20:13
So! My deepest apologies for the tardiness of today's (yesterday's) review. I suppose the theme of the week is better late than never, and that applies to this blog post as well.
Both of the constructors of this puzzle are among my favorites, and you can see why in the NW corner. Look at the trickiness of these clues:
1D: Guard's place (SHIN). Did not see this coming.
3D: Some travelers along the Oregon Trail (OXEN) - reminds me of the old video game.
4D: Sporting blade (OAR) - !!!
With HEXAPOD and SMOOSH, this is a great corner, leading into 15D: Punctuate a killer performance (DROPTHEMIC). Excellent work, that.
Still, while solving the puzzle, I was left a little cold. I'm not sure why, in reviewing the answers nearly a day later. I suppose PILEDITON and NOTANYMORE are not the most astonishing of long answers. But still, we should cerebrate clues like 9D: Final exam? (AUTOPSY) and 38D: What some handles are created for (CBRADIO).
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| ROAN |
I didn't love 46D: Smoking or drinking, e.g. (AGER). And 30D: Point of view, metaphorically (LENS) seems a bit off - I would say that the lens you look through colors your worldview, rather than being the place you look at the world from. But these are mostly nitpicks.
Probably it's more SOURALE on my part than anything else - it played tough, which frankly you want on a Saturday. So I should just put on my GARANIMALS and take a load off (I don't own any Garanimals, for the record). It's Sunday, and a long week is over. Here's to passing the torch to a more competent individual.
Of course, I'm talking about Horace. See y'all soon!
- Colum
11:46
ReplyDeleteHah. "Competent." If I had a nickel for every time somebody called me that, I might be able to call someone on a payphone to tell them about it!
But seriously, I'm glad to know that you're amenable to a peaceful transfer of power this week. (Too soon?) Ugh. What a week it was. I haven't had a chance to comment even once! I don't know how you managed to even do the reviews. Anyway, IHOP this next week goes smoothly. HEREIGO!
Nice time! If that's not evidence of at least competence, I don't know what is.
Delete36:07
ReplyDeleteThis took me longer to solve than both of your times combined, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I tried SquaSH out up there in the NW which slowed me a little, but I realized I was INERROR pretty quickly. I agree about the nice cluing. I needed lots of crosses for GARANIMALS, which is unsurprising. Nice that MAGS is in the grid.