Neil Padrick Wilson author page

I'm often full of piss and vinegar when I see low word-count themed puzzles. Frickin' constructors, bigger than their britches, showing off all lah-di-dah! And look at today's bleedin' grid, 74 words, requiring LTD and CRIT? Why not follow your own advice, blankety-blank big-head Jeff, and go to a 76-word design?

I would have preferred that.

And another thing, you blimpity-bloopity … wait. What?

To Neil's point, I couldn't figure out a way to arrange the skeleton at 76 or 78 words such that it didn't feel like two half-puzzles. The black square separating FLYING and COLORS created more problems than I anticipated, causing a diagonal from SW to NE. I tried so many ways of creating a passageway through it, but no dice.

Putting black squares at the AR of ARREAR or at the S of UNIONS would have made for an easier, more newb-friendly Tuesday solve, no doubt. Both options would chunk apart the grid, though. Is that better or worse than a newer solver having to figure out IBERIA and RIYADH? After 10+ years of constructing, I still am not sure.

I'd love to have some feedback mechanism, where the NYT's app would allow for direct evaluation and commenting. Was the puzzle solvable? Fun? If not, why not? That type of feedback loop would be so valuable. Will Shortz has done a great job of expanding the NYT's crossword business, but it could be a true empire with some steps such as this.

P.S. If you're not sure what a GLITTER BOMB is, why aren't you watching Mark Rober's YouTube channel? Dude does some amazing stuff.

★

SUPERFREAK + SACRE BLUE + ZORRO MASK? IT FIGURES to add up to I HAD A BLAST with a STANDING O.

Wow, so much color, so much sparkle!

I'm usually a stickler for cleanliness when it comes to 70-word themeless puzzles — they're a relatively easy construction task — but I'm more than fine with some OK SO / NOT US / TGI to get the explosion of fireworks all throughout.

Hardly a SNOOZEFEST or an UTTER BORE — having both in one corner made for a nice tie-in. Something so fortuitous when two long answers happen to fit in an isolated region.

Oh, and [One with something to prove]? Not GUY WITH A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER, but literally, a PROSECUTOR trying to prove someone guilty.

I HAD A BLAST indeed, thoroughly superfreaky.

I love getting WARM FUZZIES from a themeless puzzle. That's a fantastic entry, and those beautiful Zs — worked in so smoothly with ZEBRAS and CZAR — a feel-good sensation, indeed.

A couple of other standout features, too: I MEAN, REALLY! and MAY I CUT IN. The latter was especially strong, given such a clever clue. I thought [Line at a dance] had to be line-dance related, or maybe hinting at a conga line.

I also liked that Neil did something more audacious than sticking with a standard 72-word themeless layout. Generally, those tend to have four corners chock full of good stuff, but they can often feel separated from each other. Not today! From BIKINI WAX to MAITRE DS to ARE WE DONE to SEX COMEDY to MAY I CUT IN … note how many long answers run into other long answers, giving the puzzle a wide-open feeling.

My wife, Jill, once expressed an ick factor about BIKINI WAX. That surprised me, but after thinking about what a BIKINI WAX must be like to go through, perhaps it's questionable as to whether it passes the breakfast test.

SEX COMEDY intersecting it gave the puzzle a bit of a raunchy start. Not my thing these days, but I can see the appeal for a different demographic.

A couple of explanations:

• ROTFL = rolling on the floor laughing.
• TWIHARD = a "Twilight" diehard. The term makes me crack up. Hard to believe that people like this crap!

AMYL is a tough dab of crossword glue to swallow, and TPK looks so bizarre (we don't have turnpikes out here in the Pacific Northwest), but thankfully SFC was easier to take (sergeant first class). Prices to pay to have such good solving flow.

Not entirely on my wavelength, but I appreciated how Neil opened up his grid flow and tried to do something different.

Debut! Neil gives us words that can start IN A BOTTLE: SHIP in a bottle, TIME in a bottle ... I must admit I was puzzled for a while what CARGO in a bottle and QUALITY in a bottle were ... before realizing they weren't. LIGHTNING and MESSAGE in a bottle wrapped up the theme nicely.

I wasn't sure what TIME IN A BOTTLE was, but Google tells me it's a Jim Croce song? Huh. Didn't do much for me, but that's not surprising given my pop music deficiencies.

Like Neil alluded to, "words that can precede X" themes have largely gone by the wayside, so it's important to do something extra if you're going to do one. Here, I like that Neil found a set of extremely limited answers that fit so nicely together — no other "___ IN A BOTTLE" phrases out there that I could think of. Also, good selection of theme phrases, each one nice and snazzy. FORKED LIGHTNING, in particular, is great.

A lot of nice bonus entries too, SIR BARTON echoing GALLANTRY, and SWEET TEA tucked into the bottom left with a great clue. "House wine of the South" is such a fun description! As much as I love SEINFELD and the SOUP NAZI, though, seeing NAZI anywhere makes me uncomfortable. So I had mixed feelings about that one.

Given the high theme density and all those nice extras, it's not a surprise to get some rough patches. There are some of the usual minor suspects like ASSN, REPIN, ERNO, EXO, but even as a bball fan, ISSEL and FRYE are ones I had to work to pull out. (Channing FRYE isn't even an All-star, much less a Hall-of-Famer.) Then, a couple of words that are dictionary supported but squeak in my ear: COHAB, INCOG, AGAZE. The overall effect made the puzzle feel less smooth than I'd like.

Still, a nice debut. And this LOLcat fan got a big kick out of getting LOLZ in a crossword!