Pat-a-pon

@Pamela I rebuse to solve them!

@jp inframan JP, I'm having difficulties making out your connection between AI and today's crossword. I find riffle shuffling quite satisfying to watch and do, though I will admit I'm not very good at it, unlike AI, which I find deeply unsatisfying.

@Pat-a-pon I'm also hugely disappointed by 16A and 73A both being GOOFOFFS--I don't think I've ever solved a NYT puzzle with two identical answers to two identical hints. The fact that it wasn't revealed in Wordplay is also strange, as all 5 other theme clues are answered there. Huh. 69D is also an obscurity that left me hunting for a while; I was more than sure Bill's partner was the co-titular TED. "Bill and Coo" is a 1948 film that doesn't seem all that well known or popular, at least judging by the brevity of the Wikipedia stub and IMDb's 5.6/10 rating. All's well that ends well, I suppose, but there have been better days than this. Namely, the two puzzles directly preceding Wednesday were fabulous!

@K Call me a nonsense kid, then, because the online crapola and juvenilia is right up my alley. No clue about any of these sports (Bears belong in forests, not in NFC, which, to my knowledge, is the tech behind Apple Pay), and I'm sorry we weren't all alive and watching when Queen Noor took the throne.

@lucky13 a lot of it comes down to whether or not you can afford to spend entire days in training. Most of us with a 9-5 cannot devote this much time and money solely to this endeavor, and I imagine it's even less likely for blue collar workers to be able to find the time and money required. The training schedule is very intensive, packed to the brim, with recovery and nutrition optimized down to the minutes and calories. There are no poor people competing in ironman events.

@Rory this is how the rest of the world feels almost every week, hah! I've never watched rugby or baseball and yet I trudge through the crosswords. Printing out my half-finished puzzle to get some help from my coworkers during lunch break tends to help.

@Laurie I'm wondering how this could EVER be a norm when the hour hand is physically smaller, haha

@John lawn is /lɔn/ or /lɑn/ and Lon is /lˈɑːn/. I can't tell the difference as a non-native, but in my mother tongue the latter two pronunciations would be the same for all intents and purposes, though I'm sure a linguist would be willing to argue about the semantics. I fail to see your point about dog/log though; It would be pretty tough to argue that /dɔɡ/ or /dɑɡ/ does not rhyme with /lɔɡ/ or /lɑɡ/.

@Elbridge Gerry Hats off, really. I got BOOLEAN ALGEBRA (my job is with digital logic, I felt represented with this clue), and INDIANA HOOSIER was the last thing I filled in, haha!

@lioncitysolver I don't share the sentiment but I think expressing it like this is incredibly clever. Kudos!

@Eel w-r-ster-sh-r. Wusstersher.

@Sue S The first time I really checked the comment section after submitting a comment was sometime last week, when I noticed the same. I suppose NYT thinks there's only so much constructive discussion to be had over a puzzle, and they block it off after 48 (or maybe 72?) hours.