Friday November 30th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 12:03
Friday Average: 27:52
Best Friday: 10:21

I was relieved to have a relatively smooth Friday this morning because it's been a rough week of crosswords making me worried that Thanksgiving made me dumber, somehow. But I was ONTO this one right from the start with the nice easy 1-across of "'You Don't Mess Around With Jim' singer, 1972," which is of course Jim CROCE. I followed that up with the wonderful phrase HOLD MY BEER ("Modern phrase said before doing something foolish") hilariously right on top of EPIC POETRY. I actually enjoyed all of the medium/long answers with TONE IT DOWN and, of course, CANINE UNIT in the Southeast. It did make me think of the drug/explosive sniffing dogs outside of the hotels that I've been staying in, which I am quite confident are part of pure security theater. But they're very good boys.

I only just this second understood SYNS for "Warm and toasty, e.g.: Abbr." Yes, those are synonyms.

I haven't heard the term NANNY STATE before, but it apparently comes out of British conservative politics, so hooray for that. I'm sure it's been subject of a conservative TWEET storm at some point.

I'm also staring at this puzzle and thinking that ALIENATED ACOLYTE APHIDS sounds like a band name. On that note, it's time for an ORDERLY return to my day. 

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