Friday, September 1, 2023, Robert Logan

Bom dia, dear Readers! I didn't have much trouble with the puzzle today except as far as the app itself is concerned. Day one of our vacation and I am forced to update the NYTX app from the crossword puzzle-only app to the NYT Games app. I won't bore you with the details, but the upshot was trouble in both getting to the puzzle grid itself and with the "Keep trying" and "Congratulations!" portion of the program. Sigh. 

Anyhoo, I completed the grid in about 17 minutes, but apparently had a FWOE. I say apparently because took me a while to figure out why the timer kept running, but no message appeared. Once I figured out that the still-running timer meant that I must have a FWOE, it took me another little while to find my FWOE. Turns out, I had guessed 'lES' Montgomery at 56A (instead of WES) and never checked the Down, "Index since 1896, with 'the'". Derp. Final time was 19:22, but even with a couple of minutes devoted to problem solving, that's a relatively fast Friday for this solver. 

One C/AP slow down occurred at 25A: "Disaster" where I entered duMPsterfire, thanks mostly to already having entered DYNAMO and SOLARPANELS giving me the MP. Interesting that COMPLETEMESS has the same number of letters. 

The clue at 45D featured some nice misdirection, at least for me. Even though I am currently on the continent, my mind was stateside when I read "City east of Montpellier" and it was only after I got a few crosses that I realized the answer was ARLES. Another such was "Tears up," which ended up being RENDS, but could as easily have been something like 'cries'. Neat.

I enjoyed the answer GEEKEDOUT, although I don't usually do my out own geeking over video games. Also interesting to me that HATHA means "force." References of interest-wise, I liked Alice PAUL. 

Well, people are waiting for me to GETSTARTED vacationing for real. 

~Frannie.