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Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Tuesday)
Theme answers:
This one didn't really work for me because the revealer just didn't land, or landed awkwardly. I guess I can hear someone saying "hey, that's A+ WORK you're doing there, Bob," or something like that, but the phrase just doesn't roll off my tongue or feel as coherent as I'd like a revealer phrase to me. "A+ EFFORT" seems as much of a phrase as "A+ WORK." The execution of the concept is sort of cute, but the concept itself, the phrase on which the concept is based, feels weak to me. I had A PLUS- and had to think for a bit about what might come next—not a great sign. The same thing happened to me with DOPAMINE RUSH; I could see the first part would be DOPAMINE but the first word that came to mind that might follow it was HIGH. This "what's supposed to come next?" problem happened yet again with MAKES- at 26D: Lets bygones be bygones (MAKES PEACE), although I can't really impeach the correct answer there. Seems fine. But MAKES NICE and MAKES AMENDS both tried to get in there before MAKES PEACE. And so over and over I kept having to think about what these latter parts of answers were going to be, and every time, after getting the right answer, my feeling was varying degrees of "huh, OK, sure, I guess." And I don't particularly love the clue on DOPAMINE RUSH. Pleasure-seekers seek pleasure from whatever activity they're doing. They might experience a DOPAMINE RUSH, but that's a side-effect of whatever they're doing. It's like saying thrill-seekers are seeking an increased heart rate. Not exactly. Not directly. Anyway, it all works fine, but just felt kind of lackluster. But I can't dispute the fact that there are "A"s and jobs (i.e. WORK) in those circled squares. The puzzle executes what it sets out to execute, and, if nothing else, DOPAMINE RUSH is an exciting, original answer.
- LAGUARDIA (16A: Airport that Captain Sully departed from) ("a + guard")
- HANNA-BARBERA (21A: Animation studio behind "Scooby-Doo") ("a + barber")
- ACHE FOR (34A: Crave) ("a + chef")
- DOPAMINE RUSH (46A: What a pleasure-seeker seeks) ("a + miner")
Christopher Julius Rock (born February 7, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, and filmmaker. He first gained prominence for his stand-up routines in the 1980s in which he tackled subjects including race relations, human sexuality, and observational comedy. His success branched off into productions in film, television, and on-stage, having received multiple accolades including three Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award nomination. Rock was ranked No. 5 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. He also ranked No. 5 on Rolling Stone's list of the 50 Best Stand-Up Comics of All Time.After years working as a stand-up comedian and appearing in minor film roles including Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Rock gained prominence as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1990 to 1993. While at SNL, he appeared in the films New Jack City (1991) and Boomerang (1992). In 1993, he appeared in CB4, which he also wrote and produced. He reached mainstream stardom with Bring the Pain in 1996. Rock continued making specials which include Bigger & Blacker (1999), Never Scared (2004), Kill the Messenger (2008), Tamborine (2018), and Selective Outrage (2023). He developed, wrote, produced and narrated the sitcom Everybody Hates Chris (2005–2009), which was based on his early life. From 1997 to 2000 HBO aired his talk show The Chris Rock Show.
Rock was cast in starring film roles in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), Dogma (1999), The Longest Yard (2005), the Madagascar franchise (2005–2012), I Think I Love My Wife (2007), Grown Ups (2010), Death at a Funeral (2010), Top Five (2014), The Week Of (2018), Spiral (2021), Amsterdam (2022), and Rustin (2023).
• • •
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| [42D: Spiky hairdos] [image by the great Lynda Barry] |
As for difficulty, it was pretty much the kind of easy Tuesday experience you'd expect, but the SW corner was disproportionately tough for me, for a number of reasons. First, that's where the PEACE of MAKES PEACE is, so my failure to come up with that second word meant that I didn't have the stake in that corner that I would have otherwise. Then there's the touch clue on STARDOM (39D: Fame and fortune), which seems like it's going to be plural, but isn't. I would associate STARDOM much more with "fame" than "fortune," btw, so ... not in love with that clue. Then there's the supremely MACOS, which I did not know despite using Macs my whole life. I just never think of the OS written out like that. Ever. All the MAC OS incarnations have names like Lion, Ventura, and Sequoia. As I've said before, every time I see MACOS ... which isn't often, it looks like a cereal name to me (MAC O's!). No one even thought to put it in a puzzle at all until 2023, which tells me it's a pretty poor answer. If MACOS was used in common parlance, we would've seen it all over the grid, for years and years. Don't believe me? Ask MS/DOS (fifty-four (54!) NYTXW appearances). Although I will admit, I can find MACOS written just like that if I click on "About this Mac"—it's just not a term I ever hear:
But back to the rest of the SW corner. The elaborate (and admittedly kind of colorful) clue on AHEM held me up in that corner as well—not immediately clear (60A: [Um, I can hear everything you're saying, you know]). I thought [Set of tenets] was a CREED for a bit. And then there was the hardest (or at least most misleading) clue in the puzzle (for me), which was kind of blocking one entryway to the SW corner: that answer was CHRIS (35D: Rock out on stage?). The big problem there was that I had the "HR" part before anything else, and so I promptly wrote in SHRED, as in "to play an electric guitar with great skill and speed" (merriam-webster dot com). "Out on stage" is accurate enough for what Rock does, as a stand-up, but without a specific comedy angle in the clue, I missed the wordplay completely. And so the SW was trouble. I don't remember much of anything else about the puzzle.
Bullets:
- 16A: Airport that Captain Sully departed from (LAGUARDIA) — wow, haven't thought about Captain Sully in a long time. I got this answer solely from [Airport...], and didn't even notice the latter part of the clue until just now. That famous emergency landing feels like recentish history, but it's been over 16 years now.
- 58A: Place for a coin collection? (SOFA) — see, kids, in the olden days we used to have this thing called "hard currency," and it came in metal disc form, and these discs would sometimes fall out of your pants pockets and into the cushions of your SOFA, and over time you could AMASS quite a fortune down there. (seriously, when does the "coins in the SOFA" bit become obsolete?)
- 12D: Beach, in Spanish (PLAYA) — this was a gimme for me, despite my not speaking Spanish. PLAYA is in many place names, so I just know it, as do most of you, I'm guessing. But I can see not knowing it, and I can also see not knowing Gordon RAMSAY, which means that I can imagine someone having trouble in the NE corner. But that someone wasn't me.
See you next time.
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No cheats. Considering that I didn't know NATGEO or RANDO, I was lucky. The clue for SOFA only made sense on reflection, and as confirmed by Rex. Average difficulty overall for a Tuesday, I'd say.
ReplyDeleteaverage for me, too. Complaints: "To Be Honest ..."/TRUTHIS needs some sort of slang indication in the cluing (for the 'TRU')
ReplyDeleteThe answer was truth is, not tru this (I also read Mac OS as macos like tacos)
DeleteI parsed it as TRUTH IS, although one can make a plausible argument for TRU THIS - the lack of the indication in the clue that you suggested probably seals it for the former.
Deletei think it’s “(the) truth is…”
DeleteThanks, Rex, for explaining coins for those who might be wondering. The other day I was on a ferry that had one of those coin-operated binocular things. A kid was running around trying to find an adult with a quarter in their pocket. No luck. Made me think about how rarely I have change in my pocket any more.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe Rex that you haven't heard of the famous ex-soccer player chef Gordon Ramsay, with the *** Michelin restaurant in Chelsea (London) who's always on TV, and whose every 2nd word in the kitchen has 4 letters.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you talking about? He didn’t say he didn’t know RAMSAY. He said he could imagine not knowing it.
DeleteMy apologies - a lesson not to scan when reading, especilly when it comes to double negatives - "not knowing"; "not me"
DeleteA fine Tuesday grid with just the right amount of difficulty. My speed bumps were just the pretty normal stuff associated with interpreting crossword clues. I didn’t trust SERENE for “Unruffled“ for example, so I waited for the crosses (SERENE seems more peaceful than just unruffled to me, so a matter of degree).
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, I waited for the crosses before dropping in RANDO as well. They kept the foreign language stuff and the trivia to a minimum, thankfully without much esoteric stuff etc - so pretty much everything I personally would ask for in a nice, Tuesday-appropriate grid (I must have been on the same wavelength as the constructor today).
Cute enough - A+ WORK sounds like a positive remark from a 4th grade teacher. I can never warm up to the circles. HANNA BARBERA and ACHE FOR are solid themers.
ReplyDeleteWhere the Hell is Bill
Overall fill was fine - liked PLAYA, MAKE PEACE and TRUTH IS. ASPERSE is awkward and keep RANDO out. Always nice to see AGATHA show up.
The Pixies
Enjoyable Tuesday morning solve.
I Wanna Get a MOHAWK
Hand up for Average, despite not knowing RAMSAY, which wanted to be RAMSeY as it was coming in. The last celebrity chef I knew was Graham Kerr.
ReplyDeleteI fondly remember Graham Kerr's Galloping Gourmet. That was pre-Food Network gold and was, I think, instrumental in getting food television on the map. I loved reading, listening or watching anything about food; its origins, its production, and its preparation. Then came food show competitions, waves of them, and Gordon Ramsay, a really, really good chef and apparently not the complete a**hole he presents himself as, was a major part of the shift from food to competitive kitchen sport. These days, though I'm an avid cook, I rarely watch food TV.
DeleteHaha…@Les…while I don’t call myself “avid” I do cook about every day and do try recipes I find on the ‘net. However, I’ve never understood why people watch other people cook…ala Food Network.
DeleteI was really expecting the reveal to be some kind of "walks into a bar" joke.
ReplyDeleteThat would have been great!
DeleteMy thought too.
DeleteSame here!
DeleteWell, technically the theme works but may never have figured it out without help from Rex even with the clear-as-day revealer. Maybe more coffee would have helped. Hopefully we’ll never see ASPERSE again, but little interjections like TRUTHIS or MAKEPEACE were welcome notes. Loved Rex’s patient explanation of the coin collector.
ReplyDeleteRandom thoughts:
ReplyDelete• Two NYT puzzles in a week and a half – Bravo!
• My funny solving moment: Entering HEED for [Obedience class command], then picturing someone with a dog, commanding them to “Heed! Heed!”
• What a great idea for a theme! Never done before. I imagine Jesse coming across the phrase A-PLUS WORK, and that crossword mind immediately click, click,clicking.
• I like how [Blue expanse] could either be SEA or SKY. I wonder how many immediately slapped in SKY as I did.
• Erik Agard, whose name sits atop so many quality puzzles, came so close to being embedded in this one at LAGUARDIA.
• DOPAMINE RUSH just lights the whole grid up; appropriately crossed by SHEEN.
• With a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday, Jesse can become only the second constructor to hit the cycle (a puzzle for every day of the week) in his first seven puzzles. Go for it!
Jesse, four puzzles in, IMO, you’ve established that you’re a first-rate constructor, a PLAYA. This was a gem -- thank you !
Erik has a puzzle in The New Yorker today.
DeleteAs an aside, Rex, I just read yesterday’s blog and enjoyed listening to Petula Clark’s Downtown (not sure how she fits in with the puzzle, but great insert.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Petula Clark is 92 and has been a British entertainer for 85 years.
Ms. Clark was the clue / answer to 30 Down yesterday.
DeleteA-PLUS puzzle
ReplyDeleteI got a beef with 28a. The opposite end of the color wheel is a complimentary color not a clashing one.
ReplyDeleteAnd wheels don't have ends. Should be the opposite side of the color wheel, but it shouldn't even be that because as you rightly say those don't clash.
DeleteNo. It’s a complementary color.
DeleteMe too. And since when does a color wheel have "ends"? That clue needs some remedial work.
Delete@Sailor - I used to throw up my hands and get frustrated when the NYT would just do anything they want such as make up words, use arcane variants, add in a word that nobody has heard of in a language like Urdu, etc. I guess that they feel like they are the big dog, so they will just sit wherever they want - now I just laugh because I think it makes them look foolish. Thus, it’s no surprise (to me, at least) that they would clue a continuous loop, also known as a circle, as if it had a series of beginning and ends. I just giggle, do the best that I can and head over to the LAT or WSJ in search of more friendly confines.
DeleteBtw, if you want to see something truly hysterical - head on over to the Washington Post and try out their new solving interface (spoiler - it’s Pepto Bismol pink, for starters) - you will be ROFLYAO so hard you will be in danger of wetting your pants.
Southside Johnny
DeleteWe all have different wheelhouses and blank spots. So I don’t think it wise to use blanket terms like “words nobody ever heard of.” or “made up words “. (Which doesn’t mean words I never heard of) Your example is Urdu, a language spoken by maybe 300 million people, closely related to a language, Hindu, spoken by over a billion people. There are also millions of Urdu speaking immigrants in the US. I am not criticizing anyone not knowing the language name . I am saying it’s wrong to criticize the Times, calling it laughable for including the word. It is in no way obscure or arcane Lots of people know of it or at least after getting w letter.
waryoptimist
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rex's thoughts on DOPAMINE RUSH. I never hear that phrase used, only "adrenaline rush." I also thought the clue for EDGE (Acerbic humor) was a little odd; to me, acerbic humor has an edge but is not an edge. Tuesdays are usually fast to solve without paying any attention to the theme, and that's what I did today; didn't real feel the theme added much or had any sparkle.
ReplyDeleteNot me confidently writing in John SMITH because of a Disney movie I saw thirty years ago even though I've known her actual bio for decades smh... That said a doable downs-only where the theme actually helped me get some acrosses (especially the R in Rmith!).
ReplyDeleteA rare case of knowing the propers, with the exception of MACOS. Used an Apple when I was teaching but the school made me give it back.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise no real snags, although I don't think EDGE works well as clued and I don't think I've ever heard ASPERSE in the wild --"Hey, don't ASPERSE me!". Uh, no.
Read the clue about the pleasure-seeker and started writing in ADRENALINERUSH and realized 1) it didn't fit and 2) I didn't know how to spell adrenaline, but fortunately it was wrong anyway.
Thought it was a neat feat to find the jobs in the phrases and APLUSWORK seemed familiar enough to me. Also a tad crunchier than most Tuesdays, and that's fine. Just Good enough to be entertaining, JG, and thanks for all the fun.
"wow, haven't thought about Captain Sully in a long time"
ReplyDeleteThen you clearly haven't watched The Rehearsal, which you absolutely should. Everybody should.
Yes. Watch “The Rehearsal l”
DeleteBaptisms are done at the altar in some churches, but most Catholic churches have a small room called a baptistry for the ceremony. My son was baptized in a Greek Orthodox church. It was an immersion and done at the altar.
ReplyDeleteIt would be highly unusual for it to be done at the altar in an Orthodox church. Only clerics are supposed to go beyond the iconostasis into the sanctuary where the altar is.
DeleteAt any rate, it's just a plain bad clue. Some churches have the baptismal font located toward the front of the nave, some at the back, some in a separate baptistry; in all cases, the actual baptism takes place in the font...i.e. where the water is.
I agree with @Blog Goliard that the altar is the least likely place for a baptism in most churches.
DeleteCriticizing a clue/ answer combo because it isn’t taken correctly from a dictionary missing the point of what crosswords are. , a puzzle which often have to work out an answer. I think the answer ALTAR is fine. I n the ‘80’s I went to the Catholic baptism of each of my nieces and nephews and the font was on the altar. Even if most but not all aren’t it is okay in crosswords)
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteAgree with Rex about SW corner. Last section to go, and took a bit of time.
I always think Pocahontas' John is Smith. Isn't there a famous John Smith in history somewhere?
Why does English have so many words for money? MOOLAH, cheddar, dough, bacon, cabbage, cash, green, simoleons, kale, bread, clams, bucks, bones, lettuce, smackers. Any others?
Interesting puz. AWorker. Simple, elegant. Those middle Downs go through two fixed letters, one goes through three! And the fill is good! So bravo on that.
Had to hunt down a mistake. Had ALTeR/RAMSeY, never noticed that RAMSAY spells it with two A's. But the ALTAR is where the events take place, whereas ALTER means change. So Yay for the ole brain for the win! Har.
Would a big advertising exec be an AD DON?
Canine with puppies? DOG MA
I'll leave others for @egs!
Have a great Tuesday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Wow, ROO doing an Eggs impression today, and not a bad one at that !
DeleteSince you ask. John Smith was the guy whose neck (literally) Pocahontas saved, at least in the story, but she didn't marry him. She married John Rolfe.
DeleteUmm, puedo escuchar todo lo que dices, ¿sabes?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if any words contain A LAZY BUTT because that's the A+ WORK I do. It's a pretty funny reveal. Overall fun puzzle.
Never heard of the word ASPERSE. Lip gloss quality should be kissability and I volunteer to be the tester.
People: 8
Places: 2
Products: 5
Partials: 2
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 18 of 72 (25%)
Funnyisms: 4 🙂
Tee-Hee: ACHE FOR [Going both ways].
Uniclues:
1 "Eh? Hoser! The Musical," "No-Doot-Aboot-It," "Phantom of the Hockey," "I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK."
2 Drinkin', fightin', and makin' out, at least according to said alum.
3 As long as they point a camera at you, you're a genius.
4 Dude you follow on Tumblr only because he follows you.
5 Chicken ruckus.
6 Fashionable coifs on fake pen pals.
1 OTTAWA OPERAS
2 GRAD'S A PLUS WORK
3 STARDOM IS TRUTH (~)
4 RANDO MUTUAL
5 ROOSTS SPARS (~)
6 SPAMBOT MOHAWKS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Two Years ago: Desire to dye. EASTER EGGS YEN.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I used Macs almost exclusively from 1987 to 2000. "Mac OS" was instant for me.
ReplyDelete(The following diversion into pedantry will make amply clear just how instant.)
At first there wasn't actually a distinct name for the operating system as a whole; one instead tracked things by the System and Finder versions. (Which diverged from early on; my first machine came loaded with System 4.0 and Finder 5.4.)
Things started to harmonize a bit more with the batch of releases under System 6, at which point it became more common to refer to the whole operating system as "System 6"; separate System and Finder versions became more firmly a thing of the past with the much-ballyhooed release of System 7 in 1991.
Late in its life, System 7 was renamed Mac OS 7; it was followed by the final two releases of the classic Mac operating system, Mac OS 8 and 9.
The transition to a new Unix-based operating system at the turn of the century was a massive change in system architecture; it was first called "Mac OS X", then "OS X", and now just "macOS", with version numbers and/or code names appended to identify specific releases (i.e. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard).
Thank you for coming to my Apple geek TED Talk.
@Blog Goliard, I used the original Macintosh in my summer job in 1985. (That was a riot... it had no hard drive, so you had to load the OS *and* any program you wanted to run from floppy disks!) Then in 1990 the architectural office I worked in used Macs running System 6. Loved it! Then System 7 was released to much controversy. A girl I knew had a t-shirt made that said "Just say no to System 7".
DeleteLeery of circles in a puzzle, as usual, but this one was fun & I whooshed through it. Thank you, Jesse :)
ReplyDeleteThe revealer doesn't quite work. A+WORK would be A MINing, not A MINER, etc. But otherwise it's a nifty idea, and the theme answers are all nicely spread across two words. Not sure we needed the circles. And it's nice to see HANNA-BARBERA, who made it OK to use lesser-quality graphics as long as the story and the jokes were good.
ReplyDeleteMy only quibble was about baptisms--don't they usually take place at a baptistry, rather than the altar? Or in some cases, in the nearest river or pond?
I also thought that each GUARD, BARBER, CHEF or MINER was an A+WORKER. For WORK to work, it would be standing guard, cutting hair, cooking or mining. To me it was a big fly in the theme ointment.
DeleteAnd at the end the penny finally dropped about CHRIS rock….facepalm moment of the week regarding one of my favourite comedians (“Dads, we only have one job…!”
ReplyDeleteI solved it as a themeless and have no complaints. For once, most of the PPP was aimed right between my eyebrows: the tennis player, the mystery author and the airport. A nice grid. My only hiccup was thinking that the word is ASPERgE, not ASPERSE. And I think that "crosses swords" as a clue for SPARS (fists or gloves would be more accurate) is a bit far afield (pun intended) for a Tuesday. As for the theme -- well, it's different, that you can say. I saw it after the fact and it had no effect on my solve.
ReplyDeleteI also ignored the theme -- and those annoying little circles that the current editor loves so much.
DeleteMy only slowdown was in the SW. I was solving clockwise and already had RUSH, so I wanted to write ADRENALIN but saw it wouldn't fit.
Not sure whether Rex was joking -- it can be hard to tell -- but of course "hard currency" means a currency with a stable value; it does not mean coins. But that would be a good ? clue!
ReplyDeleteWelp, I can’t speak for Rex, but you just exposed a huge gap in MY knowledge because I learned from YOU today what “hard currency” means. While I could try to justify by saying I really hadn’t thought about it (and didn’t take Economics in college) I think I just conflated it with the term “cold, hard cash.”
DeleteBtw…the “anon” is me above. For some reason the Blogger keeps flipping away from the Google blog name! And…I don’t notice.
DeleteOkay. Apparently there WASN’T a reply from me. Okay. In a nutshell, I don’t know about Rex, but TIL what “hard currency” means from YOU. I’ll skip the rest, but I didn’t take Econ in college, and apparently had always conflated the meaning with “cold, hard cash.” So…not an “of course” for me. And that’s okay.
DeleteI SPED right along until getting slowed down in the STARDOM-MACOS area and then grinding to a halt when trying to guess the reveal. I was looking for something along the lines of "hidden....???" but had to yield and rely on crosses. That's one reveal I never would have guessed! A+ WORK by the constructor in surprising me and in seeing the crossword possibilities of repurposing the phrase.
ReplyDeleteWell, that was a delightful downs-only Tuesday. Reminds me of why I “torture” myself with this method. It’s fun. Filling in LAGUARDIA from less than half the crossing downs, through wordform recognition/recollection and then doing the same again with HANNABARBERA was very gratifying. I guess that was a DOPAMINERUSH I felt. It helped that I was able to use the circled letters to figure out the theme pretty early.
ReplyDeleteThe only part of this that truly had me worried was the SW where I could get neither MAKESPEACE or STARDOM for a long while, but I took my time and worked it out and enjoyed myself. I mean, look, I’m on vacation, on a deck overlooking a lovely lake. Even the loons have packed it in for the night. Very still, very quiet. Perfect conditions for ambling through an early week puzzle like this.
Post congrats, I checked the grid and think I would have enjoyed this almost as much if I was solving normally. Pretty simple theme but you can’t knock that. It’s Tuesday. Some nice cluing buoyed this one up.
Easy-medium. No WOEs and no costly erasures.
ReplyDeleteI actually paid attention to the circles while solving but still had no clue about the theme.
I’m with @Rex on this is one, but there were some nice long downs.
"Asperse" is rarely used. More often one may "cast ASPERSIONS" (same root).
ReplyDeleteAgreed! In fact, Pretty sure I’ve ONLY seen/heard “cast aspersions.”
Deleteof course, PLAtA went in first.
ReplyDeletePretty good 72-worder TuesPuz, but somehow APLUSJOBS woulda "worked" better for m&e. Just personal taste, tho.
ReplyDelete@RP: yep. Had that trouble in the NE that U predicted, at no-knows [at our house] RAMSAY/PLAYA. Lost precious nanoseconds.
I mean, shoot ... U R cruisin along with this smoooth-ass solvequest, and you hit a "Beach in Spanish" no-know. You figure "no sweat, we'll get it from the crossers". Wrong, M&A breath. They splatzed in some restauranter-o-saurus dude. har. Son-of-a-beach crossin meat. Oh well -- learned valuable stuff, for them future solvequests. The nat-tick sufferer's edict -- no pain, no gain.
staff weeject pick: Nuthin much stands out, from the mere 8 weeject choices. And all their clues were pretty straightforward/easyish. And none of em contains a U. Tough pick. I'll take CGI, mainly cuz sometimes I forget its abbreve spellin. But hardly a bigger/LESSEREVIL.
some faves: MUTUAL. ASPERSE. STARDOM. LESSEREVIL. SOFA clue.
Thanx, Mr. Guzman dude. A job.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
... A JQXZ short of a pangrammer today? Surely even the punky runtpuz can do better; so, sound the ...
"Pangram Alarm" - 7x7 well-letter-littered runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
M & A, I rarely disagree with you but…I humbly submit that a teacher might tell a student he’s doing A+ work or tell an “underperforming” student they are capable of doing A+ work. Seems like an employer would more likely say “you’re doing an excellent job” or in today’s lingo…your work is “above expections.” Anyhoo…I tend to think of A+work more of “a thing.” But, to each his own!
Delete@Beezer: yep. Can see yer point. I reckon BARBER, MINER, etc seemed more like jobs to m&e, than work. But heck, either take will kinda float.
DeleteM&A
I must have been sidetracked when I opened this puzzle on my laptop because I used the NYTimes platform instead of switching to my usual. Thus when I had the last square filled, I got the “you have an error” pop-up message. I wouldn’t get that on my usual platform. In any case, it didn’t take long to see I had misspelled Gordon RAMSAY and realized that the vows and baptisms spot is not an ALTeR. Are there some solvers who go back over their solves to check for errors? That's not me!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rex that MAKES PEACE and A-PLUS WORK don't leap out as popular phrases but indeed the theme does deliver.
Thanks, Jesse Guzman.
I did the same thing with RAMSeY and didn’t notice I had the wrong kind of ALTAR. Also, like you, I don’t care one whit (or is it wit?) about streaks and do NOT go over the puzzle with a fine-tooth comb for my mistake(s). Nope, the app allows you to “check puzzle” (but warns you it will FUBAR your “streak”) and today my red slash was on the E for Ramsey/alter. And then I thought…D’OH!
DeleteIt's whit -- thanks for causing me to check. Whit = iota.
DeleteRex, my version of the online crossword didn't include that phrase that you didn't notice: "famous emergency landing" was not there at all. Maybe they figured out it wasn't needed.
ReplyDeleteThis was a pretty straightforward Tuesday, and I didn't even solve downs-only, so it's amazing that I managed to finish with an error. SCAR at 24 down for "Part of the healing process". I never even noticed that REES weren't insects. Yeesh.
ReplyDeleteSCAB/SCAR is -- or at least can be -- one of puzzledom's great kealoas. But it didn't fool me today. If a SCAR is part of the "healing" process, then maybe the healing wasn't so great? I'll take the SCAB, thank you very much.
DeleteMy internet has been on the blink for days. Just glad I will be moving to my nearly completed Granny Flat soon! Hope I get a post in before it goes out again. I can tell you that the college students in this complex are just about to revolt.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, today was a pretty easy Tuesday, but I agree with OFL that it just doesn't hang together very well. And, I'm not a fan of the circles. As I solved, I noticed that all off the circled portions of an answer were A "something," so I was for a short while, excited as I hoped for a snappy revealer. Alas, no. That's it for the theme.
Favorite entry of the day is HANNA BARBERA. Those are some of my all time favorite cartoons from way back. Had real trouble sussing out SENSOR for some reason, although when I visit San Francisco, I am always astonished at the number of rental self-driving cars I see everywhere. Not for me; I'd be in a state of panic the entire ride, wanting to get in the driver's seat! And we just had a puzzle with STARES, so that one slid right in.
Altogether a typical Tuesday, without high marks for the theme.
Btw. Here is what my rudimentary AI has to say about the color wheel:
ReplyDeleteYes, colors opposite each other on the color wheel (complementary colors) are generally considered clashing or contrasting when used together.
Do people get baptized at an ALTAR? I wandered away from the flock long ago but when I was a young'un there was a bend in a local river with a gently sloping shore line where many a baptism was performed. A few years ago there was A MASS of folks who were all baptized on the same morning at the PLAYA del Golfo de México down here in deep south coastal Texas. So I've always thought the DOGMA was that complete immersion in water---wash away thy sins---was essential to baptism.
ReplyDeleteMy most recent NAT GEO moment was watching a pair of least terns working their tail feathers off diving in the surf, catching tiny fish and then taking them over to feed their chick that was hiding among the dunes on that same PLAYA. Mesmerizing.
I usually solve horizontals first, so I didn't notice I had ALTER instead of ALTAR due to misspelling Gordan RAMSAY. It took an embarrassing amount of time for me to figure that out.
ReplyDeleteReally liked this puzzle - and the revealer was close enough for me!
ReplyDeleteThe theme didn't work for me at all. Also I got stuck when I thought 26 down was MAKEAMENDS. Completely fouled up the SW part.
ReplyDeleteFor a variety of reasons I have been doing the Times crossword on their app which I do not like. Also I think I am faster in my dead tree edition. Anyway, I thought this one was easy excepting the SW trouble spot, not knowing MACOS. The theme I used to enter the letter A in the first circle of the 3 others. I felt that people would complain about the awkwardness of the theme, since it’s a worker not work in the circles but I thought it was close enough.
ReplyDeleteDopamine rush. I was getting letters for dopamine and rush seemed automatic to me. I couldn’t understand Rex’s complaint. So I looked it up. It is a thing
People should remember that 2 part expressions adrenaline——— Dopamine——— do not stay fixed when millions of people are using them over decades. It is inevitable that both high and rush would be used after dopamine. Just because you don’t REMEMBER hearing rush after dopamine or actually never heard it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And as always a secondary choice is perfectly acceptable in crosswords. End of rant.