Rahul

Sorry for the shameless gloating but I completed a 1000 streak today and am feeling super thrilled about it - and I couldn't have asked for a better puzzle to hit this number. I genuinely look forward to the NYT crossword's release each day and am very grateful to this puzzle for keeping me sane especially during the early COVID years. I also owe a lot to the community here - even though I don't post that often, I always read the comments and often learn something new or insightful or at least get a chuckle out of it that makes my day and for that I'm very, very grateful.

Remember reading this years ago. Apparently the Road Runner creators had some ' Rules' (usually followed in all the cartoons but not always)- "The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going 'Beep-Beep!'" "No outside force can harm the Coyote — only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products." "The Coyote could stop anytime — if he were not a fanatic. (Repeat: 'A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.' — George Santayana)." "No dialogue ever, except 'Beep-Beep!'" "The Road Runner must stay on the road — otherwise, logically, he would not be called a Road Runner." "All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters — the southwest American desert." "All materials tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation." "Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy." "The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures."

Looks like I'm in the minority here but this was an absolute slog. The themed clues didn't seem particularly witty and many of them seemed like very obscure (to me) American celebrities from a certain generation. If I may nitpick - the correct term is MALAY peninsula and not MALAYA peninsula. If the reference was to the former name of Malaysia or the British colony, it should have been clued as such.

Easy but good fun. And this came out in The Onion just yesterday so absolutely perfect timing for 7D- <a href="https://theonion.com/rita-oras-agent-scores-singer-another-prime-crossword-puzzle-placement" target="_blank">https://theonion.com/rita-oras-agent-scores-singer-another-prime-crossword-puzzle-placement</a>/

This puzzle gets a 10/10 from me just for the ASWAN joke.

The entire upper half was superbly done and CRASH BLOSSOMS was a nice TIL moment. BILL instead of SPAM was a fun misdirect too. But CRASH BLOSSOMS crossed with OLGA, PULIS and LILITH was way too Naticky for me and ended up being a super frustrating solving experience.

Perfect throwback to pre-2020 Friday puzzles in terms of the difficulty level. Overall I found it quite tough but fair. More of these please!

Totally lived up to the hype created by yesterday's constructor's notes. Easy but nice aha moment when I got the theme. Sign me up for a Schroedinger any day.

My favourite kind of end of week puzzle where after an hour of struggle nothing seems to be working and I'm contemplating retiring from solving crosswords and questioning all my life choices and drafting a mini rant in my head to rail at the random trivia and seemingly unsolvable Naticks and suddenly everything falls into place and the gold star pops up. Loved it.

'Butter from a farm' was brilliant :) 'Came unglued' was also a nice misdirect- I had EMDASH and also assumed TAPE was the second part of the answer (somehow related to stickiness) - took ages figuring out the first 3 letters.

Loved the puns. UNITED WE STAND made me giggle out loud. Also- US AGAINST THE WORLD was strangely prescient.

Fun Thursday. Was really really hoping for a picture/emoji of an ANT in each box upon completion.

I knew a day would come when I would lose my 1279 day streak but I wasn't expecting it to happen on a Thursday and not like this. Not trying to be hyperbolic but this was definitely the most frustrating NYT puzzle I've solved in my life. Having lived in the US for several years, the state name abbreviations weren't an issue for me but the clunky fill and bizarre cluing choices and the sheer amount of trivia and nonstop Naticks were a bridge too far for me. Hats off to those of you who solved this easily/found it enjoyable. Time for a single malt now to drown out my sorrow at losing my streak.

Easy for a Thursday but 10/10 for the theme. Loved the idea.

I've traveled on the Flying Ranee train before- some interesting trivia about this train service- around 90% of the world's diamonds are processed in Surat and trains like the Flying Ranee are used by a network of couriers called 'Angadiyas' who typically board 'second-class' compartments and blend in with everyday commuters to transport diamonds from Surat to Mumbai. Angadiyas travel in teams, often buying multiple train seats, taking turns to sleep, and carrying bags containing diamonds and cash worth hundreds of millions of $ disguised as simple, unassuming luggage. Everything is completely based on the honour system.

Didn't understand how 'Gukesh Dommaraju, upon becoming world chess champion in 2024' translates to TEEN. Gukesh was already a teenager before he becomes the chess champion and is still a teenager - so where does the 'upon becoming' bit come into the picture? Just seemed like a very awkwardly worded clue.

Absolutely stellar Fri-Sat-Sun combo this weekend. Among the best I've seen all year. Very coincidentally, I learned about the concept of Isei, Nisei and Sansei in a graphic novel I finished just yesterday - They Called Us Enemy by George Takei. Highly recommended read about the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2.

I'm clearly in a minority here but I thought this was the toughest Monday I've ever encountered. The KENO - KLEE-MATZOH crossing seemed super Natick-y to and I hardly see Matzoh spelled this way anywhere online. Hate being nitpicky but overall it was way too obscure for me and left me more annoyed than impressed.

Nice, clean fill and some great cluing. Had a very Robyn Weintraub feel to it - and there can be no better compliment than that.

Excellent throwback to the pre-Covid puzzle era (I still get stumped by older Fri and Sat puzzles from the Archives). The SE corner completely destroyed my self confidence and just that section took me 30min to crack. Time for a tub of chocolate ice cream to soothe my ego.

Loved it. Felt a lot like pre 2020 Friday/Saturday puzzles. I felt like I was going to be stuck forever in multiple places and suddenly everything just seemed to fall into place (which still doesn't happen with pre 2020 puzzles for me sadly). More such Friday puzzles please.

Fun puzzle but I echo the comments from yesterday - late week puzzles have become far less challenging of late. I know NYT doesn't publish this data but GenAI estimates suggest the number of daily unique NYT crossword solvers has shot up from 150k to 2M in the last 15-20 years so I get the need to make the puzzles more 'mainstream'. While the focus on having fewer US-centric clues and making the Mon-Wed puzzles more accessible is great, will be nice to have early-mid 2010s difficulty levels at least for the end of week puzzles.

I rarely comment on Monday puzzles but this one definitely qualifies as my favourite Monday puzzle from this year. Happy pride month to everyone!

There was a lot I really liked in this puzzle but several sections especially the north-west were incredibly frustrating as a non-American solver - seemingly random American secretary of defense from 13 years ago, random American gas brand, random American senator, random American college football reference and so on. But overall I'm still very thankful for yet another Thu-Fri-Sat combo with pre-2020 difficulty levels.

Wow must've been quite a feat of construction making all the crossings work. Kudos!

Loved it. Made me smile 😊

Not a Trekkie by any means (not watched a single episode or movie) but couldn't stop marveling at this feat of construction. Managed to figure out the fill via the sheer number of pop culture references I've heard over the years and loved how all the theme items just 'fit' together so perfectly. Kudos!

That was the perfect combination of some solid garbage-free fill and some very clever cluing. Based on the constructors' notes I assume the editors retained a lot of the original cluing in today's puzzle. More such Friday puzzles please!

Easy for a Thursday but loved the puzzle and the drawings. Nicely done

I first thought 58D was clued incorrectly but TIL even though there are 7 emirates in the UAE, there are only 6 ruling families and Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah are both ruled by branches of the same dynasty/family.

Clever clever clever. Easily my favourite Wednesday of the year.

Generally in the 'Tough but Fair' category of puzzles for me except for the Naticky crossings of KEN KESEY, RIESEN, SENTA and OSTER which did me in.

Also- big TIL moment for me that both the crime-related science and debate contests share the word "forensics" because they are rooted in the Latin word forensis, which means "of the forum" and is related to "speaking for judgement" in a public setting.

Quite a feat of construction. Nicely done. And lovely constructor's notes - made me smile and was a much needed break from all the depressing headlines. Looking forward to the Wednesday puzzle now.

Today's puzzle was truly * chef's kiss * Had a huge aha moment when I finally figured out the rebus. This weekend ends with the best Friday - Saturday - Sunday trio that I can remember from the past few years.

I might be in a minority here but I rather liked today's puzzle. Had some garbage fill here and there but most of it was just the right amount of challenging and took me close to an hour to crack, which was a nice change from last Sunday's puzzle where I was done in 20min or so. Had a nice aha moment when I figured out the theme too. Thank you to the editors and constructors for another solid Fri-Sat-Sun trio to close off the weekend.

Fun, witty cluing. Had HELD NERVE before HELD SERVE and that tripped me up for a while.

I often have mixed feelings about Sam Ezersky's constructions but today was absolutely brilliant with some superb misdirects. Starting last Sunday, this has been one of the more challenging (and fun) weeks in recent memory and though it's unlikely, I'd like to think it's based on all the 'too easy for an end of week puzzle, where are the difficult puzzles like the old days' feedback we've been giving on this forum over the past several months.

Fun fact: Nauru is the only country in the world with no official capital city. Yaren district is more of a de facto administrative centre.

The crossing of TOY POODLE, POOL NOODLE and ARE WE COOL was incredibly satisfying. As was the clue for TSA PRE. Thank you for an excellent Saturday puzzle.

Wow quite a feat of construction! Really liked the fact that there wasn't much crosswordese despite the constraints of the theme and that the difficulty level seemed just a tad higher than most Tuesdays. Nicely done.

'Screws the titans' made me laugh out loud which rarely happens to me with a crossword puzzle. Loved the theme and rest of the clues too.

So thrilled to see a constructor from Singapore! And a 14 year old at that! Great job Bryan - this was a really fun solve. Very impressive work.

Finally managed to complete it in over one hour but it was a pretty unenjoyable one hour. I usually love a good Saturday challenge but today, a lot of the fill and cluing felt like it was made difficult for difficulty's sake. Anyway, serves me right for constantly complaining about recent weekend puzzles being too easy.

Fun fact - Mangosteens are banned in many Southeast Asian hotels (also durians, but that's mainly for the smell) because their dark purple juice leaves permanent, hard-to-remove stains on hotel linens, towels, and carpets.

The cluing choice for APU was a bit odd. I doubt anyone who's Indian/of Indian heritage/ a Sanskrit speaker would know the meaning and if they did, I doubt they'd equate it with 'Extraordinary'. Google and GenAI tell me the meaning in Sanskrit is 'Pure' or 'Divine' and it's usually used as a prefix to a longer first name; I see 'Extraordinary' mentioned only on a few fringe websites. I assume the overlap between NYT crossword solvers and Sanskrit speakers is really small but please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

Cute theme. One minor grouse- calling Diwali and Holi Hindi festivals instead of Hindu festivals is a bit like calling Hanukkah a Hebrew festival or Eid an Arabic festival. And while one could argue the festivals are called that in the Hindi language, it's a bit of a stretch since the origins of the words are from Sanskrit and they are called by these names in a few other languages as well. Other than that, was a fantastic Sunday puzzle.

One of my pet peeves is people in India (where I'm also originally from) using 36D as a corporate synonym for "reply" or "respond" (e.g., “Please revert with the details”). In fact it's become so common now that's it's been officially recognized in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary as 'Indian English' usage but it still continues to annoy me for some reason.

10/10 Saturday. Also because it made me crave aloo paratha and paneer paratha.