Alita Shaver
Carrboro, NC
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Carrboro, NC
I hit 1000 on my streak today, and what a LOVEly puzzle for doing so! And if you wouldn't mind, emus, please let this one pass. <3
I hated it. And not because I couldn't do it or even found it difficult. It was just irritating. YMMV. But next comes a Thursday! Perhaps it will be something fun.
A Telugu association (they show movies and do things that help people keep the language going) sponsors one of those clean-up-the-highway things in Cary, North Carolina. I've driven past the sign hundreds of times. It was a delight to find a use for that word stuck in my head. Fun puzzle that offered resistance but didn't frustrate me.
Dang. That was hard. Really hard. And at some seventy percent over average (which includes a lot of nodding off or getting distracted by TV) and four times my best, I'm guessing this might be my worst Saturday time ever. A lot of my first thoughts proved correct, but I entered almost nothing initially because I could not confirm with any crosses whatsoever. I remember so many years ago my mother telling me happily "that great guy from Games magazine is the NYT editor now!" I did not understand her excitement then, but I think I get it now. Here's wishing Will a speedy, thorough recovery. Thanks for a true Saturday morning workout, Sam.
@Puzzlemucker I, too am working my way through the archives, and there are long stretches where I get to Saturday and just cringe. I'm not quite sure why people get so upset about a hard Saturday. I think it shows that for a long time they were eased up. But for any solvers who feel the last few Saturdays have been an aberration, no, no! Saturdays are supposed to be hard! The hardest day of the week, in fact. If they are "too hard to be fun," then don't do them! I don't personally enjoy that feeling of my brain twisting into knots, but when I finally get the Aha Moment and the knot spring-releases, what joy! I want to still be able to think and reason in thirty-five years when I'm 100, so bring on the Saturday brain exercises!
Just in case Marshall (or anyone!) doesn't read my response to his post, or it doesn't get posted at all, let me remind people that if you are on a streak and have to take a break, if you pick up where you left off when you get back, your streak will continue. If you do the puzzle for the day you get back, and then go back and do the ones you missed, your streak will start over at one. Fingers crossed!
Interestingly, Deb, I didn't even think of your interpretation of 49d. I was thinking that if I wanted to cast some metal pieces, I would need a die to pour the molten metal in. My grandfather was a tool-and-die man in Detroit back in the 1930s and 40s.
Sam (Corbin), I like to call it "laptrapped" when a cat has me pinned down …. 😺 Alas, many years since that has happened, due to guilt over trapping a cat in an apartment that stays empty of humans for fourteen or more hours at a time. Swell puzzle. Tough, but still finished close to my usual time.
@Alita Shaver Oh, geez. What is wrong with me? It's the heart of the word "black", which is, indeed, a short a. I do wish you could edit comments here! Saturdays have really been challenging my smug confidence that I can solve absolutely any puzzle, lately…
@Heidi. Ooh, I absolutely HATE it when I look up an answer I'm uncertain of and find plenty on Google to support it. Doesn't make it right. Awesome puzzle.
I love puns and didn't have any trouble with this one, perhaps inspired by a friend years ago who was in a band called "Going Baroque". Not a pop or ska band! More to the point, and why I came to comment, I quite enjoyed the column today. Let's have Hrishikesh Hirway write it regularly now.
I vote Katie Hoody for best constructor notes ever. And just in case I get jammed up with a one-sentence post, I loved the puzzle, too. It was a delightful struggle.
@Cat Lady Margaret You have to wear a crown, and keep from dropping it? ; ) Enjoyable puzzle. Not a gimme, and not an impossible slog. There – second paragraph completed.
@Marshall Hey, when you get back, IF you start your puzzles wherever you left off, your streak will probably continue. Thank God that works, because after a surgery a couple years ago, my brain was entirely incapable of filling out a puzzle for two days.
@Lewis Ah, you have summed it up so well. This one took me six times my best and almost double my usual, not helped at all by not realizing this morning that last night as I nodded off I accidentally typed in some bizarre letters amongst the elixir of quietude ones. But TIL about red cards and batting derbies, and read a fascinating Wikipedia article on the history of the Bond phrase. Good times.
What is the "artistic element" that Caitlin wants us to solve online for? I do now very faintly see dotted lines that make the orbits, but I don't know if that happened after I was finished. Pretty underwhelming. Nice puzzle.
@Lewis OK, Lewis, I'll bite. What the heck does "needs no introduction" MEAN? I could see the answer from a cross, but that doesn't mean my poor brain can make the connection.
@Petunia It's OK! Be sure you finish yesterday's puzzle first! Or today's puzzle, really. As long as you finish them in order, you will still get your star. I've had that happen a few times when I was doing the puzzle right at 10 PM.
@Jack McCullough If it's any help at all, you should know that as long as you finish one puzzle before you start the next day's, you will still get your gold star after midnight. I've heard it before, and thanked my lucky stars it was true when I missed a whole day after surgery. My brain could definitely not solve a puzzle that day. My streak was at about 850 then, and I'd have been sad to break it.
@brompo As part of 57a? In this case, the letters V and I are not to be interpreted as "six". The Roman numerals came after the initial W. I'll put a spoiler, if you don't want to go back and look at it for yourself… W[eigh t]he evidence
Grisly. For the column, not the puzzle, which I didn't click with, but got done.
@Eli Edwards I don't know what you're solving on, but I couldn't get the freaking thing to admit I was done until I carefully filled in the rebus with first the two letters of the across answer and then the two letters for the down answer with no slash in between. Grrrrrrr.
@Jennifer The slash made it not work for me, on my iPhone. I was extremely irritated trying to find the formatting that would make the puzzle finish. Only one letter didn't work, and neither did the first letter for both directions.
Why have 368 people been able to post a comment since I finished the puzzle, but I still can't?
@Skeptical1 What was the specific problem? The short vowel sound in the middle of heart? (Which clue bothered me, because it's part of a diphthong.) People proud of their home TV setup and hoping shows will be broadcast in HD?
@Paul. Except, not today. While I love rebuses. I freaking hate trying to figure out the formatting that will work when it changes every time.
@Hugh. Not today, it didn't. I HATE having to fool with trying different permutations of rebus entries when I'm never even sure if I've overlooked something or if the rebuses are the problem. It added 10 minutes to my solve time. Very grouchy.
@Janine Well, it isn't me… and if I were you, I would be writing to tech support. Dang, would that be frustrating to have your letters vanish.
Yeah … I was hoping there would be something more obvious than that. I would have to stretch it to think about a drug addict to equate "craves" with "needs". But thank you!
@Alita Shaver Apparently because I had the number and the symbol for the words "seventy percent." TIL.
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