A lovely Saturday themeless from this past ACPT's inaugural Wordle competition champion. Apparently Mr. Sivakumar had hardly played the game at all prior to the contest, and won it handily. Some people...
Interesting that yesterday's puzzle and today's puzzle both use four staircases of six black squares to different effect. Yesterday's was all about the intersection in the middle of long answers, while today's is more about wide open corners and 8-, 9-, and 10- letter answers.
Like yesterday, the NW corner was not kind to me, but I guessed the end of 13A: Some spandex garments (SHAPEWEAR), which gave me REEDY, and then 23A: Vehicles in "The Phantom Menace" (PODRACERS). Why has that stuck in my head? I did not particularly care for the movie or its sequels.
Nonetheless, the NE corner went pretty quickly, including the lesser version of old favorite "Auntie Mame," and the clever 11D: AA and AAA (MINORS). I very much like the clue at 25A: Drawings with lots of little blocks (CITYPLANS).
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| LUPE Fiasco |
A mistake that slowed me down was putting in PIne for 23D: Ache for, in a way (PITY). That led to the questionable STEWPanS. As in, who ever made a stew in a pan? It would be very messy.
I had to restart in the SE corner, where "halfstepS" turned out to be incorrect in every way. I corrected to halfTONES with JARTS and JENGA, and then realized it was very unlikely that 38D: Wrapping weights (TARES) would end in H. All fixed, I was able to exit the corner, correct another error (rIal for LIRA) and finish my solve in a somewhat slower than desired 11:49.
Other answers I liked:
3D: Pressure treatment? (MASSAGE). Nice. I enjoy one myself.
8D: They don't know what they're talking about (PARROTS). Too true.
34D: Abrupt change in tone, perhaps (TANLINE).
It's been a fun week. I hope you enjoyed your solves as much as I did! Tomorrow, it's back over to Horace.
- Colum
FWOE -- DARTS, instead of (duh on me) the correct JARTS. Since I didn't know the game JENGA...oh well. Other than that, I enjoyed this one very much. Had OPEN MIND before realizing that wouldn't work. Loved all the clues, too. Thanks for the week, Colum!
ReplyDeleteThey're not halfTONES? I guess "half steps" would have been better, if not for almost every cross. :)
ReplyDeleteLoved TANLINE and HIGHSTEP (one more reason it couldn't have been "half step"), but who ever said or heard WETMARTINI? Isn't it just a Martini? I call dirty on that one.