QuillxWords

Time: 9:59 Wednesday Average: 17:30 Best Wednesday: 7:24 As I expected, we got another Halloween themed crossword today and I was able to manage it fairly quickly despite my concern about the isolated THEME word. If you look at the theme answrs, you'll see that that they start with SEA ( SERPENT ), ARE ( WE GOOD ), WHY ( ME ), PEA ( GRAVEL ), and TEA ( BISCUIT ), which phonetically gives you CRYPT in the end. Of course, now I've been thinking about Crypt Keeper puns, but all I've been able to come up with is "Crossword? More like CorpseWord! Hahaahahaaha!" I'm sure there's better out there. There's something a bit stale about answers likes TAX LAWS and KGB MOLE , but I can't place it. On the other hand, we have RIGA , which I've been trying to return to for so long. Still, I'm not going to complain about my first time in Skopje. Anyhow, I'm falling asleep after a long day of working and then driving from Sofia to Skopje. Good n...

Time: 23:48 We have another Halloween themed puzzle today with Liz Gorski's always enjoyable Crossword Nation. Liz refers to this puzzle as "fun-sized" in celebration of Halloween, which I'm pleased has the real meaning of the word "fun" rather than the con job that candy companies so ineptly tried to pull on us kids with their fun-sized candy bars. Sorry, there's nothing more fun about less candy and none of us fell for it for even a second. Today's theme was "He's our favorite vampire!" with the answer, of course, DRACULA . As of maybe 20 years ago, I'm sure this was a fair generalization, but I would think that these days old Vlad is facing some stiff competition for favorite vampire. It's probably between him and Spike for me. It took me a while to grok the other theme clues, which were "Our Favorite Vampire" loves this "'Sweet Love' singer," "type of bar account," "exclamati...

Time: 7:09 Tuesday Average: 13:45 Best Tuesday: 6:10 Perhaps it's appropriate that I'm in Romania, land of vampires, for the Halloween themed NY Times crossword, a day early. Maybe we'll get another one tomorrow. Romania has, to a limited extent, embraced its Halloween connection, at least if I were to judge by the theme parties advertised at the clubs and the decorations at some of the high schools that I visited. Today's theme was GRAVEYARD SHIFT , as you can see that the shaded squares each have R.I.P. in them and they shift along the columns. It's a perfectly intuitive theme and actually helped me to parse SUN RIPEN ("Put on a windowsill to mature, say"), which looked weird to me for some time. Of course, the final square to fall was the E in EGIS , alternate spelling of "aegis," which I'd call a somewhat obscure word itself. I also wasn't familiar with "Delaware Valley tribe" LENAPE , which according to WikiPedia h...

Time: 4:10 Monday Average: 8:38 Best Monday: 4:10 Who knew that Peter Gordon of Fireball Crosswords could make Monday level easy crosswords? As I flew through this one while riding in an Uber in Bucharest, the word that kept coming to me was "crunchy." I'm not really sure why. I'm really impressed with the theme, which seems to be black and white animals in phrases. The fact that all of these fit into the grid symmetrically blows my mind a little bit, but maybe that's only because I'm just recently getting into crossword construction mechanics and guidelines. "Children's publisher whose name includes a black-and-white animal:" PUFFIN BOOKS "Foul-smelling swamp plant whose name includes a black-and-white animal:" SKUNK CABBAGE "Areas for pedestrians whose name includes a black-and-white animal:" ZEBRA CROSSINGS "Restaurant chain whose name includes a black-and-white animal:" PANDA EXPRESS "Men's...

Time: 27:50 Sunday Average: 49:40 Best Sunday: 21:55 Can anyone hear the word  TRACTS , especially clued as “Chunks of land,” in any context other than Monty Python and the Holy Grail? That was 1 across and I sure hoped that I was writing in the correct answer, because I wasn’t going to be able to think of anything else. I experienced today’s solve in a lounge in Moscow’s Sheremetyovo Airport (SVO for you airport code heads) and now am blogging along with my second Vienna lager. It’s 4:50pm where my brain is, 11:50am where my body is, and 4:50am where my heart is. That’s time for a beer or two. Today’s theme was  MIXED DOUBLES , as revealed by 119-across. Until you’ve gotten at least a few crosses, there’s no real way to guess at the theme clues, which as the theme suggests, involve anagrams that come out as a common “something and something” type phrase. Since they’re all anagrams, none of the clues can really stand out as particularly clever or not: “ Sou...

Time: 23:59 Saturday Average: 38:57 Best Saturday: 10:34 I was thrilled to sleep in all the way to 8am this morning, which I can assure you was much needed to make me feel less DEMENTED , especially since I'm staring down another 7am flight tomorrow. The only disappointing part was that, since I'm 12 hours ahead of the east coast, the Saturday crossword was unavailable. It's another day of fairs and networking, so as usual I was worried about my ability to knock out a Saturday puzzle, but after a smooth Friday I told myself that I CAN . I was pretty confident about starting out with SCHLUBBY ("Overweight and untidy"), but less so about the spelling. I'm not sure I've ever written that word. I realized that I couldn't have defined HEURISTIC , but now I'm thinking I should consider referring to my blog as a heuristic crossword solving experiment, since my method is indeed practical , but "not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, logical, ...

Time: 22:48 Friday Average: 28:30 Best Friday: 10:21 OK, so I think mWAHAHA is more of a "Maniacal laugh" than BWAHAHA , but maybe that's just me. I'm not sure what kind of evil BIAS that is, but I'm not apologizing for it. After yesterday's brutal puzzle, I was telling myself NO PRESSURE , just try to redeem yourself a bit. I'm happy with how I was able to hack my way through this one and was relieved when I immediately got TABLE SCRAP at 1 across for "It might go to the dogs" even though I've never heard that phrase in the singular.  Now I'm only hearing " SANTA ANA Winds" from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend for the rest of the day, but I love a good Frankie Valli impression any day.   I had to talk myself out of qUito for "South American capital" when I had the U from PUCE , but came up with SUCRE fairly quickly. I'm a big fan of the I'VE CHANGED , NO PRESSURE , and SWEET TALKS stack, even if that w...

Time: 53:08 Thursday Average: 26:27 Best Thursday: 10:18 Well, this one was just awful for me. I was able to methodically work my way through the fill, even if I SCREAMED inside more than a few times. My mind stubbornly refused to grok THE theme today and this is one of those themes that is vital to completing the puzzle. But I put in a BRAVE face and hacked my way through and somehow found that, strictly speaking, you don't NEED to understand the theme. It will just take you forever. The trick of the theme, of course, was to take the clues that told you "See 17-Across" and, rather than use the 17-across clue, you would add the letters S-E-E to the front, so in this case you get see PAGE , which is a way of saying LOST LIQUID . The others are: "See 29-Across" becomes see THE , a clue for DO A SLOW BURN . "See  45-Across" becomes see SAW , a clue for GO UP AND DOWN . "See 61-Across" becomes see KING , a clue for IN SEARCH OF . ...

Time: 15:11 Wednesday Average: 17:35 Best Wednesday: 7:24 I ended up enjoying the unexpected tricky theme this Wednesday, something that might be more standard for a Thursday. I'd been up since 5am in order to make my flight from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar. If you haven't made your way through the Beijing airport, it's probably as much of a TOIL as you expect it to be. Still, my overtired brain didn't have too much trouble with the POP UP AD theme, which had the letters AD (helpfully circled) jumping up and then back down to complete four across answers. It's a bit tough to describe, but if you look at the gird, you'll see that 19 across is ROPE ( AD ) OPE , 28 across is DEC ( AD ) ENT , 42 across is CAN ( AD ) IAN , and 54 across is TRE ( AD ) MILL . It works nicely and the circles help bring the difficulty into line. The fill, however, was fairly brutal at certain points and left me trying out various letter combinations for several minutes. First of all,...

Time: 13:20 Wait, it's Boston Cream Pie Day? Well, I guess I somehow missed it here in Beijing but I wish you all a happy one! Sorry, I skipped straight to theme because I was so excited and perplexed by it. As Liz Gorski reveals with YUM, "Reaction to a 'national' October 23rd observance depicted by the starts of the starred answers," the theme becomes: BOSTON LEGAL CREAM PUFF PIE CHARTS DAY OLD BREAD  I struggled with this one a bit more than an average Crossword Nation. Perhaps it was the late night in Beijing or perhaps it was Liz starting out the puzzle with "Gustav Mahler's wife," which is  ALMA  as it turns out. Couldn't we have gone with "Fruit after which Kazakhstan's cultural capital is named (Turkic)?" I would have gotten that faster. And one day I'll remember Thomas Edison's crosswordy middle name,  ALVA . Also,  ABBA and  ELO (and their song  DO YA )? Maybe it's my generation or my ignoranc...

Time: 8:43 Tuesday Average: 13:49 Best Tuesday: 6:10 It's another long day in Beijing and I'm enjoying a night cap in the lounge contemplating my early morning flight to Ulan Baator tomorrow night and feeling a bit like  FLAT  STANLEY . Fortunately, I continue to  RAKE IN the hotel points and the status that goes with it, so I've snagged a couple free beers before they shut down happy hour. Today's theme was  ATHLETIC CUP , which eluded me for a bit since I've only ever referred to it as a cup. Other than the aforementioned NHL championship, we have  GEENA  DAVIS ,  WINONA  RYDER , and  SMALL WORLD  as our theme answers.  Was anyone else hearing TJ from Gilmore Girls yelling, "I'm in  ESCROW !" Sure, it shows up in my mortgage-related dealings, but that's all I'll ever hear. I had no idea that  GALENA is the natural form of lead sulfide and instead I just know the Bulgarian chalga singer by that name. I...

Time:  5:40 Monday Average:  8:41 Best Monday:  4:41 This will be a short and probably poorly written entry today, since this particular Monday disappeared from almost entirely in flying from Jaipur to Bangkok to Beijing. The travel time was mostly overnight, I think, but I lost track of time and got to the hotel  around 5pm . An amazing dinner at Black Sesame Kitchen later and I'm back and ready to sleep.   Today's theme seems to be a series of adjectives that share etymological origins with the names of the  PLANETS :  MERCURIAL ,  VENIAL ,  MARTIAL ,  JOVIAL ,  SATURNINE . Perhaps it's just my overtired brain telling me this, but is it really strictly accurate to say "Etymological origins of the answers to the five starred clues" are the planets? Don't these personality traits have more to do with the Roman gods, since there's nothing particular warlike about Mars the planet? Or do I have all this backward? I...

Time: 40:30 Sunday Average: 49:58 Best Sunday: 21:55 Solving a Sunday crossword on a bouncy school bus in Jaipur is a unique challenge. Getting TOSSED side to side might have LED TO a slightly slower time, but mostly it just gave me a headache. I was thrilled to see BRATZ right at the center of the grid, since Bratz: The Movie is one of the best bad movies of all time. Today’s theme, I guess, was to have fun with literal meanings of common phrases and, to be honest, I’m not sure I understand some of them. “Headline after a toddler C.E.O. resigns, literally?:” BABY STEPS . Does that work? “Walk” seems like the verb for leaving a position, but maybe “step” is as well? “Car failure only a block from the mechanic, literally?:” LUCKY BREAK . Sure. “‘For a massage, go that way!,’ literally?:” THERE’S THE RUB . “Like the dress shirt that’s just adorable, literally?:” CUTE AS A BUTTON . Again, I don’t think this quite works.  “Dissed with flowery language, literally?:” EL...

Time: 10:34 Saturday Average: 39:13 Best Saturday: 10:34 I didn’t think I had GREAT ODDS today of maintaing my blogging streak, since between being at a conference all day and a presumably difficult Saturday puzzle, I was in a tight SPOT . I was a ( MANLY ) man with A PLAN , of course, and figured I could break the puzzle into BITE SIZED pieces and manage that way. However, when I was able to drop NETFLIX AND CHILL (“Modern invitation to hook up”), being fairly confident that there wasn’t anything else it could be, I realized that I had a decent shot. In the end, either easy clueing or the urgency of getting it done quickly led me to my best Saturday time ever. I’m thinking that the clever ? clues hit me just right and I also actually knew the proper nouns like ARGO , PTOLEMY , HOTH (duh), and ANTOINETTE . I can’t often get those answers from scratch or minimal letters. I can only hear RATATAT in the voice of Kid Cudi from the song “Pursuit of Happiness.” I also ...

Time: 20:04 Friday Average: 28:34 Best Friday: 10:21 I've probably said this already, but Friday is my favorite day for the NY Times. I generally prefer themeless puzzles and Friday usually is just challenging enough to make me nervous but provides adequate purchase to let me just hack my way through. On my initial pass through, I may have managed 5 or 6 answers and was definitely staring at a potential DEAD END in the Southeast and I'd incorrectly written in "mOnkey wrench" instead of, as it turns out, TORQUE . As a solver, perhaps the biggest breakthrough I had to make was finding the willingness to remove answers that aren't working for whatever reason. I enjoyed most of the medium answers, such as the cluing for SIX PACK ("Objective worked toward during crunch time?"), ON VACAY ("Catching rays for days, say"), and ATE CROW . "Cliff notes" is an excellent clue for YODEL and it was the last answer I managed. However, I did ...

Time: 23:04 Thursday Average: 26:05 Best Thursday: 10:18 I assume that everyone who did this puzzle now has " SANTERIA " by Sublime stuck in their head. Of course, for me, that song makes me think of a co-worker I had back on Fallen Leaf Lake who would sing "I don't chop no manzanita" to that tune as we were at our brush clearing task. There were quote a few proper nouns in this puzzle that didn't come to me right away. Obviously I got RIRI and RORY right away, but I haven't seen "Brave" and so didn't know MERIDA , nor am I particularly familiar with "Don Giovanni" and Donna ELVIRA , and certainly I couldn't name anyone from "The Bachelorette," so BECCA Kufrin was a definite shrug. However, after reading "German composer Humperdinck," I got to run through all the Eddie Izzard in my head: "Zingelbert Bembledack! Yingybert Dambleban! Zangelbert Bingledack! Wingelbert Humptyback! Slut Bunwalla! (...

Time: 11:17 Wednesday Average: 17:36 Best Wednesday: 7:24 Today was just an easy Wednesday jaunt while sitting in a bus making my way through Dubai. Actually, I started this puzzle while riding in a  TESLA for the first time in my life, because apparently that’s what Uber drivers use in Dubai. Then I got worried that I’d spill my coffee and decided to wait for the bus. I’d already spilled some coffee on myself to start the morning, but  C’EST LA VIE  (c’est la  GUERRE !).  I’m really not so sure about this theme. So, we have three clues all yielding  PANCAKE throughout the grid: “Kind of makeup,” “Flatten,” and “Breakfast food item.” At the top, there’s a  PAT of butter, which I’ve learned is generally 1 tablespoon (not a  TSP ) of butter but more functions as a quaint word for some butter that goes on your pancake.  AUNT JEMIMA sits on the left and then  HUNGRY JACK , which I suppose is a syrup brand that I’m not familia...

Time: 8:56 As always, Liz Gorski’s Tuesday crossword was a far more enjoyable solve than The NY Times Tuesday. The “Taking a Knee” theme definitely included some references that went over my head, but I had a general sense of what was going on. Add the “knee” sound to some answers to match the wacky clues: “Musical category created by Knute & the Sex Pistols?” PUNK ROCKNE . This one made very little sense to me, because I’ve never heard of Knute Rockne, Norte Dame football coach of the early 20th century. I don’t feel too bad about not knowing this one.  “Top designed by a wireless wizard?” MARCONI POLO . Yup, this was the first one to make sense to me. “Megaphones for sideshow barkers?” CARNY HORNS . No proper nouns here, so it’s probably the easiest to parse. “Rubble v. Fife boxing match?” BARNEY FIGHT . I didn’t know Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show, so this one mostly elicited a “Huh?” I would have preferred a Rubble v Gumble fight. My money is on Bar...

Time: 14:59 Tuesday Average: 13:52 Best Tuesday: 6:10 Maybe it was the eight hours of work followed by 9 hours of work travel yesterday, but I was definitely off when rolling through this Tuesday morning. Even the poor time doesn’t really indicate the struggle I had in a couple places, in particular the ENDORA “‘Bewitched’ witch, in 1960s TV” and MELDS (“Card groupings in canasta”) crossing. I’d never heard of the card game Canasta, apparently a rummy variant and I couldn’t name any character from Betwitched. Unfortunately, I got stuck in a much dumber part of the grid where I wrote in mAsKS (instead of TANKS ) for “Scuba necessities,”didn’t know ERAm from ERAT for Latin, and figured “sure, why not, there might a be model of BOsE called a “Radius” instead of, obviously, BONE . Yikes. So, that was some Tuesday foolishness for me that I can barely explain. I was all over the theme, which was called THAT’S LIFE because, in fact, there are quite a few products called “Life,” ...

Time: 5:15 Monday Average: 8:42 Best Monday: 4:41 Despite being from Massachusetts, I can never seem to remember that the ELM TREE is our state symbol. Maybe I'll remember it now (basically my blog motto). Currently, I'm sitting in an airport lounge in Muscat, waiting for my flight to Dubai where I'll catch a bus to Abu Dhabi. So I have about 6 hours of travel ahead of me after four high school visits. ARE YOU KID DING ME ? Really, I'm looking back fondly at this Monday puzzle, with its YOUNG AT HEART theme. I'm impressed with the words and names that the constructor found with animal young at the center (heart): IN CUB US A KIT A OPTI CAL F IBER JOHN COLT RANE In terms of what I learned, I never knew CENSE as the verb for perfume in a religious ceremony, but Google tells me it's archaic. I'd also never heard of ANATOLE France, but I'm excited to read in Wikipedia that he is "widely believed to be the model for narrator Marcel'...

Time: 31:20 Sunday Average: 50:06 Best Sunday 21:55 A board game themed Sunday? Yes, please. OK, I'll admit that I laughed (at least two HAS ) at THE RISK IS TOO HIGH for "'We can't play that game -I can't reach it on our shelf.'" As you can see, the theme is a series of reasons to not play various classic board games made up of common phrases. The best is probably SORRY NOT SORRY , which is a great alternative for the hilariously formal clue "'My sincerest apologies, but that game is off the table.'" I HAVEN'T A CLUE is solid for "'We can't play that game unless we borrow someone else's.'" Now, for "'No that game would be over in a flash,'" LIFE 'S TOO SHORT seems pretty fun, but it is just blatantly false. Nobody has ever said that about the Game of Life; it takes forever. I will also object to PLEASE DON'T GO "'I'm begging you, let's not play that game!...

Time: 42:50 Saturday Average: 39:46 Best Saturday: 20:09 Sometimes a Saturday looks like it's going to be a breeze when you immediately write in SHONDA Rhimes and then CHEAT DAY for "Dieter's day of indulgence" and you think, YES AND (also automatic) I'm on the same wavelength as the constructor. Then suddenly it's cars and composers (have I mentioned that those are GAPS in my knowledge?) and you have an absolute slog on your hands and maybe you SEETHE a bit. I definitely had a few of those crossword moments that I love when I think, oh yes, KESTRELS must be small falcons and, of course, I've heard APERÇU ("Illuminating comment") before. I've even seen  KNESSET , which is Israel's Parliament, clued as "Diet in the Mideast" before, so I'm all over that. But then there's the Nissan MURANO (crossing PIMAS , an Arizona tribe I'm not familiar with) and Arcangelo CORELLI (crossing TORT , which one day I'll r...

Time: 20:26 Friday Average: 28:41 Best Friday: 10:21 I always worry a little when I see a nearly isolated piece of grid on a Friday or Saturday, because I suspect that if there's a central clue that I draw a blank on, I'll get stuck for an inordinate amount of time. Today, in addition to the middle, which is shaped like a LIGHT BULB (sure), the east and west barely connect. I cruised through the east easily and eventually the west as well. For some reason "Question after 'Hey!'" gave me WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA almost immediately even though I can't remember the last time I heard it. But, as I suspected, I got stuck for about 10 minutes in the center where playwright Enid BAGNOLD (how's that for a non-inferrable name?) eluded me completely along with SLATE for a "Group running together." After looking it up, I suppose I've heard people talk about a slate of candidates, but it has always passed right through me. BID as a synonym for ...

Time: 18:14 Thursday Average: 26:07 Best Thursday: 10:18 I imagine some will be opposed to the NO BRA DAY themed puzzle two days before the actual day, but I suppose it's a Thursday type puzzle, so this is where it got placed. Whereas I have no problem with awareness creating days, I hope everyone participating (and everyone else) is also donating in some concrete way to the cause as well. As far as the theme goes, we have the letters "bra" somewhere in the theme answers, which, when removed become a valid solution to the given clue: "Picking out of a lineup, e.g." yields BRA IDING "Upper body muscles, for short" gives you LA B RA TS "Extremely" gets BRA VERY "First name in 'The Godfather'" of course is VI BRA TO "Chess piece" can only be BRA KING It's fun and probably straightforward enough that even my self of a year ago might have managed to put it together. As for the fill, I was extreme...

Time: 19:48 Wednesday Average: 17:40 Best Wednesday: 7:24 I worked on today's puzzle in the car while riding through the streets of Dhaka, where it was a good traffic day and time so it only took about an hour to go five kilometers. Everything went smoothly except for the SW where I got stuck for an extended period of time with just nothing other than LES Misérables to give me purchase. I took a swing with ON AIR for "Live," just because it's a common answer even though I can think of dozens more words that would fit. ANA "Gasteyer of 'Mean Girls'" sounded plausible and turned out to be correct. Then, I finally remembered HAILE "Selassie of Ethiopia," mostly from my days of playing Civilization VI. From there, NAIL GUN fell into place and I wrapped up without incident, if a bit slow for a Wednesday. Today's theme is the tune of the ALPHABET song, which apparently starts out with the notes DO DO [ BIRD ], SO SO [ REVIEWS ], L...

Time 8:17 Liz Gorski's introductory email to today's crossword gave some backstory on her search for a female crossword editor back in 2011 and the realization that there weren't anyway. As she puts it, "Sometimes you have to become the person you are looking for" and the crossword world is much improved by her pioneering of Crossword Nation. I continue to be amazed, if not shocked, at the lack of representation in positions of power, even in the offbeat world of crossword editorship. That said, I've been inspired, having only recently joined the crossword community, by the proactive approach the community has taken with recent initiatives like Women of Letters and Queer Qrosswords , which I encourage everyone to support, whether or not you think you'll get to the crosswords (which are great, by the way). Today's crossword in anagram-themed with famous women clued as anagrams of their own names with a traditionally male first name: "SAL...

Time: 8:04 Tuesday Average: 13:51 Best Tuesday: 6:10 After flying from Karachi to Bangkok, basically having one of those nights that you just fly out of existence, I solved this Tuesday over juice and Chinese buffet in the lounge. Although I was bit out of my head, this one (apparently constructed by a Crossword class!) went down fairly easily, although the theme took me a moment. Of course, the excellent film HIDDEN FIGURES also makes a strong crossword theme revealer and, sure, enough "Prism," "Cube," and "Sphere" are all hidden in the long acrosses of E PLURIBUS UNUM , SECURITY BLANKET , and NO SURPRISE THERE . Of course, I suppose they're not so well hidden because the circles reveal them. Seeing Joe TORRE appear in the crossword reminded me that I better check the Red Sox scores and saw that they were already up 10-0 in the 4th. Strangely, crosswords have mostly replaced the Red Sox in terms of my obsession right when the Sox are having ...

Time: 6:12 Monday Average: 8:44 Best Monday: 4:41 This might be the Monday that epitomizes why I'm attempting this blog project in the first place. When I'm properly engaged in the crossword, it leads me to memories and random paths of thought and if I could express them better (this blog is a work in progress, after all), I'd be producing some decent writing in the end. Of course, maybe the AIRPORT themed crossword is too straight down the middle for me and would be better if I was writing this from the airport, rather than waiting to leave in 30 minutes or so. Biryani, appropriately enough, will be my last MEAL in Pakistan this time around and, sure, why not listen to some ADELE while I'm waiting. I'm happy that I remembered ILLINI from a week or so ago. That part of the crossword blog mission paid off in this case! OK, time to eat biryani and then head to the airport where I WILL hope for a seat with ELBOW room and all that. 

Time: 37:45 Average Sunday: 50:22 Best Sunday: 21:55 I worked on this one throughout the day while wandering Karachi with Super Sawari tours, which was generally NEAT-O but also had a few moments of UNEASE . Karachi doesn't see many tourists these days, it seems, so I certainly felt like the bus full of Americans stood out. I enjoyed this Sunday's theme of interrupted words that somewhat literally explain the fact that a given word is being broken up within the answers. Fortunately, the circles were there to let you know where the extra letter would fall and, in the end, the circled letters spell out "Square peg," which I guess tangentially fits the theme. I feel like I'm missing something. The theme ended up being perhaps more difficult than intended because many of the downs overlapping the circles weren't the most intuitive. For example, the OUT(Q)ER SPACE answer had the down for the Q as Q AND A , which is always a bit tough for me to see and al...

Time: 30:44 Average Saturday: 39:42 Best Saturday: 20:09 I was thrilled to see SZA making an appearance in the crossword this morning as the "Singer with the 2017 #1 R&B album 'Ctrl.'" It probably wasn't her first appearance, but it's the first I caught. I also laughed to myself to see DREXEL and SCAD together as two universities that I see on the road quite often and the former of which seems to enroll quite a few students from the schools in Pakistan that I've visited. I have been checking out the BAR SCENE in Pakistan, which generally involves somewhat secret bars in the hotels. Along with being so constantly ON THE GO , it's been delaying my timely blogging. Fortunately, these blogs have not become so LABOR INTENSIVE yet. THAT'S THE SPIRIT , right? Today I learned that DORADO is another name for the much more common crossword tuna "mahi mahi." I struggled with it for a while because I didn't know SOPS as things ...

Time: 15:01 Average Friday: 28:48 Best Friday: 10:21 I felt smooth completing this Friday in a solid time in the lobby of the Pearl Continental in Lahore right up until I spilled coffee on myself through a completely non-functioning lid. But it's not really a recruiting trip until I spill coffee on myself. The Friday themeless is probably my favorite day for the NY Times, since they're just difficult enough for me to feel like I've accomplished something and usually feature some fun answers and clues. "One who's got game... but shouldn't" is a delightful clue for POACHER , probably better than "Military leader known for being chicken?" for GENERAL TSO . I can only hear  PERIWINKLE in the voice of Brad Pitt with the accent he was sporting in Guy Ritchie's film "Snatch," which is to say nearly incomprehensible. I've never said " AND WE'RE OFF " when starting a crossword puzzle, but sure, why not? I didn...

Time: 15:44 Average Tuesday: 26:14 Best Tuesday: 10:18 OK, SEATAC is Seattle-Tacoma mashed up. Got it! It has been a long day of school visits, a drive to the Wagah Border of Pakistan and India for some mind-blowing military theatrics, back for a networking dinner and puppet show, and now just blogging and waiting for that end of day beer that I've been craving for the last 8 hours or so. Or, really, after this crossword, I should be going for some mixed drink with soda, which would be just fine too. The theme took me a minute to parse, especially since I found the key revealer second word to be a bit redundant in SODA MIXER . But the second word of each theme is an anagram of a soda brand, so you have BUBBLE GUM (Mug Root Beer), JUDAS PRIEST (Sprite!), GAS PIPES (Pepsi, that one took me comically long to see), MARC ECKO (Coke; also, whoever that is!) and BASEBALL BAT (Tab, easier to see). So, I don't think anyone would ever say that an ingredient in a cocktail is a...

Time: 8:51 Average Wednesday: 17:39 Best Wednesday: 7:24 Maybe this has all been coincidental, but I've think that I've fairly consistently been putting in relatively strong crossword performances while over-tired and hungover. Since I had only one school visit today (and about 8 hours of driving through Pakistan), I figured last night would be a good night to try the local whiskey that is available only through room service and only for non-Muslim foreigners. EXPAT only, I suppose. AUSTERE , no? Anyway, even though it's call Vat No.1, it is far from A-ONE in quality. I can't recall a crossword for a while that I've simply marched across like this one. I more or less filled this in starting in the NW and proceeding in order, checking the down answers when the acrosses didn't immediately come to mind. Despite my decent familiarity with Greek Mythology, I'd forgotten that CASSIOPEIA was a queen of ETHIOPIA and that she boasted that she was more beau...

Time: 7:55 Although I've never read "The Time Machine," I definitely know that it involves people called ELOI,   quite possibly the most crossword-friendly name around. Today's Crossword Nation  puzzle from Liz Gorski (whom I ADORE ) was a welcome relief from the slog that was the NY Times puzzle today for me. The "Grand Openings" theme clicked quickly, since each themer begins with a word that can be proceed by the word "grand." Grand FORKS ( IN THE ROAD ) struck me as the most random of the bunch, even if it is a city in North Dakota. Grand TOTAL ( RECALL ), Grand CANYON ( OF HEROES ), and Grand MASTER ( CLASS ) are all substantially more well-known to me. Regarding the first one, I've always considered TOTAL RECALL to be the most-improved name when it comes to book to film adaptation because "We Can Remember IT for You Wholesale" is a painfully clunky title. And that's the only bad thing I'll ever say about Philip K...

Time: 22:36 Average Tuesday: 13:54 Best Tuesday: 6:10 I worked on this one in the back of a van making our way across Islamabad and I was briefly worried that a Tuesday puzzle was going to be my undoing. I grasped the theme fairly quickly, with each answer being two popular musicals mashed together and clued with some limited wackiness (and also the years of the musical, which may have helped some people, I guess). HAIR GREASE ("Pomade? [1968, 1972]") is fairly straight down the middle and it wouldn't surprise me if this was the starting point. FROZEN ONCE clued "Melted? [2018,2012]" is probably my favorite while BIG COMPANY as "Megacorporation [1996, 1970]" is a complete yawner.  WICKED NINE is probably the trickiest with "Supreme Court that's corrupt? [2003, 1982]" and also calls up some completely unwelcome associations at this time. I also forgot about the musical "Nine," which I only knew because of a Muller Monthly ...

Time: 7:09 Average Monday: 8:45 Best Monday: 4:41 This will be a very sleepy entry after being awake from jet lag since 1am and following that up with four school visits and a fair. I'll just be WINGING IT from here. This puzzle struck me as tricky for a Monday, even if my time doesn't really reflect that. Four fairly long answers that I would call on the obscure side. The theme of THE END IS NIGH is phonetically indicating that "the end is an I," which I suppose is almost what that phrase sounds like. And as you can see, the long theme answers all end in an "I" sound, although only one ( DRAMATIS PERSONAE ) doesn't end with the letter "I." I've learned that the FIGHTING ILLINI is the name of athletic teams at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and that the BATTLE OF THE SINAI was a key moment in the Yom Kippur War between Egypt and Israel in 1973. That's some quality learning for a Monday! When I was in Br...