Steven
Scion
29
Comments
-0.173
Avg Sentiment
3
Positive
18
Neutral
8
Negative
Scion
As someone who is tech savvy and can read sheet music, E# was just a terrible clue.
Be sure to drink your Ovaltine
@SP I'd reckon the number of people who have historically tried LSD because of the peer pressure of the NYT is precisely zero. Now the much more lethal, statistically, STEIN of bier and related substances, appears in various forms usually several times per week.
I miss when the puzzle editor knew what he was doing. Please make a change NYT, surely there's someone in the world who can honor the legacy of this puzzle
Enjoyed the theme and the several international clues today. May have been quick but sometimes it's nice to have a Thursday be a little less punishing.
@Jeremy big shoes to fill for sure, and I agree this Tuesday felt unbalanced. Words that are technically words but nobody really uses can occasionally be fun as one-offs. But... Lusaka is a Jeopardy question, it's straight trivia and gums up the works. Now if only I had my 1950s hangover remedy, an ice bag ..
@Eric Hougland presumably most people under the age of 50 didn't watch an annual broadcast complete with the cast . VHS, even taped off TV, with fast forward, DVD, and streaming. I think it being a Natick for the majority of the population is probably a fair comment.
POCKET HARD DRIVE being like a flash drive? Or a floppy? Or a portable/external hard drive? Anyone calling something a pocket hard drive may be a DODO in the obsolete meaning of the word. Which also doesn't usually mean obsolete without "going the way of"
Dear editors: Crossing a Turkish noun with an obscure surname (and then three more fairly obscure surnames for many)... was it worth it for the long crosses?
@Barry Ancona you responded to the wrong person. However. Two relatively obscure proper nouns that are more trivia than puzzle intersecting is what a lot of us mean by Natick. I'm happy that you knew the trivial pursuit answers, doesn't mean it was great design.
@Esther Lee they don't... the answers in the comments all speculate that maybe it's short order cook lingo but basically nobody with actual eyewitness examples.
Too many non-english proper nouns. This felt more like Jeopardy. And not a good episode.
Intersecting a now poorly known collectable intersecting a substitution clue and Schrodinger's DWI/DUI and something which would not be described by anyone as work with an exclamation point (an erg is a fly standing up, literally). I get Thursdays have some built-in challenges for fun but hope the editing team regroups on its strategy in the near future.
@Josh telling people not to complain about bad clues in the comments section is silly... it's how comment sections are used oer the internet
If you're planning not to have an ANO after December, I have some bad news for you. N and ñ are two entirely different letters. In this case the author meant to say "year" and instead referred to the part of the body where all food eventually leaves...
If I count correctly, we have one name intersect with 3 others, and two side-by-side names including one next to a less common French word, making for a 3 letter gap to get the cross. And at least 2 more names by themselves. I know tech is on strike but has anyone checked on the editors?
@Kevin T Sugar (we're going down) makes a lot of music critic lists as a seminal emo song. If a single tune is being called pop, punk, alternative, and rock, there's a good chance it will be included under the emo or emo pop descriptor as well. Fallout Boy was earlier emo, contemporary with Dashboard, so naturally their roots were earlier than that.
@Justin precisely, like this here's my pocket wallet. And my pocket keys. My pocket gum. Did the crossword today on my pocket iPhone!
OCD is famously treated with Exposure Response Prevention (ERP), often just called Exposure Therapy. Many of us are more familiar with ERP for phobias. Think of a person with arachnophobia, they might first talk about spiders, then look at photos, then see preserved specimens, then be in the room with a live spider in a terrarium. The body gets used to the hyper-arousal and habituates. For some OCD cliches, think of not hand washing as frequently, or putting up with distress after a handshake without using hand sanitizer. The APA holds this as the gold standard treatment for OCD. Not CBT. Your brain unlearning the fight/flight response through repeated exposures is the most effective treatment and this an intentional triggered state of hyper-arousal. If you or someone you know is diagnosed with OCD, don't look for a CBT therapist (the most commonly advertised, and useful for many disorders thus the starting point for many therapists). Look for someone who advertises a knowledge of ERP.
@Redwoodtree is there a record for puzzle with most proper nouns? It's like a game of trivial pursuit
@Barry Ancona the strike is over, huzzah. Glad you liked it. I think many of us have been dissatisfied with the ability of the new editing team to keep up with crosswords that are solvable without extensive knowledge of trivia. This one just seemed to be even more notable than others. A 3-column cross of French and proper nouns isn't a hard puzzle, it's just a binary of you know it or you don't, and many of us prefer the puzzle solve more than googling names. How about this: at what percent of proper noun answers is the puzzle no longer enjoyable for you? Over 10%? What about 20+%, as today? 40%? Is there a number where the trivia makes the puzzle an impossible solve for even many experienced puzzlers without Google? Is Trivial Pursuit a puzzle?
@Barry Ancona has never met a puzzle he didn't like or a dissatisfied player he wasn't ready to chastise. Thanks for playing defense for the editorial team, they need all the volunteer help they can get.
@Mean Old Lady if you don't know what a mental health disorder is, it's best to avoid using it as a generic adjective. It takes away from understanding a legitimate diagnosis that many people struggle with. Budgeting time is not a diagnostic criteria for OCD. Having a day-planner goes back at the very least decades.
@Steven M. thanks Steve, not asking for the definition which I already researched, of about the most miniscule amount of work one can see, and recognized as such in many past puzzles. Just here to share feedback with the new editing team which has shown a noticable dip in puzzle quality, and hope they can brainstorm how to get back on track. Feel free to Google more things for other people by this was a comment to he editing team, as evidence by "...hope the editing team..."
@David I believe her work in pacifism may be more relevant at this present juncture. Anything preventing ongoing needless deaths of innocents, for example
@Barry Ancona coming to the rescue for the editors again. While the poster makes a good point that lumping the majority of the world into one box may not be good practice. "American dish with potatoes" could solve to POUTINE or American Dish with rice is ARROZCONPOLLO. Because Canada and all of North and South America are included.
It's where I learned to be hmophobic and biased against the French. Loved the candy filled eggs too.
@Niall some people rack up super speedy times and I'm convinced see the grid like neo sees the matrix, but I think there are just as many of us who take a lot longer, work the puzzles differently, multitask, or just have lucky and unlucky days on what we know. I was pretty close to your time today and have been doing the crossword for years.
@Barry Ancona please consider people may complete the crossword at different times and it is not reasonable to expect that someone will read over 400 comments first to see if theirs is fully original.
All 29 comments loaded