Friday

Two classic (but not that tough) themeless puzzles for Friday—Manny Nosowsky in the NYT corner, and Joe DiPietro in the NYS. Manny's got a wealth of good phrases, including six entries making their debut in the Cruciverb database: ABOARD SHIP, DRYABLE, ITS A CINCH, DOTTED THE I, CAME AS, and RAISE TAXES. There's even a new, less obvious clue for OTOE: "Iowa kin." And who doesn't like to see PASHA in a crossword? EMIR and AGA are dull, but I like to call my husband the pasha at times.

DiPietro's NYS "Weekend Warrior" featured a pair of triple-stacked 15's. Three clues stood out for me: "Sprint competitor" (deviously bringing things like Verizon and Cingular to mind) for RACER, "Featherweight boxer?" for PUPPY, and "Beat record: Abbr." for ECG (which is perhaps a little more common in than EKG in medical publishing circles).

Updates below:

NYS 5:23
NYT 4:48
LAT 4:15—tribute to Rosa Parks
CS 3:36—Harvey Estes, with a goofball theme and some seldom-seen longish entries

WSJ—"Deck the Halls" puzzle by "Judith Seretto" ("just the editor" = Mike Shenk) that I liked, but I forgot to time myself
WaPo 9:17—a timely "Tree-Trimming Party" by the always-good Frank Longo
Hex LA Weekly 11:27 (don't time yourself when you're nodding off)—Who the heck is ALIDA Valli, and why is ISIS "Thames, in Oxford"? Always nice to see XERXES I pop up in a puzzle...
Reagle n/a this weekend