Thursday, August 31, 2023, Freddie Cheng

Happy Thursday. This review is coming to you from the middle of Atlantic Ocean, as half of team HAFDTNYTCPFCA(Now with 25% more Canadian content! (Hi Philbo!)) is in the Azores! I've agreed to take the travel day reviews from Frannie (Hi Kelly!), but she'll be back tomorrow, when you'll all be yelling TGIF! For now, though, you get my sorry, jet-lag-ALTERED self. Yay!

The Thursday trick today is using the clue number with certain answers. It came to me early with "2002 film that earned Eminem two MTV Movie Awards" ([8]MILE). And hey, we were in Providence while they were filming [27]DRESSES. Just for a day, and we never actually saw the movie, but still...

Best clue - "Shade that might be made in the shade?" (FAKETAN). I also love JAW (Where to find canines). And while we're talking about that body, NUDE (Undergarment shade) is also nice.

I don't really remember a ton of NEON in the '80s. Pink and green, sure, but NEON? Maybe some, but maybe I just wasn't all that fashion-conscious in those days, when I was wearing hand-me-downs and shirts that I either batiked or spray-painted myself. I was a hot mess. Probably could've used some NEON...

Anywhooo. It's too bad TENFOUR ("Understood") couldn't have been at either 10-Across or 10-Down, but, well, I suppose not everything is possible. 

OK. This AirBnB is kind of like a SPA, so I can't spend too much more time on this. Oh, and speaking of, we'll be going to a hot spring that supposedly EATSAWAY at your bathing suit. That should be fun. :/

Oh! I forgot one more fun clue - Noted head turner (OWL). Hah!

Byeeeeee!

- Horace

Wednesdy, August 30, 2023, Alex Eaton-Salners

A lovely little Mad Lib-style, mid-week love story is told in the puzzle today. The "fill-in-the-blank" clues used to be the ones I looked at first when I was just starting to do puzzles. God ... When was that? Maybe when I was ten or eleven? Maybe even earlier. My brother Bobby used to deliver the papers, then he'd come home and work on the terrible AP puzzle that was included in the Worcester Telegram. I was probably just five or six back then. Anyway...

We start, appropriately, at the beginning, with "Once UPON a time," and end with "happily EVER after." just like every love story should. And along the way we get such fun crosswordese as OBOE, EDEN, IDLED, and ADO. I like that the two main characters are in band, and that they enjoy silly puns. It's a relationship made in crossword heaven. 

So, when I read it, I thought of Ava and Dana as women, but Dana doesn't have to be female. I wonder, though, if there isn't some side-theme in "Oberfell v. HODGES, Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage." But I suppose if we're just tying in any old fill, we'd have to consider ENDINTEARS (Conclude miserably), and we wouldn't want to do that. And who knows how old these two are. There could be a big gap, because AGE is "Just a number, it's said." Oh, and one more fill-as-possible-theme entry could be LEOV (Pope after Benedict IV), because it's an anagram of "love." And RIDABLE? ... 

Sorry.

I laughed at "Knuckle-headed gesture?" (NOOGIE), and NERFBALL (Round, squishy toy) brought back fun memories. There were some little things, like EDD Roush (Last played in 1931) and UMIAK (Inuit skin boat), but all's fair in love and war, right?

- Horace

Tuesday, August 29, 2023, Michèle Govier

Today's theme answers are all people or characters famous for wearing a BOW TIE, including KRUSTY THECLOWN, COLONEL SANDERS, CHARLIE CHAPLIN, and THECATIN THEHAT. In the app I use to solve the puzzle, the black square between the two parts of each theme answer is linked by a couple of drawn lines to the blank square diagonally below, making the two black squares look like a bow tie. NICE! Ascot on pretty quickly to the theme giving me a bolo average time for a Tuesday. HOHOHO.

I guess I'll take a cravat making a list of today's favorite clues. They are (in no particular order) "Feature of a garden or novel" (PLOT), "One way to be taken" (ABACK), "Corduroy feature" (WALE), and "Costing an arm and a leg" (PRICEY), but the Windsor is "Apt rhyme for 'stashes'" (CACHES) - ha.

At this point, I know you are wondering, dear Readers, and I am asking myself the same question, "CANI?" Can I work in four-in-hand? Knot today. 

~Frannie.

Monday, August 28, 2023, Brian Callahan

Quite a fUN puzzle today. The theme revealer was "Disconnects ... or what's found in the answers to the four starred clues?" or UNCOUPLES, but, of course, the UN couples in each answer rather serve to connect the two parts of each theme answer rather than separate them. That's why it's funny, get it? Of course you get it, dear Readers. 

I coUNt many other good clue-answer pairs throughout the grid, plus some UN-fun fill. I enjoyed "'Hop to it!'" for ASAP, "Feature of an Uber ride ... or an Uber East order" (FARE), "Motto for a devil-may-care type" (YOLO), and CARP for complain. I especially liked "Chicken's counterpart in a causality dilemma" for EGG - ha!

Another nice couple is NYUK and NOOKS in parallel Down answers. And how about the theme-adjacent USHAPED ("Like some bike locks and magnets"). 

The RESULTS of my solving efforts (5:43) were nice numerically, if not personal-bestly. 

~Frannie.

Sunday, August 27, 2023, Rich Katz

WANNA BE STARTIN' SOMETHIN'

The theme today almost seems like it could have been an afterthought. Just make a themeless Sunday, then figure out a way to clue the long answers in some way that connects them, like by doing something fun with the first letter of each one. As in:

Entitle? for NICHOLASNICKELBY
Seasickness? for COMMONCOLD
and
Gee whiz? for GALILEOGALILEI

It's amusing enough, and I'm sure that much more went into it than I can even imagine. And I always like a theme that occurs in both the Across and Down answers. (Depose? (DOWNWARDDOG) is good.)

What about the rest? Well, I always like being reminded of the "Trees whose berries flavor gin" (JUNIPERS) (I've always seen it as a low-growing shrub), but nobody likes being reminded of the SCIATIC (Kind of nerve that runs through the leg). NONHERO (Unconventional protagonist) isn't a term I'm super familiar with, but then, I'm not what you'd call a big reader. 

I wondered about "Snoopy grp." for CIA, but then I laughed, because they're all snoops. Heh. And I was soooo fooled by the ol' "Neighbor of Georgia" clue. I dropped in "AlabamA," which looked good with ARFS (Canine calls) and MAUL (Rough up), but when I finally got the "Protagonist of a touching story?" (MIDAS) (Hah!), I finally realized I'd been duped! It's the other Georgia, and they wanted ARMENIA. Derp.

It went very quickly today. Before I write the review, I tab through every clue and answer in the puzzle, and today there were many that I didn't even see as I was solving. Like "Way to get ahead in Life?" for example. It's SPINNER. Do they still sell the board game? And does it still have that spinner that you use instead of dice? Heh. I haven't thought about that in a long time. Filling up the car with all those little children pegs... Good times.

OK, it was a decent enough Sunday. That's it for me. Frannie comes back tomorrow, but I told her I'd take Wednesday and Thursday - two days we'll be travelling - so I'll see you again in a few. 

Enjoy!

- Horace

Saturday, August 26, 2023, Adrian Johnson

I felt good about myself today when the first answer I put in was ERITREA (Country where the oldest human skull (circa 1,000,000 B.C.) was found in 1997), but it didn't get me any of the top crosses, and that NW section was where I ended up again, fifteen minutes later. But so it sometimes goes with a Saturday. 

I "dropped" LSD (This might change your mind) in, too, and that, along with TOPO ("____ the mornin'!") and MERE (Woman with enfants), led to the fun Downs LOVELETTER (Hot lines?) and SPARETIRES (Remedies for blowouts). And in the symmetrical area in the SW, it was the Downs that came first: "It dots the 'i' in the Ohio State marching band's spelling of 'Ohio'" (SOUSAPHONE) and "Troublemaker" (HELLRAISER). And those helped with SHINEON (Deceive so as to deflect) - a phrase I was not familiar with.

Best clue today? Is it "Fit to serve?" (EDIBLE), "They're often worn long at public events" (FAKESMILES), "On a streak?" (NAKED), or "Takeoff in pole position, perhaps?" for STRIPTEASE? Heh. And then there's "See star?" (PONTIFF) and "Seeds may go down in them" (UPSETS). Clever.

Back in the NW, I guessed CART (Street food source) and TBAR (One way up, perhaps), which finally gave me enough to see BABAORILEY (Five-minute rock classic with an iconic organ intro), and that, finally, was that. 

Solid Saturday. 

- Horace

Friday, August 25, 2023, Rafael Musa

Friday has come. Chunky cornered themelessness GREETS the solver. 

It starts out strong with HELLSCAPE (Worst place imaginable) at 1A. And I dropped in BAILS off the clue (Backs out suddenly). I never really know these days whether my old slang is still viable. And speaking of - do people still take a MADLIB? I remember thinking those were so fun, but now they just kind of seem a little ... I don't know ... (adjective) _______?

So, why is UNLIT "Like something wicked and dark?" There's a question mark in the clue, so they have something in mind that I am not getting. What's the wicked part? [ed. I looked for this over on Amy Reynaldo's site. "Wicked" is to be taken as "with a wick" as in, a candle, and it's "dark" because it's unlit. Ummm... no.]

Clues I did understand, and quite enjoyed, included "Selling point" (SHOP), "Places to rub elbows?" (ARMRESTS), "What ties can get you into, for short" (OTS), "Spelling Bee feature" (PANGRAM) (ha!), and my favorite - "It's passable" (TEST). That's very good.

And Friday is often when the FICs (False Imperative Clues) start showing up, and today we've got "Shuck it!" for OYSTER. I originally thought of a corn cob, but maybe that's because when I have oysters - which isn't often - someone else has already shucked them for me. :)

OK, I tried to catch up on my SLEEPDEBT this morning, and I'll be saying IMLATE if I don't wrap this up soon. Happy Friday!

- Horace