Sunday, January 7, 2018, David Steinberg

Vowel Play

I hope this puzzle was more fun to create than it was to solve. I found it more of a grind than a joy, although local circumstances may have put a LIMIT on my enthusiasm. I solved the 140-word puzzle on my iPad, which made for very small squares and something of a muddle where the answers had multiple multiple vowels. Plus, I was somewhat pressed for time this morning because we have tickets to a show this afternoon and today is the inaugural "hand-off" review, so I wanted pass the baton to our esteemed co-blogger Mr. Amory as early as possible.

Never having constructed a puzzle myself, it's difficult for me to ASSESS the difficulty of creating such a puzzle, but it seems like it must have been quite a challenge. After I got the trick of it and entered a few of the theme answers, I wanted to put it down. It might have been more fun if there had been fewer of the trick answers and if those few had been clever or interesting pairs. But, of course, such pairs may not exist. :) DANGEROUS/DUNGAREES might be my favorite, but I also enjoyed FOULCALL/FUELCELL. I thought the clue for FUELCELL (Juice container?) was nice  I also like ICHOR (Olympian blood). You don't see that every day.

The "Vowel Play" caused some CARFIRES in the grid. All right, that's some STRONGTEA, but entries like LAMIN[AE], TOG[AE], [OA]TSEED, EL[EA], EL[IA]S, and D[UE]IN left me underwhelmed. I did enjoy the entry SA[OI]RSE mainly because I had just seen Actress Ronan on SNL where she sang an amusing song about her name. Unfortunately, the song focused on pronunciation rather than spelling, so I still got a little hung up at WHATATOOL/WHITETAIL, but I got there in the end, so to speak. :)

Over to you, Mr. Amory!

~Frannie.

Saturday, January 6, 2018, Peter Wentz

52:46 FWME

It's puzzles like yesterday's and today's that cause me to question everything. How does it come to pass that I don't know that people apparently (and unfortunately!) call digital cameras DIGICAMS, or that there's a popular (popular!) pricing game on "The Price is Right" called PLINKO, or the names of all high-end Hyundais (AZERA) and other cars? It makes me wonder what I've been doing with my life. But, 2018 is a new year, and IDARETODREAM that my puzzle solving POWERLEVEL will increase someday.

So, obviously, quite a few FUFs in this puzzle, slowing me down left and right - literally. I entered DIGItAlS instead of DIGICAMS in the south west. It fit beautifully with INtoNE, my answer for Recite. I accepted the crosses HUll and KoTlY, since I didn't know either party. Using the Google just now, I find that Brit HUME is a journalist, so, if one knows of him, that's a nice clue. And, I think we can all agree that KATEY is more reasonable than KoTlY, now that I compare the two. Did anyone else enter sOfa for Chesterfield before correcting to COAT?

In the north east, I had trouble with the Azera/Zahn cross. I have heard of Paula ZAHN, but I haven't thought of her in ages. She is most famous (to me) as my high school German class mnemonic for the word zahn, which means tooth, because she smiled a lot. I didn't remember that she was an early anchor on CNN. Derp.

I got a little help with Friendly term of address (SPORT) from one of our bits about Trader Joe's. We like to imitate the cashiers who call you Champ or Sport and comment on your purchases as you go through the check out: "Two cases of wine, Champ? I hope everything's all right."

I have not seen the word CADENT (Rhythmic) before. It seems like an unusual form of cadence, but yet I liked it. Others may feel differently. I liked CHICHI for Precious at 38D and WAFTS (Moves lightly through the air) at 5D, but my favorite clue today was 24A. Something only I can go on? EGOTRIP. Ha!

I didn't love VOODOODOLL for Sticking point? or OOF for "You got me good!" I see where Mr. Wentz is going with both of them, but I thought they missed the MARX slightly.

~Frannie.

Friday, January 5, 2018, Ned White

DNF

ITSSAD, but the northwest was so packed with Frannie-unfriendly factoids (FUFs) that I couldn't complete the corner. For good or ill, I've never taken an interest in wrestling, lapso post cargo, I've never heard of SMACKDOWN. It's true that once Horace told me the answer, I thought I could maybe have figured it out IF I had come up with KLEE (Bauhaus figure). It didn't help that my years in the circus offered more experience with whipped cream pies than TAMALEPIE. AMITOBLAME if I was more focused on perming my clown afro and learning to ride a unicycle in the 1980s than on the skiing exploits of Mr. MAHRE? Maybe the mismatch between my background and the knowledge needed for many puzzles can be chalked up to the vas deferens between men and women.

On the upside, I was FWOEless in the rest of the puzzle. I jumped right in with WHALE at 10A. I don't know the constellation, but I do know what Cetus means. I liked ONALARK for "Just for the fun of it," and in that same vein, both Ricochet and CAROM are nice words (44A). Also, I'm a big fan of the modern slang word TOTES. I thought it would be funny to have a canvas bag company called Totes Adorbs. I'm sure someone has beat me to it.

There's some nice Category 2 Huygens material in here including the aforementioned constellation, ORBIT and CACAOTREE. There's also a bit of Category 1 material at 4D with Heine (CAN). Ha.

I thought the clue at 42A, "Game you never want to get your fill of?" (TETRIS) was clever, but I was not a big fan of STANDEE (One up?). I wondered why WEMADEIT was a cry at the end of a *family* trip, and not just any trip. There must be something I'm not getting. Maybe family is the SECRETWORD.

~Frannie.

Thursday, January 4, 2018, Daniel Mauer

35:17

I got this puzzle's number starting with the grid-spanning revealer 4WARDINGADDRESS. Well, sort of. I felt that I knew 38A had to be [for]warding address, but couldn't make it fit, so I thought, aha! a rebus. Which it was, sort of; the unexpected numerical rebus - with a twist! The puzzle had four clues that read, "Answer found elsewhere." Then, elsewhere, solvers were given the answer as the clue, and in the grid, when correctly completed, the location where the answer should be entered. So, the clue for 18 across was "Answer found elsewhere." The clue for 13D was Macarena, but the answer was 18ACROSS, so we put MACARENA in at 18A. Somehow, it was easier to solve than it is to explain. There was one of these clue/answer/clue pairs in each quadrant, and each location answer crossed its clue answer. But, clever as this trick puzzle may be, I didn't really love being handed the answers just by solving the locations, which were largely given away once you figured out the trick.

Today's not-so-hidden capital at 14A (Many-hit Wonder: STEVIE) didn't fool me anymore than yesterday's did, but the one at 7A sure did. I don't spend much time on social media, so when I looked at 7A Yelp alternative, I thought, oh boy, what's another thing like Yelp? Well, another thing like yelp turns out to be ARF. Ha!

The pair of Hill workers clues spiced up the old chestnuts SENS (Hill workers: Abbr.) and ANTS (Hill workers) a bit. And 30D Angels might come to its aid (STARTUP) was nice.

I didn't DOTE on the number of abbreviations ALLOWEDIN like ACC, NEV, PRES, XII, SSRS, OVA, and ACR, even as valiantly clued as they were. And entries like Right-angle pipe (ELL), Desk chair part (CASTER), One providing input (ENTERER), and Approached dusk (LATENED) weren't gr8, but I suppose that's the price of a complex trick puzzle like this.

~Frannie.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018, Bruce Haight

10:27

Today, it's a queso four theme answers that incorporate snack items into common phrases. My early favorite was "Don't worry about my cheesy chip" (ITSNACHOPROBLEM), but the more I thought about ICANNOLIIMAGINE ("That Italian dessert truly boggles the mind") the more I LOL'd. In addition to the LOL factor of the answers we get some unusual letter combinations like YAW at the beginning of 42A and the double II in 55A that made the solve a little tougher, at least for me, until I figured out what was going on. 

I love the seemingly endless synonyms for JAIL, in today's case Pokey (1D). I also enjoyed how weird TOAT (Perfectly) looks when considered as one word. Both the clue Humdinger and the answer LULU at 10D are real pips.I enjoyed 48A What underwear may do, annoyingly (RIDEUP). We've all been there.

We find a possible pair of Peers in the south east corner with SIRE (Regal term of address) and GUV (British term of address). And a nice hidden capital at 56D John, in Britain (LOO), but, if I'm honest, I wasn't fooled for a minute.

I was surprised to see OZAWA (40D Longtime Boston Symphony maestro) in the puzzle for the second day in a row. Who would have thought it? NO UN.

I hope Mr. Haight won't think I'm a LAOS, but I do have a not-so-FABFOUR:
14A Northern Florida county seat (OCALA)
20A Hwys. (RTES)
37A Bygone Yankee nickname (AROD)
2D Lead-in to cumulus (ALTO)

~Frannie.

Tuesday, January 2, 2018, Zhouqin Burnikel

8:27

Today's theme answers suggest what might happen if common types of orders in the clues are disobeyed, creating a fun set of clue/answer pairs of opposites. My favorite was 65A Disobey a pecking order? (STEALAKISS). Ha! Disobey a standing order at 49A (HAVEASEAT) was also nice. There was no shortage of other commands in the puzzle with 7A Exhortation after "Supplies are limited!" (CALLNOW) and 16A "Follow me!" (COME) at 16A.

In addition to the funny theme clues, I enjoyed 44A First lady's man (ADAM). I also liked both clue Jaunty and answer PERT at 13D.

My food COMA (1A) started at Thanksgiving and isn't over yet, although, I am resolved to take action (see above) and start disobeying my brain's food orders.

I noted five musical clues, creating a mini theme if you will, including LYLE Lovett, RAP (genre for 21 Savage and 50 Cent), Maestro Seiji OZAWA, ARIA (musically named Vegas hotel), and STANZA (One of four for "The Star Spangled Banner").

As I was looking over the puzzle while writing the review I noticed that AMELIA and the first six letters of EMAILALERT are anagrams. Wacky.

Overall, I thought this was quite a good puzzle with a well-executed and entertaining theme, solid fill with only a few abbreviations, and some interesting trivia. Who knew the VOLGA was the longest river in Europe?

I take it as a good omen that my first puzzle to review in 2018 contains EEL (Fish with more than 100 vertebrae in its spine, 43A). Here's hoping for an EELy good year of puzzles and puzzling.

~Frannie.

Monday, January 1, 2018, Matthew Sewell

Happy New Year!

Horace and Frances and Colum are all together in one place this morning, and we've been talking a little about how to shake things upon the old blog. Today, for example, we'll each be writing a paragraph or two in the same review. I hope we can do this more in the future, but I think we all realize that that would be very hard to pull off every day. Maybe we can manage to do that on Sundays.

Anyway, what we are definitely going to do is shorten up our turns to a week or two. We're hoping that will allow us to stay fresher when thinking/writing about the puzzles, and it might also make for some continuity between reviewers - following up on new ideas... modifications to new ideas... who knows? Anyway, that's what we're thinking.

Now about this puzzle... I finished in 7:43 with one error. I blame last night. I spelled CALAMARI wrong. Too many Is. And coincidentally, it crossed my least favorite answer: ATTHAT (33D: To boot). That doesn't work for me. I'm not even sure how it's supposed to work.

- Horace

-----

Colum here, taking over for a paragraph. I finished today's puzzle in 3:59, slowed down in several sections. I don't have much extra to say about this fine Monday effort which has not been said elsewhere, except to note that AAAA is really not necessary. That is to say, it was probably quite necessary from a grid construction perspective, but I didn't need it in my life. But I would like to say that I've been thinking a lot recently about friends and traditions. I feel very lucky to have had Horace and Frances as part of my life for a number of years now. This blog is a daily reminder of that connection, and a celebration of puzzles, thinking, logic, and fun. Even on days when it feels more of a slog than usual to produce a review, it's worth it, and I am grateful to be included in the project. Colum out!

-----

Today's puzzle has me all fired up to start writing the reviews, especially since it's only for a week this time. :)  There's fire on all side with five theme answers featuring fire words in song titles. My favorite, due to a deliberate misreading is BURNINGLOVE. We started singing, "hunk a hunk of burnin' glove." Ha. I am unfamiliar with the Bon Jovi and Bangles songs, but didn't have much trouble with them thanks to straightforward crosses. I was slowed briefly in a few places by confident but completely incorrect answers like "lard" where SUET belonged (55A Fat used in mince meat) and "pair" where SYNC was wanted (57A Match up). That, together with a more-populated-than-usual morning solve lead to a slower than usual Monday time 10:26. I liked BELEAGUERED and PIQUANT, but I also give AAAA an F.

~Frannie