New York Times, Monday, August 3, 2020

I'm super excited to be making my NYT debut!

I just graduated from Harvard where I studied computer science and math, subjects that feel like puzzles to me. Since graduating, I've moved to the Philly area for a new job. My dad has solved crosswords for a long time, and I got into them by working alongside him. I hadn't considered making them until my girlfriend made one for me. Although that puzzle didn't exactly follow NYT rules, she does have one in the queue that you will hopefully see soon. I'm very thankful that she introduced me to constructing, and I am also grateful towards her, my parents, and brother for test solving my puzzles.

This puzzle started when I was thinking about how the revealer could point to the phases of matter in a funny way. I had a couple options for each of the phases, so I had a decent amount of flexibility with creating a grid. I noticed that BRACELET and SWIMSUIT could fit crossing three theme entries, and I built the grid around that. Originally, I had broken up ALARM BELLS and DAISY CHAIN, but I decided that they add color and grid flow. Also, I thought that solvers would likely not confuse which of the answers were themed because the theme was fairly straightforward. I'm very happy with how the fill ended up. I like the long entries, and I think that there are only a few minor subpar answers. Although the theme isn't too exciting, I think the fill helps make the puzzle fun.

I hope you enjoyed solving!

The unabashed physics dork in me loved JUST A PHASE as a punny way of summing up SOLID, LIQUID, GAS, PLASMA. The father in me also loved it, but for a different reason. One day, far, far, away, there will come a time when I don't have to yell at my kids that GASes and LIQUIDs are fine, but they have to flush the toilet after depositing SOLIDs.

It's been a long phase.

I've seen many a crossword including SOLID, LIQUID, and GAS, but PLASMA is a great bonus. Well, at least for those of us who delight in teaching our 5-year-olds about force diagrams and the concepts required to predict projectile motion.

No wonder my kids throw so many things at me.

I'd love an ordering, with PLASMA to GAS to LIQUID to SOLID, but I'm okay with mixing them up so LIQUID ASSET could be featured. What a great entry! I (unsurprisingly) spent an hour coming up with a couple of ways to get the themers in order, but (surprisingly), I didn't like them as much as what we see today. PLASMA SCREEN TVS is so much more solid (groan) than PLASMA SCREENS, which would have balanced out ITS JUST A PHASE nicely.

And what fine gridwork, in a debut! I'd usually recommend newbs to avoid long acrosses, but ALARM BELLS and DAISY CHAIN are well worth a bit of AMT and SSE. Elsewhere, I appreciated that Eric stuck to lesser offenders like OTRO.

There's something amusing about the doubles inside OHHI and NAAN next to each other, too. HA HA!

All in all, an entertaining Monday puzzle that might appeal to my dork friends more than the general solving population, but I appreciate that it's still accessible to most.