New York Times, Friday, January 22, 2016

My engineer's brain loves quantification, and that extends to my evaluation of themeless puzzles. Usually I count any long(ish), colorful entry as an asset, tally them up, and add a point or two (or even three) if there's some cool visual impact or level of construction difficulty. I've found that the if the result is less than 10, I feel like there's not enough great stuff packed in.

At first glance, this puzzle didn't have a huge visual impact — sure, a wide-open, innovative-looking grid, but nothing that wowed me. However, there is something pretty impressive about six long answers interlocking — I've highlighted them below to better illustrate the effect. It's tough to do this and still make all six answers sparkly, and Paula has excelled here. It's fun to see the fresh GLUTEN-FREE PASTA, and the rest of them are absolutely assets in my eyes. So I might add a point or two for the difficulty factor.

I tend to stay away from themelesses with crisscrossing skeletons, because they are so difficult to make sparkly and cleanly. Each intersection reduces your flexibility, and when you have a section like the south where POTATO PEELERS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY, and GLUTEN-FREE PASTA constrain it, you're bound to need some glue like E-DATES (does anyone really use this?) to hold it together.

The corners have fewer constraints, but they're still hard — when you have to run mid-length answers through the start of POTATO PEELERS and BACK IN THE SADDLE, you tend to need things like the old-timey ONE O CAT. I did like entries like PENTANE (I love me some chemistry), RATED PG, SKI BIB, SWEE PEA in the full, and STAN LEE though.

Overall, this type of construction is still not my favorite, as its level of difficulty can be tough for non-constructors to appreciate, and the gluey bits like DIA, TRA, KEL, E DATES, etc. can be harder to overcome, since there's not a ton of snazzy fill.