Agent86

Shagged it

Beat my average by 27 minutes. Some of you are probably wondering how high my average must be that it can be beaten by 27 minutes. Your average may well be less than 27 minutes. I like to think that I get more time to enjoy a good puzzle.

Just realized I could recommend my own posts. What fun. Now I’m twice as popular. Thanks Mom.

No naticks. Challenging. No awkward fill or clues. Great puzzle.

What evil mind could possibly create such a grid? What dungeon of despair birthed it? I’ve seen friendlier chain saw movies. What masochist could enjoy such a grid? I did. But only because I won.

More of a crossword-look-up-the-answers-you-don’t-know or a crossword-guessing-game than a crossword puzzle.

I liked it. Difficult, different, not too much trivia. Plus I like most puzzles I solve. The ones I can’t solve are often unfair. Funny how that works 😉

If I keep on beating my average like this then pretty soon I’ll have the puzzle done before it’s published

PB. Less than 20% of my average time. I still enjoyed it. Just not for long.

I didn’t know any of the trivia in the NW. I got it through sheer persistence. One box at a time. Studying vowel/consonant rhythms then guessing letters, then words, then phrases. Trial and errors. Lots of errors. And, as always, NO lookups.

Reminds me of the time I changed the command prompt to something like “C:\Fatal error”. The service tech couldn’t figure it out. He ended up reinstalling the OS. I didn’t have the courage to tell him what I did. I guess I remember it because it makes me feel guilty when I think of it. So I try to expunge my guilt - anonymously.

Apt theme today. Confirmation bias is especially damaging these days with all the fake news and sketchy information sources. Hopefully the rebus issue doesn’t overshadow it.

Got it in record time. Yep. Longest I ever spent on a cross word puzzle. And it feels great!!!!

Never would have noticed that bit of theme without the app’s reveal.

Missed it by 👌🏻that much….

That felt challenging but I completed it in 2/3 of my average time. What does that mean?

One of my favorite puzzles ever. Difficult but solvable. The foreign clues at least gave a hint to their subject matter. When I say foreign, I mean completely unknown to me. My first pass resulted in very few filled squares, some with dubious confidence. Long answers were very difficult to guess without crosses. Luckily a few came to mind with only one. The good news is that once solved, confidence is high and a lot of information gained. Thank you Fritz.

Interesting theme that didn’t interfere with a straightforward solve.

I’ve been an electrical engineer a very long time. I’ve got an MS in electrical engineering. I’ve never heard of tau being used for 2 x pi. In fact, tau is used as a time variable in many equations. I don’t think it’s uncommon to use 2 x pi x tau in an equation. I’m not saying tau being used as 2 x pi is wrong. It’s just foreign to me.

That was fun

My beast was a beaut

Ended with 2 letters I didn’t know. So I gave my phone to my pet monkey and voila. Lookout AI. Merry Christmas Y’all

Guessed at least 7 squares… Keep trying. Amazingly changing only one letter a couple times rang the bell. Lots of naticks for me. I thought my streak was surely over. Glad I didn’t give up. Happy 21st Birthday Adrianne.

Great fun that was

I’d rather guess than Google. Guessing feels fair. Lookups count as a loss in my rule book. Yours? Had to guess 3 letters in 5 entries today. I was pleasantly surprised when the music played. That’s the feeling I play for.

I won. It was tough. No lookups, as always. If I hadn’t won then I might be complaining about the nouns. But I did win. And it feels so much better when it’s tough.

The typing monkeys got a day off. I was able to puzzle out the few remaining squares in the brutal NE. That’s the sign of a very enjoyable crossword. Even though you don’t know it you can work it out. Happy New Year Y’all

I solved in less than half my average time, yet it didn’t feel easy. I had only a few answers after my first pass and was able to build on those. That was the rewarding aspect of this puzzle.

Rebus? What rebus? Oh that rebus. I thought SNA was a popular drink that I never heard of. Then I missed the plural in 1A so I had INCAn. “nEZ me!”? Sure. Why not? Just another puzzle in the life of an absent minded Control agent.

Are PAnAMA pants a thing? Because I’m pretty sure Santa is feeling nO L Y.

This puzzle reminded me of playing with my grandkids before they turned into teenagers. If you love your grandkids and want to spend time with them then it’s hard to avoid video games. My memory banks were challenged. There were features and characters that I knew of but either never knew or didn’t remember their names. Most of all this puzzle brought back wonderful memories. Thank you NYT and Kim.

Weird how I feel like I adapted to the new editor. I find myself making guesses that I wouldn’t have with Will. And they’re right more frequently than wrong. A few weeks ago I might not have solved this one. Did Joel make this one easier or did I learn his style? Anyone else feel this way?

One thing I like about long difficult wordplay answers is that once I get them I’m pretty confident they’re right. They’re not like proper nouns where any letter could be different than expected. Actor’s stage names are the worst. They have to be unique and are dreamt up by creative people. I really enjoyed today’s puzzle, but for less time than usual.

Weird I put in answers thinking “This can’t be right “, but it might help with the vowel / consonant rhythm. Maybe a few letters will even be right. Turns out most were correct.

I got to enjoy this puzzle for over an hour. Had to make some wild guesses in the NW. Eventually some partially correct answers poked through. Lots of backspaces and zero lookups later I got a gold star. That’s how good puzzles are supposed to work. Thank you Marshall.

All the obscure proper nouns didn’t bother me because I was able to get them with crossings. A good example for constructors.

Hard bottom. In a good sense.

Good hard puzzle. Solved in about 2/3 of my average time. I did a Saturday puzzle from 2015 recently. Took about three times longer than today’s puzzle but I finally got it. There were no crossing nouns that had to be guessed. Just very difficult but solvable clues. I enjoyed both puzzles. Just enjoyed one a lot longer. That made it more satisfying.

Very clever clues. Seemed like there were multiple layers of misdirection. Rather difficult but all the more satisfying to complete. Key was to give up on some answers I was very confident of. Honestly thought I wouldn’t get it.

I really wanted British row houses to be pews.

Got 49 down by guessing. Still don’t get it. “Here’s looking at you kid”????? MAA?

I’m a bit disappointed that the theme answers didn’t have anything to do with the company names. For example, Ford makes automobiles and Walgreens sells drugs. That doesn’t relate to the answer at all. It’s just an anagram and all the fuss about companies making stuff is just noise. On the other hand, it may be nearly impossible to come up with combinations of company names that anagram to something relevant to the companies. I put that out there as a challenge.

A good challenging Saturday night Sunday puzzle