BC
NC, USA
Numbers in a crossword grid?! Someone give me some pearls to clutch! Sorry, feeling sassy this morning. Enjoyed the puzzle, though.
@pjfin I disagree wholeheartedly. I found this puzzle quite enjoyable, and after looking at the headline of the associated wordplay column, the theme was not that hard to suss out. Cross clues led me to the topmost theme entry, and when I realized that the fingers would be coming in order, the rest of the theme was a breeze.
I'm just too old-school. For non-human source of spam, I had PIG. but I quite enjoyed the puzzle.
I got 47D on cross clues, but it took the longest time for me to catch that the "club" referenced in the clue was a sandwich. It was one of those cases where I was so caught up in thinking of a weapon or entertainment venue or group that I couldn't make the jump to the other definition. I quite enjoyed the puzzle, though.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle.
Pretty tough for a Tuesday, but still enjoyable.
Came for the rebus hate; wasn’t disappointed. I like rebuses. Or is it rebi? They're my favorite kind of Thursday puzzle.
HOT TEA as a freebie? Wish I could get that deal. since this is Friday and tricky clues are acceptable, I would’ve clued it as "Juicy gossip."
very enjoyable. CROONER instead of SINATRA mess me up for a while, but I finally figured it out.
There was a microbrewery in my area that closed down in May. It was named Duck-Rabbit, and it’s logo was the ambiguous figure featured today.
I enjoy rebus puzzles, and this one was quite fun. I came to the comments for the rebus rage, though, and I was not disappointed. I wonder if schadenfreude could be worked into a rebus...
Today’s theme made me think of the old one-liner, "I just can’t get a Handel on all these Baroque jokes." (Handel was a baroque composer.)
@Diana You posted at the perfect time, thank you. I'll piggyback on this theme, as today's puzzle brought my streak to 1000 days. Thank you, Mr. Knapp, for thoroughly enjoyable grid!
I enjoyed this puzzle. For everyone who is complaining, I would encourage you to take a look at the day's Wordplay column before you get too deep into a solve, or at least when you think there might be a trick involved in a theme. You don’t have to read all the spoilers, but a quick glance at the headline of the column can often give you a hint to a puzzle's theme. I am sure I will get some blowback, but I will preemptively say that I disagree with you and I hope that puzzles like this continue. I consider them fun.
I didn’t try it, but it would be cool if you could enter Roman numerals in the numerical spots so that it’s still all “letters”.
@Emilie Yeah, it seemed tough at first, but I found it enjoyable overall. I just couldn’t resist my earlier pedantic moment over the Star Wars crawl.
As a lefty, I felt a bit unfairly smeared by 44D, and I would add that it's definitely not a "delightful" entry, as the Wordplay column claims. In this case, two incorrect swipes do not a "swipe right" make. Now, we just need a puzzle making use of the left brain -- right brain nature of handedness so that we can all be reminded that lefties are the only ones in our right mind.
When I first read the clue for 107D, I thought it meant that the bottom of the I was above the top of the O, and I was all set to take issue. It eventually hit me that "atop" in this context meant "superimposed over." And I will also say that I enjoyed this one immensely.
I had a much more scatological guess for the first word of 7D.
After I solved 43D with cross clues, I kept wondering about the names involved. I had the pronunciation of "Irene" so firmly stuck in my head that I couldn’t recognize the name "Rene" until. I typed it out in a search. 🤣
As a homebrewer, I have used malted barley and malted wheat at times. I was actually going to complain about the 4D clue, but, upon reflection, I have no problem with it. When I place an order for brewing grains, I regularly talk about the malt I want, and there are different types. For example, my most recent batch used UK Pale, UK Medium Crystal and UK Dark Crystal to make an ESB, a type of British ale. The malts all happen to be barley, but I referred to them by the names listed above and never said the word "barley" when placing the order. My supplier knew exactly what I wanted.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable one; I enjoyed the theme and notched a new PB for Wednesday.
The first word in the crawl of Star Wars episode one is actually the word "Episode." The answer needed is the first word after the title.
I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Most of the theme was fairly straightforward to suss out, but the theme entry at 17A took me quite a while. I tried "ova" first, then hit on the rebus but put "eggs" in all three slots. Finally, the solution hit me in quite an "aha" moment. Quite fun.
this was a very enjoyable Sunday puzzle. Thanks for a very fun rebus!
@Coco I'm five days behind you and trying to avoid tripping up before Monday! Congrats!
I got 123A with cross clues, but I had never heard of that particular word for a marble. It will be interesting to see if it shows up again in future puzzles. Hopefully so, now that I know it. 😁
The specificity of "Troopers" in the 65A clue made me think of "Staties," another piece of CB jargon I used to hear. Took me the longest time to figure out the correct answer. It didn’t help that perhaps the most famous smokey of them all, from the movie Smokey and the Bandit, was Buford T Justice, a sheriff -- not a trooper.
I got the first theme answer with cross clues, and after that things fell into place such that I got a new personal best for Thursday with this one. It was thoroughly enjoyable.
This one gave me a new personal best for Saturdays, and was quite enjoyable for Valentine’s Day. Cheers!
I enjoyed this puzzle, but I have to disagree with the clue for 1A. The "B" in the answer indicates that we are dealing with a 4-point GPA, and the structure at the college where I teach -- and at every other college with which I have dealt -- sets a perfect A at 4.0 and a B from 3.0 to 3.9. On that scale, a B-plus would be higher than 3.5. An average grade of 3.3 would result in a B-minus.
I enjoyed the puzzle, but a monsoon is not a storm. It is a seasonal wind pattern that influences weather. In south Asia, summer monsoon winds blow north and bring warm, moist air from the Indian ocean north into India, causing a rainy season. Winter monsoon winds blow south, bringing air over the Himalayas, where cold temperatures pull most of the moisture out of the air. As the winds continue south into India, the predominantly dry air results in a dry winter season. Both are monsoons.
I completely missed that the rebus option was available, and got the solve with just entering W's and one D in the various circled squares. As I was finishing up, I was feeling a little sad that there wasn’t a Thursday rebus to enjoy. Silly me.
@lucky13 One version of the moral that I have heard is that sometimes force works better than gentleness. Not the most uplifting of morals, perhaps, but perhaps Aesop was feeling a bit like Machiavelli that day.
I get all the theme answers except the pharmacist one. Is it a pro procures, or is a proporocure a thing? I enjoyed the puzzle all in all, though.
The clue for 17A should be, "despite its name, it’s not generally alcoholic." There are alcoholic variants.
@BC I tried emptying and refilling a couple of squares, no luck. Finally, I just cleared the entire grid and re-entered everything and that finally fixed it.
I enjoyed the puzzle, thank you! I did have one question, though. Is the Uganda clue really the name of a dish or is the word in the clue the name of the green bananas themselves?
@Paul Thanks, I regularly make the mistake of thinking that a clue refers to a more specific word than a generic word like pro.
My completed puzzle keeps giving an error, but I’ve checked against the answer key and had another person double-check me, and everything is correct. I can’t figure what’s going on.
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