Saturday, May 13, 2023, Spencer Leach

Well, somewhat happily for this solver, today's puzzle wasn't too difficult - although I did hit a near-Natick (more on that below). It's another busy day in Horace and Frannie Land, so being able to complete the puzzle in good time came in handy, but one does like a Saturday to put up a bit more of a fight. My solve time was a fast-for-me 14:15, despite the fact that the grid contained a lot of unfamiliar material like the fact that PLAYERONE is the person who controls the leftmost set of buttons on an arcade cabinet, that a zythophile loves BEER, a fast food chain called DELTACO, and how to spell SRIRACHA. :)

The one CRIMP in my solve came at the cross between "Soul singer Williams" and "Some users of them/they pronouns, informally." I mentioned the hold up to Horace and, what do you know, he DROPSAHINT; he said a person could figure out the "pronouns" answer. Well, that person wasn't me - I never did figure it out, but I did guess that DENIECE might be a person's first name, giving ENBIES for the Across and avoiding prolonged HEADDESK action.

I enjoyed QMC and the non-QMC pair in the tippity top of the northwest corner: "Bits of Intel?" (CHIPS) and "Bit of tea, to Brits" (RUMOUR). Other ROIs include "Like the Count of Monte Cristo" (IMPRISONED) - I'm not a fan of imprisonment, but Alexandre Dumas is my favorite author, bar none. Plus, when I read that book about black holes last weekend, I had no idea it would come in so handy with this week's puzzles. Thanks to the time I read about space, I was able to drop in SPACETIME - there's a better joke in there somewhere, but I don't have the time or mental space to find it. 

"Changed the locks?" for DYED, "Game with a lot of instructions (SIMONSAYS), "A little bit of company?" and "It might be 70 feet long" (SONNET) were fun. Also, IDIG the E.B. White quote "'HUMOR can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process.'"

After a week of reviews that I'm sure left you BOREDTODEATH, starting tomorrow, this space REJOINS the RHEA crossword world. 

I bid you a HASTY farewell,

~Frannie.