this is the thread where we complain about the new york times crossword puzzle

Christ, the lower right corner of today's is driving me batty. I have all but three spaces & am totally stumped & frustrated. Guess it's time to walk away for a moment.

Is that Friday's or Saturday's? This morning it was the left and lower left that were giving me trouble for the longest time.

Friday's. If I have time tomorrow, though, I'll do Saturday's. Saturday Times puzzles are the best - far prefer them to Sundays tbh.

They are rillllly hard

imo this past weekend's puzzles were a rare instance of Friday being more challenging than Saturday.

"blown out?" = error

???????!

that, i am not buying

baseball term, I think?

nope

sure it is - the fielder was supposed to make the play but he blew it, and instead of an out it's an error. a "blown out"

ARRRRRRRGH

(hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

i fuckin

fuck

today's suggestion that daytime tv is called a "Soaper" for short was kinda...

"pulling a prank outside a house" = TPING

really dog?

i started doing these again, after abt > 10 years

have they gotten a lot dumber? they seem dumber

That's pretty standard crossword-ese tbh.

I stick to the American Values Club though, they minimize cliches as much as possible. Best crossword going.

i think they're a little dumber since when i started yes

Saturdays are still p brutal

Usually the more common form of that one is TPED.

Still on extended hiatus from solving now for the past few years since I stopped going to tournaments, not sure when I will feel compelled to jump back in. Also, don't mean to humblebrag namedrop derail thread but speaking of The AV puzzle, I ran into Ben Tausig on the street several weekends ago and learned he now lives down the block from me. Come to think of it, a certain drummer who recently won a Grammy and several other awards for Best Original Score lives right across the street from me, so Jordan, feel free to jump on the 7 train next time you are in NYC and I will show you the local sights.

One more vote for feels like these are dumber than just a couple of years ago, even.

Dumber in what way? i'd say there are definitely more artificial, not-in-the-language entries like "TPING" than ever before. But the level of obscurity remains pretty consistent, therefore puzzles are not necessarily easier. Of course obscurity used to mean Latin scientific names and foreign rivers whereas now it means subsidiary characters in sci fi TV shows or some such.

Btw I have a namedrop too: I went to elementary school with Patrick Berry. I can attest to the fact that the dude was creating xword puzzles at age 9.

I would have impressed if you had named any of the Patrick's but The Crossword Jesus himself, I am doubly so.

I only realized it about 25 years after the fact when I finished a NYT puzzle and was like, damn that was a good one, and then looked at the credit… and then I was like, no way, is that the same dude from my school? So I made some inquiries and found out it was.

Dumber in the sense that during Sunday afternoons a while back, we might still have some work to do; on some tough Saturday clues, or even the occasional Friday holdout, or an actually difficult Sunday with a gimmick we haven't figured out (our attention spans are horrifically bad)

Now, by early Sunday afternoon, all of the week's crosswords have been completely and utterly defeated, not 8 blanks left from Saturday, nothing.

yeah that, and they seem to be going way faster, for the end of the week puzzles too. last go round i was generally doing it every day and those would take me forever, and often go unfinished. my impression now is that there are a lot more inane repeat clues that reward regular solvers, even more so than ye old oleos of yore or whatever. and an influx of post-smartphone internet cultural ephemera that has supplanted some more of the facty trivia-style clues/answers i remember being stumped by.

i'm also doing them diffrently, tho, which may matter for the subjective experience. i used to work in pen and be way more cautious about committing so i wouldn't have to cross anything out, but on the nyt web site when computer-solving i just delete stuff left and right when i see i used something that wouldn't work.

i mean it is also possible that my amazing brane has just gotten that much better in the intervening decade. actually, let's go with that.

RIP ankara btw
I feel like that answer just got straight-up banned at some point a couple of years ago. oleo may have suffered the same fate recently?

i saw an olio a while back

ha, nice James.

will shortz thinks rae sremmurd is one guy!!

oh

nevermind

I AM DULY CHASTENED

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7NaWvbVwAEw_i3.jpg:large

Nazi what

Are they confusing pan (horizontal) with zoom in?

yes

"emgrans"?

fuck off

somebody explain to me the reason why "UNACMETTED" happened to me yesterday - I fucking hate reasonable answer collisions

is DANK MEMES really what we’rve come to

Yes

And why is Saturday easy now

Oh wait j. and I complained about this a year ago

Does anyone do the mini each day on the app?

https://www.nytimes.com/puzzles/leaderboards/invite/fde227aa-82b8-400c-807b-6512a6cba5e6

‘no soap’

Clue: They’re usually closed at night
Answer: eyes
😊

why won’t Wednesday load on my phone arrrrrrrgh

never heard of today's 35A before

Britishism, I believe.

nobelist wiesel
nobelist wiesel
nobelist wiesel
nobelist wiesel
nobelist wiesel

yeah that was bad. making up for it with a better clue about him in today’s sunday puzzle.

today’s puzzle very fun and ambitious but - and i know i’m always wrong when i think this, but hear me out - is there an error? the answer for 92 down actually goes with the clue for 93 down. and there is no clue for 92 down. leaving the answer for 93 an orphan with no clue. annoyingly i can’t quite solve that corner. but perhaps this is one further wrinkle in this puzzle that i haven’t figured out?