Total | Debut | Latest | Collabs |
---|---|---|---|
20 | 3/28/2011 | 12/29/2018 | 0 |
Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 2 |
Scrabble | Rebus | Circle | Pangram |
---|---|---|---|
1.58 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
I'm very excited to have my first published Friday puzzle. After banging my head against various hard surfaces over the years while trying to come up with clever themes, I finally decided to focus on themeless puzzles. I think end-of-the-week is where you'll find me hanging out in the future.
This being my first themeless though, I'm not that surprised that my clues got a major overhaul from Mr. Shortz. I think my favorite clue that did make the cut (and one that I thought was a goner for sure) was "Fox coverage that may be controversial" for FUR. I also contributed Norwegian Ridgeback (though not the Chinese Fireball) from Harry Potter for DRAGON. I was a huge "thirtysomething" fan, so that's why my OLIN is for Ken, and not Lena. And my love for Dr. Seuss knows no bounds, so I'm glad to have introduced GREEN EGGS to the puzzleverse.
There is so much to love about this puzzle. This stuck-in-fourth-grade-man-child loves the SMARTY PANTS / MADE YOU LOOK combination (I pulled that gag on my nephew the other day), and ORDER ONLINE makes for a beautiful third element in the starting triple-stack.
70-word puzzles often have a limited number of long slots to begin with, but Robin pushes to squeeze in 14. That's important to me, as I've found that I need at least 10 strong entries in order for a themeless to really sing to me. There are a few neutral ones like EDGINESS and RADIATORS, but check out all the goodness in IVY LEAGUE, GREEN EGGS, LIVE A LITTLE! And this data junkie loves seeing a SPREADSHEET.
Also nice was that Robyn took advantage of her mid-length slots, often tough to convert to assets. NAIL GUN with its [Sharp shooter?] clue is great, and ZYDECO is such a cool word. And really, Robyn had me at DRAGON, giving us a taste of Harry Potter's beautifully crafted world filled with Chinese Fireballs, Norwegian Ridgebacks, Hungarian Horntails, Peruvian Vipertooths, Ukrainian Ironbellies okay okay I'll stop!
It's not a perfect puzzle, as there are a handful of gluey bits marring it. That's very common with triple-stacked 11s, entries like YOO and TYRE making that fine upper left corner possible. And we constructors all have our bugaboos, one of mine being five-letter partials wasting a slot that could be something as cool as MR YUK. So it's hard for me to give A REST a rest.
Overall though, so much to love here. I got a ton of enjoyment out of this one. A well-deserved POW!
1 S | 2 M | 3 A | 4 R | 5 T | 6 Y | 7 P | 8 A | 9 N | 10 T | 11 S | 12 G | 13 P | 14 A |
|
15 M | A | D | E | Y | O | U | L | O | O | K | 16 R | A | M |
|
17 O | R | D | E | R | O | N | L | I | N | E | 18 E | S | P |
|
19 T | I | T | L | E | 20 E | D | G | I | 21 N | E | S | S |
||
22 E | N | O | S | 23 R | 24 A | R | E | 25 N | E | N | E | |||
26 C | O | N | G | A | 27 P | E | D | 28 I |
||||||
29 B | 30 I | 31 R | 32 T | H | D | A | Y | 33 D | 34 R | A | G | O | N |
|
35 O | V | A | R | I | E | S | 36 N | A | I | L | G | U | N |
|
37 Z | Y | D | E | C | O | 38 S | O | L | O | I | S | T | S |
|
39 O | L | I | N | 40 W | I | L | E | S | ||||||
41 E | A | C | 42 H | 43 A | N | O | S | 44 P | 45 U | 46 M | 47 A |
|||
48 C | A | T | H | O | 49 L | I | C | 50 F | I | N | E | R |
||
51 A | G | O | 52 L | I | V | E | 53 A | 54 L | I | T | T | L | E |
|
55 F | U | R | 56 E | M | E | R | G | E | N | C | I | E | S |
|
57 E | E | S | 58 S | P | R | E | A | D | S | H | E | E | T |
Answer summary: 5 unique to this puzzle, 1 debuted here and reused later, 2 unique to Shortz Era but used previously.
Found bugs or have suggestions?