Boy, I plowed through this thing. My first, incorrect entry "ImeaniT" for 1A: "No, really" (IINSIST) at least gave me ISLE and TROI, and from there I was off and running.
I like this themeless quite a bit. The double-I start is very nice, it's very Scrabble-y, as they say, with those Js and Zs, and has lots of good fill. SASHAY (4D: Walk alluringly) is fun, TROMBONE (37D: Ska band instrument) is something you don't often see in a grid, LAZYBONES (35D: Do-nothing) is great. Earlier this week there was a little conversation on this blog (and others) about whether or not "adorbs" should be acceptable fill. I say yes, and I also say a big yes to LOLZ (32D: Online hilarity).
We've got some fun pairs in ZANY and SANE, and NERUDA and Poe's TOHELEN, and 14D: Go astray (ERR) and 25D: Not stray (BETRUE). We've also got some fun clueing in 47A: Scare quote? (BOO), 16A: High-minded sort? (AVIATOR), 27D: Debugging tool? (ZAPPER), and the sure-to-be-controversial 19A: [Can you believe they wrote this?!] (EMPHASISMINE). Me, I like it.
In fact, I like the whole thing, as I believe I said earlier. Just a little LST here, and a slightly odd SQUATJUMP running down the middle, but that's not much to pay for the rest of this. Very nice.
- Horace
26:23
ReplyDeleteI didn't go quite as fast as usual for a Friday due to the tricky NE, especially ROOTFOR, which took too long. Also, I tried ararat instead of CARMEL, so that slowed me down. But I agree with Horace that this is a great one, and just what I want on a Friday. I loved all of the Zs in there. I guess SCENEII is OK without an act to specify it further (I first tried aCtfour). It must, by default, refer to Act I Scene 2, but though I've read the play, I'm not familiar enough with it to say that without Googling, which I won't do; I'll check the paper version later. I'm looking forward to familiarizing myself with the new Doctor Who, JODIE Whittaker (who seems to have been born at the end of my sophomore year in high school) but need to finish up Capaldi's final season first. Excepting the NE, I had the rest of the puzzle filled in at around 17:00.
19:57
ReplyDeleteSo many errors that had to be corrected. I put "port" in for ISLE. Later I switched, but then had "duet" for ITEM. Also I incorrectly put in BOLo for BOLA. One's a tie. The other's a weapon. Why can't they be both at the same time?! [EMPHASISMINE]. I had OVOID, then took it out. Then put it back in. Then changed it to OVATE. ATF took a long time to figure out. Oh, I also had LAstCALL, which was hard to see. In reality, that's a great clue.
Strong puzzle, fun to work through. I enjoyed it thoroughly.