Dvdmgsr

A single rebus is worse than several. I would say as a general rule, a rebus must be a theme. Not one cutesy element in a theme. A theme that in my opinion fell very flat, like the somewhat disturbing roadkill image that now adorns my NYT crossword puzzle page. It was no big deal: once all of the squares were filled but the E, I just alphabetted the square and voila. But it was annoying, I will say that.

Naturally, a lot of discussion about the puzzle being too easy. PB Sunday here, first time I’ve broken the 20 minute barrier. There aren’t many things I’m getting better at in my 60s, but crossword puzzles are one of them. Some people here have Sunday averages less than my PB, so in a sense I have a lot of room for improvement. As a thing I do for fun, it’s a good space to be in, knowing I will continue to get better at it. Like most people, there was a time when I could barely imagine finishing a Sunday puzzle, and in the app era, I recall the first time I finished one in under an hour. I think it’s good to have an easier puzzle every so often, that gives everyone a shot at a PB or a first solve with no look ups. Looking at my PB today, I know very well that it was more about the puzzle being easy than it was about my skill, but I still feel pretty good about it because I know my skill remains on an improvement trend.

That was the hardest Saturday puzzle since… last Saturday! 10 minutes above my average. I didn’t find any quadrant easy, but was able to fight through it clockwise from SE to NE.

“Second person seeing in Hamlet” Wow, that is a great, great clue.

TGIF, everybody! No wait, it’s only Wednesday! Who would’ve thought after that puzzle! (Good puzzle though)

I started off in the upper left and confidently entered Etsy, thinking this was going to be a quickie… This of course turned out to be just one of several diversions, and I had to walk away and come back later to finish it. Really a great puzzle overall.

Tahoe runners. Grrrr.

Smelt, smolt. Grrrr.

Record time for me, which can be disappointing on a Saturday. My coffee is still hot enough for donut dipping! Despite being over too fast, it was fun with a lot of great clues and overall a satisfying solve.

I liked the theme and there was some good stuff here, and I finished the puzzle in better than average time, but… this puzzle needed some editing that just didn’t happen. “EDEN on Earth?” No, it’s “heaven on earth” — Eden is an analogue of heaven, but they’re different things, and most importantly, approximately no one in human history has uttered “EDEN on Earth.” Especially since, based on the Old Testament story, Eden was actually on Earth. It’s not 100% wrong but it’s clunky. I’m not going to go through the comments or talk about the other clunkers, but I am sure they are already documented. The constructor, the NYT and the folks doing the puzzles deserve better than this.

This is the big time. The puzzlemakers who make the big time are putting their work out there to a user base that demands excellence. We should demand excellence. Being at the top of the game means that you are going to get some flak about it when people don’t like the puzzle, and the serious puzzlemaker will take the feedback at face value, and consider fair criticism as they hone their craft. The unfair criticism can be ignored. I can’t say I liked the theme, but I am not a theme fan, and maybe 20% of the time I enjoy a theme. Most of the rest of the time it’s neutral or I just put up with it. In some cases a theme is completely annoying and kind of ruins the puzzle experience. This wasn’t one of those cases, but it was probably in the “put up with it” category. There were some excellent clues here and some nice diversions that made it challenging. A lot of the clues and entires were fresh, at least to me. There are only a few puzzlemakers I recognize but whoever this one is, they made a good puzzle and I hope they continue on in their pursuit of excellence. Feel free to make the next one themeless!

Solved in normal time without any idea about what the theme was, and I needed to read the article to figure out what it was. Each time I completed one of the clues with a circled cell, I thought, “oh, BURST works for that clue just like bust would” and didn’t realize that was the theme. should have figured out that that’s what it was, since there was no hint clue, beyond the not terribly informative title, which I apparently forgot about ten seconds after I read it. Good puzzle: I like an unobtrusive theme, and find it just as satisfying to finish without knowing the theme and then seeing it, when it’s as clever as this one, compared to when I figure the theme out and then use that to solve.

Finished in decent time. A lot of excellent cluing in this one. I still have no idea what the theme was, but that’s ok.

I figured out the straightforward rebus and solved the puzzle fine without paying any attention to the Star Wars nonsense theme. Ignoring that annoyance it was actually a fun puzzle and a bit more challenging than recent Sundays. I would have preferred the theme to be something about adding the letter U, but whatever!