Ah, Thursday

You know what? Between the three blue margaritas over dinner (what is that, a Windex/tequila Slurpee?) and waiting until after 11 p.m. to do the NYT puzzle, I'm too sleepy to write intelligently. Thursday puzzle by Byron Walden, lovely as usual, such a clever fellow.

In Randall Hartman's Sun puzzle ("What the Ell?"), the theme entries make a 90° turn at the [ELL] rebus. Super-nifty!

Remind to write more in the morning, will you?

Updated:

Karen Tracey's LA Times puzzle is pretty good. The theme entries are supplemented with lively fill, such as WAITED UP, OLD GEEZER, MOVES IN, and the five-consonant MCGRAW. There's also the unfamiliar SEIDEL, "mug with a hinged lid." The main definition seems to be "large beer glass," as seen here, but the term also appears to cover this.

As mentioned in the comments, I got stuck in the Sun puzzle where the two central entries cross on an [ELL]—those entries aren't excused from the 90°-turn gimmick.

Byron's NYT contains a bunch of new entries—all the 9-letter ones, I believe, plus the partial A MOTH and the variant-spelling DUFUS. According to the Cruciverb.com database, Byron has used OLEO before, in a Sun puzzle where it was clued "creation of Hippolyte Mège-Mouriez." "Promise kept in a tub, perhaps" is much more fun. (Am I the only one thinking of Last Tango in Paris now? It's unfortunate.)

NYS 6:07
NYT 4:19
LAT 3:27
CS 3:20