November 26, 2005

Topping off the weekend

Peter Abide's Sunday NYT, "High Jinks," was one of those smooth solves where you move throughout the grid, filling in your path as you go. (Or maybe not you. But definitely me.) After not quite being on the same wavelength as Rich Norris yesterday, this puzzle was a nice salve. How many of you knew the founder of the Borden company was GAIL Borden? (That part wasn't on my wavelength.) Plenty of great entries peppered throughout, such as TOWNCAR, UP TO IT, SLAPDASH, DRAGSTRIP, GOT RID OF, BEAM ME UP, EARFULS, TV RATINGS, and the medical terminology crossing of RALE and POLYP. My favorite clues were "one who may give you fits" (TAILOR), "Afghan makeup" (YARN), "cold one" (BEER) and "'hot' one" (MAMA), and "Jazz scores" (BASKETS). The best theme entry was TIPTOP ONEILL, and the worst was LAPTOP DANCER. Yes, it's fun to sneak lap dances into the NYT crossword, but the clue ("Part of Santa's team on a computer?") doesn't do it for me. Can anyone think of a better clue for that?

NYT 8:01
LAT 8:57
CS 3:39