bayonetta

I choose to believe I am simply getting better at the NYT crossword and it’s as difficult as it’s always been :)

My first gold star Saturday in a looong time. I honestly expected to come here seeing complaints that it's not difficult enough for a Saturday. I'm glad everyone seemed to really enjoy it too. Maybe I'm just getting better :-)

as a new regular who has never encountered hyphens or rebus...whew. Tough! But I did figure out POLYGRAPH and SPIKE by myself. Also I just assumed that since I knew KYLIE and ELLIE and the words end with LIE then I'm just meant to enter the first 3 letters of the word. And I was very stubborn that 17A must be OILIER so that got me stuck. This was very challenging but reading this article and understanding what's going on, I love this puzzle. So smart.

Can a puzzle be adorable? Because this one is. After an IFFY Sunday that had me feeling a little BLUE, Monday and today's puzzles have me LIT UP.

One of those puzzles that leaves me in awe at its construction. I just love the Pigeon, Hawke or Crowe clue. Not even the presence of both golf and baseball related answers (my kryptonite) made this any less enjoyable for me

I didn't even clock the RE: part of the puzzle so reading this article gave me an even greater appreciation for this puzzle ! I really enjoyed this, it was a nice Sunday for me. The hiphop/r&b references and the French language clues were right up my alley. Usually I'm filled with dread when a puzzle has lots of clues which require knowing the names of any of the actors/public figures, but it didn't hinder me in this one. Appreciate the Kendrick Lamar clue since he's performing at the Super Bowl today! Watching his show will be the second highlight of my day- after completing my NYT puzzles of course.

I would like to BOAST that I found this quite breezy. My favourite clue was 4D 'Baby that's up all night?'. Made me smile.

One of my favourites in recent memory. So clever and well put together 👏🏾 👏🏾

Sunday is my favourite puzzle day and this one reminds me why. Really nice

A Saturday best by a considerable amount. Seems the clues were right up my alley, so this was a breezy solve. 60A 'Solutions that sound like problems' was my favourite clue

I love this puzzle. Funny, playful theme that made me smile :)

TINCT, LAICS, ICESIT, LATENS, OPAH, OPDOC. Lots of words/phrases I’ve never heard of, so much so that I was very surprised when I got the gold star. I thought at least some of them were wrong and I was making up words 😅

I loved this puzzle. Clever, funny, and that 'ohhh!' moment when you get it. As a relatively new player (since August) the rebus used to make me TREMOR but now I'm a bit of an ACE if I do say so myself

Here to comment that ADDY is commonly used for address, I hear it all the time. Just because it may be out of your lexicon, that doesn't make it a bad clue. Anyway, it somehow took me 3:28:18, but the gold star is finally mine. I WIN

Never thought I'd say this, but I wish it was a little more challenging. I've grown accustomed to pain in the form of a complex puzzle that takes me at least an hour on a weekend morning. At any rate, I still enjoyed the puzzle and I'm sure tomorrow will sate my desire to perspire

Friday record for me. DONUTSHOP clue made me giggle. Nice puzzle !

I loved the puzzle but then again I always love the ones I can complete with a gold star. Really though, I think it was a fun theme, and the clues in parentheses really helped, although I do understand the commenters who take issue with the misspellings.

One of those ones where I have no idea what the theme means until I read it on the article. American football, baseball and golf clues always stump me so as a tennis fan I was happy to very eagerly fill in IGA Swiatek. A rare gold star Thursday for me so I'm happy :)

I knew it had to be TAYLORS VERSION so from that point I had the T/V rebus figured out and the rest fell into place. I liked this one.

Maybe MAN U had me in the British spirit because I had DINNER THEATRE for a long time and that had the SE corner all jumbled up. This was a thinker for me, couldn't do it in one sitting and kept coming back to it throughout the day. I liked it, big fan of MANU and MENU intersecting.

I adore this puzzle. Bravo

Very nice. I will never complain about an "easy" Friday, I'm just glad to keep my streak going until Saturday shatters it as usual

I figured out the theme with KLIMT and GOYA - unfortunately haven't heard of MIRO or KLEE - but I still didn't understand how MAKEUP ARTIST made sense for it until I read this article. Gotcha. I liked this one, always appreciate an easier start to the week after pure pain over the weekend :)

This was a cute puzzle, I liked it. And I'll always appreciate a symmetrical grid

Glad to see others are also affronted by the idea of putting kale in a Caesar salad 😅 Nice puzzle, congrats on the debut

I was so sure it had to be RIDESHARE and BOSSFIGHT that I got held up for a while. SLUSHPILE is a new term for me. Also, a tennis clue! Love to see it.

Theme escaped me entirely, had no clue. I couldn't finish the puzzle until I read this article. And it wasn't difficult in an enjoyable way for me, just kind of perplexing since the theme was so difficult to discern. I did like the EPA/FCC clue though, nice way to highlight the power of the '?'

I spend about 50 minutes this morning on it and could not for the life of me figure out the theme, even though I had DOUBLEDIP solved. I came back to it about 9pm my time and took me less than 20 minutes to solve. That happens often, not sure why. Perfect Thursday puzzle, bravo

Nice puzzle, lovely for a Chewsday :)

I really enjoyed this one. Once I figured out ANIMALCROSSING it helped a lot. Smart and fun puzzle.

One of those ones with a lot of references to people I've never heard of. I love the theme though, 111A in particular made me chuckle. C+ ? I'll take it.

Friday record for me. It did seem 'easy' for a Friday but I know better than to complain about that ! Also, I didn't even clock 'wanders' as meaning someone with a wand, but 3 letter word with any aviation reference in the clue and my brain autofills TSA (I also figured wanders might mean someone who wanders around, not that I'm even sure TSA staff wander around the airport terminal)

As someone chronically online, I really appreciated EDGELORD and ATTED. I got all the tricky clues besides BOOBIRDS and SECRETMENU, kicking myself over the latter. Great puzzle.

I didn't understand how WINNIE and KNICKER related to HORSESMOUTH so it was one of those puzzles where I completed it just by knowing the words rather than with the hint. At any rate, I liked the puzzle. The symmetry of the grid is so pleasing

I love this puzzle! It's so impressive and was very fun to solve. A Sunday record for me too

Incredible puzzle, one of my favourites. Wow !

Having TORI and TORO intersect when I didn't know either word had me ending the puzzle by tapping every letter until I got to T and the lovely Congratulations screen and music played. Nice puzzle.

Actually one of my quickest Tuesdays. It was one of those where there was plenty I didn't know, but I knew enough where it didn't matter. It felt satisfying

I didn't and still don't understand what the title means. I'm probably being dense but I have no idea. I'm sure it's very clever since it's Sunday, but without knowing, to me this was just an oddly simple themeless Sunday puzzle with quite a few water/sea related answers. But I'll take the extremely rare weekend gold star

Hasanabi heads rise! Nice puzzle but as others have said, quite easy for a Friday.

For me, it was just ok. Maybe a few too many quote clues. I always forget what the difficulty for the days are except Monday is easy and the weekends usually bring me pain, but I think maybe it was a little simple for a Friday? There hasn't been a rebus for a while, which is never something I thought I'd complain about

I feel like there could have been different clue for DEFINITEARTICLE rather than just 'The'. But the theme helped with filling in ARTICLE and then there wasn't really anything I could think of besides DEFINITE. Quite a few new words for me, including BIBB, TRALA, and BELLLAP.

I love this puzzle. Sunday’s are always my favourite and this is one of my absolute favourites