25:51
For me, this played relatively easy for a Friday, apart from a couple of squares. I spent almost six of the above minutes trying ERHARD to figure out the cross between GEODESISTS ("Experts in determining the exact shape and size of the earth") and ADIA ("___ Barnes, W.N.I.T.- winning basketball coach") in the top section. As far as Ms. Barnes is concerned, I was drawing a complete BANC. Eventually, I decided an "ists" ending for the earth measurers was a likely possibility and went with that. The other square that ABE me trouble was the cross between GNARS ("Goes 'Grrrr'") and KNOTS ("Gut feelings?") in the lower middle. According to The Googles, 'gnars' hit its peak of popularity in the 1850s. Good times.
I liked the ambiguous clue "Not so hot"(MILD). "Got" for FOOLED is another such. "Counter offer, for short?" (BLT) is also nice. I love a reference to Bumblebee Man (AYCARAMBA), although my preferred exclamation of his is, "Ay ay ay, no me gusta."
And speaking of "no me gusta," I think BARRAGE for "Avalanche" is something of a SNO job. And speaking of, 'Avalanche' was a recent pangram in Spelling Bee. How's that for a word nerd crossover event?!?
~Frannie.
7:37
ReplyDeleteI had some difficulty with IBANKERS vs eBANKERS. I thought everything was e- things nowadays. Here the I stands for "investment." Hmph. MILD is much better than MeLD though. It's a loving puzzle, though, what with AMOR, TROUBADOUR, CUDDLEBUDDY, NESTLES, and SAFEWORDS. Too soon?
14:45 (FWOE)
ReplyDeleteI erred at the AYCARAMBA/ADIA cross, where I'd entered a "u." The entire clue for 6D made absolutely no sense to me (6D ____ Barnes, W.N.I.T.-winning basketball coach). It may as well have read "*I!%+=*#F@^&" because it caused the answer to be completely filled in using crosses. Can we stop printing clues like that, even on Fridays and Saturdays, Mr. Shortz? The rest was fine. I liked BIGYUKS and TRUSTEXERCISE. IBANKERS is perfectly acceptable and is a well-known term for those in the know. I mean, I'm an e-banker since I have fully on-line accounts, right? No need to be on Wall Street for that. Interesting to see GABBANA and AANDP crossing with those double letters. I don't want to think, however, about TOETAGS, although I did enjoy the clue (27A Digital identifiers).