Lucas Walker

@Aaron Here's the script! <a href="https://dmdb.org/lyrics/whos.on.first.html" target="_blank">https://dmdb.org/lyrics/whos.on.first.html</a> And an irrefutable quote: "Costello: Well then who's on first? Abbott: Yes. Costello: I mean the fellow's name. Abbott: Who. Costello: The guy on first. Abbott: Who. Costello: The first BASEMAN. Abbott: Who. Costello: The guy playing... Abbott: Who is on first!" (I added the caps of course)

@Petrol RAD might have been the actual first thing I filled in for this puzzle. For me it was a gimme. Wavelength, not quality

@Mean Old Lady 39A and 24D was my last square! I guessed H because I figured a country star might as well have an alliterative name

@CNS Or you could say, "wow I learned something about poetry today!"

@Brian Sinclair in my experience PANTSing is a crime with varying degrees of severity

@nash.mark oh yes! Not a container that IS red, a container FOR red. That is a compelling explanation to me!

@Derek Ledbetter oops! Ya been Ginsburned

@Michael time to sign up for Duolingo! 😛

@Xword Junkie This is an example of a slightly less common family of crossword clues where the clue is a common, often idiomatic phrase, but given with an exclamation point alone, and notably without quotation marks. The lack of quotes indicates we're NOT substituting an equivalent utterance as we would if the quotes were present. That is, ["My word!"] solves to EGAD most often, but without quotes it changes the meaning of the clue. But how, exactly? I struggled to remember other examples of this because they don't show up that often. I tried typing some on xword info and I got [Beat it!] as a clue for EGG and also for DRUM, whereas the quoted version ["Beat it!] solved to SCRAM or GETLOST, which I think illustrates the difference nicely: generally the pattern is that removing the quotes makes the clue point to a literal object of the phrase rather than a substitute idiomatic expression, which would make today's clue a little unusual because it relies on the well known phrase "my word is my bond" to make the substitution rather than just a simple literal reading. (Often I have this experience with solving this type of clue, that the answer seems linked more by vibes than by the strict grammatical evaluation that we can apply to other clue types.) Do people think I characterized this correctly? This is not a type of clue listed on the "How to Solve the NYT Crossword" article, so might be useful for someone who really knows what they're talking about to weigh in here?

@Linda Jo I had to look this one up! It's short for "aviation gasoline". Now if someone would explain how "red container" solves to CASK? I only got that by crosses.

@David I had never heard of UTNEREADER and when I got it on crosses I had to look it up because the first four letters seemed so improbable!

@LBG yup, I confidently started the NW corner with "dose" for 9D, did the entire rest of the puzzle, and abandoning that mistake to try APPLEPRESS as the [Cider mill fixture] is what unstuck it for me

@Noemi I also had SCArY and came here specifically to find someone else with the same issue! I know RIrEY is an unlikely last name but basically all sports clues are fully out of my wheelhouse... oh well

@Don H "Hey, bud, I'm walkin' here!" "Hey, MAC, I'm walkin' here!" ...works for me

@Tom R It just goes to show you one person's random is another one's wheelhouse! I pay a LITTLE attention to comedy and knew without needing the book title that it had to be Nancherla as soon as I saw Aparna. (Also the googling can be finessed a bit... with a common phrase like "unreliable narrator" you'd have better luck googling "comedian Aparna"... just a tip!)

@Byron Read the article! ANTIPATTERN is a technical term originating in program design 30 years ago. I had also never heard of this and found it an odd clue until I looked it up.

@DW ATTA is definitely one of those crosswordese terms... which I knew was the answer yet I couldn't remember! Until I got the A's by the crosses.

@Jerry the clue actually says "duck hunting hangout"

@Joanne Jordan I read it that way too, without any reference to vocal parts. I did think of it as low and high instead of short and tall. Maybe the clue should have been [Opuesto de bajo]?

@Pani Korunova I bet you have improved! Puzzle difficulty varies even on the same day, and especially as things get trickier even equally skilled solvers experience different levels of struggle on the same puzzle. Being on (or decidedly off) the constructors wavelength is a real thing. I give myself credit for getting better even though sometimes the end of the week puzzles take me longer than others!

@HeathieJ try the Weird Al version! <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0WPzFnZkZmI&pp=ygUGI2Fsc2hl" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0WPzFnZkZmI&pp=ygUGI2Fsc2hl</a>

@Barry Ancona Really, rOtE instead of BORE? Wouldn't that be poor cluing since drill and rote aren't the same part of speech? I defer to your superior judgment but I would think rote as an answer there would seem incorrect on its face for that reason.

@Rick Box you're not alone, I came here to ask the same question! I would have clued it as [Murder, wrote she?] Great puzzle!

@Mtmetz As a former SIGma Nu myself I was pleased to see this one in the puzzle! (Didn't stop me from trying to fill in BRO at first. But that wouldn't be a "certain" fraternity member!)

@AySz88 if you like making flags in PowerPoint you might also like doing it with Pyret, a programming language designed with learners in mind... here's the exercise in a free textbook chapter: <a href="https://dcic-world.org/2022-08-28/getting-started.html" target="_blank">https://dcic-world.org/2022-08-28/getting-started.html</a>