Writing a blog on not enough sleep and a full day in the hospital (working, not ill)... well, let's see. There's not too much to dislike about this grid, but somehow it wasn't sparkling for me either. The good stuff? I really like IMWAYAHEADOFYOU, a great five work phrase. LIMOUSINEDRIVER is okay, but the clue is pretty good.
I kind of knew 27D: Game's turning point (ROTISSERIE) was referring to a spit, but I couldn't figure out the word, despite having _____SERIE. Lack of sleep, as I said. Also, I kept on seeing World Series there and wondering why the S was missing. Yeah. Maybe a bit delirious.
MOVIEFONE will always remind me of one of my favorite bits from Seinfeld, where Kramer makes his own Movie-Fone number, but can't interpret the tones as letters. We've seen EGOSURF recently, although the clue ("Try to find oneself?") is cute.
Is THANKGOD okay now? I bet there was a time when including "God" in the puzzle was frowned upon. 61A: Fisher for compliments on one's dress? (EILEEN) didn't fool me for a second, but I'm not sure the clue actually works.
1A: Eighty-sixes (SCRAPS) gets a C. It's a bland word, with a somewhat fun clue. Some not so great answers: SOR (with the decidedly uninformative clue "Young women's grp."), OCELO, NEET (two brand names), and ROSEN. ONENO could have been good (I do like bridge), but I wanted it to be ONENt, the way it's typically abbreviated in bridge diagrams.
I'm a little up in the air on my whole theme of the first word entered confidently. In the early part of the week, it's commonly 1A, which is uninteresting. In the later part of the week, things happen like this: at 1D: Infatuated, old-style, I put rapT. Wrong, but the T was right, and off of that I put in 19A: Let fate decide, say (TOINCOSS). This I was unconvinced about. Seemed reasonably, but I wasn't confident about it, until I came across 6D: Take to living together, with "up", which could only be SHACK.
So, readers, which answer was the first confident one? Probably the last one, I guess. So cool story, bro, right? Am I right?
No, I'm just tired. Good night.
- Colum
61:25
ReplyDeleteI had quite a bit of trouble in the NW with SMIT and COMO, and of course I'd never heard the bridge term down in the west, but the crosses were fair up top, and I'm familiar with the Einstein-ROSEN bridge. That MOVIEFONE bit is, indeed, great. And we just recently had a SKUNK extracted from our yard, though not of the cabbage variety. I thought this was a pretty fun Saturday offering, even though it took me so very long to finish.
50:59
ReplyDeleteMy solve was very disjointed. Looked at it briefly on Friday night, got very little, then looked at it again on Saturday night, after being out on the town in NYC. Got a little more, fell asleep. Then over the course of looking at it in short bursts over the next two days, I finally finished it. Whew!
The NW was tough, and made tougher by my guess of "drawACard" for "Let fate decide, say." Had MOOLAH in and took it out several times. Also tried "Pisa" for the Plinys... no good. But the SW was where I ended up. Really did not like OVERLOUD (Blaring), and FREEMIUM just seems ridiculous, but the rest was solid.
Still, I enjoyed the puzzle for the most part, especially IMWAYAHEADOFYOU, EGGON, and ROBOCALL.
Colum, "TOINCOSS" is funny, but wrong. On many levels. And I'd agree that SHACK was your first confident answer.