Katie

Always here for a geography based theme and I loved this. And, given current times, typed in GULF OF MEXICO with extra satisfaction.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and flew through it faster than I expected but still found the clueing very clever. I suspect this was in my wheelhouse and others may find this more of a slog with lots of pop culture references (that I loved!). Congrats on the fun debut!!

Spent too long convinced that 27D was What’s Up Dog. Felt like a challenge but one where I’m always making forward progress: my favorite kind of puzzle!

Wow big PB for me at sub-3 minutes. Hard to imagine I will ever beat that. I wish when you got a PB it would remind you what your previous PB was? If that exists, please share! I can’t remember exactly what it was.

Pretty manageable except for the NW. Got stuck on several wrong answers that I was trying to make work: breAD for SALAD, staRRATING for UBERRATING, and iceMONSTER for SEAMONSTER. Anyway, eventually made it out the other side with the gold star (#699 in the streak!).

Loved this! Stunning feat of construction, as others have noted. This was one where getting the revealer made everything click into place, and I love when it happens in that order. I also appreciated that, though the trick was devious, the matching colors clued you where the worm hole went (I recall a puzzle within the last year where you had to just figure out the pairs that I found frustrating to keep track of) and the answers themselves were relatively straightforward. Felt like it perfectly hit the sweet spot. Took me longer than my normal Sunday, which I like!, but not a slog. Great fun.

Thought this was really clever yet accessible—really enjoyed. Happy Thanksgiving!

Woof thought this would end my nearly 850 day gold star streak. Took me an hour and nine minutes and I think 50 of those minutes were trying to solve 1A and its crosses (and then trying Anne vs Arne for 11D).

Spent about 10 minutes thinking the clue for 44A was ‘some driving beliefs’ and feeling confident in crEEDO.