Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Mark Bickham

0:41:31

Overall, meh. And not just because we had problems.

We had all but four squares in about fifteen minutes, but it took us 25 more minutes to get PALAU (32A: 2005 "Survivor" island nation), PART (32D: Reader's goal) (shouldn't have been that hard), LOLL (34D: Hang loose), and ROLF (41A: Massage deeply). The P, R, L and L of those crossing words held us up for quite some time. Really, I think it was because we put "Macau" into the "Survivor" spot, and we were stuck on that for far too long.

But even if we hadn't had that problem, the puzzle wasn't all that sparkling. The theme was so-so, and there was a lot of mediocre fill. AMOF, ONS, SES, NTWT... it just wasn't all that interesting. Also, I'm sick of IMHIP (2D: Beatnik's "Gotcha"), "Hep" and all the other beatnik or "hip" clues. Let's just get over it, shall we? No one's said any of those things for decades.

And what's with 24D: Hangout for teachers (STAFFLOUNGE)? What about "Teacher's Lounge?" That's what people called it. Teachers aren't called "staff," they're called "teachers." Ugh.

As you can see, it didn't do it for me. I hope you had a better experience.

- Horace

2 comments:

  1. Not bad, I thought. I got stuck on the same section that you did, though. It took me a bit over an hour to finish because of that area with PALAU. No, PART and LOLL shouldn't have taken that long, but they did, and I confirmed ROLF with SJY after I finished. I liked the theme OK. I read 65A Like "The Biggest Loser" contestants OBESE to SJY and she thought it was a mean clue. Anyway, I'm hip to your feeling on this puzzle, but I enjoyed it.

    I'm still working on last Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Maybe I'll give up after today.

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  2. I had a lot going on today and didn't get to this review until quite late. Might not have reviewed it enough.

    Kind of like you, maybe, with the puzzles from the end of last week. Had running on your mind, perhaps?

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