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Got that wrong, 56A: this puzzle is already dated.
I know it’s Saturday, but really, I’m supposed to know Chinese now? This was painful.
@Elaine the NYT literally started publishing crosswords to serve as a pleasant distraction during the trying times of WWII. It’s there for your enjoyment, not stress. Look stuff up and get help if you need to. Hopefully the next four years won’t be much worse than WWII.
I’m really not big on political correctness for its own sake, and I don’t love the nitpicking of words with valid acceptable usages that sometimes goes on here. That said, you could have done better with the curing on 53D: “Possessing a full range of physical and mental faculties.” It may seem like a subtle nit, but as far as I’m concerned it is careless to label a person as abled or disabled. A person who has a specific disability is not “disabled”, and to say otherwise can be demeaning. Therefore, IMO, this clue could as well be seen as possibly demeaning to people who are not fully “abled.” Argue/disagree if you must.
Not a fan of this one. Too many names of people, not a particularly clever or satisfying theme for a Thursday. Sorry.
“Donezo” shouldn’t be a thing. Let’s not encourage it.
Ok, this was it. I’ll sometimes get some help on a clue here or there—rarely. But I haven’t run into a puzzle I just couldn’t solve in probably five years. I had to turn on auto check to get through this one. And it’s only a Friday! Not sure why this was so impossible for me, but o guess it had to happen eventually.
@LAR the conventional wisdom is, do it however you please. It’s not a bad thing unless you decide it is.
A rebus on Wednesday?! That’s cray cray.
Clever puzzle. I found it to be pretty easy once I got the revealer. Liked this one.
Nice easy one today. Another case where it feels like Friday and Saturday puzzles were swapped. Yesterday about killed me—it took at least three times longer for me than today’s.
Meh. Homonyms. I’m a big fan of Jeff Chen. This is not one of my favorites.
@Matt Lol. He said he’s an attorney.
Personal best by several minutes.
Good, difficult puzzle. Reading Caitlin’s comment about records being anachronistic, I don’t think she’s aware of how big the resurgence in vinyl has gotten. There are plenty of people dropping needles, and it seems like most major artists are releasing on vinyl again.
Sam, did you struggle in the SE because you never watched The West Wing? If so, be grateful that 63 Across wasn’t clued something like “Actress Emily from The West Wing.” Currently, I happen to be in the middle of rewatching the series for the fourth time.
50D I thought was ANEN (unsure if “en” is a valid spelling of the letter N). But NOTA works just about as well.
@Joe It's not a terrible puzzle, it's a very good one. But it's vexing. You probably already know that Saturday is supposed to be the hardest puzzle of the week, and that Thu/Sun can do weird tricks on you. If you keep working them, eventually you'll be able to tackle a puzzle like this one, and if you're like a lot of us you'll come to find Mondays to be fairly boring and easy.
Found this one very easy. About one minute off of my personal best for Friday. I would not have guessed olives are divisive. I think they are delicious.
Anyone who thinks CREPE MIX is a timesaver doesn’t know how to make crepes. It takes less than a minute to make the batter. I do it every other Saturday.
Easy-ish. Felt more like a Friday puzzle. Good one.
I came to the comments to see if everyone else found this significantly easier than usual for a Friday. Seems to be the case. I did the puzzle standing in a noisy gymnasium, holding a water bottle in one hand and doing the crossword with the hand I'm holding the phone with. Not exactly a recipe for speed, but I got a PB by a lot. I think I was 10 minutes faster than my current average speed for Friday. 12 minutes today. That's not super fast for a lot of you, but that is like a normal Wednesday for me.
Got this one in less than half my average time. Pretty smooth Saturday
Personal best time for me today: 27 minutes. I’m usually closer to 45. I don’t play for speed, I solve on my phone, which is slower, and I don’t rush myself. I just didn’t hit any snags today. I’m curious, how does that time compare to other veteran solvers?
Several commenters had a problem with the Hotel California clue because of the date, I get that. But how does a song win a Grammy for record of the year? The clue says the title track won record of the year. I think probably the record itself won it. Still bad clueing.
I did not find this one to be enjoyable at all. Thursday is usually my favorite day. The braiding concept was a bit of a stretch (IMO).
@Phil I found it on the easy side for a Friday, but I wouldn’t say it was overly easy. Maybe you’ve been getting better at the puzzles the more you’ve done them. That’s usually how it works. Maybe you’ll nail tomorrow’s as well!
@Esmerelda At many craft breweries you can order 6 or even 12 small glasses of beer so that you can taste a range of their products. That is called a flight. The clue has nothing to do with flying.
@Barry Ancona I took up your challenge. I found it exactly twice as difficult as today's puzzle. And I was in my 20s in '94, so that wasn't the issue.
This one was a breeze. Felt like a Wednesday.
Even though, apparently, “Careless Whisper” was credited solely to George Michael in some countries, anyone of a certain age would know that it was a Wham! song, not a GM song
@Bill in Yokohama well, ok. But doing any puzzle that’s 30 years old is going to be extremely difficult most people because we’re so far away from a lot of those references. You probably would have found those puzzles easy if you were doing them at the time
@R.J. Smith I had my streak up to 450 a while back, but then I was a bit late getting a puzzle in and so I was reset to zero. It was actually a bit of a relief. Not I think my streak is around 13. I don’t sweat it anymore.
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