Well, I'm no neurologist or anything... oh wait, yes I am. I am a neurologist, and ISAY that if you are SEEINGDOUBLE, every letter will be duplicated, not just one. Does that invalidate the entire puzzle in my mind? No. I just think another revealer would be better.
I like the idea of taking a common phrase, doubling one letter to get another common phrase. Clearly the best of the four examples here is VENTILATTE. That's a great find. AMAZINGGRACE works well also. But OVERRICE? Hmm. It can't stand on its own. And DEEPENDS? Do we ever pluralize the side of the pool by the diving board?
SIGH.
So I guess I didn't love the theme. Like most Chen puzzles, the fill is smooth. There's nothing here I'd complain about. 10D: Insulting designation from a pirate (BILGERAT) is excellent, as is 39D: High number? (EXPONENT). Otherwise, IDEAMAN is mildly questionable, but nothing to make me CRY.
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| Home of Eris, so they say |
Wednesday often makes me look forward to the turn. It starts tomorrow!
- Colum
I guess my main issue with VENTILATTE is just that it builds off Starbucks sizing, which, oh, never mind, plenty of people have ranted about that so I don't need to spill more ink on that subject.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe I'm just saying my favorite themer was AMAZINGGRACE and I don't need to analyze why.
Lots of good fill. My most amusing correction was that I had MEtALS before MEDALS.
Time was a touch slow for Wednesday (19:00) but it didn't feel slow, so I guess that's the mark of a good puzzle: that it kept my interest.
14:43
ReplyDeleteI, like Mr. Kingdon, enjoyed the puzzle, but unlike Colum found OVERRICE to be perfectly acceptable. I am, however, with him on DEEPENDS, as there is generally only one. Although now that I think more of it, at my mother's place in Florida, the pool is two rectangles divided by a small connecting channel, so there are actually two DEEPENDS, but that is an unusual situation. I solved half on paper, so I was able to star an item, which Colum already mentioned: EXPONENT, which was excellent. CHAMPION has a great clue (5D Advocate for), as did CUECARD (13D Line holdup?), even with the question mark. I could do without your OMG, NAS and POM, but always a shout out to TREVI, which is a shocking sight in person.