“Since U Been Gone” is a song written by Max Martin and Dr. Good trade-off.ĭon't worry, I'm not quitting my day job.Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies Acrossġ “_ U Been Gone”: 2004 Kelly Clarkson hit : SINCE It's offset by a modicum of partials and OTO/OTOS and ERI TU and MUS, but overall, the fill enhanced my solving experience. Plenty of juicy fill, the JET SET, POKEMON (I may or may not have a stuffed Psyduck), STONE AGE, GET EVEN, even HEY YOU stuff really nice, adding a lot to my solve. HELL IF I KNOW sure is great though, reminding me of the old nugget, "What do you get when you cross a pachyderm and a rhinoceros?"* Nitpicky, but I was left wondering if there weren't other appropriate phrases that didn't use either, or if it would have been better to leave out one of the I phrases (so it was a 1/2/1 pattern), or if all of the themers used I instead of ME. I had a little hitch during my solve in that I and ME were repeated in a 2/2/1 pattern, making it feel a bit uneven. I don't like my computer talking to me, thank you very much. There's also the little reason that it scares me. I don't personally use The Gchat (like The Google) because I find it hard to concentrate on anything when IMs are popping up. It's rare that constructors can turn a five-letter entry into something cool, but this totally qualifies in my book. "phrases which are equivalent to someone being left speechless," but the revealer is spot on and adds a great level of cleverness.Įvan's part of a new generation of constructors, bringing us into the digital age with freshies like GCHAT. I think this puzzle could have been done simply as all the themers unclued, i.e. I HAVE NO CLUE is such a nice in-the-language phrase which 1.) describes a quiet shrug and 2.) gives a perfect reason for leaving the themers unclued. In the end, it's a small section of the grid and I'm still very excited to see my work in the Times.įantastic revealer today, one that made me Wish I Thought of That (WITT). He and I had a good conversation via e-mail about that small section and I'm glad that he has always been receptive to hearing constructor feedback. Regardless, I do have a lot of respect for Will as an editor and I'm very appreciative that he decided to run one of my puzzles so soon after my last one. You can see my original fill in that section - I'm biased because I'm a big basketball fan and think that Carmelo Anthony's nickname 'MELO is a fun entry, though now I wish I had submitted this fill in the first place. One other note: Will changed a few of my letters in the space between 34- and 45-Across. And to my knowledge, this is the first time that phrase appears as an answer in a major crossword - to say nothing of the phrase HELL IF I KNOW, which I thought would be just sassy enough that the Times might change it to HECK IF I KNOW. Anyone who has ever tried solving a puzzle has probably uttered or thought those words after getting stumped by a tricky clue, so I wanted to build a literal theme on that idea. To me, the phrase I HAVE NO CLUE is a really good mantra for the entire concept of crosswords. I'm glad that no one beat me to the punch on this one. I highly advise against that, since there are so many talented constructors out there and there's always a risk that one of them will swoop in and take that idea from you before you get the chance. Unfortunately, I was not satisfied with the resulting fill by the time September rolled around, and I put the puzzle away for nearly a year before revising and submitting it. I figured that I would be too busy during the school year to keep building puzzles, so I tried to finish it as soon as I could. When I built the original version of this puzzle in late July of 2012, I was only a couple of weeks away from getting married and starting grad school.
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