Wayne Harrison
Canada
@Lorne Eckersley As a Canadian I thought it was a clever theme and helped with solving the puzzle. I have my own negative feelings about a lot of what is happening but they have no bearing on my enjoyment of the puzzle. Good work.
I thought that jurors were empaneled, not impaneled and I never heard of the water brand so bae seemed as likely as bai. Oh well!
Like many others I found this one tough, well slower than my Friday average, but that made getting it cleanly all the more satisfying. I don’t think there were any ‘unfair’ clues when crosses were used.
@Eddie I’m not sure what you’re meaning to do here. The novelty is wearing off.
I’m finally back to a 100 day streak. 100 days or so ago I lost my 452 day streak due to time zone issues and carelessness while travelling in England. This time I’m in Tanzania but I’m being compulsive about not missing a day. I even did the Sunday puzzle while riding back from Ngorongoro crater.
I have never seen BRUH before that I can recall and I don’t think PUCKS ‘ ‘seek’ the goal so I was stuck with PaCK and BRaH and had no idea where I went wrong.
@HC Tabak I disagree. I found the gimmick entertaining. It took me a while but once I figured it out it helped me complete the puzzle with no look ups and 12 minutes faster than my average time. Keep up the good work.
Just the sort of theme I like. I figured out the theme early enough that it helped me get a number of the theme answers and those answers were enough to help me solve the puzzle with no look-ups.
I enjoyed it a lot. It might not have been terribly difficult, but that’s why we have the weekend puzzles. What I like to get (and got) on a Thursday is a fun twist. I agree it didn’t need any more cues to get the idea.
27A/27D was a definite natick for me: MOCHI/MOOD?
A good example of how useful it can be to put the puzzle down and come back to it later. I struggled mightily last night and was on the verge of giving up and using Wordplay and Google to get me through it. Instead I left it for the night and this morning it seemed so much easier. Instead the end my time was just over my average with no outside help.
Nice and easy for an evening when I didn’t have enough sleep the previous night. Cute theme.
Wonderful puzzle. I was lucky enough to experience it just the way I would have wanted. I struggled a bit and had no clue about the theme answers. Once I got the revealer the theme clues all made sense and it quickly came together.
I’ve made this point before, but that is not what GROK means.
I’m okay with gram. It’s technically incorrect but in common usage it’s an answer that most people will get. My problem is that there is no grain called malt. Beer is made from barley (or if you’re not a purist, wheat and other grains). In the process, those grains are malted to produce sugar. No farmer has ever grown a crop of malt.
@Fact Boy I agree with your point, but neither Woden nor Wotan have 4 letters thus: Odin. Not too hard to work out. (Not arguing with you, just explaining how I figured it out and wasn’t bothered by the details. The clue led me to the answer which is the point. ) Also I don’t see how what is being scanned is the scan, but I got MICE from the crosses so it’s all good.
@Aaron I find with an easy puzzle like in a Monday I don’t usually get the theme before hand, but with a harder puzzle the theme can be a big help. My favourite situation is when the theme is tricky, but one it becomes apparent it helps to solve the rest of the puzzle. I found yesterday’s theme was a big help.
Almost a PB. Lots of fun clues.
@Alex Present day: day of exchanging presents.
I just wasn’t on the right wavelength. I solved it with no lookups but it took over 2x my average time.
20% longer than my Friday average with no look-ups. So for me it was definitely difficult enough.
Just the type of late week themeless puzzle I like. I only had 3 across answers the first time through, but slowly and surely I got it all with no look ups. I didn’t know that was what BOSSA NOVA meant, so I guessed it would start with an n. Once I was down to nOSSANOVA it clicked. Plus ‘nOT’ didn’t make sense.
@MikeW And I didn’t. I was fine til that last square so I googled CODA. I figured it was no more a cheat than running the alphabet, but potentially faster. I have never heard of either of those individuals. Not a brag or a confession, just an unfortunate fact.
@John I also thought I was beat after my first run through but I kept plugging and even finished with no look ups in below average time.
@kkseattle BB Is a shot size, 1 size larger than B and one smaller than BBB.
@Mean Old Lady I believe Carole might have been making a point about nitpicking.
I’d never heard of Oshea Jackson Jr and I didn’t figure out the theme ahead of time so the O in OSHEA was a flat out guess. I was surprised to get the happy music. Oddly JODHPURS wasn’t a problem. Even though I never got the theme ahead of time, in retrospect I really liked it.
Every now and then I can feel so dumb after completing a puzzle. I am very familiar with the name REO Speedwagon, referring both to the vehicle and the rock band named for it, but somehow I never knew, or forgot, that it was a type of a pickup truck. Somehow I pictured some quite different vehicle. I guess there’s only room for a certain amount of ‘stuff’ in the old (and getting older) cranium.
@Tom I might have solved it without figuring out the theme. There’s no way of knowing, but I do know that as soon as I figured it out the rest of the puzzle went much more quickly.
Very enjoyable puzzle. Closer to a PB than to my average time. Coincidentally I just rewatched the TOB a few days ago. I love that movie. Thanks for a great puzzle.
@Robco I believe it. There are an awful lot of words in the OED. That doesn’t mean I would use all of them.
@Pani Korunova I remember the old commercials: It’s a breath mint! No, it’s a candy mint! Certs is two, two mints in one! Or something like that.
Re: the mini, I don’t think I’ve ever seen emergency abbreviated as EMER.
I admit defeat! After SAILing through Friday, I only kept my streak alive with a lot of help from the Wordplay column. It seemed like a good puzzle, and obviously there were a lot of solvers who found that to be the case, but there were just too many answers about which I had no clue. Oh well, next time!
I enjoyed the puzzle. Once I got the twist it went quickly but I found all those rebuses to be a bit tedious. I suppose I could have just put in the first letters, but that just wouldn’t have felt right.
After having no luck yesterday with multiple cheats, today was almost a PB. That felt better!
@Scott To core an apple or a pineapple for instance, one removes the center. Or de-centers it.
@Steven M. As is often the case, it’s subjective. My time today was closer to a pb than it was to my average. It’s all about the wavelength.
My last entry was the first letter in 39a because I couldn’t figure out what DO GEAR meant, but 25d had to be ABIDE. Then I read word play and ‘d’oh!’
Very enjoyable puzzle. Challenging with lots of clever/tricky clues.
That was a grind. I mean that in a good way. I had almost nothing right the first time through and some of what I had was wrong. (Litmus test and SWING STATE have the same number of letters). Eventually after letting it sit and coming back to it, it all came together with no look- ups. It seemed like one of my slower Fridays, but it was almost exactly halfway between my average and PB. Lots of good clues. Thank you.
I don’t know AVEDA from AtEDA so I had IHAtETORUN instead of IHAVETORUN.
I confess this one beat me! I have no particular beef with most of the clues. I was just on the wrong wavelength. Ah well.
Thumbs up from me. Clever and tricky and, in the end, solvable (at least I figured it out with no look-ups and 2 minutes longer than my Sunday average). I will admit that before I figured it out I was ready to grumble about it being too hard. I’m glad I persisted.
@Charles An excellent one. Fine work.
I will grudgingly concede that this was a good puzzle, even though I had to resort to Google for a lot of the west side. There were many answers that I would never have gotten no matter how many times I walked away and came back. I found this much harder than most Saturday and Sunday puzzles. And I agree with the whoopee cushion complaints. The clue doesn’t quite match the answer, even with the ‘?’
A very enjoyable puzzle. I hit a dead end last night but after letting it simmer on the back burner of my brain overnight, it all came together in the morning as is so often the case. I agree with the complaints regarding NCO. I rejected it early and only used it when it was clear from the crosses.
Great puzzle. Last night it was mostly white squares and I was about to go to the wordplay column for clues but I decided to sleep on it instead. This morning it all came together bit by bit with the southeast corner being the last to be completed. There were lots of tricky clues but nothing that seemed unfair. Thank you for the puzzle.
@Charles I agree with you. I have never heard of that Japanese company or the author, but at least I was pretty certain that my error was at their intersection so I just ran the alphabet until I got the happy music. Otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle. Definitely hard enough to make it interesting.