James

I mean, it's always cool when a new constructor makes a puzzle, but why can't we keep the crossword to, I don't know, words, and leave the numbers to Sudoku?

The less common spelling of AMBIANCE in 40D definitely threw me off. I had the far more common (and far more accepted in the English language) AMBIENCE in there and it was making things a little problematic.

My problem is not with creative puzzles, my problem is when there's absolutely no indicator of what's going on. I shouldn't HAVE to read the blog to figure out that there's weirdness afoot.

In no way does the answer for 1A actually resemble a tube of lipstick. It... just, no.