Monday, July 22, 2013

Monday, July 22, 2013, Ian Livengood

0:04:00

We loved the theme today - BOSTON! And I don't know if it was our familiarity with the subject, or just an exceptionally easy grid, but this was our fastest completion time ever. I think it broke the previous low time by over a minute, and if I hadn't struggled for a bit with the spelling of Shaq's last name, it could have been in the threes!

Even outside of the theme, this was right in our wheelhouse. Even things like MACAW (5A: Noisy bird) and HALER (40A: More robust) went in without hesitation. All the theme answers were immediate gimmies, and though we weren't familiar with things like SKAT (59D: Trick-taking game played with 32 cards) or HEELTAP (25D: Shoe lift), we never even saw the clues until reviewing the puzzle at the end. Another thing we didn't really notice until the end was the bonus, circled MA on the edges. Nice touch.

So, overall, nice clean grid, and a great theme. Coincidentally, I had some BAKEDBEANS (29D: Popular food in 43-Across) yesterday, but I was in the state of Maine at the time, so I'm not sure what to make of that...

- Horace


3 comments:

  1. 8:03
    I'll tell you what to make of it: the clue for 29D should have been "Food made popular in...." I'm pretty sure that, though baked beans are indeed popular in Boston, they're popular in much of the rest of the country, too. I also thought it was a clean and easy fill, and enjoyed the theme.

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  2. A very enjoyable Monday puzzle. That time is outrageous. I recently re-filled in a puzzle I had already solved. I used red instead of the original black ink. I tried to read each clue before I filled in the letters, but I really didn't quite completely read all of them; I ended up cheating a little because I feared I was taking too much time. Anyway, my time on that exercise was 3:17.

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  3. I was typing these in as fast as I could. Honestly, I have no idea how anyone can have a time in the twos, but I have seen it claimed.

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