Hello, Horace here, filling in for Frannie, who has turned in one of her "Get out of reviewing free" cards.
If you're like me, which in this case seems unlikely, you didn't even notice that this puzzle contained circles until you filled in the second theme answer. Even after wondering why the Yellow Pages no longer contained PHONENUMBER info and letting it go, I came to ANDCRAFTS and was forced to look for something more. And that something was circles. The missing first word of each theme entry is found in the circles, giving [HOME] PHONENUMBER and [ARTS] ANDCRAFTS. Later on, [FEAR] OFTHEDARK and [COIN]COLLECTIONS rounded out the theme answers. I would have been happier to find that the four circled words could be strung together into a revealer or something, but perhaps that's asking too much.
In the fill, the standouts for me were EMBASSY (Washington post?), REGARD (Aspect), and ROAD (Shoulder's place). I thought STEAMCAR (Early vehicle that could take up to 30 minutes to start) was a bit of a stretch, and while I'm happy that the JAWSOFLIFE (Rescue tool at a crash site) exists, I'd rather never see it again in a crossword. Even MIASMIC (Full of noxious vapors) in its unusual form is preferable.
Not much else to get excited about today. Perhaps it was a good one for Frannie to miss, although at least she would have given you a funnier review to make up for it. But fear not, she'll be back tomorrow. :)
- Horace
HI! Back after a long hiatus. I kinda liked this one. Like you, Horace, I filled in PHONENUMBER and said "o-kaaaayy..." and it was ANDCRAFTS which twigged me to what was going on. A nice chewy Wednesday in 5:22
ReplyDeleteI liked it, too. But unlike you guys, I didn't understand the theme until the entire puzzle was filled in...giving me a nice AHA moment. When I filled in PHONE NUMBER, I sincerely, like Horace, wondered why on earth the Yellow Pages people dropped them from their listings...to save on the cost of paper? It crossed my mind! Anyway, I enjoyed it.
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