riceisnice

I thought this was fun, but tricky. I was worried several times that I would get stuck in one of the corners, but somehow I managed to make steady progress and didn't even have to go searching for that last messed up square for once. It was a satisfying solve, but I feel like some of the answers were A BIT ODD, which is not quite idiomatic, I think, and had me second guessing myself. Such as HAM OMELETTE, with the European spelling and the lack of AND CHEESE. Also, embarrassingly, I was just staring at my computer update screen and still it took me forever to make sense of the answer to "Tahoe runner."

When I got 117 across I was sure that the trick was going to be adding in some letters of another answer to the left and I was so wrong. I like the idea, but I think the theme was way too tricky to figure out. I was only able to finish it after filling in every other square in the puzzle, going back and figuring out which ones were the special squares, and then looking at the little Wordplay column preview at the bottom of the page online and realizing it had to do with states. I feel like a Sunday puzzle where the rebus is different from either direction could use a few more hints. Like something that more specifically indicates pairs of states.