Eric

I'm pretty forgiving about stretches in these, but IZZATSO and YHEAR are a little out there especially given their placement. Combine that with even the constructor admitting he had never heard of NO TRUE SCOTSMAN before and this was not an overly hard solve but a little annoying.

I'm getting a little annoyed by GAEA/GAIA/GAYA just being spelled whichever way anyone wants to fit their puzzle. Yeah it's an ancient language. I can probably find a scroll somewhere that spells it XYZR if I looked hard enough.

Not allowed to complain about Saturday puzzles... Not allowed to complain about Saturday puzzles..... Not allowed to complain about Saturday puzzles.........

Just going to take this moment to vent about some of my biggest crossword pet peeves: Proper nouns crossing "Poetically" being used to mean "we made up a word" No consistent spelling for the contraction of U-Turn Otherwise I tore through this one but there were a few spots that felt a bit annoying.

Don't love the new phone app stat page layout. What was wrong with the old one where you could see average, weekly, and best times all in one chart?

I wish the app would give you SOMETHING when you set a personal best. I don't need an animation or anything but having to back out to your stats page and select the day to see if you got it is a little anticlimactic. How about just a "Congratulations you just set a new record!" on the solved time page?

JOGGLE? Seriously? Liked most of this but LLANO and AOXLOTL crossing almost broke my 400+ day streak.

That NW corner is just a beast. Had to cheat on the opera to get it...

Didn't get the theme until after I solved the puzzle and then it gave me an actual laugh. D/WASHBOARD took me a second but when I got it I laughed again. Kudos.

VIAND seems a little obscure for a Wednesday...

Pretty brutal. Looks like I wasn't alone finding that middle section a real slog. I'm OK not knowing anything about golf - it evens out since I probably get more of the football and baseball references than some - but I will never ever get the obsession with conductors. And crossing proper nouns is just poor form.

This comment thread is very funny. As far as a Saturday puzzle goes, none of these references are that obscure. NATHAN FOR YOU was a pretty popular show from the last decade. Usually on a Saturday you'll get asked for the middle name of the 3rd lead on a show from the 60's. I saw someone complain about not knowing who ABBA was? Maybe crosswords just aren't your thing... As for me, as soon as I saw the clue I knew it was ONOMONOPOEIA and I also knew I had absolutely zero idea how to spell it so that was fun.

Just my little peeves: URACIL/DANAE and PAEAN/ASWAN are a little obnoxious as crosses. You either know them or you don't which is OK for a Saturday but a little nasty for a Sunday. One would be OK because you could play the vowel game but two...

Oof that ESE region was rough...GOODOH? Good luck figuring that one out

I'm feeling a little peckish, just going to pop over to the FOOD ROOM and make myself a snack.

Absolutely brutal.......

I don't say this a lot but I REALLY hated this one. Terrible.

Thought the theme was actually going to make this too easy because of how much real estate each one solved, but boy howdy did this one annoy me. NAEbody? Gtfo

I don't know about this one. I figured out the theme pretty quickly and filled in the shaded boxes with the actual spellings of the cryptids which, predictably, caused a lot of confusion. There wasn't anything inherent in the clues that the spellings of the cryptids would be different which it seems could have been done in the parantheticals. Feels like the author really wanted to do this monster hunt theme but couldn't quite figure out how to make it fully work.

OPERA ARIA might be my least favorite crossword entry of all time.

DIC phonetically being "dish" is I guess technically correct but doesn't feel quite right?

I love a good rebus puzzle but I found this one decidedly not fun... Some of the rebus clues were a little tough to parse (still dont understand PATE for "head") and their locations made whole sections of crossing clues impossible since you couldn't know where the rebus square was (again see the PATE location and I was sure it was ROASTMASTER which didn't help). I know it's a puzzle and that's the point but I just found this one more of a slog than usual and not with a particularly fulfilling outcome.

Oof...this gimmick was thin at best. I solved most of it before I got the key and it still didn't make sense. Then I looked at the hints and it STILL barely made sense. Short hedge OTOH? SoMeones gotta give me that one... SOCA?

Not the hardest Sunday, got it in about 20 minutes, but a solid 5 of that was trying to problem solve the mistakes. A solid 4 or 5 spots with some weird spelling crossings. Also GAWP. I've seen it before in the Times but it made me angry those times too.

Can someone explain SYN? Got through everything pretty quickly but that eastern section really tripped me up.

BORK? ... ........ ............. BORK???

I can't remember a crossword answer that has ever made me as mad as I BEEN HAD.

Boy there are 3 or 4 rough crosses in here that you simply can't get if you don't just know both of them. That can fly for a Saturday but it's a little too cute for a Sunday

Some annoying crosses for a mid weeks puzzle. ZERO MOSTEL/PRATE/EREBUS I just got lucky with. LISBOA/ORALE was maybe a little easier to guess.

Do companies "GO IPO"? They GO PUBLIC but an IPO is a thing that companies offer. Maybe I need to read more of that other New York newspaper...

OGLALAS crossed with LOWS bought me an extra minute where I had to try every single letter. Booooooooooooo

ASPIC/PROST did me in. That's a rough crosser. Had the rest of it in record time.

No thanks. Bad gimmick, no clue to solve it, just an unenjoyable puzzle.

SETTEES/BRAE was rough...

Didn't care for this one. The gimmick was a bit of a stretch all around and the tough spots weren't that fun.

Really dug the gimmick on this one. As soon as it clicked I rushed back through all the down clues and made short work of it. SE corner was a little tricky. Going to renew my pet peeve about proper nouns crossing but this one was at least more commonly recognized names.

Almost set a personal Sunday record but there were enough clues I was iffy on it took me a minute to realize I spelled KRISTIN Scott Thomas with an E. Now my whole week is ruined...

STIM TOY was a new one. I was 100% convinced it was SPIN TOY and that section drove me absolutely crazy.

CAMPOREES? When I was in the scouts it was always JAMBOREES and I couldn’t figure out the NE corner for the life of me because of it.

I guess I’m old enough that I’ve never encountered “Who’s cutting onions?” as internet speak so I just assumed with the question mark that it couldn’t LITERALLY be talking about someone cutting onions…