Friday, March 3, 2023, Eric Warren

Today's puzzle was definitely on the tough side for this solver, dear Readers. There were quite a few clues I didn't have the KETO and thus had to do a lot of guessing to fill them in. In fact, I ended with a FWOE thanks to a Natick at the cross of 40A/D. :( I had all but the K. Unfortch, I never spent enough time with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to know what kind of swords Leonardo used and I guess my non-Ninja Turtle life experience isn't sufficiently broad to have included KATANAS or any of KAMAL Haasan's 200+ films  - something to look forward to. Also, one would have to know more about BMW cars than I do to get MINI off the clue. In other areas, I had similar trouble, but fewer in a bunch. I can't same I'm super familiar with the term OCEANOLOGY, or gambling lingo, or BEARSPRAY (is that a thing?), and while I've heard of Ty COBB, I did not know he was known as "The Georgia Peach." Maybe it is all down to my lack of HIPNESS.

I liked the C/APs "Stories that may or may not be true" (LORE), "Extend, in a way" (RENEW), "Metaphorical throwaway" (BATHWATER), "Divert" for AMUSE is good. And, once I got it, "Professional at pulling strings?" was a real RIBTICKLER. I also liked CYBERSQUAT as fill. And fun to have CLOWNMAKEUP and FIREEATERS together. 

Horace and I have had occasion to discuss ESP with various people recently, and it seems like there's a real age cutoff (30) for people who know what ESP is and those who don't. I was surprised when it became clear that younger people don't know what it is or what the letters stand for. Weird.

Anyhoo, it was a good workout for the old BRAINCELLS, and I can't be too upset about the FWOE since I didn't know either answer. ADIOSAMIGOs!

~Frannie.