Plastic Jones

Veni. Vidi. Aenigma solvi.

"Kirk to Enterprise. Intelligent life found after all."

"Place to retire" made me think of F1 racing, where drivers sometimes have to retire their cars in the pit.

As intended, I was forced to learn new things during the exercise. It was challenging; but, it is the NYT Thursday Crossword, after all.

Fun puzzle. Good work, Rena!

Now my head won't work in the real world after this one. :)

I had a good time solving this while I made hashweh - hey, there's a good crossword answer. Any way, I don't complain about much. I'm well-fed, and I live a life where I have luxuries such as fun and games.

"Did you say, 'Ute'?" - Judge Haller

For Ex- I had originally asnwered "post", like after. But now I get it. My latin studies are interfering agiain. I'm having a great run, anyway.

It helps if you know who Kim, Khloé and Kourtney are. (not I)

I live a better life without that blasted timer pestering me while I work the Puzzle.

I had to laugh when I read the 74A clue, because winters in Texas are 99% warm. Warm-weather winter gear is shorts and t-shirt.

I had to say the starred clues answers out loud before I understood the theme. This reminds me of the first time I saw a comment about the king of sofas.

I enjoyed this one a lot!

So clever! Cue the theme music.

"Yalie" still stumps me, even though I completed the puzzle. Having never been to Connecticut I had to rely on the cross answers to resolve it. Have mercy on us Southwestern folk.

22A, "Late spring or early summer bloom" I knew would confound me, since in Texas some flowers bloom in December.

I clearly need to brush up on rap.

I honestly thought "body building" was "womb", you know, like building a body, a person. But I wasn't considering a building for housing bodies, like corpses. Okay, yeah. You got me.

Great Caesar's ghost, can we agree on spelling?

Perhaps 25A should have included "for short" or "abbrev."

Jaywalking? I had to look it up. I'd heard of if, but I wasn't familiar.

Whew! I thought I was seeing double. And I was!

4D - I think the word you were looking for was "momentum", where an object tends to remain in motion due to its mass and any force applied to it.

I was seeing red endeavoring to find the right word.

Wow! I learned some new words today.

Whew! That was tricky. Nice one.

Cool theme! I see what you did there.

84A - number for a letter - had me stumped. Even correctly completing the puzzle, I had to research what that could possibly have meant. In my part of the world apartments are not "lettered". We use only numbers for addresses.

I suppose I will have to just watch the "International Man of Mystery" movies at some point.

I abandoned the Sunday puzzle in protest because of 72D.