QuillxWords

Time: 6:05 Monday Average: 8:30 Best Monday: 4:10 GEE WHIZ , this is exactly what you’d want from a Monday puzzle, especially if you’re waking up from some New Year’s Eve Eve hanging out with a mild hangover and just want to close out the year without saying I’M T OO O LD FOR THIS . I enjoyed the triple O ( OZONE ) theme and am impressed with how natural most of these phrases are. The only exception might be HAVE N O OO MPH , but it sounds like something my dad would say, so I’m OK with it. B OO O FF STAGE and IT’S A Z OO O UT THERE are definitely normal phrases that fit the theme, so I’m in. The only place I got stuck was the cross of TOERAG (“Scoundrel, in British slang”), SHARI Lewis the puppeteer, and the age old question of whether it’s going to be oRS or ERS . Of course, there’s ENRON in the puzzle yet again. I think it’s time that I NURSE this hangover a bit more so that I can be prepared for another New Year’s Eve. WAIT HERE and I’ll be back in 2019. 

Time: 47:51 Sunday Average: 48:49 Best Sunday: 21:55 Perhaps it was UNWISE to attempt this Sunday puzzle after a few bottles of wine while re-watching episodes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and The Good Place. I could feel my lack of focus as I struggled with clues that should have been well IN RANGE , but my mind felt, for multiple logical reasons, somewhat STUNTED . Fortunately I was able to grasp the theme almost immediately, which was revealed in the puzzle title “No duh,” which is to say that it’s common phrases without the “the.” “Reason for an R rating?” BEHIND SCENES . This is quite silly. “Cuban or Zuckerberg?” WELL-OFF MARK . Yup, they’re both rich. “Needing certain ink for a color printer?” OUT OF BLUE . And start singing Neil Young “and into the black...” “Impetus behind a paternity test?” POP QUESTION .  “On a Paleo diet, say?” AGAINST GRAIN . It took me a while to remember which dumb diet the Paleo is, but this one’s pretty funny.  “Really, really needin...

Time: 38:08 Saturday Average: 38:19 Best Saturday: 10:34 Any word can probably win me over with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: “the soul strives AMAIN to live and work.” I think this is the second time I’ve drawn a blank on this crossword clue (“all one’s might”) so I’ll do my best not to let it happen a third time. I also completely failed to see ITEM for “Two stars, maybe” and now I’m just rolling my eyes at both the clue and myself. Obviously, I had wHALE for a long time instead of SHALE . I can only hear IT’S A LIVING in Elliott Kalan’s voice doing his impression of the Flintstones’ bird. Maybe he’ll use that gag when I see the Flophouse podcast live in January. Have I mentioned that it’s the best podcast? Please don’t come back at me with Serial. For “Natchez and Delta Queen, for two,” I had riverBOATS then drEAMBOATS before finally closing out the puzzle with STEAMBOATS . I also quite enjoy the pairing with TIME MACHINE , since I’m sure there’s been a steamboat time...

Time: 40:31 Friday Average: 27:38 Best Friday: 10:21 Perhaps it was a mistake attempting this one before coffee, but often my tired brain manages better than expected. This Friday themeless was altogether too chock full of near complete unknowns for me to make short work of it. I’m embarrassed that I misspelled MATRYOSHKA DOLLS for a while and, not knowing much about cars, I also had ALFA ROMEro-something instead of ALFA ROMEO SPIDER . I’ve never heard of that car but eventually inferred it and apparently I mix up Alfa Romeo with, I guess, George Romero. Maybe that sums up where my interests lie.  I suppose you can say that I learned a lot from this puzzle. Let’s start with ALAIN RENE LESAGE , who was a French novelist and playwright, best known for his comic novel The Devil upon Two Sticks , his comedy Turcaret , and his picaresque novel Gil Blas . I struck out across the board here but eventually somehow pieced his name together from things that sound French. Pr...

Time: 35:54 Thursday Average: 26:04 Best Thursday: 10:18 After opting to recover from my jet lag by sleeping for about 12 hours, I’ll have to confess that I really struggled with the Thursday trickiness, as my time indicates. I’d always known the game as simply “billiards” and not CAROM billiards, so that 1-across was a rough start. After that, I mostly just messed around, made a few guesses, and really had confidence only in ITALO Calvino. Eventually, I got CONTROL / TELECON and remembered that the vapor trail coming off planes is called a CONTRAIL and... is that a shape in the middle of the crossword vaguely plane-like? Why, YES IT IS . Once I was able to drop in the “con” rebus squares following that plane, the rest mostly fell into place. I had sAW instead of JAW for “something with teeth” until I had all the other letters in place for JET STREAM . The Southwest was the last to fall, since I’ve never heard of football coach Amos Alonzo STAGG nor did I know the cons...

Time: 7:09 Wednesday Average: 17:14 Best Wednesday: 7:09 I was excited that The NY Times crossword was showing its Cage-mas spirit when I saw the clue “Movie that really should have featured Nicholas Cage?” Really, the answer to that question is basically every movie without Nicholas Cage and probably some others that could use a Cage twin or triplet. So, I was quite disappointed when the answer turned out to be ANIMAL HOUSE , since I’m not crazy about the idea that an animal’s natural “house” is a “cage.” The other theme clues along those lines are similarly hit or miss: “Movie that really should have featured Anne Archer?” ROBIN HOOD . OK, her last name is archer, but... who?  “Movie that really should have featured Tom Cruise?” FANTASTIC VOYAGE . Cruises aren’t fantastic. But I like Tom Cruise more than most of the people I know, I think.  “Movie that really should have featured Vin Diesel?” BEETLEJUICE . Truly amazing perfect clue. Really, this one makes ...

Time:  11:51 Appropriately enough, Liz Gorski provided a travel-themed crossword for Christmas even though, as she notes in her introduction, she will not be traveling for the holidays. Although we’ve done well taking advantage of our time off work to see the world in vacation mood, in some ways staying home for Christmas is the dream. There are a fair number of cities appearing in the crossword, some of which I’m familiar with by name like  MOMBASA ,  PERTH , and  WINDSOR or others that I’ve visited for work such as   JAKARTA and  SINGAPORE . We also have a couple locations that I dream of visiting like  ICELAND (OK, not a city) and  SUCRE . Of course, there’s also  MODESTO , which occupies a fond place in my heart because of the extremely fun group of ultimate players from there that would overlap with my Sacramento scene. They also seemed to consistently have great ultimate nicknames like Animal, Machete, and, of course, Tony Modes...

Time: 13:08 Tuesday Average: 13:27 Best Tuesday: 5:05 It’s a stealth Christmas-themed crossword today, at least if you’re me and have no idea what O TANNENBAUM is. Apparently it’s the German Christmas carol that is translated to ‘O Christmas Tree,” which I know. The theme answers all end with items that might be used to decorate that Christmas tree, with JUDY GARLAND , SUGAR CANE , LOS ANGELES ANGEL (is that what they’re called now?),  and MOVIE STAR . A garland  doesn’t occur to me as a tree decoration, but I’m confident that it’s a thing. I forgot that the character from Fifty Shades of Gray was named Anastasia STEELE , which I only ever knew from the Flophouse Podcast. Of course, it makes me think of another podcast that features Steel’s Pots and Pans and was likely influenced by that book. Doctor Doom, the ENEMY to the Fantastic Four, has yet to have a strong portrayal on the silver screen. For some reason, screen writers don’t seem to grasp that what makes ...

Time: 6:12 Monday Average: 8:31 Best Monday: 4:10 I didn’t really understand the “Taboo alternative to beef,” but maybe that’s because my travels in Central Asia have made me a bit less Eurocentric on that particular subject. I have fond memories of waking up in a yurt in Mongolia after a night when vodka bottles and cigarettes seemed to emerge on their own from the steppe and being offered a steaming bowl of rice and HORSE MEAT . It was maybe the last thing my hungover body could have desired, but what choice did I have but to SAY OK and chase it with a bit more vodka. We can categorize the HITCHING A RIDE theme under the barely noticeable variety, but as you can see, the word “ride” is split between a couple words, hitching them, so to speak. So we have HYB RID E NGINES , KALAHA RI DE SERT , and GENDE R IDE NTITY . I have been appreciating The NY Times having its heart in the right place in its clueing for the latter on a fairly consistent basis. After all, crosswords...

Time: 34:58 Sunday Average: 48:50 Best Sunday: 21:55 Today’s a new setting for my crossword blog: Sunday morning at my parents’ house in Massachusetts and trying to avoid any thoughts of work and also struggling, as always, to remember if it’s EOE or EEO for “Antidiscriminatory abbr.”  The dogs are a bit INSANE , of course, and perhaps that THREW me off my game, but I still managed a restful morning and a respectable time. I quite enjoyed the UNIONIZED theme, which is to say the un-“ion”-ized / “ion”-ized theme. Half of the theme answers were a common phrase with the letters “ion” removed while the other half had “ion” added. “How polka bands get their start?:” WITH ONE ACCORDION . I’m actually not too familiar with the phrase “with one accord,” but Google confirms that it’s real.  “Pontiff’s gold treasure?:” PAPAL BULLION . A “Papal bull” is a decree by the pope, so named because of the shape of the official seal.  “Query about the Freedom Caucus or ...

Time: 20:53 Saturday Average: 38:20 Best Saturday: 10:34 I got the chance to tackle this Saturday puzzle as a passenger on our 16 hour drive back to Massachusetts, currently not too far from the TACONIC State Parkway and taking a break from a book ON TAPE . I hacked my way through NW and SE by making fairly short work of the longer middle answers. I was proud to be able to drop in ZOROASTRIAN right off the bat from “Ahura Mazda worshiper” while the more crosswordy clues for BEER GOGGLES (“Drinking glasses?”)  and CORRECTIONS (“Slip covers?”) eluded me for a while. For some reason, referring to Katy PERRY by only her last name threw me off for a while. I also didn’t get MILEY (“2000s female teen idol, to fans”) until the end, so I really failed on my 2000s pop music today. The SW was the killer for me, with “Pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders” PEIRCE presenting a real sticking point. I’ve never enjoyed seeing the word “espy” in crosswords, so you can imagine how...

Time: 20:43 Friday Average: 27:29 Best Friday: 10:21 I foolishly started working on this one while listening to a podcast, which my experience with Friday puzzles specifically WARNS against. I eventually realized my error and paused PCHH so that I could fully commit and stop the constant BOING sounds in my head. Obviously, as a person with three hours of commuting back and forth to work each day, if I'm not on a long haul flight to Asia, I'm all over the BOOKS ON TAPE for "Entertainment for a long ride, perhaps." In fact, I've downloaded a few audiobooks (because they're not necessarily on tape these days) for the 14 hour drive back to the EAST COAST . I just finished Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, which blew my mind and also offered some SUCCOR in a time when it seems like there are no consequences for constant lying. Of course, it seems like the majority of the rich people who enabled the Theranos fraud escaped with their wealth and reputations somehow...

Time: 13:52 Thursday Average: 25:57 Best Thursday: 10:18 The combination of ANCY and ALEE has me singing "The Lees of Old Virginia" in my head this morning. Verily! And I'd have thought "Time for a mint julep in Louisville" would be basically any time, but apparently only RACE DAY is the time to PARTAKE . Today's theme was straightforward for a Thursday, with the revealer being NO NO , as in common phrases that start with a "no" have that negative removed to fit the wacky clue. "Choice of routes:?:" TWO WAYS ABOUT IT. This is probably the driest of the theme clues. "Result of some sunburn I had?:" SKIN OFF MY BACK and I winced a little bit reading this one.  "Declaration concerning British geography?:" MAN IS AN ISLAND . This is the second time recently that I've seen the Isle of Man used for a tricky theme clue riffing on the John Donne line "No man is an island," but this one seemed...

Time: 9:22 Wednesday Average: 17:20 Best Wednesday: 7:24 I'd guess this theme has been done before, but I think it's my first time seeing an ANAGRAM themed crossword in which the clues actually function as clues in addition to being anagrams of the answer. I suppose in a couple cases the clue doesn't actually work in the strictest crossword sense, but they're close enough to satisfy me AS IS . "Acts phony:" SYCOPHANT "Hint: hotel:" THE HILTON . Sorry, I've committed entirely to Marriott/SPG for my work travel.  "A trails nut:" NATURALIST "Bag manager:" GARBAGEMAN I was quite confused by the four consecutive vowels that I was seeing for "Ahab's inspiration?" but then finally saw SEA AIR , using the lesser known (to me, anyway) meaning of "inspiration" meaning "inhalation."  I thought Shaggy used to call Scooby-Doo "Scoobs" for short, not SCOOB . Maybe I've bee...

Time: 8:17 I suppose it didn't slow me down much, but I had no idea what was happening with the theme answers in Liz Gorski's Crossword Nation today. Eventually I figured out that the eponymous cookies were of the TOLLHOUSE variety and those cookies are crumbled, which is to say made into wacky anagrams. "Investigator for the head of England?" LOO SLEUTH . OK, I got that one on my own. "Concierge or bellman?" HOTEL SOUL . I don't get this one. Is this a Gogol reference? Like, how serfs are called souls in Russian and these workers would be like serfs...I'm over-thinking it. "Amer. production of a Shakespearean tragedy?" US OTHELLO . Check. "Have no tickets left for Don's 'Live at Polynesian Palace' concert?" SELL OUT HO . I needed to use the anagram to place that final H, because even with all those extra clues within the clue, Don Ho is still not someone who comes to my mind ever.  The crossword answer...

Time: 9:11 Tuesday Average: 13:27 Best Tuesday: 5:05 Gary BUSEY played Buddy Holly? I couldn't think of any other 5-letter Garys, but unless Buddy Holly was far more psychotic than I thought, I really couldn't picture that match. But maybe that's because my main association with Gary Busey is "Surviving the Game." Also, BURT Reynolds right next to him in the grid is a nice pairing. We have a FASHION POLICE theme today with various police-related terms combined with clothing items to yield some limited wackiness. "Proper attire for taking fingerprints?" DUST JACKET . This was the last one to make much sense to me. "Proper attire for picking up a series of clues?" TRAIL BLAZER .  "Proper attire for detaining a perp?" HOLDING TANK . Since a "holding tank" is, I believe, already a thing at a police station and the clothing meaning of "tank" is at best third down the list of potential meanings for that w...

Time: 5:15 Monday Average: 8:32 Best Monday: 4:10 I'm still very tired, recovering from my RECENT trip to Berkeley and the red eye flight back home to Indiana. Today's puzzle is exactly what I'm looking for on a Monday, a quick romp with a perfectly acceptable theme. HIJACKS was the revealer, which the puzzle tells us is a "friendly hello to the people starting" the theme answers. In this case, we are saying "hi" to Jacks SPARROW ( HAWK ), LONDON ( BRIDGE ), RUBY ( SLIPPERS ), and BLACK ( FRIDAY ). Those are some famous Jacks, but I would think that Jack Ruby is the odd one out, although who knows how much Jack London is enjoying the antics of Jack Black and Jack Sparrow. I just watched "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" and my favorite character is definitely ZAG (to be said in your best New Zealand accent). I'm also always a little nervous seeing Sam Neill outside of a horror movie, since my main associations with him are "Event Ho...

Time: 52:41 Sunday Average: 49:00 Best Sunday: 21:55 I’m back on Indiana time after the red eye flight back home, a couple of whiskey sours in, and trying to make my way through a Sunday with some trickiness. As the revealer AT THE DROP OF A HAT shows, there are five shaded squares that have types of hats dropping down that are part of the across answers. There’s “toque,” “beret,” “tam,” “kepi,” and “fez” making up parts of  CALLING IN TO QUE STION , CY BERET HICS , WHA T AM I ?, SNA KE PI T , and BOOK O F EZ RA . It was difficult for me to catch, but that’s probably just because I’M SPENT from travel and mixed drinks. Once I’d figured out the theme, the Northeast was the last region giving me trouble, with AGLET (apparently that’s what the thing at the end of your shoelace is called) crossing IRENIC , which relates to reconciling Christian sects or means, as it’s clued, “peaceful.”  And Lake Volta is in GHANA . I’m sure I wouldn’t have been so SLOW under bette...

Time: 33:26 Saturday Average: 38:36 Best Saturday: 10:34 As I’m recovering from crashing the Anchor Brewing Christmas Party last night, I can’t help but noticing all the alcohol (mostly beer) in this puzzle, with BEER COOLER , PBRS , RUMS , HOTEL BAR , (Canadian) MIST , ON ICE , (Grey) GOOSE , and HAMM (s). Maybe I’m stretching on a few, but once you start looking, it’s hard not to keep finding them.  I don’t think it was just sleepiness making this Saturday puzzle so brutally difficult. Even if RENT-A-COP starred Burt Reynolds and Liza Minelli, I can’t be the only one that struggled there. I remember MR. MOM for some reason, but why do we have two somewhat obscure 80s comedies in the mix?  The Northeast was by far the trickiest for me as I had nothing other than my lucky guess of PIED PIPER for “Sort who entices others to follow.” I had nothing until Fox Mulder slowly drifted into my head to remind me that the “Folklore monster whose name means ‘goat-s...

Time: 16:47 Friday Average: 27:34 Best Friday: 10:21 I knew I was in for a treat, albeit a challenging one, when I saw that it was an Andrew Ries Friday. Ries offers his own bi-weekly freestyles over at Aries Crosswords and I found them both unbelievably difficult and satisfying, because he focuses more on wordplay than trivia better than any other constructor I know. The killer example in this puzzle was “Things used on bridges to ease congestion” for  NASAL STRIPS , which momentarily confused me even once I’d filled the whole thing in. I got almost nothing on my first pass through the acrosses, but things really started looking up when I was able to drop  WAYNE’S WORLD ,  NED FLANDERS , and  SO FAR SO GOOD with virtually no crosses. That lucky run gave me plenty of purchase to work out from the middle of the puzzle.  I’m still in Berkeley California, staying up late with friends, which means that my Indiana brain is up extremely late, but i...

Time:  17:14 Thursday Average: 26:06 Best Thursday:  10:18 After landing in San Francisco  around 10pm ( 1am in my head), I immediately hopped on the Bart and downloaded Thursday’s crossword. I’ll admit that, being unaccustomed to the late night solve, I was a little worried about tackling a tricky Thursday. It was clear ANON that something was afoot with the isolated squares in the center of the grid. It’s generally considered bad form to have a crossword square with no crosses, so those squares aren’t just sitting there. I actually worked my way around the theme until I wrote in  MALCOLM (X) and noticed that Giant X in the middle of the grid. Of course, the X isn’t just an X in the other cases: “Accept the sudden loss of, as an opportunity:” (KISS)  GOODBYE . So, the X represents a kiss, as in XOXO. That clue is a bit tortured, isn’t it?  “Publishing debut of 1851, with ‘The:’”  NEW YORK (TIMES). It took me an embarrassing amount of ...

Time: 15:34 Wednesday Average: 17:25 Best Wednesday: 7:24 I checked to make sure it wasn't the 20 year anniversary of the ENRON Scandal or something along those lines because I think it's been appearing in about half of the recent crosswords. I could live without seeing the "Smartest Guys in the Room" for a while and, while we're at it, maybe a less blasé clue for NAZI than "'Life is Beautiful' extra." I started out this puzzle with a lot of blank stares at the north, not getting anything until Netanyahu's nickname BIBI . I've vaguely heard of LIVE AID , but it's certainly before my time, so I was struggling until I got QUEEN from the crosses ( QUASI was a bit unexpected), and then FREDDIE MERCURY obviously fell into place. 1.5 billion people tuned in for that BENEFIT?  Wild. Whenever I proudly spell out MYRRH , Eddie Izzard's voice comes into my head saying, "Well, if you can spell it, you can have it!" Oh,...

Time: 9:00 Liz Gorski points out that it's appropriate to have a travel-themed puzzle at this time of year as so many of us are bound to see family and friends. SIGNAL AHEAD is the revealer clue and, as you can see, the themed clues start with a word that can come before the word "signal." We have HAND PUPPETS , BUSY SEASON , TURN OFF THE LIGHT , and SMOKE SHOPS . Of course, Smoke Signals just makes me think of the opening track of Phoebe Bridgers' album "Stranger in the Alps" and the long answer is almost Julien Baker's album "Turn Out the Lights." They released an album together with Lucy Dacus and it features a song called "Me and My Dog" and I can't believe I exist in a world where something that perfect also exists. I've never heard of Scott Turow or his book  ONE L : The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School , but I'm sure it's some combination of insightful and insufferable. I also ...

Time: 5:05 Tuesday Average: 13:29 Best Tuesday: 5:05 As an avid composter, I'm perfectly thrilled with today's COMPOST BIN theme. The related answers all feature a first word that is something you could throw in the compost, so you have SHELL SHOCK , PEEL OUT , GROUNDS CREW , and PIT BOSS . Back when I worked at the Bijou Restaurant, the city of Portland had implemented compost pickup for participating restaurants and I always felt a bit better about the massive amount of food waste when I could believe it was being put to better purposes than landfill filler. Many of us can probably agree with the aptness of the George CARLIN quote used in the clue today: "In America, anyone can be become president. That's the problem." Do many people wear an APE SUIT for Halloween? My main association is Theo Epstein's legendary escape from Boston reporters, if I'm remembering that correctly. I got to be a passenger in the carpool this morning and I appreci...

Time: 7:40 Monday Average: 8:34 Best Monday: 4:10 I'm a CARPOOLER once again this Monday morning, which mostly means that my passenger is subjected to random podcasts during our hour and a half commute. Of course, we listened to the new episode of The Flophouse, which featured no shortage of vintage Dan McCoy SIGHS . I also can't really believe that film Pottersville exists, but that was an A PLUS episode. Today's theme seems to be things that could be on plots of land, as the answer THE PLOT THICKENS kind of reveals. We have DIRT CHEAP , GRASSROOTS , BUSH LEAGUE , and JUNGLE GYM . I don't have much say on the theme, other than that "jungle" seems a bit out of left field. One day I will see "Cowboy's rope" and will not incorrectly write in "lasso" but instead will remember RIATA . I'll also believe BOFFO is a thing when I hear someone say it without irony. Is "Maverick" indelibly linked with WENT ROGUE enti...

Time: 22:17 Sunday Average: 49:18 Best Sunday: 21:55 This Sunday's puzzle carried me right through my light hangover after a holiday party last night. Obviously, J.K. Rowling inspired monster themed puzzle is exactly what I'm looking for every Sunday morning. More precisely, today's puzzle was FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM and featured three beasts and their mythical locations. The ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN resides in the HIMALAYAS . I actually only recently learned that Sir Edmund Hillary of Everest fame also went on something of a boondoggle searching for physical evidence of the Yeti. I love that as a follow up to being the first to summit Mount Everest.  The LOCH NESS MONSTER might be found in the SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS . Of course, my initial reaction to this themer was, "Um... it's in the name." THE KRAKEN apparently is limited to THE NORWEGIAN SEA . I first heard of the Kraken from the original "Clash of the Titans" film, so m...

Time: 22:52 Saturday Average: 38:42 Best Saturday: 10:34 More and more often I seem to be opting for the Saturday solve from bed and I have to say that it's a good and not at all OUTRE way to start the day. If only I could drink coffee on an empty stomach, then I would add some caffeine to the equation in order to achieve that perfect morning. As I've said a few times, I'm always afraid that a Saturday puzzle will break me, but what do we say to the God of Crossword Death? Not today! I'm making that Game of Thrones reference because I was unexpectedly flummoxed by a GoT clue, which is always a bit humbling. In my defense, I'm more of a book reader, so I'm not so strong on the actors, necessarily.  But OONA CHAPLIN , "Talisa Maegyr's portrayer," is pretty great and I particularly enjoyed her Black Mirror episode as well. So I'll happily try to remember the actress' name. I'd also like to point out that both her character (essen...

Time: 14:07 Friday Average: 27:42 Best Friday: 10:21 You have to love AIDES DE CAMP ("Military assistants") for the double whammy of being both a plural that makes you feel smart (like attorneys general or burgers royale) and in French to boot! I'm also a big fan of the more colloquial SHEEPLE , as in wake up! I don't think it can be used without irony at this point. Generally, I was feeling pretty smart as I flew through this crossword despite entering almost nothing on my first run through the acrosses. I might have only had ELI "Roth of cinematic gore" and I wasn't particularly proud of it. Oh, I also had HAN for "Solo flying?" and HAJ for "Religious trip." It wasn't a great start but the downs got me going. DECEPTICON was a gold mine. The 1-across "Are we clear?" is almost as bland as its answer, DO YOU HEAR ME ? However, I enjoyed almost everything else, especially the sheer randomness of IKEA CATALOG a...

Time: 16:14 Thursday Average: 26:12 Best Thursday: 10:18 We're always expecting some trickiness on Thursdays and it was clear right from the 1-across / 1-down combo that we were dealing with some rebus squares. I'm still not fully confident in my ability to spot what's missing in a crossword, but I was pretty confident that "Mailing from Lands' End or Williams-Sonoma" had to be CATALOG and "Things driven on ranches" was probably CATTLE or at least something longer than four letters. Once I got to the theme clue mentioning house pets, I could throw a "Cat" rebus square into that corner. My initial thought was that we'd have various house pets, which is always a challenge, but then it became clear that it was just "Cat" and they were all going in the corners, or KITTY CORNER , if you will. You also had the second and unnecessary revealer of LITTER BOXES to fully spell out the theme. Once you've placed the cats in the ...

Time: 23:12 Wednesday Average: 17:26 Best Wednesday: 7:24 I had a hard time activating my brain this morning and this Wednesday felt like more of a battle than usual. Being from Massachusetts, I went ahead and wrote in Mass Millions (ignoring the "multi-state" part of the clue) instead of MEGA . I also chose the wrong four letter title woman's name off of Bob Dylan's 1976 album "Desire" and went with Sara instead of ISIS because I actually much prefer that song: Sleepin' in the woods by a fire in the night, Drinkin' white rum in a Portugal bar, Them playin' leapfrog and hearin' about Snow White, You in the marketplace in Savanna-la-Mar. I struggled with a few proper names like ST MARK ("Venetian basilica eponym), ALAN KING , CLEO Lane, and ELIZA ("Slave in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'"). I also couldn't have named the shoulder bone, but SCAPULA eventually sounded familiar enough. As a result, I actually e...

Time: 5:08 My crossword app doesn't track my time histories, but I think this might be my fastest Crossword Nation performance. I actually did this one while hopping up and down waiting for the bathroom, so maybe that urgent need to distract myself actually worked to my advantage. This puzzle also went down easy but it game me a lot more to chew on than the NY Times today. But then, it usually does. The theme was fun with punny clues involving one missing letter from a common phrase. "Santa's favorite Tesla models?:" ELF DRIVING CARS . I loved this one. Have I mentioned that I rode in a Tesla for the first time a couple months ago? It was an Uber in Dubai, because Uber drivers in Dubai drive Teslas. "Fighting words from a fellow who leaves people cold?:" NO MORE MR ICE GUY . "Academy Awards honor bestowed on a villain in 'The Lion King?:'" SCAR NOMINATION .  "Fibs told by sex researcher Shere?:" LITTLE HITE LIES . O...

Time: 6:57 Tuesday Average: 13:34 Best Tuesday: 6:10 I'm surprised to find a Peter Gordon Tuesday puzzle that's so straightforward. In fact, it makes me wonder if I'm missing something or if the theme really is just Double S, with long answers of SAMPLE SALE , SECRET SERVICE , SIMPLE SIMON , SUDDENLY SUSAN , and SYLVIA SYMS . That does seem to be it and those Ys in the south make for some ugly fill with LTYRS (light years), ERLE , and ASSN all crammed together. It all seems like a bit of a throwaway puzzle for a Peter Gordon joint, but it sure played smoothly, maybe even a bit too smoothly for a Tuesday. I like "Hot Chocolate or Vanilla Fudge" as a clue for BAND , but that's mostly because of my fondness for the former. You can always find Vanilla Fudge LPs in the $1 bins at record stores and they're worth every penny for sheer wackiness. I had no idea who Sylvia Syms is, but apparently she's in an old Doctor Who episode. Other than that, sh...

Time: 5:47 Monday Average: 8:34 Best Monday: 4:10 Well, the theme for today's puzzle is just asking to be called a doodoo crossword, but it's actually a pretty good Monday. I guess the theme is answers ending in a dooooo sound, even if that final one, PAS DE DEUX , doesn't quite nail the sound, if I'm remembering my French pronunciation correctly. It's definitely one of those themes that you just as easily skip over and I wouldn't have bothered noting if I wasn't blogging about it. I wonder if the young folks even register POSTAGE DUE as a thing anymore. Speaking of Watergate TAPES , did everyone listen to the Slow Burn podcast? I actually think season 2 might be even better than the first! If you know me, you're not surprised that I've never heard of "Gridiron legend Rockne," but there was a great indie comic in the 90s called Replacement God that featured a main character called KNUTE . Why not clue it that way? I kind of lo...

Time: 41:04 Sunday Average: 49:18 Best Sunday: 21:55 A Sunday crossword seemed to be about all I could manage early this morning, so I tackled this one from bed. I can't really think of a way to categorize this theme, although it involves a fair number of homophones. Mostly, it strikes me as just some wacky wordplay and puzzles. OK, they were pretty fun even if I have mild objections to a couple. "13579 AZ:" ODDS AND ENDS "Large large skip skip:" TOO BIG TO IGNORE . Like, 2 things that mean big and 2 things that mean ignore.  "AT hot dog hot dog RA:" FRANK SINATRA . This one was particularly painful.  "Wound + dis:" ADD INSULT TO INJURY . Yup. "PP UU BB:" PARALLEL BARS . In the newspaper version, the word "pub" is written in two columns.  "Per spire:" BREAK A SWEAT "Yearn➗ do:" LONG OVERDUE There was quite a lot that I didn't know in this puzzle, but as a runner whose ankles often...

Time: 48:34 Saturday Average: 38:57 Best Saturday: 10:34 I'm impressed at the inclusion of "___Fett, 'Star Wars' bounty hunter" not Boba, but JANGO . I was prepared to write in the far more famous, far more crossword-friendly younger Fett, but upon seeing it, I had the unenviable task of having to think about the Star Wars prequels. On the other hand, I just read CIRCE by Madeline Miller, so I was all over "Sorceress exiled on Aeaea." I was solving between tasks on a Saturday at work, so I imagine that negatively affected my solving time today, but there was also a fair amount of trickiness and, I would say, some imprecise cluing. I get the "Fitting place to order craft beer?" for AIRPORT BAR , because, yeah, there are air crafts around, but I don't think it quite works. I need someone to explain to me why an OCEAN LINER is a "Carnival transport,"  but I bet there's something I'm missing there. I would say that ...