Ben
Melbourne AUS
42
Comments
0.346
Avg Sentiment
18
Positive
18
Neutral
6
Negative
Melbourne AUS
I really enjoyed the puzzle but didn't finish due to the Naticky crossing of TCBY and BAL and - to a lesser extent - the crossing of TAJ and JAMON. But the pluses definitely outweighed the minuses.
Gees, I hate finding out my favourite people have died via the crossword. RIP Teri Garr.
@Ben My nytxw avatar picture is my cat, Spicy Boy. This was the first comment I've written since he left us earlier this week. Suspected heart attack. Thankfully, it was almost immediate and he'd been getting cuddles at the time. Not a bad way to go, but way too soon; he was just shy of 7yo and seemingly hale. His name was a misnomer and he was the gentlest, friendliest cat I've ever known.
HIGHLIGHTING the connected clues in BOTH DIRECTIONS would have made the puzzle less frustrating. Very clever, though.
My undergraduate degree was a Bachelor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences. I'm very familiar with using "random walk" processes, but upon learning it 25 years ago, my brain latched onto the much more colourful term for such processes: "drunkard's walk". It took me an embarrassingly long time to enter "random" instead of looking for a synonym for "drunkard".
Thank goodness for the editor. I couldn't imagine trying this puzzle without the [T][O]s shaded
A baseball slugger intersecting with another baseball slugger? Really?
@Petrol EEO, GORP, and KINTE are definitely words that have appeared before in the NYT crossword and are likely to appear again in the future. I certainly only learned the first two from looking them up after encountering them for the first time in previous crosswords, like I do for every word that I've not previously known. This crossword was absolutely in my wheelhouse and I completed it much faster than my average, but that is only from learning from previous crosswords. Look on unknown words as an opportunity. Roots is one of the most famous TV mini-series ever made (and based on a similarly famous novel). Yes, it was from the 70s, but it was also remade in 2016.
@Kathy Zaffrann His alter ego, Bartman, was.
Just the right level of challenge for a Friday. Nice to see Greg Egan in the crossword. He's my favourite sci-fi short story author.
@WR I thought that the similar clueing was intentional - a toe-hold for newer solvers who had completed crosswords earlier in the week.
Perfect Thursday. I loved that the need rebus squares were not indicated in a revealer.
SE Corner bested me.
@Eric Hougland Thanks EH, JE, and CLM for the effort you put into this. Congratulations (and thanks) to the winners.
A hearty welcome to all newcomers who have not been on the NYT Crossword app long enough to know that you should always check the Info Page before starting a puzzle - especially on Thursdays and Sundays. You'll know for next time.
@Fender You'll be pleased to hear that I got the win with SOUTHEAST
@wsbca I did exactly the same. GRRM did us wrong :)
The ZERO exponent was sneaky (albeit, clever). I initially had E (the second letter) and convinced myself that the cross must be wrong, because no four-letter number between one and ten had E as the second letter. Kudos to the constructor.
@Andrzej I came here to write about this Natick, but you've saved me having to do so EEM-YOU never EE-MOO
Really enjoyable. Loved solving it.
@sotto voce Here is an additional tip to try: 1.Nibble off a corner of your TimTam. 2.Nibble off the corner diagonally opposite the first. 3. Stick one of these corners in your mouth and the other in a cup of coffee. 4. Suck up the coffee as if the TimTam were a straw. 5. As soon as you have sucked the coffee the entire length through the TimTam, you have about a second or two to gobble up the now-melting TimTam for a moment of exquisite chocolatey bliss.
I enjoyed this puzzle. I like to solve in a cross-hatch pattern from already-answered clues and the anagram letters definitely assisted in this process. The clues for LIBELLOUS and OVERLAPS were clever and, being close together, were my greatest speed bump in solving.
Flew through this one in well under half my usual time. I enjoyed the theme, but thought the clues could be more obscure on a Thursday.
@Weak Some common Australianisms are "Yeah, nah", meaning no, and "Nah, yeah", meaning yes.
@Weak Gambling. I'll call. I'll see your bet.
@Oikofuge Odie is from the comic strip "Garfield". Sara Lee is a company famous for its desserts - now defunct in most regions of the world. In the UK, they were most famous for their Double Chocolate Gateaux.
Obvious to determine the theme (from “ … in old Rome?”) but well-executed so as to make the puzzle enjoyable. Also good fill.
@MattS Except the top-to-bottom puzzle answer "IWASFRAMED" acted as the cross-check. As someone who initially had "IWTSFRAMET", it worked for me.
@Ben When did they bring back our avatar photos in the comments? Hooray!
@Adam Is that the iOS app? Everything appeared for me. My phone uses the Android version of the app.
@Steve L Lol. Other way around for me - I didn't see SANKA
@Robco Not new to me BUT it did trip me up as I initially had CREME.
@SP Actually, the British version is MISSPELT.
@Bigbee Famous indeed. Living in Australia, that was the first time that I ever heard of the NYT Crossword. It was all over the news.
I had "Favorite Things" for the Mary Poppins song, thinking that song's title omitted the "My". It sent me down the wrong track for the longest time. Whoever clued the rhyming lyrics "With tuppence for paper and strings/ You can have your own set of wings" - be it constructor or editor - is a sadist :) Great puzzle.
@Striker That was a gimme for me, as the only line I remember from that movie is, "Where's Arnie!? Where's Arnie!?"
@Leah I've always seen it spelled as wrack and ruin.
@Kiko I had the same on my Android phone. I don't care about streaks, so I used Autocheck and every letter was locked in as correct but the timer kept advancing. I reset the puzzle and entered everything in the same and it registered as correct (but Blue star - not gold - which fortunately doesn't bother me. You can contact them via the link in the game and ask them to correct your streak for that day
@Steve L Unless I misread, the reddit post indicates that it is offensive to pronounce the word, but not to write it.
All 42 comments loaded