SELFIES

In this social media age of posting, tagging, hashtagging, tweeting, sharing, and TMI, I was inspired to create a crossword that would be interpreted as my Facebook newsfeed, with status updates and selfies chronicling my imaginary life as I traipsed across the globe. I pored over lists of tourist attractions, theme parks, World Heritage sites, landmarks, museums, sporting and concert venues, bucket list locations, etc. looking for side-by-side "ME" letters and tried to garner a varied and fun list of places where a selfie might be snapped. In fact, I googled every one of the locations I used in the puzzle and not surprisingly, there were scores of selfie images of those who had beaten me to the punch.

Some of my selfies that didn't make it to the grid included visits to TIANANMEN SQUARE, TRANSAMERICA PYRAMID, HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME, METROPOLITAN OPERA, NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL, and all but one of every MEMORIAL and MONUMENT you can think of.

Many thanks to Will, Joel, and Sam for their editing, and for coincidentally running the puzzle on the day when I will be visiting 106-across — and yes, taking a selfie!!

SELFIES featured today, tourist attractions all with the M-E string — get it, ME in a selfie? Fun idea. Some neat finds, too, the JEFFERSON MEMORIAL, MADAME TUSSAUDS, TIMES SQUARE all places people go to visit.

BTW, I cringe every time I hear people say "usie," as in a selfie with more than one person. Old man hanging on to the past, kicking and screaming at newfangled terms!

What with so many tourist attractions across the world, I wondered about some of the ones Tracy picked. People go on vacation to see the MALL OF AMERICA? (Sadly, probably yes.) MET LIFE STADIUM I hear is a neat ballpark, but it felt like it paled in comparison to the grandeur or historical value of the three I mentioned above.

RIVER THAMES felt not as strong, too. Don't people tend to take pictures in front of various tourist attractions, with the Thames in the background? Hard for me to imagine going to England specifically to see the Thames.

The theme clues … tl;dr. The puzzle would have been greatly improved by more concise cluing. References to Facebook felt unnecessary. Also, all the kids tell me Facebook is only for old people now, so that made the puzzle feel behind the times. (They won't tell me what is in, for fear that I'll get on.)

Nice gridwork. Tough to get a Sunday grid perfectly clean, but Tracy got pretty darn close, just a bit of SEM and ORANT (a praying figure). That may not seem like such a feat, but most Sunday grids contain well over 10 gluey bits, making those puzzles feel inelegantly crafted.

And how about those great bonuses? OVEN TIMER as a "dingy" thing … as in it dings! RAT TRAP as a [Bad joint], joint = slang for "place." RED TAPE, CAPTCHA, TETRIS, ALARM BELL, LEFT AJAR — all those helped keep me solving. Tracy did so well with spacing out her themers, using black squares wisely to create good separation for easier filling. She's a pro.

Overall, I thought it was a fun idea that got repetitive much too quickly. Also, the mix of places, statues, river, mall, gave it a lack of tightness that "all places" or "all statues" would have allowed for. I think I would have loved it in a 15x15 puzzle, where all these issues could have been addressed.