rink rat tat 2 eh

TGIP -- Thank God It's PI-day And whatta perfectly crusty slice of a puzzle. Although it did take me longer than 31:41.59 to complete -- at least double that! Circling back... I believe I eclipsed my previous record for a single sitting Friday with no autocheck. Loved and agreed with much of the commentary. Which I usually peruse when a puzzle leaves me with an -- I wonder if anyone else ______? I am at least 3.14 X happier with the crossword since I went digital and stopped monitoring my times and streaks and stick to Th/F/Sa/Su. If I dry up or get flustered or stumped... I go start another one and then come back to the tough one -- the next day... With my fresh new next day brain! And inevitably ask myself: Where was that brain YESTERDAY? Abby Something?! And... sometimes... I read some of the paper that is attached to my xword subscription?! PS Best ever? Mum's holiday cream cheese pie with the graham cracker crust!

FANGS for a fun pre pumpkin puzzle! I too had TREBLE with VOLUME but was LES a PAULed than other solvers I do wish it had been VOLUME... and listed at ELEVEN across a CROSS???!!! sorry drac and nice 6º on ONEIDA since you play a guitar with your FINGERS... and the ONEDERS were the 1DERful fictitious band in the tom hanks movie THAT THING YOU DO! growing up in nearby toronto and being a geonut I knew many of the nearby lakes but never heard the FINGER tag but I NAILed it anyway we of course were drilled on the great lakes but long before students were TREATed to the teaching TRICKs of HOMES & Super Man Helps Every One wishing you all an ERIE holiday from HURON in (note to self: decaf?)

Condolences Deb. And a few parallels & coincidences... I too lost my Dad on 1/6 at the age of 91 (in 2014) And he served in the RCAF in WW2. And while he was not my crossword catalyst as an actor announcer humorist and writer he filled our house with reading and wordplay. Puns captions word puzzles newspapers and shaggy dog stories abounded. Mum was my Scrabble wingwoman and guru. Simultaneously during all of the above... HOCKEY was the other passion in our houses. Mum & Dad's first date was to a Leafs game at the "Church on Carlton" and 3 nights before I was born he and my VERY pregnant mother watched Toronto win game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals -- in STANDING ROOM! He turned the tickets down -- Mum insisted on going! Our team added 3 more BROS later... So yeah our house was full of -- PUCKS & BROS & BREWS... But no BROHS or BRUHS or BRAHS and very few BRAS. So 2 things I know better than most in life crisscrossed and were my ONLY error on this grid???!!! My Mum would not have gotten it. And my Dad woulda groaned over both GOAL SEEKERS and BRUH. So, in their honor, I am giving myself a PERFECT regardless of what the bots and apps say. So yeah, like wow eh?

Okay... so THAT happened?! FWIW... I am a longtime NYT solver who started in print and moved over to digital during the pandemic. I normally only do Th/F/S/S puzzles. I don't monitor my streaks or my timings. And I enjoy reading this column and comments on occasion and used to dabble in Rex's world. This is my first comment ever... here. I enjoyed this one and finished it in one sitting. I regularly do the xword over 2 breakfast sessions. "Having said that..." I saw the puzzle title. And I saw the note about the shaded squares. I saw NO NOTE about the circles? So I went about my business and after a little (ok... a LOT of) trouble up in the NE corner... COMPLETED IT! I still had NO IDEA what the circles meant or how they played into solving? I then read the WORDPLAY column which confused me even further. And then read many of the reader COMMENTS. This occasionally at least reassures me that I am not alone... Sooo... different words for money? With each one getting a BUMP up on one letter by one row? Which I only saw AFTER. And which didn't help in solving? Hmmm... I have always LOVED the so called egg ZZZ tra hour of sleep the DST fall back gives me. But seem ZZZ I may have been sleepwalking through this pu ZZZ le? Am I even typing this comment? Some nambuli ZZZ t I am?! But fun pun the le ZZZ t!

dear doc sorry to hear about your garden woes an asSAULT on your PEPPERs is nothing to SNEEZE at esp when they're in SEASON dontcha just hate when they EAT SHOOTS and LEAVE? perhaps a LONELY off duty SERGEANT to guard your PEPPERs with his CLUB? ps fun puzzle ditto constructor notes

FUN HOLIDAY PUZZLE! I was a pretty decent math student in high school but the only KREBS CYCLE I remember is the BIKE that MAYNARD rode on DOBIE GILLIS! LOL he certainly woulda appreciated a rebus with an L7 Happy... Thanksgiving Day Turkey Day Touch Downs is it any wonder that football is such an integral part of this holiday? how is there not an NFL team called the PILGRIMS? you may now give thanks that this comment is over enjoy!

to tristan et al... from HURON in can we at least agree that the edmund fitzgerald is an hauntingly ERIE song about SUPERIOR? meanwhile... with this frigid weather you'd have to be MICHIGANa not to want to fly ON TA RIO ok not GREAT but what's not to LAKE? that is my joyful response to one of those satisfying saturdaze where I got like two 3 letter words on my first pass across and down a gaping great lakelike grid but then chipped away as the coffee took effect... and GOLD starred it! I continue to enjoy and thrive with the TIMER option disengaged likewise the congratulatory music... I prefer to LOL and then vocally emulate the goofy army band in the movie the dirty dozen?!

a seder celebrates exodus with a symbolic repast while muslims relish an iftar after a ramadan fast

for these thursDAZE I’m always a rarin’ to go and ⭐️t solvin' not ⭐️in' I was perfectly par with my rebus CO⭐️ but wasn’t ⭐️NSYNC with my (PAREN)

re: earlier comments on mount TUSHmore a few more CRACKS: rather than a mountain it would be better on a BUTTE... and not require one to ASCEND as far... and since they would not charge ASCENT it would be well worth a PEAK even you had to stand in the BOTTOM line for hours... one wonders how many times the sculptor of such an UNDER taking might have to remind his subjects to... BEND O'ER AGAIN!

belatedly to @Jane Wheelaghan (and everyone else) your comments caused me to flashback on the british woman whose crossword solution got her into bletchley park in "the imitation game" ...which further triggered a wonderful memory of my first movie job working with a mostly british crew during which I was forced to crack one of the most devious codes ever known to mankind... cockney rhyming slang! wouldn't THAT make for a devious thursday puzzle? can you imagine the reader comments column crashing along with everyone's streaks and personal bests over clues like: "Oy went down the apples and bumped me uncle" ttfn eh!

6º of david in tulsa lynn en mass & lorel of illinois: as you can tell from the EH I'm from TORONTO and had a good LOL over the ARGONAUTS! also TULSA used to be a farm team for the NHL TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS also ROCHESTER used to be a farm team for the LEAFS! and it was 1 of 2 cities I lived in by the age of 4!! my Dad worked for WHAM for a year as in tv & radio... not WAKE ME UP B4 U GOGO! happy earworm EH!

ok fun bizarre coincidence: was solving today's xword with tcm on in the bg (mos) featuring 12 ANGRY MEN as I came across 46 down asking for its director! coincidentally it's star/producer is also 5 letters (anyone? bueller? bueller...) I love those moments! I never moan about xwords being too crazy hard or easy and also don't time myself but have read in these blogs and on rex that my times aren't even in the same hemisphere as most of yours LOL also I only do Th F Sa Su xwords to keep the challenge bar a bit higher and sometimes do half one day and half the next if it becomes a slog I do however concur with many herein today that yesterday and today (no not the beatles album) seemed a bit breezier than usual of course I have moments when I think -- oh yeah baby... I'm killin' it but the second I do... I hit a wall so I do try to avoid those ya dee ta ta ta moments LOL ps I love LUMET and am FONDA HENRY too

1. CONGA RATS DEB! 2. how ironic that you gave us your 2¢ worth on OP-EDS just as the US minted its LAST PENNIES! 3. what now... a BITCOIN for your thought$? VENMO loafers? and if the PENNY stops here, where does the BUCK stop? 4. as for your WHEELS ON THE BUS earworm issue: a powerful dark sobering antidote might be an award winning CDN movie from 1997 called THE SWEET HEREAFTER featuring a young SARAH POLLEY -- if you think those SARAH McLACHLAN doggy PSAs are brutal... WHOA!

perhaps inspired by amazing fireworks as well as zach sherwin's funderful live "the crossword show" (google it!) on wed nite at the delightful deco dynasty typewriter... am now on an "official" 3 day streak which I never keep track of?! and in the fastest times I can remember and I block the timer?! fwiw I only do thurs/fri/sat/sun xwords wonder how many solvers share this one: you put in that LAST letter and get a msg saying something like... ohhh SO close but at least 1 square is OFF?! LOL then you have to go thru the whole thing to try and find which 1 or 2 or ? squares are amiss? aaaarrrrgggghhhh! I usually try it once or twice before tagging in AUTOCHECK I did not have a third of a fifth on the fourth but I might have a sip tonight hope you all enjoyed your holiday eh?

satisfyingly LABORious fun xword used to only do sundays... but my faves are now "thursdays and saturdays" as referenced in what classic CSN song? and while we're at it what deceased SNL alum designed their logo? unlike many commenters herein... most of my xword enjoyment is total disregard for times streaks bests averages etc. and just enjoying the solve process including groans of frustration loads of LOLs and ultimately the completion no matter how long it takes have been known to stretch a solve over several days if necessary getting answers the 2nd time around that eluded me before where was that part of my brain yesterday??? resorting to autocheck or lookups only when absolutely necessary so as not to throw or break anything do love coming to this forum if I've had a slog in one area of the grid to find that most solvers did too apparently misery does enjoy company LOL is there are nickname a la REBUS and if there isn't there should be for a completed grid that prompts one of those dang popups: close but no cigar oh whoops somethings amiss horsefeathers at least one square is wrong triggering another fun element of cruciverbalism: a columboesque forensic sifting thru the grid in search of the renegade guilty square(s) and then of course the thrill of "finding the killer" LOL happy safe long wknd all!

note to caitlin re: yesterday's wordplay link (dare?) to the sat xword with the record fewest entries ever thank you so much! I just did it in lieu of doing today's what a hoot and a gold star to boot kudos to the konstructor! and I managed to not succumb to that de facto panic wall to wall blank squares usually trigger many came with greater ease than expected once I breathed and got my heart rate down LOL

sorry for piggybacking my friday comments onto saturday’s but I just finished yesterDAZE maze! quick takes: 1. LOL + KUDOS 2 Jack Sullivan in Scottsdale! 2. ENNEAD + TNIA sure AINT DEANNE but it’s close 3. if TNIA married Louis CK… she would REALLY be a NATICK! but all (ok, some) kidding aside and despite all of the above I somehow stumbled and bumbled backwards into a GOLD STAR?! although I think I pulled something high fiving myself... the only thing more gratifying? the 400 friday comments validating my ride on the machine in the princess bride pit of despair also proud that I didn’t peek at any of the comments on today’s xword which I will now start... unTAIN ted uh ohhh…she is stuck in my head

@Mima there was a mima once upon a tyne who loved to do crosswords online her potty was a loo and her tah a than Q foreign newcastle a queue was a line

LOL -- Lizzie Boredom so many commenters here have an ax to grind but not you! queue doze on yore ewes urn aim ps what do de rebi and de farms got in common? de tractors pps hny 2 awl!

is dere a right way to pick a nit? dear I dare say it's wit a bit a wit OK BOOMER that was a fun sunday here are smore for another day like me they are clueless but still OK OK LAHOMA OK CORRAL OK ENOUGH OK STOPIT OK GETOUT

@Amy BANANAPPEAL CHUCKLEF*** ps as for that lazy braking thing esp at a STOP SIGN in the land of SUSHI & SUNSHINE have heard some refer to it as A CALIFORNIA ROLL

a rare monday visit for me and apparently others... 149 comments? compared to the usual hordes of hundreds I encounter on Th F Sa Su! I wonder if john nash or alan turing could look at monday xword grid and instantly see it completed? no pen no pencil no keyboard loved the comments about ye olde ORLON sweaters fond memories of sock hops and basement parties... especially as all of the above begat THE ORLONS *girl group who gave us: **MASHED POTATOES WAH WAHTUSI DON'T HANG UP SOUTH STREET before the google police pull me over -- *yes there was 1 deep deep bass male in the group **even though DEE DEE SHARP is the name on the record the ORLONS were the BG singers very prominent on it a wonderful era in which there was a new record related dance craze every 10 minutes fun trivia: you coulda solved today's xword in the time it took you to read this just another manic monday monday so good to me and all of thee? DO not step in the DODODO!

loved 39D. as it triggered ye olde Gillette commercial theme total ear worm du jour look sharp be sharp feel sharp a good friday on a good friday... like a wheel within a wheel... speaking of which they're making another remake of thomas crown! LOL

sorry belated reply to: pkisling Jackson Hole re saturday puzzle "Tough puzzle. The northeast corner broke my streak. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel relief when a streak ends? For the next few weeks, I'll be doing the puzzle because I want to... not to maintain a streak. It's a nice break." LOL I totally feel ya I don't time my xwords and I sometimes take 2 or 3 days to complete a puzzle and I don't do M/T/W preferring the harder challenges so I have inadvertently had a several 3 or 4 day streaks including many with a blue star not gold last july after seeing zach sherwin's wonderful live "crossword show" I sorta allowed myself to go on streak of 23 daze it completely changed my mindset process and enjoyment of xwords and I self sabotaged and stopped and yes TOTAL RELIEF LOL I don't care about streaks or best times or any times but I have relented and started doing an occasional wednesday also enjoy going back and doing T/F/S/S xwords that predate my membership but cheers to everyone who enjoys these crazy cruciverbalisms on their own terms as all entertainment is meant to be experienced and yeah yesterday (saturday's) was a tough one but I gold starred it which DOES make me happy a perfect coda to a GREAT world series parting thought: THE MANDOLIN CAPO could be the title of a mafia musical

question from SUNDAY: does each circle have to be filled in as a REBUS?