Joe V
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Never been a big crossword solver and relatively new to the NYT puzzle. My average for a Wednesday puzzle is about 44 minutes. Today, with the rebus, a straight-up 16 minutes. This was a fun one. Look forward to dropping all my averages.
Learned that puzzle titles ARE important. NE corner had me thinking I was dealing with a rebus puzzle for a bit. Noticed the title about 75% in, and everything clicked into place. Fun Sunday.
At 25:15, a Sunday PB by a significant margin. I blanked for a bit on 1A, which I used to be a huge fan of, but 91A popped right into my head with no letters (the length was a giveaway). A very fun Sunday puzzle.
The foreign elements stymied me for a bit today. BANC, L'ORANGE, and an introduction to "rathskeller". I was able to complete the puzzle, however, and then went to the Goog and educated myself.
AdHoc crossing with Hamm put me on the Rebus track. Tangent: the last NBA quadruple-double was achieved by David Robinson on Feb 17, 1994, 31 years ago. I was at that game.
@Michael I was blanking on his name for some reason. Remembered his brother being "Super Dave" Osborne, and their real last name being Einstein. Took a while for AB to finally click in. Strange.
@Chris Lang The "difficulty" of the Sunday puzzle is the size. In comparison to the rest of the week, it's generally compared to a Thursday puzzle, more or less. Any day of the week can be easy or hard depending on your relation to the clues. Enjoy your solve.
@Andrew That's how i solved it and it wouldn't take. Checked all my spellings three times before the hyphens struck me.
All the blank clues certainly seemed intimidating. As soon as I was able to fill in the theme answer, however, the puzzle filled in quickly. Roughly 30% of my average Thursday time for this puzzle. The only thing that could have slowed me down would have been more obscure clues/answers for the associated blanks. A very fun puzzle for me.
Slightly longer than average to finish. My only "complaint" is BADKITTY. What? Even though INOT worked, it took me about 10 minutes after I was done to get the hockey reference. First guess was INOP (out of service/on ice) for me. Enjoyed it overall, though.
Best part of NYT is refreshing myself to different definitions. STAFF: personnel, rod, and the one that I, as a musician, am kicking myself for not immediately realizing - musical. Good Friday puzzle.
My sticking points are usually proper names in categories/genres/locations I'm not familiar with, and some of the word play used for clues. MOSQUITOES fit in 1A (+7D) until I realized the clue wasn't plural. Proud that I immediately got 23D and 34A. Ultimately, the NW corner required some "research" but I went far enough alone into this Saturday to be happy about it.
@Jane Wheelaghan The "first run" of Moog synths used by Yes, the Doors, etc. were produced from 1965 to 1981. "Recent history" is getting further away amazingly fast.
My first thought of "dogwalker" had me wondering if we were getting a Friday rebus. Not a huge fan of proper name answers but it's one way of learning new things, so... The puzzle also brought to mind a new favorite quote: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy".
@Paul Awards for 2020 movies are presented in 2021. Could use a little more clarity when it comes to the Oscars.
The only reason I tried HOLE as a rebus at first was because the clues for all the HOLE answers used the words "in a". So, P"hole"kergame for example works as the holecards would be found IN A pokergame. Also works with all the other instances.
@KadyRN The "adam" palindrome was the first i thought of, as well.
@PaganPicnic I was surprised PeeWee didn't fit. I got the quadruple-double answer but, for some reason, didn't consider Rebus until Adhoc and Hamm.
Is Monday's puzzle showing as not complete for anyone else? It's interrupting a streak. Is it a glitch that will get resolved?
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