TholosTB
Tennessee
Every day it's a question as to whether I'll read the comments or not, because so many people just seem to come here to dump on the constructor and/or the editor. "Should have been a Tuesday, so easy and boring." "How could the NYT even publish this." I will never understand the need to put someone else down to make yourself feel better, smarter, or more important. Some of these constructors are college-aged first-timers, and I can't imagine having to read what gets written here as a constructor. There are puzzles I don't vibe with, and it's fine. I do my best, and I usually end up learning something in a new area, be it rappers or art or birds or history or geography or whatever. As a second-generation and lifelong Trek fan, not only did I love the theme, but the sheer amount of theme that was crammed into a single crossword was astonishing. I'm vaguely embarrassed that I did not see the silhouette of the Enterprise until after reading the column. An absolute delight all around.
@Lewis I can't be the only person who looks forward to Lewis's comments each day. It's always a delightful palate cleanser amongst all the usual vitriol about the constructor, the editor, the constructor's parents, how easy and boring the puzzle was (Should have been run on a rainy Tuesday in April, not a Thursday, YAWN) and so on. Just sayin', you're appreciated and missed when you're not here, Lewis.
Huh, interesting to see all the griping in the comments on this puzzle. Stumbled onto the rebus relatively early; the column name was a broad clue that helped a ton. No trouble entering the rebuses, I was just glad we were given the number of them so I could stop second-guessing myself on every clue. Feels like I'm finally developing a sense for some of the different types of wordplay that show up in these puzzles - progress is being made! Just about 5 minutes longer than my Sunday record, not bad for a rebus puzzle for me! Very enjoyable, thanks, Amie!
@Megan So sorry for the loss of your father. Wishing you peace and comfort in this difficult time.
Felt compelled to comment as there is so much negativity and just plain nastiness in the comments today. I'm happy to admit when I'm just not on the constructor's wavelength or just not experienced enough for a puzzle, doesn't make the puzzle bad or stupid. This was a breezy delight, personal best by far and the reveal was a treat. I only missed the "D" in End of The Road, but the fix was apparent immediately. So delighted to see Enid Blyton in the clues - her books were a mainstay of mine growing up.
Congratulations on the debut, Kelvin, it was a tough puzzle! Years of snarky replies got me the grid spanner at 37A with very few crossings, which helped me maneuver around into some largely empty quadrants. Well above average solve time for Friday for me, but a satisfying victory at the end. Thanks!
I'm usually not one to complain about not being on the same wavelength as the constructor, but choosing to put two four-letter answers with self-referential non-clues in the tiny southwest corner plus a word order trick and a theme entry is certainly one of the design decisions of all time. Spent a lot of time in that corner. Made it through, but more of a slog than an enjoyable ride, I'm afraid.
Congratulations on the debut! Movies are usually right up my alley - I didn't know any of these by the review right off the top of my head, but the crosses made pretty quick work of them, which led to a nice breezy solve. Not a personal best, but only about a minute off. Very enjoyable!
Pan is the flautist. The flute type is named after him, Greek god of the wilds.
Very enjoyable puzzle! It's a testament to my inexperience at this activity that I just swapped the "eye" for "i" in my fill and then spent 10 minutes looking for errors before realizing I had to rebus those squares. DONKIARS for me this morning.
@D What an insufferably nasty comment - "The constructor tried to be smarter than they are." It's fine to not like a puzzle, and from most of the comments it's mostly a you thing, but there's no reason to insult the constructor or the editor. Get over yourself.
Nobody was more surprised than I when the music popped up along with the gold star when I finally let go of MOON in the NE. Only a couple of minutes over Friday average - I'll take that flex. Did not think I'd get out of this one without lookups, great puzzle!
After my first across pass, I settled in for a long Saturday slog, but a couple of long down clues really unlocked the majority of the puzzle for me, leading to a new Saturday personal best time! Great, fun puzzle, thanks, Marshal!
@Margot xwstats.com agrees with your sentiment, so far it's rated as "hard" for a Monday.
Fun puzzle, new personal record for a Friday! Quite a relief after getting beat up one side and down the other by Offerman this week!
I was extraordinarily proud of getting DEMAGOGUERY for 24A right off the bat on the first across pass. Until I wasn't. Some sticky corners in this puzzle but the down crossers really did loosen up some of the longer across entries making it a feasible solve. Until it wasn't. 'Coz SPINAFIB looked really good in the NE.
Very fun puzzle! As a techie the theme answers filled in rather quickly once I caught on. 30 seconds off pace for a Sunday best time due to hunting for a single error in the shoe brand at 47A. Thanks, Mark!
@Bob My nerdy heart blocked me on that entire corner for a LONG time.
Fun Saturday for me - slightly under my average, but not a breeze by any means. I was dead certain that it was fixed/net INCOME in the northeast and that slowed me down a lot. My older sister used to make meringues for me all the time so I was pretty sure the ingredient list was pretty small, but couldn't make it work with INCOME. Well-earned headsmack when that came together.
Fun puzzle, congratulations on the debut, Brian, and looking forward to seconds! Slightly under average time for a Monday for me so I think I was near Brian's wavelength, based on some of the other feedback in the comments. After last week's doozies, I felt I was due!
A lot of empty grid after the first couple of passes, and it took me a long time to figure out the trick. I got NEAT pretty early but thought I had to use those letters or remove some of those letters or something, especially since 3D worked as-is with the clue (cruel, cruel joke, that one). In the end, ignorance prevailed since I could only think of one deli device, which cracked the puzzle and opened up several of the other theme clues. Ended up just a few seconds under my Thursday average, but certainly thought 'twas going to take longer than that. Fun puzzle!
@Xword Junkie I think you misunderstood it. I interpreted it as a variant on "Wide belt".
@Beth C So I had to look this up because I thought "Forest moon of Endor" is the thing that orbits the planet Endor. According to Wikipedia, you're right. Endor is the forest moon that orbits the planet Tana.
Great, now I have yet another reason to be a fan of Offerman's. Two, really, since we're both vintage 1970. Great fun puzzle with quite a few chewy bits in there - not a breeze by any stretch of the imagination, had to earn this one. Thanks, Nick and Christina!
@Jim Weird, almost as if different people think different things when they read the same clue. Astonishing.
@Magdalene Wow! You must have done a TON of puzzles!
As feared, 10 minutes over average to continue my trend for the week. I need a nap after this one. SO many false starts, from thinking natural history had to start with BIO to LASEREYES to SEMAPHORE for ship-to-ship communication to LEMONPEEL instead of RIND to desperately trying to fit something Star Trekky into Enterprise enterprise. So much bactrian-tracking. But, a solid relief when the gold star popped! Great workout!
Bit of a tough one for me, 5 minutes over average at just under 30:00. First few passes left a mostly bare grid, but like some others experienced, YOUCANCOUNTONME broke the mid-west open and allowed me to work my way across the south fairly quickly, but breaking back up into the northern half took some doing. Still, no lookups for a Friday, so this nascent cruciverbalist maketh progress.
Great workout! First pass left a ton of blank space, but like others the SE cracked for me first, in spite of, like a dolt, confusing Bronte and Austen. I also thought the dance craze was related to Superman, but just having THE....MAN helped me fix that corner and work my way out. I did have to do the one lookup for ASHCARTER because I could only think of IM or SO for the song and that was getting me nowhere. Still, one lookup for a Saturday especially given what I'm seeing about this constructor feels like an achievement!
Superb puzzle, Bryan! I did myself in by hyperaggressively filling in Greg BEAR instead of Greg EGAN which mired me down in the NW. Made me doubt LOVENOTE for a long time even though I couldn't figure out why a FIVENOTE had X's and O's. :sigh: Great fun!
@SteelyTom I have heard very similar words echoing in my head many times as a relatively new solver. The answer is almost always that I missed the execution of the rebus. Not today, though! Progress is being made.
Very fun puzzle! Congratulations on your debut, Katherine!
Good workout for me today. Misplacing TRAP and EAST in the NW held me up a long time, as did using UNVIP instead of UNREP. Finally stumbled on the theme with crosses at ROMANGODS, which ironically helped me fill in FRUIT in the revealer. Quite a bit of backtracking and undoing for me, but very enjoyable!
Very fun puzzle! The "gettability" of the themed clues certainly carried a lot of this one for me. Lost quite a bit of time finding that I'd misspelled "DIO" as "DEO" which seemed superficially to work with OLLEE/OLLIE. Oh, well.
Great puzzle! Added OUEVRE to my lexicon, and the fact that ferrets travel in businesses to my bank of trivia. I am substantially over average every day this week and am anticipating a blank grid tomorrow after my first across and down passes if the pattern holds. Bring it on, NYT.
@Andrew I'm astounded at the number of people who were able to work through this one. Like you, at 11 minutes in I had maybe a handful of unverifiable guesses that just didn't reveal anything in the crosses. Had to pass on this one, I'm simply not up to this level yet.
Fun Sunday, liked the theme but unfortunately missed some of it - the fact that it wasn't literal "ends in -ay" went over my head and made some of the theme entries just seem like weird clueing to me, but it was still ultimately solvable and I enjoyed going back after reading the column to see the clues I'd missed. AMPS for OHMS and SCOOTS for SCOOCH held me up a while; didn't trust myself on TABKEYS because I bailed after TABS didn't fit and thought there was a different interpretation (trying to figure out how it could relate to PDQ or Ps and Qs, oh, well). Still, slightly faster than average solve, not sure I get all the vitriol in the comments about Pig Latin- it was just a fun additional Easter egg to the puzzle.
Fantastic puzzle, Aidan! Caught on to the rebus relatively early (for me), and for once the gimmick actually did help me solve the puzzle as opposed to being something to enjoy in the aftermath. The NW corner was tough for me to break for some reason and PRO(MINE)NT refused to manifest in my brain for the longest time, but the numbers helped me place the (MINE) properly and finally broke that corner. Very, very enjoyable!
Fun puzzle, NINJAMASTERS helped me get the rebus trick much earlier than my usual 3/4ths of the way through the puzzle. A wild guess of PICKLEBALL that panned out helped seal the deal. 3 new personal bests this week - makes me fear what's coming Friday and Saturday!
Fun puzzle, slightly under average time for a Thursday, but helped a lot by my daughter's fascination with Wicked all those years ago. Having the song and the letters for the singer helped unlock the third sneaky part of the wordplay. Very enjoyable, thanks, Howard!
Great puzzle, thanks, David. Quite the feat of construction and linguistic legerdemain. I, for one, appreciated the indicators for the rebus squares, which is usually quite a frustrating challenge as a newer solver. The fact that I didn't get that until I had 4 of 6 done is completely irrelevant. Did get hung up a bit in the top center, though - three crossing proper names and I was unfamiliar with all of them, anchored by the Mediterranean flowers that I was also not familiar with. Still, a very enjoyable solve!
@suejean I got stuck there at the very last, I had OHGEE since I didn't know Khan's first name and SOL seemed possible. Not having the hip-hop bird for the cross stymied me for a while.
@CCNY Not a boring fact at all. I grew up on a farm high up in the Andes with poorly-sealed everything, so in the middle of the night, moths would land right on my face while I was sleeping. Scarred for life.
@Times Rita I lost a good bit of time on that as well. 1SET and 14KMAGIC seemed reasonable and I didn't think to count the Ks, assuming I'd made an error somewhere else. Oh, well. Still a great puzzle!
@Andrzej Way back in the day, there was a 5-day limit on the number of times a contestant could win. Removing that limit in 2003 paved the way for Ken Jennings's 74-game streak in 2004.
Congratulations on your debut, Nate! Fun puzzle and a new speed record for a Tuesday for me, so I definitely was on your 53D-length! Looking forward to your next offering!
Well, this was an emotional rollercoaster. First across path - slim pickings, but let's keep going. 52A - Oh, no. There's a trick with the downs. First down pass - a couple of maybes. This is not going well. I'm pretty sure about ANGELS - but what's missing? I think every AN might be missing. Nope. Maybe AN or EN. STRAIGHTENUP saves the day. First two letters are always missing. Got it. Holy slog. Making some progress, but evaluating every possible combination of first two letters is --UGH. Holy smokes. Yellow star, just a couple of minutes above average, no lookups. Pretty pleased with myself. Read the column. THE FIRST TWO LETTERS WERE WHERE? Feeling --UPID.
@EmptyJ I was right there with you, my friend.
@MC Yes! The four sides thing threw me completely off because I couldn't see the pattern online of which ones were overflowing and which ones weren't, so I questioned every single clue touching the edge, and then was flummoxed when some of them seemed to need to overflow and some didn't. Frustrating solve that ended up breaking my streak because I got stuck on (B)RAID in the upper right and figured the Olympic name was an overflow name that I just wasn't familiar with. 1/10 would not repeat.
@Heidi Yeah, I didn't get PEEPER - I assumed baby blue was something about a diaper color changing when it's wet, which left ESTEE as a weird but more or less acceptable answer for the perfume compound (Estee Lauder's factory?), so I could not find my single error and had to autocheck. Drat.