Having just read Huygens' comment on Monday's puzzle, I'll start by agreeing that I thought today's puzzle was easier than yesterday's. Today seemed more like a Monday level puzzle, though I can't say exactly why. Whoever does the grading of the puzzles does seem to get it right in general, though. Although there are days like today when a Tuesday time is faster than the Monday, my average solve times show a steady increase throughout the week.
A delicious puzzle theme showcasing five candies with insulting names including AIRHEADS, BUTTERFINGERS, and DUMDUMS. I don't know the origin stories of the candy names, but I'm pretty sure GOOBERS didn't start out in life to be insulting, it just happened to them.
I found other candy-related answers throughout the grid. There were Smarties like "Little bird of mine?" (CANARY), Snickers like "Sticky spot?" (NEST), real eye Twizzlers like TIEIN, and finally, PayDay: "Fit on a hard drive?" (ROADRAGE) - ha! REGALE, SPRIG, and of course, BERT added a Bit-o-Honey. :)
~Frannie.
So despite a great deal of lobbying, SMARTIES were omitted from consideration! Agreed on the difficulty level. I clocked in at a blistering (for me) 4:32 on this one.
ReplyDeleteIsn't a NATURIST a sort of nudist?
I was waiting to see "nerds" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerds_(candy) but we did not have that TIEIN.
ReplyDeleteThe definition of NATURIST often confuses me (perhaps because I confuse it with naturalist), and some of the dictionaries I checked just had the nudist definition but then there was https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/naturist
I'm honored having been mentioned in the first sentence of the blog today, but now my 6:01 doesn't seem so odd. And as far as time goes for the rest of the week, my general pattern (without actually researching) is this, from fastest solve to slowest: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. Of course, I could be mistaken. And if we take the time/clue ratio into consideration, Sunday would probably come before Saturday. And geez, MOPTOP clued in a non-Beatles way? Shocking.
ReplyDelete