George

I'll admit, I used to hate Thursday puzzles when I started solving regularly a few months back. Looking back, I can see that a lot of that was because A) I didn't know when to expect a gimmick (I hadn't been told Thursday was the day) and B) I didn't know what type of gimmicks I could usually expect to see. Nowadays I still get frustrated from time to time, but I've found myself looking forward to Thursdays; identifying and dealing with the trick has become a real treat. Today's puzzle is no exception! The gimme answers to 8 and 32 across really helped kickstart the solve for me. When I noticed that the Down crosses didn't quite seem to match it immediately clued me in to what was going on. I never really felt like I needed to plainly google an answer, and the only use the engine got was to confirm answers that I was 99% sure were right, and sure enough they were. I'll be looking out for Mr. Guzman's work in the future, I think this was an incredible start :)

This solve was 20 minutes over my Thursday average, but I definitely enjoyed it :) I think this is a pretty perfect example of a good Thursday puzzle. Not quite as difficult as Friday or Saturday, but with a reasonable theme that justifies its late placement in the week. Just a couple clues I had to make an educated guess on, but nothing I needed to look up! I've got a good streak of no "cheats" going, and I'm hoping to keep it up. I'm sad to see so many people upset with this one. Use it to broaden your horizons folks! You get to learn something new every day :)

14:54, a new Friday PB and 25 minutes under my average! A very fun puzzle, nicely constructed! I'm not sure if it was easier or if this one just clicked with me, but it's the direct opposite result of my time yesterday :)

Getting 12 answers out of three "rebus" squares is impressive! Beautifully constructed. I was sure that HEME was HEMOGLOBIN and that's where a rebus was hiding, but it just didn't make sense. Solving the revealer helped spot my error pretty early though :)

I'll admit I took great umbrage with Mr. Pasco and Ms. Sinclair's puzzle in June. It was about 30 rebuses too many for me, and as I was still very new to these crosswords at the time I didn't know to expect that kind of thing on a Thursday yet. I was all but banging my head against the table over an hour in with very little to show for it. HOWEVER This puzzle was a masterpiece! So many clever clues, a fair amount of rebuses (honestly I wouldn't have minded one or two more!), and spot on theming for the day. I had an inkling of the theme when PRIDE MONTH didn't fit, and I was immediately able to get it once I hit the revealer. From there it was a steady solve, and incredibly enjoyable. I'll be looking forward to this pair's next puzzle (but please, no more pizzas)!

Horrible. Don't know who half these people are and the other half I never would've thought of in these sentences. Glad other people liked it I guess.

Could've been done in under 10 minutes if not for that pesky VOLE. Lost a whole four minutes to just that! IMF sounded perfectly natural for some medical procedure I wasn't aware of, but in retrospect IVF makes much more sense. Good stuff!

I solved this faster than most Thursdays, but I feel like I'm in the minority in saying that the theme annoyed me. How is anyone meant to form the connection between the two letter abbreviation and the clue without any sort of revealer or hint? I got nearly all of the themed entries by guessing after getting enough crosses, and still didn't catch on until I checked the article. I was sitting there scratching my head wondering how on Earth a Russet Potato had anything to do with Identity. Even after knowing, ID Entity is so obnoxiously vague that it might as well be meaningless. I know Idaho is strongly associated with potatoes, but come ON. The rest of the puzzle was solidly constructed and I had a few enjoyable "aha" moments with some of the wordplay. I just wish the theme wasn't so obtuse. This one must've been borderline impossible for overseas solvers.

Only about a minute above my Wednesday average! Well constructed, I found that I caught on to the theme right away but couldn't *quite* get the words right for some reason. Once I got to the bottom of the puzzle and confirmed my hunch I was able to go back through and nail them all :)

Sports and Entertainment, my kryptonite ;A; I had probably no less than 5 false starts today. Oh well! This puzzle and I didn't particularly get along, but BOY that triple stack! Incredible work, even if it gave me issues.

Not how you spell Navajo. I've been solving for over a year now and have never encountered "Var." meaning "a variant spelling." I got it because of the cross, but if I hadn't, how on earth was I supposed to know that the constructor misspelled it on purpose without looking it up? Even after solving it I still had to look up what "Var." meant in this context. You should've at least have the decency to not abbreviate it. It feels like a complete cop-out, and an ugly smear on an otherwise good puzzle.

too hard by half first puzzle in a long time I gave up on maybe I'm just upset because I lost my 120+ day streak to the site presenting me with the Saturday puzzle when I thought I was doing the Friday, leaving Friday unfinished and me none the wiser oh well, time to start building it again I guess

That's more like it :)