QuillxWords

Time: 44:24 Saturday Average: 35:44 Best Saturday: 10:34 As you can see from my time, I struggled mightily with this puzzle, spending over forty minutes in a coffee shop in St. Louis. But St. Louis is a new location for me and has been added to places in THE UNIVERSE that I dig. I hope to SIDLE on back here again in the future. We’re currently renting out our house and escaping Bloomington both for the sake of IU graduation, so if we take the money from that and use it for our fairly exorbitant trip, we have BALANCED BUDGETS , more or less. I’ve never heard of popular 60s poet Rod MCKUEN and I’ve barely heard of John O’HARA , although Appointment in Samarra sounds familiar.  Those couple proper names along with the dog that I always forget but crosswords love, Lhasa APSO , slowed me down. The puzzle did start to click once I realized that we had a stray “4” in the grid, which gave us the appropriate theme, of sorts, in MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU . I saw doormen in sto...

Time: 22:54 Friday Average: 27:16 Best Friday: 10:21 It’s been called into question whether RC Cola is often paired with MOON PIE or whether those are just two Southern food items. I had IN A dAZE instead of IN A HAZE , which prevented me from completing this puzzle for a solid minute, I’d say. Meanwhile, I’d forgotten that ALI BABA was a woodcutter because I think only of the 40 thieves. I’m not sure why you’d go with Dr. Ruth to clue SEXPERT when the obvious clue is “Travis insists he’s a...” Finally, I’m thrilled to see IZOMBIE make an appearance, because the first two seasons are, in many ways, everything I want from a television show. Cheers to Friday themeless!

Time: 20:48 Thursday Average: 24:40 Best Thursday: 10:18 "Kind of case in grammar: Abbr." is an ice cold first clue in a puzzle, but any time cases come up I am fondly reminded of my early mornings in Russian class. It turns out to be OBJ , by the way, but it really could have been anything. No revealer for the Thursday trickiness today other than the central answer ( ON ) AND ( OFF ), which shows that we are dealing with ON/OFF rebus squares. It all clicked for me with my certainty that "One's partner" had to be ( ON ) LY . From there, I figured out that the ON/OFF rebus squares were always next to each other and I was off to the races (eventually after a lot of milling around in this puzzle). I don't think I'd ever bothered to look up SLOE -eyed and have just let it sit as an eye descriptor like any other. Apparently, it means dark, attractive, almond-shaped eyes. I also enjoyed BELA and KARL ( OFF ) appearing right about the S ( ON ) ( OFF ...

Time: 8:16 Wednesday Average: 16:37 Best Wednesday: 6:52 Today's theme is STATE CAPITALS that are, as the clue points out to us, in anagram form. MUST I ? OK, let me see if I can figure this out even though it's past my bedtime. I'll get the easy ones first with Salem ( MALES ) and Dover ( ROVED ). After that, we have Austin ( ANTIUS ), Lansing ( IN SLANG ), and Raleigh ( HAIR GEL ). Finally, there's Madison ( DOMAINS ) and the tricky St. Paul ( UP LAST ) There's an exercise I wouldn't have bothered with if I wasn't writing this blog. I know the phrase well, especially since it seems so popular lately, but I never knew the spelling for "Bury the LEDE ." I always assumed it was "lead." I love slang that comes from typesetting. OK, those anagrams thoroughly wore me out. My final observation is that I don't love the way THE EU looks right above S AND P. Both just look deeply wrong.