Kary Haddad author page
1 puzzle by Kary Haddad
with Jeff Chen comments
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Debut! Right up my alley, as my cooking skills are just a touch above [stick food in microwave]. Fun to get a sense for the old days when HOT POCKETS and RAMEN NOODLES were some of my staples. Gave the puzzle a younger vibe, taking me back with an odd sense of nostalgia. Not sure why I liked stomach-turning HOT POCKETS so much...
Rare for a five-letter entry to catch my attention. I tried to sign up for HBO GO to watch "Silicon Valley" … but I couldn't figure it out. Yes, I'm now that old guy who doesn't understand newfangled technologies. Notwithstanding my ineptitude, I found myself staring at the odd HBOGO letter sequence, my brain struggling to parse it. Neat a-ha when it finally clicked.
ADAMA is another newish entry that didn't strike me as well. I watched most of BSG (Battlestar Galactica) but I had trouble with his name. Thankfully, the crossings were fair, and it was in a nice section featuring ADAGE / MAXIM crossing each other, which helped drown out some of the ADAMA struggle.
Generally pretty smooth for a debut. I did have some trouble with the lower left, where CDC crosses the confusing EDM (electronic … dance … music?), and SIA gave this pop-music idiot a long pause, hoping against hope that SAMOSA was right. Will has said that he avoids acronyms unless they're really, really well-known (like CDC), and I see his point even more clearly here with EDM. Tough to clue it in a way that explains to the solver what those randomish-seeming letters are.
The punchline — I CAN'T COOK — felt like it should be right up my alley, but I floundered, struggling to figure out how it works; why it's funny. This might have been an instance where maybe another quick-food item would have been better; no "revealer" necessary. (I do like COLD PIZZA, even more so because the preparation instructions = [Eat].)
And perhaps having four (or five) all-microwave easy edibles would have been nice? Some extra layer to tighten things up, as there are so many types of "instant" foods. Overall though, nice to get a young-feeling debut.