What a boring NYT puzzle. Kidding! I seem to have found it easier than others. It helped that I filled in the first theme entry off of the first two letters. (Actually, entered COMMERCIAL, which didn't fit, before ADVERTISEMENT.) The only oddity was APHIS. Related to APHID? I bet the real bloggers will tell me.
But I do want to get into Doug Peterson's Sun puzzle, because it beat me up, and because he might read this. Here's why it took me much longer than a typical Wednesday:
- Trouble figuring out the theme... I got the addition of "BR" but wasn't prepared for changes in spelling, for some reason. The best themer, of course, is BREWS AND BRAS, but I had BREAST in there to start, which is the first thing that comes to mind when I think "Girls Gone Wild".
- Thorniness in the NW, where I knew RAN/ATAB but didn't believe it because it didn't seem to be working. ROCK radio and the CASH part of CASHBAR weren't happening.
- For some reason I thought BRANDO and not SHARIF played Che Guevara. My excuse is that Brando was in Viva Zapata!
- NISHAPUR? Nope. Every letter from crosses.
- Rough clues included those for BIO, GENIE, and ST. BEDE (of whom I've never heard). And leave it to Peter to clue WIZ as if it were WHIZ...
I enjoyed SID, the Science Kid, and BOBBY ORR's full name. Nicely done as always, Doug, and we'll look forward to your next publication, probably tomorrow or Friday.
Credit for BREWS AND BRAS goes to Peter Gordon. My original entry was OOHS AND BRAS, and I think my clue was "Slogan for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show?" Peter wisely suggested that I go for a double-whammy with the last theme entry.
ReplyDeleteNISHAPUR is a pretty tough entry, but I didn't have many choices there, since it crossed three theme entries. As for Lisa RINNA, I plead the fifth! :)