0:51:37
What a wonderful puzzle. Tons of tricky fill, almost nothing objectionable, and a couple answers that I just didn't know at all. UNGAVA (12D: Northern Quebec's ____ Peninsula) was one such, but it finally got filled in once we grasped the fabulous DCUPS (10A: Big top features?) (Frannie: "They went there?!"). Anybody want to explain LST (27D: W.W. II inits.) to me? I know the other W.W. II inits. answer, thank you.
We don't exactly love the phrase IMPUMPED (1D: "Can't wait!"), but it looks freakishly great in the grid. And 51A: Trix alternative? (ENNE) is very clever. I guess they feel they don't need the hyphen because it's Saturday.
I was excited about finding out the answer to 1A: One was first purchased in 2008, but felt strangely let-down when the answer turned out to be IPHONEAPP. I can't really explain why... I just wanted something different, I guess.
We loved 50D: Bacon product (ESSAY), 34A: Game with points (DEER) (!!), and 9D: 6 is a rare one (PAR). BABYDADDY (63A: Child support payer, in modern lingo) seems cutting-edge for crossword puzzles, and the old standby Ille NASTASE (29A: 1991 International Tennis Hall of Fame Inductee) gets his last name in the grid for a change.
LIV (33D: Roman numeral that's also a name) is a cute one, and IOUSA (48D: 2008 documentary about the national debt) is such a clever name that I now want to look that movie up!
Another fun, brain-flexing Friday/Saturday combo. Keep em' comin' Shortzy!
- Horace
51:36 (!)
ReplyDeleteWell, that's the nearest-to-1:1 time:time ratio yet. Yes, very clever. I also enjoyed MROLYMPIA and CURSEWORD. I agree that DCUPS is great, and I find these puzzles slightly racy anyway, so this didn't shock me as much as it did Frannie.
I'm still working on Friday's and haven't started today's (Sunday) yet.