Pete's Log: Dangit, New York Times!
Entry #2077, (Random Crap)(posted when I was 43 years old.)
Warning: NYT Crossword spoilers follow
Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be my days. I'm supposed to feel like I'm half decent at crosswords. But no. You went and killed both my Monday streak and my Tuesday streak in the same week. With Naticks. And I'm more grumpy about it than I should be.
For those readers less versed in Crossword slang, a Natick is when a proper noun is crossed by another proper noun or uncommon phrase, leaving you with a square that a decent percentage of solvers may only be able to guess at.
Monday was arguably the worse of the two, as I wound up with three squares left I had to guess at, two of which I got, but one of which got me:
1 Across was "Title character in a Tyler Perry film franchise" and 1 Down was "The Naked ____" (Goya Painting). Maybe I'm culturally illiterate. But that seems too hard for a Monday.
Tuesday makes me madder, though, because I really wanted to like the theme for the day (Twosday theme on Tuesday 2/22/22) but then they got to do this to me:
32 Across is "Bake, as eggs" and 32 Down is "Bobby of the Black Panthers". Maybe I should know 32 Down, but you're never going to convince me that "shirr" is a word.
So yeah. Get outta here, NYT.