Based on today's puzzle, I'd say Ms. Lempel is a woman of letters. She gives us six theme answers that are common words or expressions that include a letter of the alphabet, redefined with the letters spelled out to make a word. For example, at 29A we have Invoice from a souvenir shop? (TEEBILL). My favorite of the theme answers was CUEBERT, because Ernie. (Wasn't qbert some kind of early computer game?) DEEFLAT is amusing, as a terse performance review, and GEESTRINGS would be funny if someone actually said it under the stated circumstances.
My favorite clue/answer overall today was 66A. Unlike the proverbial rolling stone (MOSSY). I also liked 60D. Maniacal leader? (EGO) - ha! Other EXEMPLARs of fill I enjoyed:
64A. Decisive defeat (ROUT)
9D. Market oversupply (GLUT)
Not much about the puzzle got me IREd up. No one loves an ATTY or AMTS, especially of Rx dosages, but USB a real CAPGUN to make a fuss about a couple of innocuous abbreviations on a Tuesday.
CIAO.
~Frannie
4:47
ReplyDeleteAmusing review Frannie. Perhaps even more amusing than the puzzle!
Hou about those three names in the North all climbing up to SSS? And it's a little funny that ALINES appears in a puzzle with this theme.
3:55
ReplyDeleteA ROUT of a puzzle. I like it overall. Yes, Frannie, Q*Bert was a silly game from the 80s. The creature had to jump from cube to cube, changing the colors before some other thing happened, maybe another creature, I can't remember. My only quibble, and it's not really that big a deal, is that there are two across answers that are longer than some of the theme answers, which is mildly confusing.
8:21
ReplyDeleteQ*Bert was in constant peril from other jumping creatures and objects and needed to avoid them while coloring all of the squares on a triangle-shaped structure. I became expert in the game while on the Biloxi Air Force Base for six months back in the 80s, able to spend one quarter for "entertainment" for the night. Productive times. Fine Tuesday puzzle and excellent review. I didn't love the plural TESLAS, but the other ones aren't too bad, except maybe the plural abbreviations JRS and the aforementioned AMTS.