Mick

@BK Don't be so hard on yourself. I bet you have lots of interesting qualities you're just forgetting about.

I enjoyed this comment with one complaint. It is time to ask the commentariat to recognize that Don Quixote was released in 1605 and encourage pundits to stop saying "tilting at windmills."

@LJADZ Take your own advice.

@super spud Your definition of "ingredient" is not the only way to think about that word. For the clue to be "just plain _wrong_" you would have to make the case that the word "ingredient" could never, ever conceivably be parsed as "one component existing in a mixture of things." Your eloquent description of making sourdough at home, while indeed knowledgeable and charming, is quite irrelevant to the actual clue, which neither mentioned nor suggested any specific locale.

@Dave I'm glad you found that the cultural signifiers lined up with what you were familiar with

@B I am surprised how often people here confidently scold constructors without even a little checking. I see the complete phrase "pocket hard drive" in the name of products for sale from LaCie, Western Digital and Seagate among others. I'm nowhere near the esteemed computing geeks you both are, but they seem like reputable companies to me. PCMag has an article explaining the term "pocket hard drive."

@Steven M. I will pile on to note that invoking the term "Natick" is not merely suggesting that the terms were unknown to the solver, but that the terms would be unreasonably obscure to other solvers as well. That may be why condescension is often detected in replies. People could say "I didn't know that" or "I never say that" without resorting to saying "Nobody knows that" or "Nobody says that!" and it seems to me that they get more grace in replies when doing so.

@Plastic Jones Well, we could try agreeing that valid spelling variations do, indeed, exist in this wide world of the English language. If you are advocating that there are actually no valid variations, then no, we can't agree.

@IL The Jay Leno / Conan Obrien "feud" in 2010 was actually a pretty noteworthy cultural to-do. #teamcoco was possibly one of the early hashtags to cross over into cultural consciousness. I didn't follow it closely at all, but I could not escape being exposed to it, despite the fact that I did not watch late night TV at the time. Remembering that whole affair made that answer a gimme for me, at least.

@Elizabeth H Congrats to you on your other ultimately useful solves. I've yet to achieve any of those.

@JohnWM I'm going to hazard a guess that it follows a similar scheme in how you'd expect us to pronounce JohnWM.

@Marie Indeed, knowledge of how loan words work in their new language is also power.

@Cliff Butler Kudos for this approach rather than rushing here to declare that it's not a real word. You set a good example.

@Heg See you back here same time next week then?

@Bobby Salmon You wanted it to be easy?

@Marty It's a way to say "Dead serious," in modern lingo.

@Joseph C True, might be why the clue is "good guess" rather than "best guess" eh?

@Dave Let the record reflect that you asked for "anywhere that includes." Don't blame Mr. Ancona when you resort to moving your goal posts.

@CalGal Same wavelength. I penciled in RIBALDRY on my first pass there when all I had was the B. A little sob when I realized it had to go.

@LJADZ If the number of obscure proper nouns was “too many” for you but also “as usual” then perhaps you are bringing disappointment upon yourself? Why subject yourself to such angst if you already expect it to be not enjoyable?

@Mike And to think, some are downright hostel to puns!

@The X-Phile I appreciate your attempt here. The windmills you tilt at may not fall, but the attempt is noble

@Francis None of Garden, Giant, Gray, Giddyup, Galvanized, or Game would have satisfied 38D

@Asky Your "us" is not as universal as you assume it to be.

@Hanson Some cultures would be baffled that you make such a distinction between using an electronic board with a lot of buttons to arrange the symbols for letters in a grid being valid entertainment, but using a mouse and pointer to interpret the symbols for numbers in a grid to be an entirely separate form of entertainment to be detested.

@David Pearce How would "C R" be an acceptable answer for the clue "Ire?"

@litewriter Then you should also note that even Wikipedia includes the "IDYL" spelling as valid.

@Michael You bested me by a single second. Good work! Poor England, though.

@Sam I'm now imagining the Prose Edda transmitted orally with a Bronx accent... thanks for the laugh.

@Clutch To be fair, @Hank never actually claimed to know English.

@ingridemma The thing is, for many nontechnical observers, a common "wheelie" is when you pop the front wheel in the air, and so when you conversely leave the front wheel on the ground (popping the back wheel in the air) that is a "front wheelie" -- a SYN for ENDO. :-)

@Joe Write better books.