New York Times, Wednesday, February 12, 2014

This puzzle's history stretches back over two years, and it started with the grid design. I hope everybody noticed the three block T's in the grid. My original version had four themed entries consisting of three-word phrases, all of the form T* TO T* (TURNED TO TROUBLE, TRUE TO TYPE, TOOK TO TASK, and TOE TO TOE. As it turned out, I was taken to task for the last one — Will didn't like the repeated TOE. So TOE TO TOE gave way to TEN TO TWO. That also was, apparently, tough to take. After a major reworking, we settled on the current three phrases of the form T* THE T*.

One other thing to mention about this puzzle: my final submitted version had two options at 11-Down. Either LAIMBEER or LAID OVER. Will went with LAID OVER. For those of you too young to remember the "Bad Boys" days of Pistons basketball in the late '80's and early '90's, Bill Laimbeer was probably the most disliked Detroit athlete ever — until Ndamukong Suh came along. Either LAIMBEER is too obscure, or he doesn't pass the "breakfast test".

I hope this thrills the throng.

I'm a sucker for a visual element in a puzzle. Throwing in mirror (left-right) symmetry makes it even more enticing. And incorporating enough snappy entries to make it play like a themeless? MAN CRUSH ON PETE COLLINS DECLARED! Whoops, excuse me.

I enjoyed so many elements of today's puzzle. I really dug the three T's in the puzzle's black squares, and liked even more the fact that there weren't any other "free-floating" black squares in the grid. Very cool-looking. Aesthetics are subjective of course, but I really appreciated the prettiness of those three T's hanging out in the middle of the grid.

True to the three T's, Pete give us three grid-spanners, all following the same pattern: T* THE T*. I actually prefer some of Peter's original themers, TRUE TO TYPE being especially nice. I did like TRIMMING THE TREE and TELLING THE TRUTH, but TURNING THE TRICK sounded a little off to me. TURNING A TRICK (ahem, not NYT material) or DID THE TRICK sounds so much better, yeah? But Google/Bing clearly disagrees with me, "TURNED THE TRICK" getting a huge number of hits.

Minor idiosyncrasy, but I tend to prefer past tense phrases in my xws. TOLD THE TRUTH has more elegance than TELLING THE TRUTH, in my eyes at least. Often, I don't add the "-ING" variation of a phrase into my word list, unless it sounds perfectly normal to my ear (usually it doesn't though). Awfully hard to find three past tense phrases that 1.) fit the T* THE T* pattern and 2.) are long enough, though.

Best of all today: the snazzy entries! SHAR PEI, HIGH NOON, NIHILIST, STRIKE ZONE, LETHAL AGENT, AGED OUT (xwordinfo donates to Treehouse for Kids, a non-profit I volunteer for) = so much goodness. Well worth the cheap price of admission (the ERN, EPI, ENE kind of stuff). I would have liked the puzzle even more if there had been more wordplay clues. But then again, filling everything quickly in off the straightforward clues made me feel smart. (in Homer Simpson voice) I am so smart! S M R T!

Well done, I like it when a lively puzzle lets me smugly sit back and call myself the world's biggest genus.