JD

I've traveled to Thailand. I live a few blocks from Thai town in LA. I've eaten at dozens of Thai restaurants. I can't say that I've ever encountered ant eggs. I'm not saying they're not a thing. I'm just saying that "popular tidbit" might be a slight overreach.

Such a crazy coincidence, just yesterday I got overhot putting up my trampoline-like net.

Generational pop culture frustration seems to be the Comments theme of the day but I've found that you can oftentimes in-fur the answer from a well-worded clue.

I'm sure "idle chat" is a technically correct expression but just to quell my nagging uneasy feeling I found a Sharpie and added "t-e-r" beneath the answer on my monitor.

I feel like LIFESTYLECREEP could also be used to describe most social media influencers.

Obviously I've been spelling the word "narkotics" wrong this entire time.

The way it appears, there are now one of two equal-but-opposite mental head spaces that long-time NYT crossword solvers must adopt: Option #1) The Lord Tennyson Model = "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" or Option #2) The Simon & Garfunkel Model = "If I never loved I never would have cried"

Who else thought 11-down was "Stan Thony" until googling his name afterward and feeling like a complete fool? No one. Very well then, carry on.

After seeing 3 down I immediately knew what the theme was and my stomach completely sank. I stared at my screen in total disbelief -- this is literally the theme of the of the crossword puzzle I've been creating for the past 3 months and was just about ready to submit to the NYT. Well, time to find a new hobby.

Even though I've sat in many left aisle seats in my lifetime I was still able to convince myself that they didn't exist.