Convoid-04

Re: Semisomoc: I always liked “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.“

Good one! I thought White House partner was SCOTUS at first.

“All of you who believe in telekinesis, raise my right hand.” -Stephen Wright

Well I’m glad this was easier than yesterday’s but I wouldn’t have missed yesterday’s either. In the end, I thought BOCCI for “Italian lawn game” was spelled BOCCE. I must look that up. I loved getting BREAK ON THROUGH TO THE OTHER SIDE!

Wow harder for a Tuesday! I’m very impressed! Thanks for the challenge.

I haven’t done the puzzle yet but here are the banned words, if you scroll down this site, that a previous Sunday’s Doonesbury alluded to but then the QR code link had disappeared. I am shocked at some of these and some I don’t even know that well if I know them! <a href="https://pen.org/banned-words-list" target="_blank">https://pen.org/banned-words-list</a>/

Oh my gosh! Was at parents’ and did this in ink. My mistake was I forgot about BARI SAXES and wrote Bass Saxes. My face is red. I have been in concert and stage band. Enjoyed the puzzle!

Oh wow this was great! I had trouble finding exactly where to put CINDERBLOCK partly because I didn’t know TORO for fatty tuna(TIL:) and so couldn’t figure out that “Decorator” was ADORNER. Also should have(from the pattern) but didn’t quite get BOATLOAD although I had gotten BOAT going down. I thought ADORNER might be “CD Inner Art” which makes no sense! :) Some of the black squares were outlined in white and I made the mistake of thinking that because some of them marked rebuses, all of them did. Or that you could have a rebus without one of those marked squares on the top or bottom of a down entry.

Well I was happy to finish this with no help. Was tempted to check words at first but didn’t. Thank you, Zhouqin Burnikel, Deb and commenters. Have a great weekend!

Well I was fooled on this because I tried to fill the themers in as rebuses amd they were not! In retrospect I admire the simplicity of making it work

Dear Friends, They finally published one of my comments in the news! 🗞️ It was a reply to the first reader favorite so maybe it was an accident. It was open minded and not too axe-grindy but I still love NYT XWP comments very much! I feel this isn’t the place for it as many find XWO a refuge from the news 🗞️

Just came to say I did no word checks this Saturday. Also liked the puzzle done by a Pianist!

I really loved this. I honestly didn’t get it all without Deb’s column but what a great poem and just wanted to say very well done and congratulations on your debut, Joe O’Neil.

Really a challenge for Wednesday. Felt bad I had to look up one proper noun but yes this was good, Peter Gordon!

I liked the theme! Took me a while to get PLAYABLE for online gaming character, had QUEEN OF Mardigra(s) before CARNIVAL and didn’t cheat as much. Liked the central wordplay the best of STRING AND THREAD.

Very funny, hard for a Wednesday and beautiful notes, Nick Offernan! Thanks to you and Christina Iverson. I didn’t know Nick could write ✍️ great humor, too!

Well I had LOcO for LOGO and RAcES instead of RAGES but I liked the anagrams, Sam Brody!

Beautiful puzzle. I liked the themed answers a lot and also had PITT and YEP wrong. Very impressed, Rena. Caitlin I loved the picture of sheep and that joke about Ewe.

I agree with Deb this was awesome. I feel like Thursday is very meditative for me. It shakes out all the knots in my mind and yes preps me for the really hard Friday and Saturday. Thank you.

I got NEMATODE from Sam on 17A, for which thank you! Otherwise a lot less slower than average today so I think I’m settling down a bit! Sorry to hear about Lewis’ situation and made a donation which I don’t always do for every single natural event(they’re only gonna get worse and more frequent(!), but Helene affected so many states and people’s loved ones: it got to me.

I liked this one a lot. It was witty! Didn’t take too long but very stuck in the Southwest and forgot James Baldwin was gay, but “as in” should have given me a clue to look that up! I try not to do lookups but in this case would’ve learned something. Grateful to Sam for AMEX!

Loved this! I completely agree with Caitlin that the hardest part was often just taking another look and thinking about something differently. I had Orion’s Belt (ish) before NEBULA, and I had a great “Aha” moment realizing SALT referred to a nuclear pact and not something chemical. Then I got bogged down in the Southeast(whereas often a puzzle can be teased out from easier clues near the bottom)! I didn’t recall the Lewis Carroll line, and somehow I couldn’t think of REMOTE when I had RE_OTE(More of a “D’Oh” moment)! It was my last to fall. So many clever clues here. Thanks, Barbara and Lewis!

I didn’t know NU METAL but now I get it! I liked SURE CURE crossed by YORICK. I’d totally forgotten that Yorick was a jester.

My second day with no word check but a correction on one letter from the constructor. +I had UBER Review before UBER RATING. I was afraid of this one but just kept going and really enjoyed it.

Well, nice to have an easier Friday after I got myself all tied up in my shoe laces Thursday:) One mistake I had for false ad about kids’ toys was NO MeDS for NO MESS. I know: What was I thinking? The A capella video was very well done and a lot of fun! Loved Sarah’s Xword tee shirt, too. Have a Happy Vday 25, All!

Love the shout out to Heathie! Good puzzle. I appreciate all the word play but as an ASIDE am hard-pressed to think of a hotheaded liberal demagogue, although I think we could certainly use one. You might say Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders or AOC but they aren’t illogical or lying. Demagogues are usually purely rhetorical and try to stir up emotions often with little regard for safety(Sarah Palin) or the facts(One very famous faux populist is coming to mind/Oh, it’s just on the tip of my tongue)! But it’s not like this is a very important time to get this right, is it? :/

Whoa, that was impressive Brandon Koppy! And so quickly done too. I liked how the re uses worked both ways and I didn’t get the trick until I finally got Vitruvian Man!

Pretty pretty good!!! My match was ZIPTIES. I had ZIPlocs but then I got the joke for “binders”. You got me. Thanks, John Kugelman!

Just wanted to pop in and say “Nice one”, Erik! Thanks.

I did it today with no word checks so I feel extra non-cheaty! But it took me a while to finish in the upper left corner and it was very clever, funny and “riddle me this”. I don’t hold it in anyway wrong if you only have a half an hour and want to get to the end. The truth is many of these puzzles deserve a more leisurely time and this is one of them.

I didn’t word-check today! Liked the old computer references. Very fine.

@Sam Thanks for explaining how ELS was “Enrollment center”. That would have bugged me not knowing what it was :)

Really good, Katie Hood! And I see they have figured out not to make it too easy on the bottom, but my tough places were in the Northwest. It all seems so simple now but “Blues” made me think either music or denim and didn’t get SCALP or WAZOO until I checked Puzzle after an hour and five minutes and then it all fell into place. The column didn’t seem to think those were tricky clues :) But whew it’s like we have our Saturday back.

Whew! I did a little better in this one than on Thursday’s. It just took some patience. I felt I was missing one letter but according to the answer key some others were wrong. With that help, above average time but it was so much fun! 🤩 Thanks, Deb and Christina Iverson.

Oh I didn’t get the theme at first. I thought this was another stan at Tautology but thank you Sam for explaining IT all! And congrats to Greg Snitkin. Enjoy Leap Day tomorrow.

Was too hard for me. But worth it! Really good for a Sunday!

Wow great puzzle Carolyn! At first I couldn’t quite hack it but then I slowly got it and it felt so good! Congratulations. And you’re right Lewis does say nice 😊 things and as he says, deservedly so!

Very fun and surprising! I had to look up the Scottish river Clyde and after checking answers, ELM for ”Might be slippery” instead of EEL was the last to fall. That was a great one! And all the long answers were terrific. Felt so spacey to finally stumble on them.

That was a happy hour: 39 for puzzle and the rest to find 2 typos! Usually only do Sunday if I’m in a bad mood. Good to see you all. Emu

At first, I thought wow an actual typo in the New York Times! But no….A fun and tricky Tuesday. Thank you.

Oh I really liked this, Ella Dershowitz! Thank you. 😊 Also thanks to Deb for the clue “Rob Peter to Pay Paul” so I could then figure out the theme before peeking, more or less! Was a lot of fun. My last to fall was the Northeast. And I had ANe for ANO because I can get Spanish and French confused sometimes although currently studying Spanish so you would think…! 🤔

Deb, I am so sorry to hear about your loss of your father. I do think you have written a very fine and substantial tribute to him here. It meant a lot. In other news I think I am back to normal. I didn’t use any word-check for the first time in months on Thu-Sat but I did read Deb’s column, saw the answer key(for STEELY instead of Steady) and am still flyspecking! Wonderful puzzle. I always like Rebecca Goldstein. And I liked Adam Wagner’s use of the word “sprezzatura” to describe her style of wordplay. Thanks, All!

Wow that is just beautiful(now I’ve had it explained to me :) but thanks as always to Deb for trying to make me think about it before reading further!