Have One’s Hard Work Recognized

This is a test of the Comments section's latest looney-tunes behavior. Please ignore.

Possibly Mr. Steinberg's best puzzle yet. Clever, inventive, yet quite balanced. A very mature effort.

RUN IT before GUN IT. To go along with REVS

I have successfully avoided any contact with Facebook, Twitter, and all their creepy brethren, but at one point LINKED-IN was necessary professionally, so I signed up. Since I'm now more or less completely (as opposes semi-) retired, I should really take another look at my PROFILE. I also somehow missed that the Litttle Blue Pill had acquired a Little PINK friend. Didn't know JEN, which embarrasses me. Didn't understand NUT, further confused by crossing KRUSTY. But I thought of what, according to the long thread on the subject, turned out to be the explanation. I still think that one fell flat. No surprise that I am not familiar with the BENTLEY logo. Surprised not to have a review of "BAD SANTA" from Jimbo. Thought of EMOTICON, for the right reason, but hesitated because what I tend to see now is those yellow cartoony things, and they're not on their sides. Like others, PILFER before PIRATE. Debated the R and the D, entering ?UST for a while. No Aha! when I got MUST, but a little snicker. GUN IT was hard. Tried GAS IT for a while. That and PILFER were fixed only when I got GET AN A FOR EFFORT from the bottom up. ("got GET"?? Oh, well.) This is for Jimbo's collection of (I hope) obscurities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SYIt8wPGzY Thanks for a nice week of puzzles to all. Bring on the weekend!

Something for everyone. EVILEMPIRE and RONETTES for my generation, EMOTICON and LINKEDINPROFILE for the younger set. Never made KRUSTY's acquaintance, but Mr. Steinberg fortunately didn't clown around too much with the crosses. ITWASAJOKE and I had a good laugh.

David is by far the best constructor - my eyes light up when I see his name

There were hard spots, there were easy spots, there was IT WAS A JOKE sitting atop EMBITTERED. For "steal," POCKET fit as well as PIRATE Loved RUST > DUST > MUST (Me to self: There must be a MUST from which MUSTY derives!) Thanks, David, I had fun.

Tough NUT to crack today. Only gimme was EVILEMPIRE, and even then I had trouble getting any confirming crosses. The two grid-spanning downers needed lots of help before revealing themselves. MMI before MII (really should've thought that through better). But that goodness for KRUSTY the JOKE teller. But I kept at it and eventually finished with no look-ups. "CON AIR" has one of the dumbest plots in film history. "Let's transport all the worst criminals together on the same plane--what could possibly go wrong?" If anybody in the movie had ever *seen* a movie, they'd know that was a really bad idea. "Be My Baby," The RONETTES (led by the fabulous Ronnie Spector), 1963: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRy2pV7b2QA

Dumbfounded! A real brain-bender of a test; no JOKE! What a DIRTY TRICK! It's inconceivable, using a football clue right off the bat to waylay the unsuspecting solver. With gridiron antics in full swing no less, SCORE ONE for the constructor, none for this word PLAYER. Throw the flag, line judge, David should be penalized for piling on with 37d... I kid of course. I'm enamored, not EMBITTERED. Live, learn and sally forth; another day, another enigma...This Rod Stewart ballad will sooth any aching head, "I Was Only Joking." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbdlo-P9edQ Not so effortlessly, Bru

Love a puzzle that's tough but fair and yields to persistence. Thanks and good luck, David.

PI gave me PILFER, which was a misgive. Another misgiving I have is NUT at 58A. Not only is the definition confusing, but I had to look up all three downs to confirm that my guess was correct. i'm quite happy that I solved this fun puzzle, and I'll be happier still if someone will explain how "Loony tune" = NUT.

One word, one word slowed me down and the word was REAP. Complete mental block requiring gymnastics to get the upper left. VIAGRA revealed REAP and that is sorta funny. Big smile was seeing 1D and 69A as Mr. PEPYS was a rather famous diarist. Someone is paying attention in English History. Slight delay with 1D as I initially ERRed by thinking of literature instead of Navel Administrators. Thanks David wish B.J. Fogg well for me, have attended his Persuasive Communication conferences in the past.

I can't figure out which clue the picture of tennis players is referencing. A little help?

Another enjoyable David Steinberg puzzle. Finished in the North West. PEPYS was a gimme, but it took a while to get PALMREADER - my favourite clue and LINKEDIN. Not a fast solve, but a successful one.

No EPIC FAIL here. Rather SCORE!! Last to fall for me was the NE. Having 'yay' before YES and 'pilfer' before PIRATE really slowed me down. That was A TON of Fs. I finally parsed GET AN A FOR EFFORT and eliminated the extra F giving me only A FEW Fs. FEE fi FOE fum I smell the blood of an Englishman. Lots of entries start with the letter E -- EVIL EMPIRE, EMOTICON, EMIGRE, EYE CONTACT, EPIC FAIL, EMBITTERED, plus the crosswordese EEL, EDU, EDT, ERR. Thought it unusual to have 'palm' in a clue and in the fill. No worries, still a great puzzle, David.

EVIL EMPIRE got me in, and I moseyed steadily through the puzzle until the SE, where I couldn't think of the clown, appliance name, wanted "jig" for "Loony tune", and didn't know JEN or TATE. What got me in was a great "aha" at seeing DIOR (that and the clue for PALM READER were first-rate clues). Until that DIOR moment I almost gave up, so the aha, being a life saver, was especially powerful. "Peel" to STEM. "Movie" to SCORE. "Some" to AFEW. A puzzle that built to a climax -- the DIOR moment -- followed by the denouement (the finish). Puzzle as classic story. Terrific experience for me.

Very nice puzzle with a bunch of great long entries. I needed to look up IGER and had a couple of failed checks, but otherwise managed to work most of it out. Never heard of PINKVIAGRA and that slowed me down up there. Had nothing in the SW for a while, but finally having enough crosses to see LINKEDINPROFILE was enough to open up that area. Pluralize DIRTYTRICK and we could have had another presidential reference (or two).

No, Deb. Adam was not kicked out for not listening. He was kicked out for listening -- to Eve: Genesis 17: Then to Adam He said,`Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

This went smoothly and quickly with EVIL EMPIRE getting me off to a good start. This GET(s) AN A (and not just FOR EFFORT).

I liked PEPYS in the NW and DIARY ENTRY in the SE. As always I like long entries in the themeless puzzles, and there were some great ones today. Quite a few unknowns, so some look ups, but for the very first time with a late week puzzle, no checks. I'm giving myself AN A FOR EFFORT.

My first run through the clues left me worried that I'd lose my longest completion streak, but everything other than the NW corner fell into place pretty quickly. PINKVIAGRA took a while.

EMBITTERED Is what I have been since last November. And the bitterness grows, daily, with each news cycle. I could tell, while solving it, that this puzzle was made by a youngun'. That's a comment on content, not quality! I like having the long fills and minimum of three-letter filler. Maybe a bit easy for a Friday, though. I get the joke about PINKVIAGRA, but if you had ever attended a lecture on the myriad reasons why women have so few products available for their own sexual health --as I have -- you wouldn't be laughing. It's all a DIRTYTRICK promulgated by the pharmaceutical companies and the FDA, and fed by societal prejudices toward women. Especially older women. Just ask your mom.

SE Corner gave some trouble when Quidditch player was entered as KEEPER and conquistadors met the INCAs ... changing those helped, but did not complete it till 24D went from RUST to DUST to MUST. YES!

and Elke As requested I am giving you a break, David S., but is it a DIRTY TRICK to have APATHY ('opposite of drive') crossing with PINK VIAGRA in the NW and then SCORE is in the SW ?? Am not EMBITTERED, but was close to an EPIC FAIL , not knowing Quidditch, RONETTES, PIRATE ,ACES , MAYA etc. But knew EVIL EMPIRE and PALMREADER so there. STEM reminds of a Danish JOKE . The STEM of a ripe pear ,when carefully removed, resembles a tiny paintbrush. So , a little kid can be asked if it has A TON of time. If it answers 'yes' it will be handed this tiny brush and told to paint the house..... (remember Victor Borge was Danish ). Giving myself AN A FOR EFFORT . Had fun anyway.

It's Friday, but the article subtitle says "Thursday Puzzle". Thursdays are confusing enough!

Wow. That was so easy compared to yesterday. I struggled with Thursday. But breezed through this. Hard to know why.

pretty slow start but did gain traction. do like David S puzzles. Ended with IT WAS A JOKE! We can all use one nowadays.

Did they make a mistake and put David's name on a Patrick Berry puzzle? The similarities in style are striking. Or do we see Will's hand in cluing? But since Patrick is one of my favorite constructors, I'm fine with it.

Of course, his real name is Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofsky. Krusty is his nom de clown. Oy, gevalt! Maybe not David S.'s bestest, but nothing to really complain about either. 0.90 of my average Friday time

A good mix of things I knew, things I guessed, things I guessed wrong, things I guessed wrong again, things I ran the alphabet on. It ended up not being an EPIC FAIL, so that was good. I always think Bob IGER is going to be Bob ILER, but I see that's the name of an actor instead. I probably won't remember that. My last fills were the V and G in PINK VIAGRA. It sure felt like a Saturday puzzle to me.

Deb, Surely you were thinking Huguenot, not Hottentot, for "French Christian."