![]() ![]() I love Thursday challenges that - well, honestly I'm not trying to be funny here - challenges that have us thinking outside the box. You have to scroll down past a couple other puzzles to see it.įun trick. Here's one he did a while back with a similar trick, but much cheekier. "ehran" before AMMAN, utterly ignoring the symmetry of the other doctors, approaching panic.įunny how yesterday's theme made the OPE/OPE and BRA/BRA crosses scream out, huh?īefore I started teaching full time, I would usually do BEQ's Mondays and Thursdays. "Punjabi" and then "Marathi" before BENGALI. Also somehow elegant to have TOUCHED ON running down through the middle. I agree with Rex that it's elegant to have the parts in the grid be actual words. UNSHAVEN finally gave me the little crack I needed. ![]() When BOOTH where we CHEW broke ope the whole trick, I saw the other meaning of WITHOUT.īut, man, that northwest… kept trying to fit in "comely" because I. But… I immediately was thinking the wrong meaning of WITHOUT. I agree with Rex that the northwest was brutal.Īnd I agree that the reveal was very quickly gettable. Mary Lou included the reveal, too, but more spread out. ![]() It was cool to see those other two puzzles and how Mary Lou and Dave handled the conceit. So I bet like thousands of solvers, this was the first time I've seen this theme. An enjoyable struggle, very satisfying to finish.īecause I barely have time nowadays to do even one puzzle a day, I just can't participate in Fireballs and Buzzfeeds yet. WHO until coming here - I've heard of the character but have no idea WHO he is.Īnyway, I had fun finding the other doctors and thought there was lots to like otherwise - HUSH MONEY, HOT DIGGITY, ANDRE GIDE, COATTAIL, BENGALI, BESTIE. ![]() Eventually, I did get DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS, and thought, "Aha! World Health Organization!" I didn't understand it was Dr. So, I thought the puzzle might have something to do with interrogatives. That came (I thought) when I saw how appeared over the right edge. In fact, I didn't find easy pickin's anywhere, spending a lot of time jumping hither and yon, probing for soft spots, waiting fot the "Eureka" moment. But for me, the center reveal was far from a gimme. Like I found it challenging, with the NW the toughest section. I thought this was a terrific puzzle, with a clever idea, a great reveal, and with the grid still making sense after the DOCTORS had been pushed outside the BORDERS. Here's a Fireball contest puzzle from last March (by Dave Sullivan): I might've been less hostile to the puzzle's precious cluing if I hadn't seen this theme before. WINSOME is a *great* word ( 14A: Appealing in appearance), but with no crosses, no hope. TRUE DAT already feels about as dated as BLING or GETTING JIGGY WITH IT, and it just didn't occur to me. ESS is somehow "Un-P.C." despite the fact that The Bloggess is a feminist blogger (a million ughs to every part of that clue) ( 4D: Non-P.C. The "cousin" in the TWIN clue threw me ( 1D: King's little cousin) (King and TWIN are both bed sizes, in case that wasn't clear). Why not American Recording Industry Association? Now that's a proper (and apt) acronym, that is). something something? Yes, Recording Industry Association of America. that was supposed to go at 2D: Pirate-fighting org., but I also knew it was one of those crap pieces of fill I can never remember because I never see it outside of crosswords and don't know what it stands for ( RIAA? Recording. Couldn't make any of the Acrosses or Downs work except UNSHAVEN. Other parts were toughish, but up there I just had empty space for what felt like a long time. I realize now that when talking about the difficulty, I'm talking almost exclusively about the NW. three total squares, to fill in all of the "revealer"). (Note: the Fireball is both harder and better) Here, I think there must have been some urgency to toughen things up in the cluing, since the middle mostly just fills itself in once you get a cross or two (I needed only the crosses MR. Andrew Ries has this week's Fireball too, and both that puzzle and this were (in parts) the kind of "challenging" that I find more annoying than bracing, with attempts at cleverness in cluing that feel more strained than truly clever. ![]()
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