Sara W
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Love that the constructor fit in STOPITYOUTWO, directed at those doubled double-crossers, no doubt :-)
Regarding the character alignment of NYT games, I’d put the Bee in chaotic evil. Definitely not lawful, because it’s arbitrary which words are included or excluded from the game. There’s no law or rule governing it - just one man’s whim.
@Red Carpet 11A reminded me of my favorite: There are 10 kinds of people-- those who understand binary and those who don’t.
I’ve never played the game, but I had no trouble enjoying the puzzle. I appreciate how dense the theme is and how it did warp those pipes! I was sus of WARPPIPE but all the crosses fit and sure enough, now I get it :-) I enjoyed a lot of the cluing and that I knew little of the game trivia meant the puzzle was more challenging than many recent Sundays. The game is inescapably in the culture so I was familiar with some of the theme, especially the dinosaur, famous from previous NYT crosswords. I was concerned about some naticky spots where game trivia crossed proper names and some obscure fill (looking at you ENTHALPY!) but I completed without any lookups. Fun puzzle, thanks!
@Francis I think the clue writer is assuming all HALLs are long. The consensus so far among commenters seems to be that the clue is not a great fit for the word.
@Andrzej As an American I am too.
I found today’s photo very apt, as I spent far too long trying dog wearables for the lab clue. In a crossword, lab always means the dog. Always! 😂
@john ezra This comment is the best part of this puzzle! Emus in the abysm
@Andrzej You can’t remember whether it’s OLAF/V because it could be either. You have to get it from the crossing. There’s a number of words with alternate spellings that pop up. You have to hope the crossings are kind :-) As other commenters have said, many of us who are monolingual are in awe of those who can do word puzzles in second languages, let alone in other cultures!
@Andrzej Agree about the willows - held me up too. In my neck of the woods we have the largest trees of all - redwoods and Douglas-firs. Weeping willows are merely large shrubs in comparison.
Count me as one who appreciated the revealer. I knew to double the theme answers but needed the revealer to understand why :-)
@Tom I got TO EBAY OR NOT TO EBAY from the theme.
Pleasant puzzle. I liked ARGONAUTS and SCATTER PLOTS. Set a new personal best (under 10 minutes). Yesterday I was 6 minutes over my average, so go figure. Difficulty levels are all over and so is my performance :-)
@SP I’ve heard an obscure technical task referred to as a BLACK ART (singular); I have no idea what gamers call anything anymore, having stopped gaming in the ‘90s; but I’m with you on the stereo-INMONO mismatch, and I really don’t get how AMNESIA makes for a “never” mind. The mind was there and still is there, it’s just lacking some memory.
Time was, doing the New York Times crossword puzzle meant something.
@Chris That now almost obsolete 20th century artifact, the WRIST watch.
@Bo How could it have been too difficult if you solved it in 30 minutes? If you were unable to solve it, I’d recommend you give yourself more time- take a break and come back fresh. Sundays used to take me an hour and that’s what I thought a Sunday should be like.
@Wayne Harrison I don’t consider educating oneself as cheating. I think it’s part of the puzzle.
@Steve L I’m assuming Elmer Fudd said “I’m hunting wabbits” between 1937 and 1938. None of your other citations are relevant.
@Cat Lady Margaret That unnecessary S tripped me up and I held off entering BLINI because the answer had to be 6 letters. It’s especially nutty because the singular is blin. BLINIS is a plural of a plural. Like saying “I have two sets of glasseses.”
I loved it! Loved the wordplay (love meta phrases), loved the twist on the “part 1”-type clues. Cute and fun!
I’m sorry so many people had trouble solving on phones or even laptops. I have a small iPhone and my eyesight isn’t great and I had no particular trouble. I zoomed in once to check something and that was it. I am used to struggling to see the clue numbers in the grid. I didn’t encounter any other problems today.
@John On an analog clock, the little hand points to the hour and the big hand to minute (min for short).
@Hazel F If you’re looking for another series to lose yourself in, try Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian. I read it through, then started it over and immediately read it through again :-)
@Joan I held on to cOPs way too long. I’m familiar with POPO but never hear it used (I’m the wrong generation/milieu) so took a while to think of it.
@Megan Otto for a masculine object and otra for feminine. The better clues hint at which gender. Otherwise you have to check the cross.
@John Giant pylons carry electrical transmission wires.
@Mike There were 5 unchecked squares in the puzzle, the north square of each of the roundabouts. The 3 other squares in each roundabout had to work with 4, 3, or 2 answers.
@Barry Ancona I caught onto the theme quickly enough, but I needed crosses to complete most of the themers. When I got 113A on the clue alone, no crosses yet, I was pretty proud of myself :-)
@Francis It was P in SAPOR. But hey, at least you got the animation, which most of the rest of us did not :-)
@Weak REVing an engine is synonymous with racing it, stereotypically done by drivers right before a race.
@Steven M. That was one answer I put in right away, even though I was dubious about it. If the predator is at the top, then its prey is just one step below. If that’s the bottom, it’s a pretty short chain!
I enjoyed it! Lots of fresh fill, the theme helped me - 45A I got with only one cross in place. Most of the clueing made for a breezy solve, but I did enjoy 47D too, after I - eventually! - got it :-)
I looked up Ian’s 2016 puzzle. I loved it! An extra challenge for constructor and solver alike. It helped me that I knew 1A straight away, being my favorite musical artist, so I caught onto the trick pretty early. Pips is currently my fav puzzle. Can’t wait until we get the archive of all the puzzles the Canadians got to test out for us :-)
@Barry Ancona, Dave is talking about 47D, the American tv network TBS. The square as clued was a Natick for this American too, but UTES is common in crosswords and I at least have heard of TBS.
@John Ewbank “Come back here! I’ll bite your legs off!”
@Edith Maor Skirt is a kind of STEAK and SALAD is made of leaves.
@sotto voce Cot has a vowel sound like Ahhh, as in “say ‘ahh’”. Caught is more like Awww, as in: Awww, that puppy is so cute. If you say Ahh and Aww the same, I can’t help you 😂
@Bill Not to mention that Spock is half-human, so only half alien, if that even makes sense.
@SP I was also thinking it would be a Reagan reference. It would’ve been a new fun way to clue one of the various of his people who still show up in crosswords frequently.
@john ezra 8 out of 14 clues in the northwest were proper nouns or clued with them or both. It was so many just getting started I assumed some of them must be related to the theme. Like the theme itself is celebrity or something.
@SP I agree EON doesn’t make sense as clued.
@Jane Wheelaghan There’s a Connections column daily with comments you’re welcome to visit as well. I often find the answers to my questions like this there :-) Jeremy, thank you for spelling Oscar’s bologna correctly, which Connections failed to do! There’s a big controversy over it in the Connections column 🤣
@Ιασων I thought it had to do with four-star generals “review”ing the troops, but to me it was another example of a clue that didn’t have much to do with its answer.
@John N You are comment twins with RichardZ 🙂
@Andrzej ACAI berries grow on palms in swampy areas in Brazil. Workers in DINERs traditionally used various slang for the foods they offered. This site has probably way more info than you want, although it doesn’t include the frog sticks example: <a href="https://grokipedia.com/page/Diner_lingo" target="_blank">https://grokipedia.com/page/Diner_lingo</a>
@SP Sean explains LOOPER in the article.