Such an eye-catching grid pattern! Is it a starship? Ions floating around (those big black pluses and minuses)? Whatever it was, it ...
read moreSuch an eye-catching grid pattern! Is it a starship? Ions floating around (those big black pluses and minuses)? Whatever it was, it fit well with my sense of Andrew as an artistic creator.

Constructors using a huge swath with the center typically try to separate it off from the corners, making for easier construction. Not today! Andrew left himself so many outside connections to make. It's so challenging since there's no breathing a sigh of relief once you figure out a central section — it easily might not connect up with one of the corners, and then you have to iterate.
I loved SIMONE BILES featured front and center. But I CAN SEE THAT if you're not an Olympics fan or a gymnastics fan, the entry won't do much for you. Your loss, because she's the epitome of badassery! What I wouldn't give to be half as strong as her.
A trio of squarely Saturday-ish entries; I think some are more satisfying than others:
- SYNFUELS. I hadn't heard the term before, but I liked piecing it together. Portmanteau of synthetic fuels? Sure!
- XERISCAPING. A gray zone for me, considering the R crossing in ROES. I debated XERISCAPING vs. XEDISCAPING, but of course, DOES don't have antlers. (Okay, I had to look that up.) I'm glad to have learned the term XERISCAPING now, especially considering global environmental issues, but I wouldn't say the term delighted me in my solve.
- SIROCCO. I had looked this up a few months ago as I was creating a puzzle with a tough pattern to fill, something like S?R??CO. I read the definition and dismissed it as a possibility — seemed too esoteric. Thinking about it more, it is an interesting term, like a haboob or something. Again though, not sure it's going to delight solvers in the way GARLIC BREAD might.
It's tough to stitch together an audacious grid like this without some ANON ESTE NES SSE kind of stuff. That said, I appreciate it when constructors make an effort to shoot for the starships. Er, stars.