Saturday, October 8, 2016, Julian Lim

13:48

Writing a blog on not enough sleep and a full day in the hospital (working, not ill)... well, let's see. There's not too much to dislike about this grid, but somehow it wasn't sparkling for me either. The good stuff? I really like IMWAYAHEADOFYOU, a great five work phrase. LIMOUSINEDRIVER is okay, but the clue is pretty good.

I kind of knew 27D: Game's turning point (ROTISSERIE) was referring to a spit, but I couldn't figure out the word, despite having _____SERIE. Lack of sleep, as I said. Also, I kept on seeing World Series there and wondering why the S was missing. Yeah. Maybe a bit delirious.

MOVIEFONE will always remind me of one of my favorite bits from Seinfeld, where Kramer makes his own Movie-Fone number, but can't interpret the tones as letters. We've seen EGOSURF recently, although the clue ("Try to find oneself?") is cute.

Is THANKGOD okay now? I bet there was a time when including "God" in the puzzle was frowned upon. 61A: Fisher for compliments on one's dress? (EILEEN) didn't fool me for a second, but I'm not sure the clue actually works.

1A: Eighty-sixes (SCRAPS) gets a C. It's a bland word, with a somewhat fun clue. Some not so great answers: SOR (with the decidedly uninformative clue "Young women's grp."), OCELO, NEET (two brand names), and ROSEN. ONENO could have been good (I do like bridge), but I wanted it to be ONENt, the way it's typically abbreviated in bridge diagrams.

I'm a little up in the air on my whole theme of the first word entered confidently. In the early part of the week, it's commonly 1A, which is uninteresting. In the later part of the week, things happen like this: at 1D: Infatuated, old-style, I put rapT. Wrong, but the T was right, and off of that I put in 19A: Let fate decide, say (TOINCOSS). This I was unconvinced about. Seemed reasonably, but I wasn't confident about it, until I came across 6D: Take to living together, with "up", which could only be SHACK.

So, readers, which answer was the first confident one? Probably the last one, I guess. So cool story, bro, right? Am I right?

No, I'm just tired. Good night.

- Colum

Friday, October 7, 2016, Robyn Weintraub

9:32

I'm going to come down on the positive side for this puzzle, but what's giving me pause is the intense compartmentalization of the grid. It's essentially four mini-puzzles connected in the middle by a stack of three answers. It's not really enough in the way of entry from one area to another, and it played that way.

On the other hand, and it's a big other hand, all that separation allowed for some really sparkly fill. I broke in with 1D: Harry Potter's father (JAMES) with an assist from Cece, and then plopped JEDIMASTER in (A for that one). But even better, we get the trifecta: Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Princess Bride, with MIRACLEMAX. Which is, by the way, one of my all time favorite comedy scenes ("Mutton, lettuce, and tomato, when the mutton is nice and lean, and the tomatoes are ripe, they're so perky...") with Carol Kane ("I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!").

I had to work my way backwards out of the middle to connect to the NW, starting with OLA and AXIS. The X made TOYBOXES clear, but even better is 37A: Expert savers (GOALIES). Love the lack of question mark! I was thinking "squirrels" or something. And JURASSIC is also lovely across the middle like that.

I found the SW fairly straightforward once I had BARK in place (31D: Lab report? - Ha!). Hard to believe anybody thought it was a good idea to make an EWOK only spinoff of Star Wars. 36D: Malady with many "remedies": HANGOVER is nicely clued. We get two crosswordese answers to pin this stack in place (UTA and EERO).

I misinterpreted 25D: Interest for a cryptozoologist (NESSIE) for a while as foSSIl, which held me from going into the NE. So I worked my way back into it from the SE corner. I love DOMEAFAVOR (four word phrase, very nice), and SHALLOWEND is fine.

Finally, ended in the NE where my last answer was 13D: Wrapper that's hard to remove? (ANACONDA). Love it.

So an overall fun solve, despite the lack of flow.

- Colum

Thursday, October 6, 2016, Timothy Polin

13:21

Wow! I think this is a really impressive theme for a Thursday. It feels like the kind of thing you'd see in a Sunday theme, but it's in a 15x15 grid with a surprise revealer.

And it's done really well. I love the idea: take the syllable sī (that's a long I for those of you playing at home), insert it in the middle of a two word phrase, and clue the resulting wackiness. First, the fact that each time the added syllable is in the middle of the two words justifies the MIDSIZE revealer (which can be reparsed as "mid-sī's"). Second, the original phrases are solid, and the silly twists humorous (I like SEMPERSCIFI the best, but PETPSYCHO is pretty good too). But best of all (and third), the syllable is spelled in a novel way in each answer!

Nice work, Mr. Polin.

The fill is pretty darned good as well. 1A: Bedridden (LAIDUP) gets a B+. It's a nice term, and the adjective nature of it is hidden well. The first entry I put in was 2D: Like Wabash College (ALLMALE), but it was a total stab, as was AMOS. In fact, the first entry I was confident about came all the way over at 12D, with DONJOHN, played so badly it was memorable, by Keanu Reeves. What a strange choice.

Of course, DENZEL was in that (as well as in Philadelphia, the movie, with Tom Hanks). He was much better. Other answers I liked: IDOLATRY and PANOPLY. Lovely stuff there. Also MANOHMAN. I enjoyed 33D: Letter embellishment (SERIF) crossing 49A: Letter sign-off (FONDLY).

Definitely a thumbs up on this one.

- Colum

Wednesday, October 5, 2016, Michael Dewey

6:02

Is there anything more refreshing than a nice cold root beer? AANDW (also known as A&W) is a reasonable example of a root beer, certainly. The revealer describes the theme answers, two word phrases with the initials AW. I'm most impressed by the two 15-letter answers intersecting in the middle. I'm familiar with ABIGAILWILLIAMS, having read a wonderful history of the Salem witch trials recently (The Witches, by Stacy Schiff). I have no complaints with any of the other answers, though, so that's pretty good.

It's a large amount of theme material (69 squares), so you might expect there to be tradeoffs in the fill. But I really liked the NE and SW corners. ONEALARM feels a bit made up (we'll all agree there is such a thing as a three-alarm chili, but I don't think it generalizes in the other direction), but it is amusing that it crosses AFIRE.

STLEOI is a classic crossword escape clause. What a collection of otherwise unparsable letters. OKNOW fares slightly better. And I can't exactly excuse NAY and NAW being in the same puzzle, both clued as a negative. Oh, yeah! And IMAGER. I hate that kind of answer.

All right, so there was a fair amount of POOR fill. AFTA, DASANI, TAHOE, CAMRY. That's a lot of branding.

Maybe the best moment was thinking of a RASTA and a WICCA standing next to each other.

No grade for 1A (theme material); and my first confident answer was WAN.

- Colum

P.S. I saw that statue on my recent visit to the Louvre.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016, Sam Buchbinder

3:55

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this puzzle has my favorite answer of the year, and according to Jeff Chen's website, it's the first time it's appeared in the NYT crossword during the Shortz era. Do you know what it is?

PITCHESWOO!

I can't find a reliable etymology online, although the OED is quoted as saying it's primarily an Americanism from the early part of the 20th century. Regardless, I'm charmed.

The rest of the puzzle is fine, but hardly matches up to the very high bar set by this particular entry. The theme is good, actually: items you might find in LUNCHBOXES, each set into a phrase where the term is not used in the food sense. Clearly KNUCKLESANDWICH is the winner among this lot. I almost wish the revealer had been "boxed lunch", in that these items are exactly what you usually find in one of those mass produced meals.

1A: President who ended "don't ask, don't tell" (OBAMA) gets an A-. We'll miss him terribly once he's left office, I think, regardless of who wins the election. He was also the answer I entered first.

Answers I've learned from doing so many of these puzzles: MOHS, CATT. Answers that were odd next to each other: USA, NAM. Answers I wish weren't in the puzzle at all: TWERK.

And finally, a shout out to KACEY Musgraves. I'm not a fan of country, but I really enjoyed her first album (the one that won the Grammy).

- Colum

Monday, October 3, 2016, Jacob Stulberg

3:53

Here's a theme which has been really carefully and thoughtfully worked out. Not only are the letters of "London Bridge" literally FALLINGDOWN, they are placed perfectly across the four long down answers (rows 1-3, 5-7, 9-11, 13-15). I always enjoy a puzzle with the long themed answers going down like this, because it's both a change of pace, and because it creates different grid patterns.

Of the long answers, LONGSTEMMED and SOCIALLUBRICANT both work well. WENTOVERTHEEDGE is fine. STANDONONESHEAD is that dreaded thing, a "one's" phrase. It's an accepted phrase though, so I'm okay with it. So overall, thumbs up for the theme.

I have some problems with the fill. The worst comes in the section moving from the NE to the E, where INTR crosses RVPARK crosses XKES. That was a tough section, especially for a Monday. I got them all from crosses or careful guesses, but I could see some solvers hitting a major roadblock.

I also really don't like REDHEN. I like the folk tale, where the little eponymous character does all of the work necessary to make bread. But making it a partial is not great. SUZI crossing ZWEIG has all the makings of a Natick. I just looked up "Stumblin' In", and I'm glad to have never heard it before now.

On the plus side, NYGIANTS is nice and chunky, with a good clue, and who doesn't like a SHOWCASE showdown on The Price Is Right?

1A: Makes eyes at (OGLES) gets a D+, both for the crosswordese and for the tone deaf clue. Really? Ogling is creepier by far than flirtatious glances, in my book. It was, even so, the first answer I put in.

Overall, I appreciated this puzzle.

- Colum

Sunday, October 2, 2016, Zhouqin Burnikel

PAPER JAM

We here at HAFFCA appreciate a rebus puzzle. I figured out it was a rebus when I entered HUEYLEWISANDTHE[NEWS] at 1D. But I didn't quite catch the concept entirely for a little while. At first I thought each rebus would be something that could be combined with "paper" to make another term. Turns out each rebus is the name of a newspaper, jammed into its own little square. Not only that, but each rebus is at the end of its answer, which is elegant.

With such long rebuses (I thought it might be "rebi" but it turns out the term is actually already the ablative plural of "res", translated as "by means of things or objects"), the crossing answers can't exactly hide the words neatly. Ms. Burnikel manages to do it twice though, with DE[PRESS] and RE[NEWS].

I did have one error, which came at FIRSTPASTTHE[POST] and GOAL[POST]. I put "line" in the rebus. There is such a thing as a goal line, of course, but in no way would you clue it as "upright" (great clue, by the way!).

Of course in a puzzle of this size, there's some good and some bad. 1A: Waste maker? (HASTE) didn't fool me for a second, and was my first confident answer as well. I give it a B+ for the clue. I enjoyed SANTAHAT crossing SAINTNICK (nice avoidance of duplication there). We've seen that type of clue at 72D (Dancer's boss) before, but still it's a nice hidden capital. PATOOTIE next to SWANSONG is very nice. I also liked ASIF - shades of Wayne's World.

The middle section has a load of 3-letter answers and more than its share of crosswordese (AIT, RIEL, AES, WTO, CTN), but I didn't mind it too much. Is DORAL well known enough that I should be okay with it? [Pauses to Google] ... Gah! It's Trump's resort. Thumbs way down. Wait, no politics here. But did you see that SNL sketch last night? I thought the debate was funnier.

Here's something I didn't know: SKEG. Although it's clued with reference to a surfboard, it's found on many other water vehicles as well. So, learn something new every day. Hang ten, dudes.

- Colum