Boy, I'm bringing Flexeril and Valium to the ACPT next year, because this felt almost like a Tuesday to me. (I don't use those every day, but I had one of each this morning for a medical thing.) Got BOOGIE (1A: Get down) off the excellent clue and ran from there. I've never seen either of the movies referenced in the clue for 36A: Ricky Martin hit sung by Puss in Boots and Donkey at the end of "Shrek 2," but you see Ricky Martin's name and you think - LIVINLAVIDALOCA, right? Similarly, ROLLOVERIRA (17D: Investment option after leaving a job) seemed like a dead giveaway. Even WIREFENCE (30D: Backstop material), which I loved, was put in off the initial W from AWOKE (29A: Came to).
I don't remember where I finished, it was all over so fast, but there were difficulties in the NE. PERMALLOY (10D: Magnetizable nickel-iron combo) was unknown, and CONTESSAS (12D: Old Italian nobles) wasn't exactly a gimme, but I'm happy to have pulled EDIEFALCO (11D: "Nurse Jackie" actress) out of my "crossword only" files, and the crosses were all gettable. Frannie and I were both happy to see EMMET (21A: ____ Brickowski ("The Lego Movie" protagonist)) in there. Good ol' Emmet!
Neither of us much liked SNIPS for 43D: Impertinent sorts. I don't know, is that commonly used? And I don't know what ILO (35D: U.N. agency created by the Treaty of Versailles) is, but, well, I didn't even see that it was in the grid until reviewing things just now.
Overall, I liked it. Interesting grid, not too closed off, and right in my wheelhouse, apparently. Too bad I'm all out of drugs for tomorrow. :)
- Horace
12:18
ReplyDeleteNice time, Horace! Cece and I finished this one together. Lots to like! ACRONYM is good, SABOTEUR is fine (thought it was SABOTage). We got MUHAMMADALI off the first two letters, but misspelled his name with an E, which made LIVINLAVIDALOCA tougher than it should have been.
I liked all the full names: ALGERHISS, EDIEFALCO, the aforementioned boxer, IRENECARA. Guess we can't count SCIPIO in that group. My favorite clue/answer combo was 56A: Pen that's no longer used (ALCATRAZ). Cece knew EMMET.
32:42
ReplyDeleteI didn't know EMMET, but this seemed easy for a Friday to me, too; in fact, I finished faster than I did yesterday's puzzle. I didn't think that we needed so much information for 4D Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. ____" (GOODE); I mean, C'mon! And like people have mentioned, there were some other gimmes in this puzzle, but that NE made my time drag on, too, especially the aforementioned PERMALLOY (crossing EMMET, which crossed the unknown-to-me NATE at 8D, even though it rhymes nicely with the clue. I thought that 47D Wheel of Fortune, e.g. (TAROT) was the best clue I've seen for that crosswordese as yet.