird acronyms like EDF, ICI. Then who the heck has heard of BATH, Maine? Fewer people than Natick, Mass. Getting a headache just looking at the clues combined with the major spanner being a giant Natick requiring extremely specific information that even big fans of the series might not remember. Frustrating puzzle.

I'm not a huge fan of today's puzzle. The theme seemed kind of random. Okay, combining a singing term with some other random word that don't go together in any other context? Why? I guess they vaguely phonetically resemble sayings but not closely enough to be clever. The cluing was also just super off. Besides having so many obscure proper names, the sort that if you don't have specific area knowledge you get entirely with crossing clues and aren't even sure you got them right. ARISTIDE crossed with a _ MINOR clue that could be five different letters. KLEE. IDLI. And some other common noun clues that just felt like reaches. Not a great puzzle, IMO.

I wasn't a fan of today's puzzle. Just so much super obscure trivia. The revealer was in the center with terrible crossings, even after you got it, the theme was such a huge reach and the answers ostensibly had so little to do with the clue that you had to get nearly all the crossings to guess all the theme clues. Natick city today.

Fairly easy for a Wednesday but a fun puzzle. I liked the theme. A little annoyed you had to actually type the letter into the visual squares to get it to trigger the victory cause you can't see the letter.

I'm already seeing other commenters had the same problem I did, bottom left corner. GOHAM and ESME. I've never read a Twilight book, but I still know there is a character Edward Cullen. If you did not read the books, there is no way you could possibly know there is another Cullen named ESME. And then 'GO HAM', that might as well be YASSIFY. Combined with IMSODONE and TOGOCUPS, answers that aren't that niche but are awkward enough that nobody is getting them without most of the crossing clues. And thankfully the jewelry theme that helped me get BRODY by figuring out BROOCH or I wouldn't have gotten that either.

Good puzzle today, on the easy side for a Sunday, more like a big Wednesday. Fun theme but a little obvious. Every time the answer is SNARF I seem to guess SCARF first. One day I'll remember, and that'll be the day the answer is actually SCARF. Good cluing overall.

Good puzzle. First Saturday I've gotten in six weeks. Last square I got was STUPA/PUTTEES cause I haven't heard of either of those and they phonetically work with any vowel.

Designer of this puzzle has a dark sense of humor joking about the threat of WWIII.

This is probably one of the harder Tuesday puzzles in recent memory. Most of the clues were standard Tuesday difficulty but one particular long clue. MISE EN PLACE That is super esoteric for a theme clue on a Tuesday, I got it entirely through crossing clues and still had to look it up after to know what it meant. And the fact it crossed with SERAPE, a foreign language word I've never heard of, SAL, an answer you need to have current young kids to get, and ROTI, another foreign language concept. The rest of the puzzle was pretty normal for a Tuesday but that one area was a huge Natick.

By Monday standards pretty tough. Having the inherently ambiguous EEG in there with a crossing like NEW ERA not everyone has heard of. Then ATHEISM crosssing ASMR which people have never heard of when ATHEIST arguably fits the phrasing better. Just confusing and ambiguous for a Monday.

That was a fun puzzle with a cool theme. I thought it was pretty tough by Tuesday standards. I picked up pretty early that the circled words were synonyms for truth and liked the BENDS THE TRUTH revealer, but a couple of them were still kind of tough to spot. Then the COVER STORY and FAKE NAME with identical clues was nice. The southwest corner in particular I thought was tough. C SPOTS was something I hadn't heard in a while. Then OH HEY felt oddly phrased and SHOUT seemed like a very imprecise answer for the clue to the point where I wasn't sure it was right when I put it in. All crossing OED as an acronym for Oxford English Dictionary which I had to look up after to learn. Then FOAL where I wanted it to be CALF first and OSSA crossed with ETALIA. Most of the puzzle felt like a regular Tuesday but that corner had a few clues I felt like big reaches that made it much harder.

I liked the puzzle, but quite possibly the hardest Monday puzzle I've ever seen. Just to have BATIK, BLINI, and LAPAZ all intersecting each other. And BOERS and SATEEN. Most Mondays I just bulldoze through, today I had like three squares at the end I had to cycle all grammatically reasonable letters.

Most of the puzzle was pretty easy, especially figuring out the theme so early. But there were a handful of clues that took me from solving in under ten minutes to nearly fifteen. ENNEADS crossed with SERE was pure Natick for me, and then BOHO.

Good puzzle. Tough by Monday standards, twice my Monday average. LOEWE and ERRAND BOY crossed with REPAST? What the heck is a REPAST? That corner felt more like a Wednesday or Thursday.

Delightful easy Tuesday puzzle. Fun theme with STARVING ARTISTS. And a lot of clues that are slightly misleading at first but make you smile when you get it. Like "ESPY" when based on the clue you wanted it to be TONY.

Pretty normal Monday overall. The northwest area I found confusing. Since I'd never heard of GQ STYLE magazine, when I had __STYLE I was sure the country was IRAN rather than IRAQ cause something like IN STYLE seemed more likely. And I disagree with BONG for the sound of a gong noise. "Gong" would have made more sense.

Anyone else notice ETSY is an answer in almost every puzzle lately?

HAKA/AKELA is mean for a Tuesday.

Fun puzzle today, though Monday easy. It might be my PR if my Wednesday PR weren't set to a fake time. (Crossword IT how do I fix that?!) Love seeing the AI SLOP answer. The theme answers were also cool. My last square was not remembering it was Chris ISAAK as opposed to ISAAC. A lot of good cluing today. Just really, really easy.

I liked today's puzzle. Difficulty well calibrated for a Tuesday and a lot of clever clues. Fun theme answers like WISEASS and SMART MOUTH. I really wanted a clue to be TIE DYE because I've never heard of DIP DYE, but I was 100% sure about ADELE so I was confused. But also some clever answers like TARGETED AD, HOTEL SAFE, GIF crossed with PDFS, DWARF STAR.

This Tuesday was less direct than you'd usually expect for a Tuesday. Not all that hard, 16 minute solve for me, but had a few vexing corners. For example, I thought 31A initially was LEOTARD rather than UNITARD which made the down clues confusing. And there's some long crosses like ONTHEDL where until you get it, the letters you see next to each other makes you think you got a cross clue wrong.

Expectedly easy Monday puzzle, I enjoyed the theme. Also wanted to call out one clue I like in particular. "Like many bobybuilders, according to BMI" as "OBESE". Cheeky and true.

I thought the puzzle was good overall with good cluing. Stuff like CLASS A MORON, COINCIDE, MANEUVER, NETGAIN, etc. The theme though, for a Thursday? Clues that have nothing to do with the answer except that the three letters in the clue appear somewhere in the answer? Why? I got them based on good crossings but the theme was a nothing today. The tough area of the puzzle was North for me. HOYT and ONO next to each other, both obscure proper nouns. Also crossing GIST which was tough to get because SEDGE is even more obscure.

Fun Monday, good theme for a Monday with the PENCIL SHARPENER and other cranked devices. Slightly harder than usual for a Monday but within normal range. My only "Something's amiss" square was I had WHEW instead of PHEW and took a while to think of PRETEXT.

Just popping in to say I love the KNAVERY answer.

Really punishing puzzle for anyone who doesn't know Wicked songs. I figured out the letter rearrangement theme but pretty much the entire bottom half was Naticky for me. Lots of trivia proper names and a lot of short phrases crossing them which felt like reaches.

Good puzzle. I got STEAL A KISS quickly enough to catch onto the theme early which helped. Lots of hints that were just the right amount of misleading to make it feel great to figure it out. Center north was the toughest part for me. I was so focused on the O in OUTS being the missing O that it took me forever to think of SHUTOUTS. And GUAM/INCA/ACURA/GIS was a compound Natick for me. In addition to confusing myself over MATED because I didn't think of "Beat in chess" as a past tense form.

Overall I thought the cluing was good today but I thought the theme clues were a bit of a reach. Even after getting the revealer I had no idea what it was supposed to mean until I read this column. Northeast corner felt a bit dubious to me. The vocabulary quiz with LANGUOROUS. Then very regionally specific knowledge with CTA and LOON, and a makeup brand clue that most men just won't know. Then TOOTLE which is a word I've never heard of. And with COVENS I'm not sure what the heck witches have to do with 'Casting'. That 3x3 square was a great big Natick for me.

This is a puzzle where I liked the theme but didn't like the filler. I thought having to figure out the across clues had to be read backwards was a rewarding 'Aha', and PUT IN REVERSE and FORWARD THINKING were good revealers. Just finishing out the final clues had a lot of answers I thought were stretches. Especially SW corner. I finally broke into it when I realized the letter after Chi was PSI and not PHI which got me USENET which got me EATS UP. But I thought EATS UP and PIGGED were two of those weird grammatically awkward clues that technically make sense but don't feel right. And I thought SLEPT was a very bad clue for "Wasn't paying attention" and ISLET and CAP were equally awkward. ALT wasn't bad but there were too many other options to help with the crossings (Could have been DAD for example). Then stuff like RIPER when there was no reason in the clue to use a comparative. Just not good filler at all.

Mostly fun puzzle. Tougher than usual for a Tuesday. I enjoyed the clue "Rolled out unannounced" for TPED. Got a bit hung up at the end because I had PLAY AS instead of PLAY AT and had trouble thinking of PANTSED for "Pulled down a pair" even though in retrospect that was a great clue. ADELA Rogers St Johns was a bit Naticky for me. I got the rest of the puzzle in like 9 minutes but that southeast area was tough.

This is by far the hardest Tuesday I've ever seen, and also some really bad cluing. Like okay, some high points like ALL KIDDING ASIDE, BRUISED RIB. But the amount of really obscure "Know it or you don't" knowledge you needed. Types of cigars, obscure animals, spellings of foreign language words with bad crossings, obscure city names, foreign yogurts. HAVANA, COATI, MOTO, PALMAS. Also I always thought of the short morse code symbol as dot, not DIT. NINJA cool answer but I don't associate them with blowguns. Of the many weapons and infiltration techniques associated with ninjas, that is not one of them. A Tuesday as challenging as you expect from a Thursday, but with no satisfaction when you finally figure out the clue.

Much harder puzzle than the rest of the week and Fridays lately, with a lot of really satisfying clues. PINKY SWEARS for "Digital deals for young people". Love those kinds of clues that make you think about them a different way. Southwest area I have some problems with. I still have no idea how POTTER and GEST fit their clues at all. In the same area, EVERS, KATO and ARDOR right next to each other crossing PURAVIDA, none of which I'd ever heard of, basically a huge swath of clues all crossing each other requiring very specific esoteric knowledge. That entire area was one huge Natick.

Good puzzle today. Clever theme and good rebus that wasn't sneaky about being a rebus. Fun solve. I had trouble in the northeast corner because first I had GUESSTIMATE but couldn't make GUESS work with the across clue. Then I had TEE SLOTS and didn't know enough about MENORAHs to realize easily I was wrong.

Really frustrating puzzle today. The main theme of the answers that go in a circle I enjoyed, that was clever. TRADE DISPUTE was the giveaway for me. But so many proper nouns with bad crossings. WEIWEI crossed with OWLET and CORIOLIS. Two very specific pieces of knowledge from very specific areas, then an awkward clue where we're supposed to connect to a specific nocturnal animal. Then PILE which seems like POLE made more sense, crossed with NILE, expecting us to know where a specific plant grows, and also with ELAN which I've never heard of before. Just so many obscure proper nouns/trivia with questionable crossings made the last 10% extremely frustrating.

I liked the symbol clues, those were very well done. A lot of the clues today felt more like obscure vocabulary quiz. HUMDINGERS, NOISOME, ESPIAL, DINS, MOCHI, and they all seemed to cross each other and cross other awkward or proper name trivia clues like GAH, IRENE, EHOW, BERNARDO, ASSES as an answer for "Nincompoops", somehow knowing the name of the city Iowa State is in. Other than the theme clues, I was not a fan of today's puzzle.

Fun puzzle today. It took me longer than usual for a Monday, 11 minutes compared to my usual 6. The MOMBASA/MCI crossing took me a while just because I first had BAWL instead of MEWL. Also the ICBMS/MCI crossing because I had DRAB instead of DRIB. All the other clues I didn't know had pretty easy crossings (Such as ASTI).

Overall I thought it was a fun, well clued puzzle, but even after reading Wordplay I don't get the point of the theme. Because Buries is a homophone of Berries the other clues start with the starts of buries? Huge stretch there. I enjoyed the SALT clue, reminded me of the fun fact that Roman soldiers were paid in salt.

I feel like Monday and Tuesday got swapped this week. Monday was Tuesday difficulty and Tuesday was Monday difficulty. I didn't even register the meaning of WALGREENS until I read Wordplay, but it didn't keep me from solving in under 6 minutes. It helped that I did remember Adenosine Tri Phosphate from Biology.

I liked the main theme, currently have not finished it. I got all the theme clues already but sit at about 85% complete because there's a ton of Naticky proper noun clues in the puzzle. The name of a co-Nobelist, the painter named John, Lenape people from New Jersey, a Paramore hit. Also I don't understand the LOUD OUTS clue. I was thinking LINE OUTS. Even Google doesn't seem to know what LOUD OUTS are besides a podcast.

Good puzzle, a lot of tough areas though faster than average for a Saturday (And I don't get the majority of Saturdays). The east area was the tough area for me. First seeing the Norse tree clue and thinking "How is that not Yggdrasil?" with no idea what kind of tree it was supposed to be. And that in the same square as LEA/AGHA which is a huge Natick for me. Also I was sure for a while Faculty was STAFF but equally sure the crossing clue was DINING so got really confused there. Then I had SACHELS instead of SACHETS and wondered for a while what the hell SPALS were. And had no idea what a CASBAH was so thank God for the Clash putting the word in my brain. But most of the puzzle was a pleasure to solve and got a nice immature giggle seeing SEX TAPE right in the center of the heart.

A little surprised everyone is calling it Monday-Tuesday level. I finished faster than my Thursday average but not anywhere close to Monday-Tuesday speed. More like an easy Wednesday (Especially compared to yesterday that was full of Naticks). Fun puzzle though.

Kind of a weird puzzle for a Tuesday. Most of it was fairly easy. But it had that EL GRECO/GIGI crossing that's a major Natick. Plus it had a lot of answers that seemed designed for the first instinct with the same number of letters to be wrong. Like ETHEL Waters instead of Muddy. MINIPIG instead of Piglets. PITH instead of Rind or Peel. Gave me a lot of confusing moments when the obvious crossings didn't work. I did appreciate LEVIES crossed with LEVEE.

Pretty fun fairly easy Wednesday puzzle. I'm still confused by the theme, even with the 'April Fools' explanation it seems like a reach. I liked the approach to clues in general, to me the best clues are the ones that are a little misleading but make sense when you look at them in a different way. Like "DOG TOY" as the bone that squeaks. I've never heard of a DOWDY to the point when I had 'Something's amiss' I had to google it to make sure it was a real thing. (Turned out I had ROUSE instead of ROUST).

Great puzzle today. I particularly liked "Expert on Cosmos" (MIXOLOGIST) and "Expert on the Cosmos" (ASTRONOMER) right next to each other. A lot of great Aha clues in general. For some reason I thought Jump Around was Cypress Hill so that confused me for a while until I got more of the crossing clues. TRIVIAL for Mickey Mouse, ELECTRODYNAMICS for "Current affairs" when I started out with ELECT and thought it was going to be ELECTION. The last part I got was actually TOTED. I was thinking MOVED then couldn't figure out what HOVEL and MAILORTO meant, I've never heard of that definition of TOTED. Also I had PANOPTICAL for a while instead of PANOPTICON while made that corner tough.

I enjoyed the puzzle today, lots of fun clues. The theme didn't do much for me, knowing the theme didn't help solve them. EDUMACATE cute answer. In general I thought the clues were just indirect enough for the "Aha" when you get them.

I was not a fan of today's puzzle. Most of it was easy, the southwest corner though. Proper nouns, vocabulary words and weak clues. Interesting that two times in a week we get a RAVI Shankar clue. I listen to him every now and again but he's not super well known outside India or very specific kinds of music fans.