A v. similar solving experience to yesterday...I was having a great time w/ Todd Gross' "ball in the middle" puzzle...v. v. pretty alignment of the grid shape and the MINNESOTA FATS and LOTTERY WINNER answers...a real wow...SAMUEL ADAMS, SINEAD O'CONNOR, and METROSEXUAL were excellent and v. gettable...the lesser long fill like IT'S NOT FAR and ROASTMASTER filled in fine and felt ok...shorter fill like SINNER and WINTER was nice, crisply clued, and smoothly solved...the middle was the last area to fall...EEL-LIKE kinda nasty, SENET kinda fake, but RECONNOITER and SPLIT SCREEN nice...yes!...all good...time to hit done in a v. respectable for MetaRex time...yes!!
Then, disaster...
Got the incorrect signal and had a number of highly un-fun minutes...thought CER should be CYR for WWI battle and screwed around in the middle for a while...finally realized OMNEA/ITERA should be OMNES/ITERS.
I'm not too grumpy today, though...
My reasons...
First, I gotta have a measure of self-critical spirit...for less than speedy solvers like myself, there will be lots of FRI/SAT puzzles w/ a kinda drecky last stage...kinda gotta look in the mirror some of the time...
Second, ITERS/OMNES didn't hang me up for nearly as long a time as ACCOUTERING/EVANESCING did yesterday...length matters...
Third, ITER though nasty is basic ESE that I'm v. fine w/ being expected to know like the back of my ILIA, and kinda fine w/ being expected to know is pluralized ITERS not ITERA...
Fourth and most important by far, I don't see a straightforward way Todd/Will could have clued this crossing to make the chance of an icky feeling at the end for solvers much less...the OMNES and ITERS clues are about as straightforward as you can ask for...
[after the fact--uh-oh...just read the comment by Ellen S. and realized I'm all wrong about ITERS...if it had been clued Roman roads I would have gotten it quickly and the puzz would have died several minutes earlier than it did...the actual brain clue wasn't straightforward at all...so am I mad at Todd and Will now?...well, no...too much time has passed since my solve...]
So...my bad!
And a yes! to the puzz...for all of us who dream of more non-verbal elements in CWPs, this one w/ its "ball in the middle" grid and its related mini-theme is really great...hurrah!!!
On to Rex and the crew...Rex much grumpier than I...I really love the ball-shaped grid, while it leaves him cool if not cold...okay...he's also hard-ass on the Naticky N-crossing of ANILINE and SENET...okay...not to be defensive on behalf of constructors on minor stuff, but disagree kinda strongly on EXON...it's fine at least for now...US Sen. by that name from Neb. for years and years...
It's a familiar story...Rex is often a purist, a non-prissy, avant-garde purist but a purist...MetaRex OTOH loves trickeration and gimmicks, especially ones involving non-verbal elements, like the funky shape of today's grid...
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