Kenny

@Jacqui J Had a Garmin GPS back in the day (cell phone serves the purpose nowadays). One of the voice choices was "Yeti". All the directional commands Yeti gave were guttural grunts, snorts, and wheezes. If you departed from the recommended route it would roar/scream at you. It was hysterical!

@Robco Tahoe is a version of the Macintosh computer operating system. Took me more than a moment to grow that one.

@Kenny To clarify, this is not a criticism of the puzzle, which I thought was clever and well done. Just disappointed in my ineptitude in solving it!

@Francis Nah, every puzzle clicks differently for each of us. We all come from different backgrounds, fields of expertise, solving experience. Lots of times I've found a puzzle easy that others thought was difficult. Other times I've struggled mightily with puzzles that others are getting PBs. That's part of the fun (or pain, lol).

@Kenny But I sympathize with those who don't have a background in classical music. Even for me the answer wasn't immediately obvious because there are often multiple ways the same general idea can be communicated in a piece of music, i.e. ritardando vs. rallentando, etc.

@Barry Ancona Can't say whether I had ever heard of Asa Butterfield, so no clue on title roles, and I don't believe I've seen the movie. But I have read Orson Scott Card's scifi novel "Ender's Game" upon which the movie was based. So once I had ENDE_ from crosses, ENDER seemed a reasonable guess.

@Chris J Like you, I had never heard of NAPTRAPPED, although one of my online gaming friends is frequently CATTRAPPED. Eventually got that one with crosses and a reasonable guesses based on the clue. I've never heard OBVI in spoken conversation either. Rather I believe it's another of those ubiquitous shortcuts in text messages and social media, like SMH LOL AFAIK BRB FWIW etc.

@SP SUPERIOR jumped immediately to my mind because 1) I already had the R crossing from CAR and 2) I've had ear worms the last couple of days of Gordon Lightfoot's haunting "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitgerald" and the Home Free cover of GL's epic ballad. The HF cover IMO is a beautiful and loving tribute to the memory of both the lost crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Gordon Lightfoot.

@Andrzej I don't speak Italian either but I am a musician, so Italian musical terms such as meno mosso are everyday lingo for me.

@Andrzej Lee (short for leeward) in this context is the opposite of windward. Windward would be the side of the mountain or island or ship exposed to the prevailing wind, whereas lee or leeward would be the other side, less exposed, more protected from the wind. As clued, REPENT might refer to regretting and changing one's behavior. i.e. repent of one's misdeeds.

@Chris Read this answer as EN BANC, from French for "on the benc." Refers to a court case adjudicated by all the judges of the court, rather than a smaller panel of the judges.

@lujoc I wasted a lot of time at the end thinking I had the rebus entries in the wrong format. Changed all of them twice, still no happy music. Discovered my error, ETHANE instead of ETHENE and all was well.

@Striker Also enjoyed PHM! I hear a movie adaptation is in production.

@Mark My experience as well. Enjoyed it!

@Cat Lady Margaret My first guess was BADDREAM

@Dan Copy or printer paper is commonly sold in packs of 500 sheets, which is a "ream" of paper.

@Dan Same here. Seriously, DRIBLET? Had DROPLET for the longest time, and for the life of me couldn't grok a 3-letter answer for "Wowzers!"

@Kenny Grok, not grow. Autocorrect on my phone is wrong *way* too often, lol.

@SG True, but usually I'm able to suss out unknowns with crosses. Tonight I just couldn't get enough of a toehold to make progress. Frustrating.

@sonnel Thank you for that explanation of the theme! I figured the 2-letter rebuses must have *something* to do with fusion (maybe table of elements abbreviations?) but couldn't quite suss it out.

@Andrzej. FWIW in printed classical music, many of the musical instructions to the performer are in Italian. So "meno mosso" means less motion, or go slower.

@sotto voce It wasn't much of a post. Hardly worth the trouble to re-create it, lol. Just said not a PB but better than my Monday average, and lost some time looking for a typo.

@Kenny Aaand... there is the comment the EMUs snagged last night, now posted, lol.

@Dave K. I wondered about that, too. I guess the distinction the clue is making is "eat in" or "dine in" vs. "takeout" or "to go."

@Kenny As stumped as I was, I'm surprised and mildly proud of myself that the cytology lookup was all I needed for the dominoes to fall.

@Francis I *am* a gamer and FORTNITE still eluded me for way too long, even after I had NITE! [face palm]

@Andrzej Yeah GETUPSTEAM didn't sit right for me either. I've always heard it as "get up a head of steam", presumably a reference to a steam engine locomotive that must build up steam pressure to get the train in motion.

@Bob Boomer here. I remember CUTARUG from a print version of the Sunday NYT probably 30+ yrs ago in which I had goofed a couple of crosses and ended up with RUTARUT. My MIL found this quite amusing!

@Francis I'm most definitely not in the "easy" crowd, although I beat my Friday average by a good bit. Had zero clue about CHARLIXCX but as a long time Nintendo gamer, MIIS was a gimme, and I was pretty confident in OSX. Still, 17A was pretty much the last to fall. The whole NW corner was hardest for me.

@M Same here.

@Outside Editor I almost always solve on the NYT Games app on my Android phone. I cannot enter answers anywhere near as quickly on that tiny keyboard as I could on a PC keyboard. Just for fun, after solving today in a better-than-my-average 20:06 on my phone, I did it again on PC. Obviously there was no solving involved because I already knew the answers, but I was able to complete the grid in 2:28. It has taken *far* longer than that to type this little message on my phone. So, yeah, seems the device on which one is solving the puzzle could have a bearing on speed, independent of how quickly one is able to suss out the answers. FWIW.

@Jane Wheelaghan To tag onto Andrzej... There is a LOT of variety in video game weapons, armor, character classes, abilities, etc. The tier of a weapon, build, whatever, is largely a matter of a consensus of opinion within the gaming community, and is not necessarily universally agreed upon. What is S-tier or a god roll for one player may not mesh well with my particular setup or play style. And what is S-tier for a particular part of the game, i.e. certain bosses for instance, may be totally inappropriate or even useless for a different boss or game mode. As Andrzej alluded, there is often a progression to acquiring better equipment and abilities, learning their unique strengths and weaknesses, and putting it all together into a coherent build or loadout that synergizes well to accomplish the current goal in the game.

@dutchiris Yeah, I got that one from crosses, had to think about it a bit before it dawned on me where that clue was going.

@Kenny Oops, typo, should have been "on the bench,"