0:07:11
Hmm… I see another theme developing this week - NABOB is in again for the second day in a row, and it's almost as though the clue were pulled from yesterday's review! "35D: "Nattering" sort in a Spiro Agnew speech." Hah!
The big surprise today - STROHS is a classic beer! Ha ha! Oh, wait, I meant to say that the surprise was that it was once brewed in Detroit. I guess I thought of that as a Wisconsin product, but perhaps that's because I was in Wisconsin when I used to drink it… I see now that the same brewery at one time or another also put out "Old Milwaukee" and "Lone Star." Strange.
I recently disliked a "circled letter" puzzle, but this one, I think, is better executed. The letters P, O, R, and K are spread out across each theme answer. Sure, one of the answers uses the much-maligned "one's" construction, but the other three are fine, and the revealer is positively mouth-watering. Mmmm…. PULLEDPORK….
Tell me, how many of you tried to enter "Santa" at 1D: Reindeer herder (LAPP)? And when I first looked at ATONCE (12D: In a New York minute) I had a "kitwo" moment and thought to myself "Is a tonce something like a trice? Heh. What a maroon.
A decent enough Tuesday. Some stuff that's a little OLDHAT, but hey, they got UBER in there, and the theme is fine. Onward!
- Horace
10:07
ReplyDeleteI don't mind a circle-puzzle, but I thought that this one wasn't nearly as good as the Sunday offering, partly because P-O-R-K was just straight-forwardly spread out (I know...PULLEDPORK would suggest that format), and partly because I don't eat that sort of thing anymore. STROHS was a surprise, for both reasons mentioned, and APROPOS is a great word. For theme-related fill we also have LOINS, CARNE, POI and, if I may, SCAT. Also, I've never heard the phrase PINONESEARSBACK, but I hope to use it in the near future. This was a well-placed puzzle; just about right for a Tuesday.
5:52
ReplyDeleteI think the theme is okay. It's saved by PULLEDPORK, which I will order at the drop of an OLDHAT. I agree about the "one's", and PHONEPRANK just doesn't seem like a real phrase. It should be a "prank call".
In the fill, I definitely didn't like UELE, although the crosses were fine. I really didn't like MANO crossing MINOT. I was pretty sure that "hand" in Spanish would be masculine, but I wasn't sure, and who'd heard of Minot, ND?
Oh, it's fine, I guess.
When I was going through basic training for the USAF, being assigned to the AFB at MINOT ND was used as a threat, so I became quite familiar with it there and was able to fill it in in this puzzle with no crosses. However, that's definitely experiential knowledge and I didn't know of it before and would probably not have heard of it to this day if not for that. Thankfully, I've never been there.
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