Friday November 2nd 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 35:26
Friday Average: 28:35
Best Friday: 10:21

After waking up at 3:30am for the drive from Skopje to Tirana, I sat in a cafe on the square and, as you can see, really struggled with this one. Early on, my nerves weakened by definite SLEEP DEBT, I considered giving up or even searching for AID. However, I'm not sure if there were any Albanians around who could tell me which ones were "Hershey toffee treats," but HEATH BARS came to me eventually and I CHOSE to carry on. After all, any puzzle with "Doughnut-loving toon" HOMER has to be up my alley. So, Friday puzzle, COME AT ME, BRO.

There's some delicious cluing here like "Wasted vacation days?" for BOOZE CRUISE and "Game in which I is 1" for SCRABBLE. I'm also quite fond of answers like WET NOODLE, THRASH METAL, and TONE POET, which came completely out of left field for me.

The only LOW BLOW that invoked my IRE was ELHI, which I think is short for Elementary to High School and I'm completely confident does not exist outside of crosswords. I do not like it.

MSG causes headaches? That might explain a lot.

It's the weekend at last and I'm in Tirana and I have nowhere I have to be until Sunday afternoon. Let's sleep and then go exploring!

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