Sunday January 6th 2019, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 54:14
Sunday Average: 48:53
Best Sunday: 21:55

I’ll admit to being a bit overwhelmed by this one while car solving once again, but my time was looking decent until I just couldn’t figure out what I had wrong and spent about 20 minutes testing out squares. As it turns out, I was sitting on ARCTIC FROsT instead of ARCTIC FRONT and just couldn’t see anything wrong. So, that’s about 25 minutes in the car, second guessing CLIOS (“Pitchers’ awards?”) and EEC (“Continental trade grp., once), which is the European Economic Community, a Cold War Era pact that was subsumed in 1993 by the EU. 

I couldn’t make anything out of the theme of DEAR JOHN LETTERS and I confess that I ended up checking on CrosswordFiend before writing this explanation. So, you have HOLLYWOOD ENDING. The ending of “Hollywood” is a D, so there’s the first letter of “Dear John.” Continue through the rest of the theme clues (so, JUMP START, the start of jump is J, etc.) and you’ll end up spelling out the whole phrase. It’s a good theme and I just couldn’t see it at all. Maybe I can blame the jet lag and the 14 hour drive for not putting me in a puzzle frame of mind. 

EL MISTI is a volcano in Peru with an altitude of 5,822 meters and last erupted in 1985. I think this is about it for my brain space today. See you Monday!

Comments

  1. S. SandrigonJanuary 6, 2019 at 4:17 PM

    The theme drove me mad the whole time. Makes no sense! It only took CC and me like 5 hours, but we finished it before sundown on Sunday with minimal cheating.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. QuillJanuary 7, 2019 at 11:07 AM

      The theme absolutely makes no sense! Wish I was solving with you and CC!

      Delete

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