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@Sam Lyons How about NUCLEAR FAMILY for her and Pierre?
Best puzzle in a long, long time. Was genuinely worried for most of it. With all of the conference movement recently I didn’t think twice about the KEN wildcats, but when i was hopelessly stuck the big 12 part of that clue finally clicked, which got me to muscle, then the whole answer, then controlled chaos, then it was just some mop-up. Bravo!
@Dan Sullivan Agreed. This was a really hard Thursday, full of educated guesses for me, but a really interesting theme that required more right brain than usual. Very impressive construction. And yet Peleton instead of peloton is what ate up a big chunk of my way above avg time. If Tuesday was a Thursday and Thursday is a Saturday, what’s Saturday going to be?
To quote the late great Rodney Dangerfield - I feel like I just gave birth. To an accountant.
This puzzle is an extraordinary achievement and just the right mix of hard and fair. Outstanding for any constructor, never mind a debut effort. Well done!
Aaand 365 in a row. This one came quickly, and if it wasn’t for Abettor would have been close to a PB.
Absolutely loved this puzzle. Amazing feat of construction - the fact that each of the down theme answers is the same length and that there’s symmetry in the colored squares must have taken forever to figure out. A couple of less than stellar glue answers is easily forgiven. MASTERPIECE.
Thought my streak was in jeopardy for a few minutes there despite getting the theme pretty early with Ikea Store - only to realize I had “pedal” instead of “petal”. Nope. Why wouldn’t I sweat “BS ADS”? Aah…..
Nope. Not enjoyable. Audre Lorde crossing ADU, and an absolutely awful clue for Wrist don’t make for a fun Friday.
Really like this one even though it took me forever to get the bottom half. Great to learn about crash blossoms!
Great Monday. Really aced this one!
I guess hard to complain after a couple of weeks of way too easy puzzles full of PBs, but this is not a Tuesday puzzle. Bantu? Tucket? Liberty Valance? This puzzle relied way too heavily on arcane trivia for this early in the week.
I like my Thursdays to be more Thursday-y
The Times really really wants me to see Wicked I guess. This theme seems to come up far more often than I would have otherwise expected. Glad I remembered Elphaba from the last time. Clever puzzle; enjoyable for a Thursday.
LOVED. I wish every Sunday was like this.
@Nemo Do better once again batting 1,000 for wrongness. No rebuses were required to complete this puzzle.
@JGrey Would have loved a ? at the end of that clue.
Top 10 WW2-era movies? SCHINDLER’S LISTICLE
great Thursday puzzle, if quick. Well done!
@coloradoz Could have been much, much worse. I was once standing in line at the entrance to Hampton Court and overheard the couple behind me discussing the different languages for the MP3-like audio guides, which were indicated by the flags of the countries for the different languages. Him: Huh, I don’t see any American ones. I guess we need to use the British guide.
@Patrick J. In Minnesota is it Grey Duck Egg?
What a feat of construction - jamming the theme entries into a 15x15 grid with such clean fill must have taken a ton of work! Really enjoyed this one!
Fun Thursday and excellent debut. The rebuses were the last three squares i completed in the puzzle, and until I looked at their placement again I didn’t get the “spike” reference at all. Very very well done.
@Pagrisan Newlyweds? J/k I am guessing you meant 36D answer
@Natdegu Keep at it! I had the exact same reaction but eventually it comes together.
I’m sorry but Galois and Ocelo and Boardies crossing Leasolonga is straight up ridiculous. The E in Ocelo was the last square I filled in, and I have never been more surprised to get a gold star.
This is what Grammy Hall would call a real Saturday
@John Came here to say the same thing! The new terminals B and C are straight up awesome.
This one took me a long time but was a very satisfying Friday. Well done!
OUTSTANDING Saturday puzzle. Minimal PPP, tough but fair. Loved this one! TIL that Corvette and El Camino have the same number of letters.
Great, great Thursday! Tricky and challenging, without a lot of arcane trivia. Well done!
@The Whip A couple of Tuesdays ago I leaned against the doors of an uptown 5 train and watched a woman sitting down next to me try to complete the rink section of the Zamboni puzzle from a few days before on her phone. As she stood up to get off I said “excuse me, would you like a hint for that puzzle?” And after the panic in her eyes subsided she said “No way but thanks!”
@RI guy Appropriately today - as in tAraroad/ Arie - where Erie seems so much more likely.
@Dave Sorry that has been your experience with this morning’s comments. I only see “hater” references to people who are generally self-professed rebus-haters, who always come out whenever there’s a rebus puzzle. Doesn’t seem to me at all like a measure of intelligence to express a preference but what do I know. Maybe the comment(s) that you are reacting to have been deleted?
outsting de! What’s 28 down?
Well my streak is about to end at 427. My brain just doesn’t seem to work this way. Haven’t read the column or any other comments; I will walk away for a bit and come back but will hit check puzzle at that point or I will spend all day trying to figure this out. Well done to those of you who got this one!
Great Thursday. Took me a while, but so worth it.
@Beth in Greenbelt I’ll try - it’s all due to the rules of a) minimum 3 letters answers; b) grid symmetry; and c) theme answer symmetry: 1) There are 5 theme answers. Typically theme answers have to be in symmetrical parts of the grid - TOOMUCH and PELICAN (6); ROULETTE and ACCIDENT (7), and then the 5th has to go in the middle row because there is no counterpart. As it is 9 letters, the only way to make this fit is in the middle, leading to three blocks on either side. Then the fact that it is his preference to have PELICAN(7) in row 13 means that there have to be three vertical blocks in that row. If this were a 6 letters answer instead, the bottom three blocks would have gone in row 9 instead of 8, and the top in row 7, which would have allowed for vertical blocks in row 4 or 5 on the bottom and 10 or 11 on top, creating shorter answers than the 7 stacks on each side. He could have chosen two blocks in row 12 on the top and four on the bottom to create eight more 3-letter across answers instead, but that would have been suboptimal for obvious reasons.
DNF. Taro (I know what it is, but why would that go in sweet tea, or a smoothie?) and menomosso, which i have never heard of. I don’t mind difficult- in fact was welcome - but that was straight up unfair.
Breezy Sunday after yesterday’s bloodbath. If not for NGOS in 69D was flirting with a sub- 20 min PB.
@Eric Hougland Thank you for all of your hard work! So excited 10/2 won - it was such a clever idea and so well-executed. Fitting that Escape room won as well, although it was a streak-killer for me.
Thursday streak-ender for me. Got the fairly uninteresting theme entries easily enough, but the rest was just a joy-less slog. Just didn’t feel like flyspecking anymore and hit reveal puzzle. On the plus side, having been previously unfamiliar with GUNLAP, researching that led to me to a recent book that resonates. So not all was lost this morning. On to tomorrow!
Got a lot of the center grid within the first 6-7 minutes and thought this was a PB Saturday but then the corners took A LOT longer. INSECTS seemed like an easy entry into the NE, and then my brain was very, very pleased with itself when I immediately came up with CHUNK for 33 across - I mean how would anyone remember any other of those names? When all was said and done I still came in well below average and found this an enjoyable Saturday puzzle. Impressive feat of construction if this does end up being 13 different puzzles with this same grid.
Didn’t make much progress on the top section, but everything below fell together pretty easily with Schulz leading to jazz leading to Kalamazoo. Famous on an ID tag? What’s another use of tag? License plate? Does it really say “Famous Potatoes” on Idaho license plates? I guess so! Taoiseach is one of those words that i know but i have no clue how to spell, but BTUS got me to NAIR and then it all came together. Had never heard of Maria Tallchief, but what else could it be but Opal? And a 22 minute gold star. Very interesting Wikipedia rabbit hole, as is the whole story of the Osage nation, If only killers of the flower moon had taken just 6 of its 206 minutes on more exposition. Ushes? I guess. Amazingly it’s not its first appearance, which was in 1994. The only sketchy entry here though. Not an ETSY or text Abbv in sight. Great puzzle.
This is a good Friday puzzle. Hit a snag with EXIM, as I have never heard of Essene but the full A-Z in the square with the last E didn’t work, and obv exim isnt a word - but mars at 47A seemed the obvious answer. Tars? Gold star, and came out below avg time when I was worried I would be spending a long time figuring out where I had a typo. Serial was ten years ago?
@Dan Sullivan I was just saying I had (again) misspelled Peloton - and the crossing movie title was just a bunch of random letters to me, leading to a long flyspecking session to get the gold star.
This was a fun Sunday. Happy Fathers’ Day all!
When the estate attorney deleted her Instagram account and could no longer access reels, she was forced to turn to Youtube’s ________. Will Shortz