Harri

Nice and easy Wednesday puzzle including my favorite hard rock band. Looks like with the two first across answers the constructor has predicted the election result...

Favorite clue today was about the bird still getting wise to the world.

Just two lookups so that's my Friday record. Should have maybe stuck with it for a bit longer. Might have gotten it eventually. Had Cooper's test like some others here also and that had me confused. Over here that's what is part of the tests. Did not know the term LOLLS.

Favourite clue: Words before someone finally snaps. I have yet to break one hour for an end of the week puzzle, but today was close.

I think the themed nature of the puzzle worked perfectly here. Once I figured out how the numbers worked, I was able to fill in more of the word endings and was able to get further. Second Wednesday puzzle with no lookups. Yet to defeat a Thursday one though.

What a great set of grid spanner phrases at the top. Kudos to the contructor. Haven't gotten to the bottom ones yet.

Struggled in the NW corner (like some others) but got there with some educated guesses. Personal record streak continues. If I get past tomorrow's potentially tough one, one month could be doable. Favorite clue: accrues annual leaves. Have a good weekend everyone! Mine starts off with our weekly pub quiz.

Really loved today's theme. My first solve of a Wednesday puzzle without help. Was stuck at NW for a while though. "Oh No, I don't know any nail polish brands". Next up, Thursday...

Had to rely fully on the crosses to get the book titles but got there eventually. I see all these have been published as Finnish translations so probably should have known better.

Happy to see the Finn Eero Saarinen get a mention today. Funny story about the design competition for the St. Louis memorial (Gateway Arch). Eero's architect father Eliel also took part in the competition and by mistake the jury informed the father that he was in the top five remaining entries. The family celebrated and when the jury contacted them again in two hours to correct the error, they celebrated again.

Easier than usual Wednesday puzzle I think. Personal best time today. Not lightning fast but still. Nice theme and once you figured it out it made things much easier. I vaguely remembered Gatorade has that logo although I have never tried the drink. The color of it is so strange. I like the animations that now sometimes come up at the end.

This was an impressive puzzle. Kudos to the constructor. For an embarrasingly long time I was looking for actual sushi types, but caught on eventually.

Thank you Kareem for the enjoyable puzzle. It provided some nice aha moments.

We don't have Skittles here so C looked fine there, and in Oskar, so that took a while to figure out. Difficulty was just right for Tuesday I think. But I'm still fuming and that's because of the Sunday puzzle. Commenting there was closed now so I need to vent here. The clueing was just awful and the whole experience was nightmarish. Oh well, starting a new streak now.

Interesting to read that NYT gets hundreds of crossword submissions each week.

Nicely constructed puzzle with long answers both across and down. Congratulations on the debut. Third Wednesday now without having to resort to help but still takes me about an hour to solve. NE was slowest as some others also commented. I prefer this style of crossword here in NYT over the ones that the papers here publish. Here the clues are inside the squares and often pictures or very short texts. It doesn't allow for much pun or quiz type of clues.

Got wise to the theme just in time to be able to fix a problem in the north east corner. Maybe slightly easier Thursday than usual. I'm starting to remember these US brand names like now the bed maker as they tend to repeat. So that helps.

That one went smoothly. Time to head over to the archives and try to fill some gaps from the calendar.

I figured out the theme when there was just couple of letters to go. Could have been a smoother solve if I had gotten it earlier, but this was my very first Thursday solve without lookups or help so will not complain. Must have been a tricky one to construct with not only interchangeable letters but crossing interchangeable letters. Very nice.

Easier than usual Wednesday puzzle I think. And always happy to see anything from Seinfeld mentioned.

Two words: Loved it!

So close to getting my first Friday without hints. It's driving me crazy. Everything filled, but an error somewhere. Probably in the answer for pupusa relative. No idea what that is. I'll keep at it.

I was really struggling with the northeast corner as I could not remember how the Star Wars planet is spelled an did not know ROWR is a word. And ICEWATER seems a bit far fetched answer. But eventually this was my first Friday solve without lookups or help. Now I just need one Saturday.

Really nice construction with all those grid spanners. And a good topical chess clue with the big tournament just having ended in Norway. There were plenty of tie breakers there so this answer was fresh in mind. No lookups needed today, contrary to yesterday.

Next up, cube root: When I'm four. Then 6th root, When I'm two. Almost wrote that 4th root would be two, but that's not so.

I wonder if Giro d'Italia has ever been answer to clue on 28 down.

I have a small six day streak ongoing but today almost broke it. Had to do a lot of random guesses around the tug/tut area. In hindsight, I've seen the "tower" trick before but it just didn't come to mind. Good puzzle with many aha moments.

Northwest corner took the longest even though I had the three top acrosses, but with a lot of trial and error got there eventually. My first Saturday solve without help or lookups. Now I have at least one from each weekday. Time for a little celebration!

I tried an approach of no lookups / lots of "check puzzle" and eventually got there. Still don't know what YOKE and CASK were about.

This one had the makings of a great puzzle. I like these which have a lot of pub quiz type of cluing. But there were just too many far fetched clue/answer pairings.

Nice and easy puzzle today. About 40 across, are the eggs green or is the go-with green? Neither sound very appetizing.

I would have preferred that ALL the theme words would have had circled letters on the parts that had something special in them.