Chris J

Fun puzzle, I worked my way from center out with Rodrigo and Let it Be first. Until the NW corner totally messed me up. I had multiple combinations of horn and honk for the green light clue and needed help from Deb with TROOP and AEIOU to realize it was TOOTTOOT. So close to getting a Friday on my own. Are people just ready to pounce on AEIOU from experience? I don’t know how you would’ve known the multi vowel thing from that clue alone. I enjoyed EASYAS, TAC, and all the quoted clues. Here’s hoping Rodrigo chimes in.

Pretty tough for a Tuesday. I thought it was Catalina Reapers and that messed me up. Wasn’t a fan of the bottom third with Amer, Bruh and Blam, Sao giving me trouble.

Friday’s are normally very difficult for me but I was on the same wavelength with the writer. I had PLEASANTLYPLUMP before figuring out PRIMEREALESTATE for “A lot to love.” I like my answer better for that clue. However the only thing that foiled me was the C in VASCO and MCATS otherwise I would’ve had a rare Friday solve with no help!

I was close. Having never heard of the song, but seeing FAB led me to believe they were using the number 4. Definitely noticed the unusual K’s throughout, even counted them, but I had 25 since I erred on a clue. But I was stumped on tennis and was convinced they were talking about a 0 SET (or a love set). I thought it was 04K MATIC. So I was wrong on 2 counts. Didn’t know what they were going for with AGER and figured that was a brand.

I liked the name blanks but had a heck of a time with some of the fill. ENOL, BETEL, LEIT? Ugh. Never heard of a “toady.” And this has nothing to do with today’s, but why does NYT love “vis-a-vis” in their puzzles? No matter how many times I run across this it’s like I have to interpret what they mean. I feel like it usually means “in relation to” but I feel like it is unnecessarily erudite jargon.

Too many names in the bottom right I didn’t know. I gave up after getting 2/3rds of it. I liked last Friday a lot better.

I struggle so much with slang terms and this puzzle had way too much of that. Never heard of NAPTRAPPED but worse than that is OBVI. Never heard anyone say that.

I liked this puzzle. Only real hangup I had was lower left. “Time ____…” could be anything, why is this WAS?! I also tried to put OOO before realizing they wanted IRL. As someone else noted, SHOUT is not Motown. Poor research.

I thought for sure rocky road ingredient was pothole and got stuck, ugh. Left side was easy for me and right side was awful. I thought walks for blue crab, also put origami even though I knew it was Japanese.

I had it if it wasn’t for open endeR and Emend. Ugh.

Loved this puzzle! Got it in 47 minutes, way faster than my average. The NW area was the hardest fill for me. Only had ORIOLE for a long time. Never heard of COB pipes and thought that was weird. Pints and points finally came to me, which is funny because it’s something my family does all the time sans the pints!

Great puzzle but my nitpick is “sweets” for HON. I couldn’t get off the other kind of sweets and thought they were talking about ho HOS. Not knowing who Scratch was I had no idea. But for HON why isn’t it “sweet” singular? Who says “my sweets”?! Very enjoyable puzzle overall. Got the scissors trick from the jump with the juice clue, a rarity for me.

OMG I had everything but the bishop’s SEE and THAI. I had Chai in there instead. What the heck is a bishop’s see? That’s frustrating to miss that, and when I don’t see it explained in the column it makes it feel like something I should know. Not too fond of the clue for _ experience. Experience already means lived.

Hard for a Thursday but one of the best a-ha moments when I figured out what was going on! I initially thought letters were being repeated and had a lot of E’s for REEVE but finally hitting on ACCIDENT unlocked it for me and I went around the board fixing most of it. Upper left was hardest for me. And while I knew KING was wrong I am embarrassed at how long it took me to realize it was HONG even with the last 3 letters showing. Ugh! I also misspelled LYON as LEON not knowing how the animal hybrid was spelled. Fun puzzle!

Wow, was I ever in tune with the crossword writer today. Shattered my Friday record today. More from Katie please (he said, selfishly!). Only things I didn’t think was going to end up being right was STET and ABT, but I was pleasantly surprised. Shout out to LOLA Bunny!

This is like only the 2nd Friday I’ve completed without any help. Such a fun puzzle. I had BUCKET for such a long time and needed so many crossings before I got the a-ha moment. Had more of those than I can remember in one puzzle. IVOTEDSTICKER I got early and went from there. LESBIANBAR, ONLINEPOKER, ICALLBS and EGOBOOSTER were all fun gets. Almost screwed up trying to put SONS Demand Action and SITON for nurses. Had no idea on SIDLE never heard of that word. Had SOMALI early on. Only clue I didn’t like was bench coverings. I had something NOTES for a long time thinking it was talking about people scribbling notes on park benches. Thought answer for this clue was very clunky. Overall a great puzzle though!!

Ugh. I had On P.E.D.’s instead of Meds and could not see the right answer. Not a player of Sim games of course.

Getting better at these crosswords. I’m a couple months in. Figured out the puzzle within a puzzle quickly and got the 4 rebuses which made me more determined to figure out the rest. In the end I still got flummoxed by MURK/CAME and JAWA/JOKE which I got after coming to the comment section. I would still classify this as a victory even though I resorted to a couple look ups. Anyone think or are there already-established levels of victory like Spelling Bee? I would think a clean sheet without lookups is obviously the best result, but then genius for like 1-2 lookups, great for 3-5 and so on?

I was so happy to figure out NONGMOCROP & EZPASSTAGS, they took me the longest even with multiple crosses. Sadly I had to resort to a look up with Doja Cat but otherwise got through this fun Saturday puzzle in two sittings. I didn’t know CEREBRO either but got it with the crossings.

Well I guess i’m slowly getting better at Sam’s puzzles after about a half year of regular solving. Was able to get about half on my own but the NW area I found to be totally impossible. And where do they call a tobacco shop a “head shop”?!? Nowhere I’m from.