Sunday September 9th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 45:40
Average Sunday: 50:55
Best Sunday: 21:55

I enjoyed the LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP theme of this puzzle, but it cost me about 7 minutes trying to figure out how to enter it in a way the app liked and then realizing that I had a typo on WORDS TO THAT EFFECT and having to run through the possibilities again. In four squares, the letters LOVE would apply for the acrosses and the letters HATE would apply to the down answers. I knew there was something going on when I saw the "Islamic state" clue but couldn't fit CALIP(HATE). I was also fairly confident that there was no country bordering Hungary with only five letters, which turned out to be S(LOVE)NIA, whence I'm bound for the first time in November.

Something about the clue "Result of a photographic memory" leading to TOTAL RECALL made me think there was some kind of film theme happening, but I suppose that was just a one-off, of sorts.

Can I say that I'm officially sick of seeing APSE in crosswords? I doubt I've ever talked about apses but it's basically automatic in crosswords at this point. On the other hand, TESSA Thompson can keep showing up in crosswords all day, because she's amazing.

Here's what I learned from the crossword: IDIOT LIGHTS referring to "Dashboard warnings, informally." It's completely intuitive, but I'd never registered it before.

Other than crosswords, this  rainy weekend was made  up entirely of ultimate in the rain. It was cold, but I'll still take it every weekend. 

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