Aging Bull

Loved this puzzle! Ingenious and witty clues. Congrats on graduating and a nod and wink to your hat tip to the Polar Bear! LGFM!

Such a challenging puzzle, which makes a “no-cheat” completion such a reward! Fantastic work. I now want to find more puzzles from Ella Dershowitz. I’ll bet she gets invited to all the cool parties in the Hamptons…

Loved this puzzle! Question for the group: I generally can solve without any lookups. I usually have a consecutively solved streak of 20, 30, or 40 days before I have to look up an answer or turn on auto-check. In the last two weeks my solve rate has plummeted to about 60%. I had surgery two weeks ago and have been on pain meds. So here’s my question: have the last two weeks been noticeably more challenging for anyone else? Or should I blame my results on the meds? If you read this far, thanks for indulging me.

I like most Thursday puzzles. The rebuses (rebi?) and puns are normally clever and fun. Sometimes they are neither, either trying too hard or just falling flat. Sadly, this falls in the latter for me. Possibly I am miffed because I ended my consecutive streak yesterday. Fortunately, I was able to start a new one today, but I did not find this puzzle to be very enjoyable.

Not a fan. Too cute by two halves.

I enjoyed this one. Quite clever! I have a bone to pick with the answer to 30D. Stressate? Stress ate? The first does not appear to be a word, despite some obscure references turned up by the Googler. And “Stress ate?” As in “eaten by stress?” Stress has been all too common in my life and career but I’ve never used let alone heard that term. Anyone else have an issue there? Fortunately, the crosses allowed me to fill it in but what a clunker compared to the wittiness of the other clues. Eye socket! Gym classes! Novocaine! Tour guides! Elf hats! Brilliant.

Wonderful concept, poor and misleading execution. The pun, “inside the lines” only works if a double letter Rebus is allowed, otherwise it falls apart. The revealer is not “next to the line” or “beside the line.”

‘Rush delivery” = Nasal. I can think of many more appropriate adjectives that better describe this late hate-monger, but I will leave it there.