Crosswords of the Day, 8/28/2009

Three puzzles, two decent ones, one terrific one. Here we go.

The NYT was the terrific one. David Quarfoot always puts together really original puzzles, and this one was no exception. It was a themeless, and it had just loads of great clues and fill. You know when 1-Across is FREE TIBET that you're in for a good time. Parts of this were much harder than others, but I actually think this puzzle is perfect for people who feel like they might want to try higher difficulty puzzles but feel intimidated by them. This puzzle has a nice mixture of really hard stuff and pretty easy stuff, so you can get to the hard stuff with some letters already there, which should help. And the hard stuff here is quite hard, but not impossible like some puzzles can be. ****, bordering on ****1/2.

The LAT was kind of meh. The theme was taking phrases that start with an "S" and removing that S to create new, wacky phrases. So we get things like TRIKE ZONE or TRESS FRACTURE. Yeah, not the greatest theme. There was nothing really bad about this puzzle, but it really felt lackluster. I wish I had more to comment on, but this wasn't a memorable puzzle. **1/2.

The BEQ was his now weekly really hard themeless. As usual, some tremendous fill here, but the whole thing wasn't as exciting as these themelesses can be. Probably the best clue/fill was "Face plants?" for BOTOX INJECTIONS. Definitely not one of his better puzzles though. ***.

Winner: The NYT, by a long shot. One of the best themelesses I've done in a while.

Best clue: This is a tie in the NYT. These are both terrific.. "Swiftly done?" is the clue for SATIRIC, which is just excellent wordplay. I don't usually find crossword clues legitimately clever anymore, but this one was. The other is "Transmission blocker?" for, get ready, SAFE SEX! I'm honestly stunned this made the NYT, but it's a perfect misleading clue, and great original fill.

Worst clue: Today is funny. I don't have one clue or fill that stood out as particularly bad today, but there were a lot of annoying little things in the puzzles today, like plural clues cluing answers that are really borderline plural, or clues for one answer that had words that appeared in a different answer in the same puzzle. At least we didn't have weird alternate spellings, which are maybe my biggest pet peeve.