Comet

@Heg I thought this one was pretty good, and particularly appreciate the reference to the late Senator Inouye of Hawaii, on the Anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

@Lynn "So many things I did not know" could be the title of this puzzle for me. CHESS BOXER? EBOY? And ZEITGEISTY- which i did know, but do not know anyone who would use that word in a conversation.

@Once a Marine I think I read all of the Rand books-- when I was young, and had that inflated opinion of self derived from being a success in a very small pool. College, work , law school and more work gave me a broader perspective. I think of the books now as reflecting both adolescent longing for being that especially talented and a dose of magical thinking, that is, that one's previously unrecognized genius will finally be recognized.

@MP Rogers Glad you enjoyed this puzzle. I am cleaning out the cruciferous vegetables from my fridge's vegetable drawer which I expect will yield a more rewarding experience than the "cruciverbalistic magic" you found in the puzzle.

@Jim I appreciate the skill it took to create this, but the upper right corner exceeded my frustration threshold. AESTRX????

@Caroline Agree. Have a personal beef with puzzles that include this kind of deliberate misspelling.

@Andrzej This was a struggle for us (spouse and me) for the same reason you note: the clues are not on our wavelength. between the two of us, we managed to finish, but what a slog. An English word that is a synonym for "kupa" may have been spoken during the solving process!

@ChrisAlso Agree. Stopped being fun when trying to decipher clues that seem to make sense to "a minority of one- the "one", being the constructor. the constructor.

@Comet Finished! Not as bad if you start from the bottom and work your way up.

@Jamie Or "sleet". And I do not understand "atoz" for "The whole shebang".

@Nat K So frustrating when you've worked your way through this puzzle and just can't complete it without look ups because you don't know GALOIS or LEA SALONGA. Two names I have my doubts about ever seeing again in a puzzle.

@Sebastian It was not easy; I think you may be justifiably proud of yourself!.

@Andrzej Third generation of a Polish immigrant family here, who spoke Polish with babci as a child; my Polish language skills now are limited to knowing food names, and "please" and "thank you". There is no way I could do a puzzle that is not constructed in American English. I salute you.

@Jonathan I'm 70, and though I can't say I never heard the word over the course of my life, I can say that being in a family that drove around a lot with many children in the car, we never, ever, played this supposed car game.

@Andrzej Polish Xmas Eve dish? At our house, no meat, but a few pierogi and lots of kapusta! Wesolych Swiat!

@dutchiris I am with you. Who calls $100.00 "hundo"? I'm from the C-Note and Benjamin generation, I guess.

@NobodyThree Really despise a clue that leads to a string of letters that someone believes describes a sound.

@alchemist Host can also mean "many" or a "slew"

@Jeremy Glad you enjoyed it! As a non-physicist, and a person who never had a physics course in HS or college, I had a lot of problems with this one.

@George Krompacky Also my source for the word. I believe Sam was roasting them for a supper while on the quest with Frodo to get rid of the ring, and there was some concern that the aroma of roasting coney would reveal their whereabouts.

@Chris JI had "Wham" which I thought was more responsive to the clue than "Blam." I was also very messed up in that part of the puzzle.

@Caro the 1978 waffle trainers for women were built using a men's last, but were scaled to women's shoe sizes. Nike was also the first company to produce women's spikes for track running. The waffle trainer was my first running shoe and served me well.