Like phone numbers in infomercials / SUN 8-2-26 / Useful pointers? / Rudimentary seeds / Safari destinations? / Like toms and drakes / It has a rind but supposedly no rhyme / Divinely elect / Like an honorable knight / The third one is dangerous

Constructor: Ralph Sharaga and Doug Peterson

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: Going for a Spin — Selling points for cars get reimagined as clues for a highly-flawed car.

Word of the Day: NEPTUNE (48D: God who aids the Trojan fleet in the first book of the "Aeneid") —

Neptune (Latin: Neptūnus [nɛpˈtuːnʊs]) is the god of freshwater and the sea in the Roman religion.^[1] He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon.^[2] In the Greek-inspired tradition, he is a brother of Jupiter and Pluto, with whom he presides over the realms of heaven, the earthly world (including the underworld), and the seas.^[3] Salacia is his wife.

• • •

Theme answers:

• OFF-ROAD VEHICLE [22A: "For our ad, how should we list the car that we found in the ditch?"]
• NEW SHOCKS [39A: "... and how do we add that it was just struck by lightning?"]
• LOW EMISSIONS [44A: "... and that the tailpipe is dragging on the ground?"]
• BUCKET SEATS [67A: "... and what about the leaky roof?"]
• KEYLESS ENTRY [82A: "... and the broken door locks?"]
• QUIET RIDE [91A: "... and the defective speaker system?"]
• REAR-WHEEL DRIVE [110A: "... and finally, the missing front tires?"]

It's Rafa again covering the blog today -- you're not quite done with me yet. Will I be back tomorrow? Who knows? You'll just have to come back and check and either by happy or disappointed. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Sunday puzzles. It feels like high highs and low lows. Either they really work or they don't and it's a big slog to get through. I guess it makes sense since it's a regular crossword, but bigger. Unfortunately this one was mostly in slog territory for me. I promise I actually like crosswords ... just yesterday's and today's weren't really my cup of tea. Though I did enjoy this one more, so maybe things are getting better and next week will be all bangers no skips, as the kids say these days.

The original IMAC from 1998

Ok, so, there's a theme. This kind of theme really rides or dies on "was this funny to you" and it just wasn't really funny to me. There's really nothing much else to say here. There just wasn't the kind of whimsy and fun and joy that these kinds of themes can provide. But that is very individual, and I hope that many (most? all??) of you found this theme amusing. It probably doesn't help that I'm definitely not a Car Person. I could not have told you what "bucket seats" were an hour ago. Or "shocks" if I'm being totally honest. Oh, and fun fact: cars are actually one of the safest possible places to be during a lightning storm because they act like a Faraday cage and protect the people inside!

An EEL -- a crossword favorite

Nothing much to say about the grid. It's not flashy, but really clean. Totally does the job. We even get the driving-related bonus in SPEEDERS. Oh, look, I just noticed the TOLL-FREE and FREELOAD dupe. We are living in a post-dupe world, though, and I love it! Dupes are a state of mind. Rid yourselves of the tyranny of dupes and enjoy your crossword without worrying about whether some word appears twice. Everything will be okay!

Another thing: do you guys pronounce SARI and SORRY the same? I think non-US accents are unlikely to, but I polled some US-accent friends and even they seem somewhat split (though same has an edge right now).

Mr. Potato Head and his pink EARS

The puzzle also played a little hard for me. No region in specific was a bottleneck, but the whole thing just seemed to offer a tad more resistance than I'm used to. Not a bad thing at all, but I wonder whether it played similarly for others or whether I just wasn't on the wavelength here.

Anyways, that's it from me today. Maybe I'll see you all tomorrow!

Bullets:

• REVERE 25A: Massachusetts city named for a colonial patriot — I'd never heard of Revere, MA!
• SIDE TRIP 81D: Planned detour — Similarly, I have never heard the term "side trip" but it's very easy to infer.
• RICHER 92D: Like cheesecake vis-à-vis sponge cake — This made me really crave dessert but I'm trying to cut down on sugar so I'm going to be good and resist but man some cheesecake would really hit hard right now.
• AUDI 32D: Mercedes alternative — Look, another car-related entry in the puzzle.

Signed, Rafa


[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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So-called "Island of a Thousand Temples" / SAT 8-1-26 / Field whose prospects are looking up? / Menopause treatment option, in brief / Upset tummy, medically speaking / Source of some classic rock bands / Dials down / Sewerage, for example / A little of this and that

Constructor: Zachary David Levy

Relative difficulty: Medium-Hard

THEME: None

Word of the Day: TILSIT (6D: Cheese names after a Prussian town near the Baltic coast) —

Tilsit cheese or Tilsiter cheese is a pale yellow semihard smear-ripened^[2] cheese, created in the mid-19th century by Prussian-Swiss settlers, the Westphal family, from the Emmental valley. The original buildings from the cheese plant still exist in Sovetsk, Russia, formerly Tilsit, on the Neman River, in the former German province of East Prussia.^[3]

• • •

Hi friends! It's Rafa here back as a Rexplacement. I hope you enjoyed my puzzle yesterday! And if you didn't and you were relieved you were done with me, then ... I have bad news for you because here I am again. You can't quite get away from me just yet. But we are here to about the Saturday puzzle, so let's get into it.

Unfortunately I did not think that this puzzle was AMAZEBALLS ... it felt like more of a big flop, to stick with the modern parlance. For starters, I had KAMA SUTRA in my puzzle *checks notes* yesterday! It felt weird to have the same memorable long entry in back-to-back days, though of course that's more of an editorial concern than a construction concern. I wonder if it was intentional to run these puzzles back-to-back. Some people will appreciate the callback, others will be annoyed. Let me know what you think!

This is what an obelus (pl. OBELI) looks like

My issues are mostly with the rest of the fill. ABRUPTNESS and ANTEDATED in a 70-word themeless in the year 2026?! Not to mention the MET PAYROLL (fine, but I've only ever seen "made payroll") / DYSPEPSIA stack. And so much missed opportunity for more fun entries in the mid-length slots: LESSENS, UTILITY, RIVERAS. A plural name! Sure, it's a bit better when it's an artist but still ... not my favorite. GARGANTUA has big Saturday energy. Not the kind of entry I gravitate toward, but kinda cool to learn the origin of the word "gargantuan." I also have no idea who SUSAN LUCCI is, but that may be a me issue!

This is me providing evidence for my claims!

At least, the shorter entries were mostly clean. OBELI feels kinda clunky, something you would see in a crossword 20 years ago. Though my apologies to the writers / editors who felt seen by it. APBS is a pet peeve of mine, as I've never seen it outside of a crossword in my life. (I know it's a thing, just feels weird how much I see it in crosswords. I'm sure I've put it in a puzzle, too. Actually, yes, February 6th 2026 -- a NYT puzzle I made with APB. Look, I never said I was perfect.)

And all that meh ... for what? The 15s don't feel that special. DIA DE LOS MUERTOS is great and fun and worthy of crossword representation but I feel like I've seen it several times in crosswords already, so it didn't feel fresh. And CORONATION ROBES gets a big shrug from me. AMAZEBALLS is the kind of thing that was super in-the-language a while ago but nobody really says anymore. The puzzle just felt like a was waiting for some payoff that never came.

The APSE referenced in the clue

Okay, I'll say nice things now!!! The [Dis/cuss?] clue at 1-Across for TRASH TALK was a banger. I also liked [Red light district?] for DANGER ZONE. [Base unit] is a sneaky good clue for the pedestrian entry COT. [Wear the same clothes, in slang] is a lovely modern verb angle for TWIN. That's about all I have! I hope you all enjoyed this way more than I did ... I think I'm just in a grumpy mood today!

Oh, one more thing. (I guess this is a reverse feedback sandwich where I say the nice thing in the middle in between the critical things! Sorry!) SUSAN LUCCI felt like a Natick minefield. I had SUB instead on SUN for a while (admittedly not a basketball connoisseur over here), and TILSIT has impossible-to-infer letters. Plus the choice of cluing DOT as [Hwy. overseer, for short] meant that crossing was tricky, too.

 

Bullets:

• 46A: DISHY [Full of hot gossip] — I've never heard "dishy" as a word, but I guess it works!
• 48D: CABOS [Los ___ (Mexican tourist destination)] — I've been to Los Cabos once. It was really nice!
• 35A: IRANIAN [Like the 2003 Peace Nobelist Shirin Ebadi] — Was nice to see IRANIAN in the puzzle since it feels like the way less-common variant IRANI should up a lot more in crosswords
• 18D: ELK [Bugling game] — Took me a long while to figure out that game here meant animal.

Signed, Rafa

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

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• Midwest Crossword Tournament (Chicago, IL, Sat., Oct. 3, 2026)

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📘 My other blog 📘:

• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

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