ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS FRIDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS FRIDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Just gonna throw it out there: love the Dan, but not really a big fan of this one, though. But since today is Black Friday, might as well throw this clip up there. Now you’re going to have Steely Dan stuck in your head all day while you fight the throngs of crazed holiday shoppers who got up at stupid o’clock in the morning to go to Target in hopes of saving $7 on that Cuisinart. Stay safe out there. The lunatics are running the asylum.
I never shop on Black Friday. It’s not like it’s based on some political ideology. I just hate shopping. Shopping to me involves thinking about buying whatever for like 2-3 months. Do I really want it? Is there a better way I can spend my money? Yadda, yadda, yadda. Then one day, I’ll just get up, go to the store, make a beeline to the aforementioned whatever, immediately proceed to the cash register and get on with my life. Doesn’t matter if it’s smartphones or beer. Shopping is all the same. And, yeah, since you asked, I’ve just begun working on whether or not I should buy beer in February. (Signs point to: yes.)
So, anyway. Today’s puzzle. I went for the Moneygrid with this one. 64 words. Symmetry-be-damned. Pretty happy how it turned out. Actually, scrap that. I couldn’t believe how much fun stuff I was able to cram in there. For a good while I tried to remove the black square just above the one numbered 53, or for that matter, tried to remove one of the two fingers above numbers 23 and 24. I couldn’t fill anything in with the SW corner extra wide open. And the fill was hairy at best in the NE with the placement of one less black square. The moral, as always is: sometimes adding a black square (or two) improves the grid overall. Favorite clues in the batch include: 19-Across, 27-Down and 51-Down. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments.
One the topic of my puzzles, the Visual Thesaurus posted my monthly contest yesterday. Curious parties can do it here.
Oh, you were wondering about my Thanksgiving, aren’t you? Well, since you asked, I had four slices of pecan pie. I think that’s my record.
Lastly. I’m asking once again if you liked the puzzles this month, and have a little bit extra in the wallet (or if you were planning on giving for the holidaze), a small donation would be greatly appreciated. Since I’m in the giving spirit, I will pay for a year’s subscription to Peter Gordon’s Fireball Crosswords to one randomly selected donor who gives between now and Wednesday. Support two trailblazing indie puzzlemakers!
Share the puzzle. New one on Monday.
Sorry, I’m sure I’ll be in the minority, but this didn’t do it for me as much as most of your puzzles, especially considering the loss of symmetry. CALLEDIT and TBONED were really cool, and the clue for PENDRAGON was really mystifying at first, but it just felt a lot more staid than your usual crazy themelesses… Did have to eventually do the 26 letter shuffle at NAV/NOVUS. NAV??? Abbr. for NAVY is that one letter too painful for some people to write?
Sure I’ll think your next one is a brick, though…
I liked it, but I’m with Gareth a little, in that, given the lack of symmetry, and given your sterling track record, I expected a bit more sizzle. Still, JOHN BELUSHI ON A LEASH IN DESPAIR is poetry.
rp
Agree on the lack of “sizzle”, but still a good solid themeless.
And unless I’m missing something, the clue for 14D is missing a letter.
A winner for me all around…took a while for the whole eastern seaboard to fall, my solving in that region was a bit LEADY (ugh). Final stand was in the NW, where I had FIVER (as in a 5K) instead of MILER for fun run, so that held things up for a while. I’ve heard the phrase “at sea” (well, actually, I’ve never heard it, but only seen it numerous times in xwords), but ALLATSEA? Just don’t hear anyone saying that, even in my imagination.
My struggle was in the in the North Carolina area–I had LEARN OF then LET IN ON before LET KNOW. (I first thought FADES could mean something to do with getting cold feet.) ST DENIS is hard to parse without any indication an abbreviation is called for in the clue.
Very fair otherwise, though I would add my voice to the NOVUS/NAV hew and cry. (I had DAR/RECTO and then DAV/VERSO and forgot to go back to the D. I know RECTO is right and VERSO is left, but I wasn’t sure which side would be even-numbered!)
Way hard for me, but perversely interesting. I wonder, Mr. Q, do constructors intentionally embed answers that have really good wrong answers that fit, and have crosses that abet the errors? During my initial scan for gimmes, e.g., 8D immediately fell into place–USED CAR LOT. So close, and yet so far. Other moments of fleeting brilliance included 1A “Picnic sandwich” (EGGSALAD), 29D “ran” (VIED), 55A “Ain’t happening and that’s final!” (NOT EVER), and 47A “Inform” (LET IN ON)–the K and W were my last two squares…
By the by, I’m new enough at this that I don’t yet understand the dogma of symmetry. Other than a seemingly arbitrary element of elegance, why is it anathema to take liberties as in today’s puzz? Don’t get it.
Had lots of fun with this one, though it took the entire Colorado-Nebraska fiasco (grew up in Denver, first went to grad school at Boulder) to wallow through it.
brute-force solving all the way around over here, almost no gimmes. sure it was a little less wacky than a lot of your themelesses, but so what? felt like a friday nyt to me (which i can’t explain it, but friday nyt’s take me two to three times longer than saturday nyt’s, am i alone here?).
loathe the dan. just had to say it.
West side medium, east side hard. Enjoyable! Thought you would have gone pop music with GAGA? I’ve seen Liar, Liar but had no idea OTERI was in it. BADGERED in the SE slowed me down quite a bit.
WTF is “desplains”? Maybe you meant “Des Plaines”?
This is one that I thought was going to just be impenetrable to me; the first run through the clues only gave me three or four entries, and those were just “maybes.” But perseverance paid off – finished with no googles.
Thanks for the puzzle, BEQ.
Nice to see you giving props to the Dan. More of a Doctor Wu fan myself…
EST is actually centered on 75W. It “starts” at 67.5 (or 82.5, depending which direction you come from). And of course that’s only at sea. Nowhere on land is the time zone boundary actually a meridian, except maybe between state lines.