Saturday, 9/30

NYT 7:09
Newsday 6:06
LAT 5:07
CS 2:58

Patrick Berry's Saturday NYT is about as difficult as the average Saturday NYT, which means it had me barking up the wrong tree in several spots—rather than staring at a blank grid, I had plenty of answers, but some of them weren't correct. I got off to a quick start filling in GIRL for 1-Down, which was completely wrong (should've been HAHA—this was nowhere near as hard a clue for HAHA as the one Tyler Hinman used six months ago, but it duped me all the same). I personally resent the clue [Fiendish] for DEMONICAL—if it were demonic or demoniacal, I could get on board with it, though. My Entertainment Weekly habit failed me in that I forgot that it was ANNE HECHE who wrote the book in 19-Across—and, dang it, I read an article mentioning the title just this month. Didn't Patrick use TORTONI in one of those Starbucks contest puzzles last spring? It seems familiar. Wow, this post is meandering, isn't it? If you want a reminder on how to play DOTS, click that link. I love the word PROLIX, so how come I've never uttered it aloud? Favorite clues: [Exchange words?] for TRANSLATE, [Second person appearing in the Bible] for THOU (d'oh!), [Exciting drive?] for HOLE IN ONE, and [Producer of the megaflop "E.T."] for ATARI. I have no recollection of that last item, but apparently the game bombed so impressively that Atari buried millions of "E.T." cartridges in a landfill.