Friday January 18th 2019, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 35:08
Friday Average: 27:45
Best Friday: 10:21

I always know that I'm in for a treat and a challenge when I see a Friday crosswords that's an Andrew Ries joint. This was certainly the case today as I was under 50% about 20 minutes in to solving this one and seriously questioning whether I would be able to finish it. However, the great thing about Andrew Ries is that he generally gives you enough so that, if you keep tugging away at it, the puzzle will fall into place. I probably filled the last 50% of the grid in just a minute or two, after I finally recognized SUNSET STRIP and BLOOD VESSEL running through the middle.

Is "Stay" by LISA LOEB a timeless classic or do I only think so as a child of the 90s?

Wow, did I not understand "Hack's modern-day rival" as a clue for UBER DRIVER! But, of course, "hack" is slang for a taxi driver coming from "hackney," a description of a horse that could potentially pull a cab.

ALLITERATE for "Say 'Hip, hip, hooray!,' say" is classic Ries cluing.

OK, I have to put one clue on blast. "'D4' dice in role-playing games, e.g." for TETRAHEDRA. In theory, I have no problem with this combo, but I'm confused about why the specification of role-playing games is necessary. Aren't all four-sided dice tetrahedra? And the "D" stands for dice, so I'm surprised at the redundancy. I'll give Andrew the benefit of the doubt and assume that editors thought that they needed to add more detail to something like "D4, e.g." That would be a bit tough, now that I look at it.

I ended the puzzle with 1-across, which was a classic case of not knowing either the clue or the answer. I'd never heard of custard apples nor the alternate spelling of papayas that was the answer, PAPAWS. Brutal, but fortunately that was the only place that I had to guess randomly or my time would have been even worse.

I should have gotten the cleverness of "Foreign capital whose name sounds like a blood grouping" for TAIPEI considering that I was just yesterday booking a hotel there!

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