Friday December 14th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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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 NASALSTRIPS, 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 GOODwith 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 it’s worth it for those people with whom you share a SOCIAL IQ. I was quite tired working on this puzzle this morning, but it didn’t seem to affect my ability to come up with answers. However, I did struggle with typing and probably spent a solid minute as I TIDIEDup typo after typo.

“Burping is encouraged” at a TUPPERWAREPARTY? I don’t get it.

I didn’t know the family name from “I Love Lucy” was RICARDO, but it’s starting to sound familiar. 

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