All right, let's do this. Four puzzles today. Total time I spent solving them: 21 minutes, roughly. Yeah, I had a damn good day. :) It also helped that one of them had me set a personal solving record.
The NYT was a good, solid Wednesday level puzzle. The theme was kind of weird; the answers were all fill in the blanks that completed a phrase that ended with "please." For example, a clue would be "_____, please (announcer's request)" for YOUR ATTENTION. There was one really bad theme entry (______, please (diner's request)" for CHOPSTICKS), and a bunch of solid but kind of standard and boring fill, so this gets *** from me.
The LAT was, like the NYT, a solid, good quality puzzle. The theme was tied together by the phrase COURT BUSINESS, and all the theme entries were common phrases that have court actions in them, such as SLOW MOTION and CLINICAL TRIAL. This seemed easy to me, but it seemed to frustrate a lot of the commenters on the blogs, and Orange, whom I mentioned yesterday, really didn't explain the theme correctly for some reason, suggesting it threw her a bit too. Again, solid but not exactly exciting fill and a bad theme entry (the awkward phrase LOSS OF HEARING) give this another ***.
The Onion had an hysterical theme, one of my favorites in a while. Every theme phrase had the letters "SHIT" in a row, but of course not as a separate word, and therefore every theme entry was literally full of shit! :) There were phrases like LET'S HIT THE ROAD, SUSHI TRAY, and my favorite, ENGLISH-ITALIAN as in a dictionary. There was also some excellent fill in this one, including my favorite clue of the day. **** bordering on ****1/2. Just as a note, this was by Matt Gaffney, who I love when he's not making impossible weekly contest puzzles. :)
The BEQ is where I set my speed solving record. After an absolutely brutal puzzle on Monday, BEQ went the opposite route and offered an insanely easy puzzle today. He noted that it was a puzzle made for non-puzzlers. Well, regardless, it was a fun puzzle that flowed really well, had some nice entries like MOJITO and NAUGHTY BY NATURE, and led to me solving the whole thing in 3:02, which beats my previous best time by about thirty seconds. It was actually a lot of fun to solve, and I was shocked to see my time when I finished. ***1/2.
Winner: The Onion. One of the better puzzles I've done in a while, and a theme I can't believe ran in a major publication.
Best clue: From the Onion we have "Good or bad thing to catch, depending on the context" for...CRABS!!! Clues like this make me wish The Onion had a daily crossword.
Worst clue: There wasn't any really offensive stuff today, but one I disliked was from the NYT. The clue was "Postpone yet again" for RETABLE. It just seems really awkward.
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