Bobby Salmon

Had to ferret out a few typos at the end but managed to continue my week-long no-check streak, of which I’m inordinately proud! Took me years to get to this point and it suddenly started happening for me this week. I guess something clicked in my brain, or I managed to regrow a few neurons lately. Senility postponed!

Little flap PETDOOR gave me a non-themed chuckle

Ugh, as much as I love Indian food I had UTTA for ATTA at the top left, which still worked for the across as UTMOST. This one square failed the puzzle for me.

Remarkably fun puzzle to me, though not a gimme by any stretch (couldn’t 18A’s clue have included “Speedwagon”? lol). Two things made it interesting to me: that third level of clever by incorporating puns into the long, themed answers; and the fact that nothing in the puzzle was impossible for normal people and certainly not for dedicated crossworders. I usually get stumped by pop culture or sports names and there was only one of those in the middle.

There’s not a rebus, but there is ARUBA.

I eventually figured it all out for myself, but it was ultimately unsatisfying because of my pet peeve: orphaned answers used for a theme gimmick. BASELINE, RICOTTA, etc. shouldn’t just be left hanging out there with no relation to each other or anything else other than as structural fodder for the theme. Adding that extra level of meaning would have made this a stellar puzzle. Don’t ask me how it could be done, I’m not a constructor!

Me at 1D: “Oh, it’s SIRI”! Siri: “Uh-huh?”

I hate it when I’m smart enough to recognize a theme, but not patient enough to recognize the theme.

Was stuck for the longest thinking southeast was purple. [facepalm]

With TRIES I can claim sports ignorance. With TUG I just failed to see it. But TUT is a weak clue and answer. I don’t know how I teased past this trio without tripping up my lovely two week streak.

Tough for a Monday due to all of the alternate spellings. The pop culture cross in NW didn’t help.

I got the double dip theme pretty quickly, and it’s cute. What I don’t understand is what do the “undipped” answers (such as SIMULATED and MOPEDS) have to do with anything? There’s no reference to them in clues, nor do they relate to each other in any way. They’re just kind of random and sitting there.

Not easy for someone like me who doesn’t know pop culture or speak Chinese.

I'd have found it more satisfying if each of the paired clues had something to do with each other beyond just the movement of the ME.