New York Times, Tuesday, November 12, 2013

This theme idea came in the way that many constructors get their ideas — at the last possible time one would think they'd come up with one. Believe it or not, I was watching Jeopardy! one night while drinking something from Dunkin' Donuts when a player hit a Daily Double. I noticed the two phrases and their alliteration on the letter D, and the rest, as they say, is history. Then I simply added the twist of IN2D for an extra kicker in the SE corner. As an avid fan of Jeopardy! I was upset that due to certain constraints that Daily Double didn't make it into the grid, but I feel I came across enough common phrases to make the theme work. I hope Trebek will understand.

67A is a mean trick to throw in a Tuesday puzzle. Still, the theme is otherwise straightforward, so Tuesday feels right. I tried to make the lower-right corner as easy as possible. Not surprisingly, the clue for 60D was my addition.

A straightforward theme today, phrases starting with D and D. The dork in me so badly wanted DUNGEONS and DRAGONS to appear somewhere as bonus entries, but I suppose I'll have to settle for entertaining myself with my +1 laptop of doom.

Really nice theme answers, well-chosen from the universe of D and D type phrases. It is a shame that DAILY DOUBLE didn't make it in, but I was glad to hear Mike say that he gave it up in order to make a better puzzle. It's extremely difficult as a constructor to let go of a great entry, and too many of us hang on for dear life, even though it means there are heavy OLEO (or is that OLIO?) and ORT prices to pay.

This is a good example of why most of the time, constructors break up the three first across answers 4/5/4 or 3/5/5 (or some permutation thereof) instead of a 3/6/4 arrangement. There's a lot of fun fill in the very NW corner, with JEDI and JETS and EARP, but the center has the unfortunate APORT. Trying to fill a six-letter stack is (perhaps surprisingly) much harder than filling a five-letter stack. This arrangement also has the drawback of the NW and SE corners feeling a bit separated from the rest of the grid. I certainly appreciate APOGEE and RATED G, very fun answers, but the price of including APORT and ROTA seems a bit high to me.

Finally, neat inclusion of a number in the revealer. It happens so infrequently that it had me stumped for long seconds, and I appreciated it when I finally figured it out. I wish IN2D had more of an "in-the-language" feel, as IN3D seems much more common to me, but still, it was a fresh way to tie together the phrases, turning a common type of theme into something a little new.