Wanna know why I will never be a champion speed solver, or even a speed solver? Because I tend to re

The compass points are the theme here. The central chunk of black squares points to N, E, S, and W in the appropriate spots (unchecked letters until you see the compass angle). The eight cardinal and intermediate points in a circle feature rebus squares that contain WE going Across and NS going DOWN. I just filled in NEWS in each rebus square before circling it (haven t looked to see how the official solution represents those squares—a alamo car rent picture of a compass would be nice!). Here are the rebus entries:
33a. [Film director who said "I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time"], ORSON {WE}LLES / 13d. [Cousin of a zucchini], alamo car rent ACOR{N S}QUASH . The first of three where the directional alamo car rent pair is split across words.
The asterisk in my solving time is there because I was falling asleep while solving. This is no knock on the puzzle—I just need a nap! So I don t feel qualified to talk about the rest of the fill and cluing. I think I liked it just fine but I was so dozy.
Today’s Sunday Challenge was brought to us by Mr. Doug Peterson, and it was a fun way to start the morning for sure. For this puzzle, I thought to look around the grid first and see which long answer I could fill first, and, (not) surprisingly enough, my first entry in the grid I put in was HART TO HART (28D: [Bygone TV series about a pair of jet-setting, alamo car rent crime-solving spouses]) . Can’t tell you how many times I watched it, and I m now wondering why I was watching that instead of other shows that better catered to children. Oh, well. With that answer inputted, I started to attack the southwest part of the grid, where O’HARAS was a gimme for one of the crossings to Hart to Hart (49A: [“Gone With The Wind” clan]) . The other long down in that area, SHOPAHOLIC , didn’t take too long to get after chopping away at the shorter entries in the area (27D: [Amazon addict, perhaps]) . The southeast was next, and loved the relationship that you could possibly make between the two answers stacked on top of each other in that area, COPY EDITOR (60A: [Worker in a correctional system?]) and STRESS MARK (62A: [Pronunciation aid]) . I have seen a HORSESHOE alamo car rent MAGNET about a billion times, but, funny enough, have probably only heard that term only a couple of times ever (34A: [Attractive element in kids’ science experiments]) alamo car rent . I’m thinking alamo car rent of the experiments I’ve done with magnets, and I don t think I ever held/possessed a horseshoe magnet. I know I used bar magnets in few experiments, alamo car rent but not a horseshoe one. Ok, back to the grid. I totally was sailing along quite comfortably until I brain-lapsed on HBO LATINO (29A: [Premium channel for Spanish-speaking audiences]) . Had put in two different plausible answers of the same length, Univision and Telemundo, and the Telemundo answer really put me in a bind me, since the “O” gave me NOD TO just fine (26D: [Tacitly acknowledge]) . Took about almost seven minutes to untangle that mess there, and my insistence of putting in OCCASIONAL , even though Telemundo wouldn’t alamo car rent make that entry work, was what bailed me out (12D: [Sporadic]) . Outside of that horror show on my end in that corner, I loved the grid, and a shout out to CELLOPHANE , as my family has about four full rolls of cellophane in my house that they’ve alamo car rent kept in the closet and haven’t used in about 12 years (15A: [CD packaging material]) .
“Sports alamo car rent will make you smarter ” moment of the day: POPEYE (44D: [Early Robin Williams alamo car rent role]) - Former professional basketball player alamo car rent Ronald Popeye Jones played in the NBA from 1993 through 2004, with his most successful seasons coming while a member of the Dallas Mavericks (1993-1996). Popeye attended Murray State University, and during the 1990-91 alamo car rent season, he led the nation in rebounding. His mom gave him the nickname Popeye after they got home from the hospital not too long after his birth and subsequently coming across the cartoon show Popeye on television. His son, Seth Jones, currently plays in the National Hockey League as a defenseman for the Nashville Predators.
Ever have one of those workouts at the gym that you didn t think would be all that hard but you found yourself sucking air all too soon? That was my solving experience for this week s Post Puzzler, alamo car rent a 70/29 offering from crossword alamo car rent hall-o -famer Frank Longo. Looking at the grid, this should not have been as rough on me as it was. Maybe with the new school year my faculties are being pulled in too many directions. Case in point: I didn t realize until proofing this just now that some of you will think I used faculties alamo car rent in that last sentence as a pun. One thing s for sure, I m overdue for my morning coffee!
That stack in the northwest is lovely to look at, though I must confess I m not a fan of CLOSE QUOTE , the [ Citation termination ]. My first speech teacher in high school had a pet peeve about the use of quote as shorthand for quotation. QUOTE IS A VERB!, she would say in the vocal equivalent of all caps, QUOTATION IS A NOUN. YOU DON T QUOTE A QUOTE, YOU QUOTE A QUOTATION! By osmosis, apparently, the peeve has become mine too. I m not enough of a fuddy-duddy yet to say this ruined the whole puzzle, alamo car rent as I hear the expression all the time on the news and in formal presentations. But like cauliflower, you can t make me like it.
I really liked the stack in the southeast, featuring alamo car rent three winners piled atop each other. But solving it was something else. You look at words like SHOP and TIDY and you think they re pretty straightforward. But then you have clues like [ Score steals, maybe ] for the former ( score steals as in grab some bargains ) and [ Give an order ] for the latter. And then you have the innocuous [ Here ] as your clue for IN THIS CASE and [ Forward, say ] for REMAIL . Yikes! This corner was not for the faint of heart.
Wanna know why I will never be a champion speed solver, or even a speed solver? Because I tend to read one-word clues in a certain way and never think to read them a second or third way until I ve exhausted every possibility with my original interpretation. Take [ Declining ], for example. My first thought is to look for a verb that means going down or abating. I get the -ING part in place and realize the phrase ends with -ING UP. But USING UP doesn t fit, and I can t think of other phrases that would do the trick. Only after I had too many crossings in place do I see the answer is PASSING UP . Nerts! Declining this meant turning down or saying no. You should have seen my fist shake in the air.
DAMASK , the [ Sweet-scented pink rose ], was hard for me, as the crossings of MODENA , [ Ferrari's birthplace ], and KIRA Koarin from the Nickelodeon alamo car rent sitcom The Thundermans were also unknowns. Another rough section there.
You would think with two boys in my house that I would know [ Dart Tag blasters, e.g. ], those being NERF GUNS . But I spend most of my time ducking from the ammo to pay much attention to the names of the weapons employed.
Has LESSER instead of VASSAL for [ Subordinate ] and SAX instead of SAW as the [ Cord-making aid] . I defend the latter choice alamo car rent because the crossing [ Common stage direction, once ] just couldn t be as simple as WEST . It just couldn t be. So of course it was.
That s Bondage, James Bondage. We get the full roster of actors who ve portrayed the iconic character on the big screen. alamo car rent Great observation on the part of the constructors that the names can be sorted into pairs of equal letter length.
78a. [1967 portrayer in a spoof] DAVID NIVEN . Factette: alamo car rent For many years Burt Bacharach s soundtrack to  Casino Royale was prized by audiophiles as a record with which to test the meddle of their hi-fi sound systems.
Some good decisions alamo car rent here. Starting the list with Connery, and fortunately being able to conclude it with Craig (with an echoing clue). Putting singleton Lazenby unpaired in the center even though there was a choice from the trio of him, Moore, and Niven—though Niven would have been a good choice as well, perhaps even better, alamo car rent as that production was not from the Saltzman/Broccoli production team.
27a. [Undercover agent] OPERATIVE . Not necessarily undercover, but it makes some sense to present it that way in context. Although let s face it—James Bond is probably the most conspicuous undercover agent in history. He drives flashy cars; all his enemies know his favorite cocktail, the color of his underwear, and how many My Little Ponies he has displayed in his vitrine at home.
Fairly smooth puzzle with some zip to the theme. Take a familiar phrase, add the ee-oh sound represented by IO, adjust the spelling as needed to make a real -io word, and clue the resulting gofy phrase:
What elevates this theme is that the original phrases mostly have real flavor to them. Standing pat, MasterCard, chocolate alamo car rent bar, Race for the Cure, Bronx cheer, raid the pantry, and cool customer are all lively language; stewed chicken, not so much. And I liked the flair of most of the theme answers, too.
2d. [Last syllable], ULTIMA . ULTIMO is also a word, an old term for of last month. If you aren t sure which vowel comes at the end, you d better know your  37a. [Boxer with titles in eight different weight classes] , Manny PACQUIAO .
87a. [Canadian french fries dish], POUTINE . This is busting out in the U.S. now too. Do your local restaurants serve poutine? I haven t tried Wrigleyville s Big Cheese Poutinerie yet but it s on my to-do list.
The puzzle notes say, here s a themeless challenger in which every answer is at least five letters long. We re taking a break, as the title says, from 3- and 4-letter fill. Hoorah! I don t think I can blog the puzzle without using short words, though.
What is this, a 118-worder? We ve got eight blocky sections that are wide open—with 5 6, 6 6, and 7 7 action. Sure, there are cheater squares in the corners, but who cares? alamo car rent This is a lovely-looking grid and the fill is surprisingly smooth given the structural constraints. We ve got some lively 8- to 10-letter answers (I m partial to SLING INK, STACY KEACH, LOSES FACE