![]() ![]() the corners are really working hard to ensure you're having a good time. But today they're fizzing with energy: GINS UP GOODIE "NEED ME?" OPEN TAB DADJOKES had me in a good mood right from the start (to be clear, dad jokes never put me in a good mood, but as an answer, DAD JOKES was pleasing, and the clue really worked well ( 19A: Pop corn?) (as in "corny jokes your pop might make")). The fat middle of this puzzle is fine, but I actually think the corners are the most entertaining part, which is saying something, as usually in a puzzle like this, the middle has all the marquee stuff and the corners tend to be kind of perfunctory. I had much of the SW done and *all* of the NE done before I started to put enough of a squeeze on the center that those wrong answers finally popped out of place. anyway, PEAK HOURS and BEANSTALK stayed in place a long, long time. So now the two very long, very wrong answers had literally carried me across the grid and into the SW corner, where I started having success, so. But with the (wrong) "K" in place from BEANSTALK, I figured the letter in front of it had to be an "S". No way to see NEWT or STAGY, and those short answers are the things I rely on for traction in a wide-open puzzle like this, as well as for access to the corners. ![]() But down below, I couldn't make the short stuff work. But then eventually I confirmed ("confirmed") the "Y" as well with ALLEY, and so HAIRY really really didn't wanna budge. "Lots of animals are HAIRY!" I internally jeered. For instance, I really hated HAIRY as an answer for. I had inklings early on that something was amiss. As in, "Jack preferred to climb the BEANSTALK early in the morning, rather than during PEAK HOURS, so that he could avoid traffic and fees (to say nothing of fies, foes, and fums)." I think you've got a just-fine, ordinarily difficult Saturday puzzle here, but when you drop PEAK HOURS and BEANSTALK, bam bam, and then *cross* them with HAIRY ( 23A: Like a lion), well, the puzzle becomes virtually impenetrable. My entire experience with this puzzle can be summed up in three words: PEAK HOURS BEANSTALK. ![]()
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