MFSTEVE

The heck is an EARLAP?

It was my understanding that there would be no math

My kids call me DADO. Maybe they think I'm groovy. Good puzzle today!

AMER, BRUH, BLAM, LGA, SAO, YUP, MARPLE... Too many pretend words and obscure proper nouns sapped the fun out of this puzzle.

Anyone else have PRICE and HACE? HACE or High Altitude Cerebral Edema, a condition in people with Acute Mountain Sickness can present with confusion as a symptom.

NBAERS? Come TF on

That's the clue you picked for NOSES

I haven't had to cheat this much in a long time. Too many naticks for me.

Got me with NFC. I had NFL and have never heard of OSSO BUCO. I don't speak Italian or eat veal. Finally googled "osso bulo" which I now know isn't a thing. I thought maybe GOOF OFF was the source of my error because surely the NYT crossword editor wouldn't allow a duplicate clue AND answer. Wrong again. Made this a lame solve and unsatisfying puzzle.

If the constructor is going to cheat with words like OKRAS and TOGAE then I feel better about cheating too.

Well that was impossible, if you aren't a Bruno Mars fan, or tennis fan, without lookups. This puzzle was KRAP.

I didn't figure out the trick until embarrassingly late in the solve. Fun puzzle.

Couldn't get the solve and it was because I had 33a as WiND instead of WEND so yeah, I agree, lookups are fair play.

I've never had so many wild guesses turn out to be right. Just on the perfect wavelength today. Love when that happens. Feels like having ESP.

Super easy when I relented and used Wikipedia.

The first pass through the 'across' clues netted me only END and SAAB and I knew this would be trouble. But a few breakthroughs later and it began to fall into place. Cracked 39A by some miracle and then I was on a roll. Super fun, challenging and satisfying puzzle.

I only know who Hoda KOTB is because of her frequent NYT crossword appearances.

I was on my high school MATHTEAM. We went to State! What a bunch a nerds.

My thanks to Wikipedia and Google Translate for this solve.

I guessed LETS ROCK without any crossers. I love when that happens. Lots of fun cluing and fills. Thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle.

Haha finished the puzzle quick but with one error... somewhere... 20 min later... I cannot spell my way out of a wet paper bag - PaRISHTHETHOUGHT!

If you beat Metroid 5 times on the original NES, Samus Aran would remove their helmet revealing she is a woman, which blew the minds of many gamers at the time. She preceded almost every other videogame heroine ever created. And in 1986!

Fav puzzle in a while. Tough but fair.

Wut

Some really spectacular cluing here. Humbling but fair.

For "Animal resting place", I had SEMETARY at first which I think is more clever than BARNYARD to be honest.

I couldn't figure out what was happening in this puzzle. Went to bed thinking about it. Figured out the trick in my sleep then woke up and solved the puzzle. YES!

This is the hardest puzzle ever. Over 2 hours and I'm only 50%. Might have to start googling.

Challenging puzzle today from a paper that has chosen to elevate anti-LGBTQ+ voices and platform hate groups while framing families seeking basic medical rights as extremists.

Star Wars is not science fiction. It's fantasy.

For me, the last to fall was STUd and dOINK. Heh. That'd be quite a memorable concert.

Now that's what I call a Saturday puzzle. Oof.

Filled it in until I got stuck but then realized, I hadn't tried to solve the "trick" yet. Filling in ROPE/CORD and YARN/CABLE helped untie the rest of the puzzle. No lookups! Good puzzle.

Tough but fair.

Tough but fair.

Not sure why but the NE corner really "stumped" me

Broke my streak because I was solving in bed last night and fell asleep. Woke up at 3 am with my phone stuck to my cheek and the timer still running, so I reset the puzzle. Ah well, 19 min feels better than 5+ hrs.

come on man, SNEES?

That. Was. Tough.

That felt like the toughest puzzle I ever finished quickly.

Once I figured out "Spilled Milk" it started to click. "Eggs in one basket" was the last to fall. Really clever Thursday puzzle. I do not understand RIMIER though...

I figured out the trick which was clever but the most difficult part was the intersection of bogus, made-up words: EELIER, MEEPLE and RELO.

BEL ESPRIT has been used in English since the 17th century? How many times, including this puzzle.

Very reasonable clues and answers today. Loved KINDASORTA and LSD. Very clever cluing.