Friday, December 17, 2021, Evans Clinchy

Finally, after an exhausting and debilitating two-day streak of puzzle problems, a successful solve! THATHITSTHESPOT. There was nothing that gave me ASSYRIAs problems (14:39),  although for "Quarters feed into them" I did first  try 'Slots,' but quickly corrected it to the more clever SEMIS once I got ECHO and MEAL. The  last section I completed was the southwest corner, even though I dropped in ALFLAC off the clue ("It has a duck float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade"). I don't know that I've heard the term FREEGAN before but I like it ("Portmanteau for a dumpster-diving anti-consumerist eater") - ha! 

In the clambiguity category (how's that for a portmanteau?), "Tears" for HOTSTREAKS, "Minute" for ITTYBITTY, and "Second" for ECHO were all good. I also liked "Inclined" for PRONE.

Other C/APs that entertained:

"Offline activity?" (IMPROV) 

"Place to buy overpriced drinks" (MINIBAR) - truth.

"One might be offensive" (LINEMAN)

"Fast finish?" (MEAL)

Each light speck is a galaxy, some of which are as old as 13.2 billion years. The observable universe is estimated to contain 200 billion to two trillion galaxies.

I find it interesting that despite a number of people and things I'm not familiar with (MORRIS county NJ and Tony EVERS, to name two) and some unusual fill (SOLUTE, BESTRODE, SAPID) in the grid, my solve time was below my AVERAGES for a Friday. It's a mystery!

~Frannie.