New York Times, Monday, November 24, 2014

I think the one thing interesting about the puzzle is the emails Will and I had back in forth debating whether ROFL stood for "Rolling On Floor Laughing" or "Rolling On the Floor Laughing." Google has more listings for "Rolling On Floor Laughing" (i.e., without "the"). As such, my original theme answer at 28-Across was "On bended knee." That being said, there are some definitions for ROFL that include "the." After some debate, I decided to switch the answer to "On the down low." A side benefit is that this answer is clearly more contemporary. Also, the solver can choose whether or not "the" is used in the theme.

I commend Will for the edits and research. The ultimate puzzle is better for the change, as one cannot challenge the correctness of the theme.

Strong phrases hiding today's theme, ROFL. Hard not to like a puzzle featuring ROLLING PINS being swung while on LAUGHING GAS. Dare I say, Stooge-esque? (That should definitely be a real word.) I like when a puzzle amuses me, and this one did just that.

Rob brings up an interesting point regarding ON vs. ON THE. I actually had a different issue at first, hitching upon seeing ON THE grouped into one phrase, rather than split out into two (using a total of five themers). Heresy! Inconsistent! Blog rants! But then I realized the cleverness of this method, covering all his bases, letting the solver interpret the O as either ON or ON THE; their choice. And with the awesome phrase ON THE DOWN LOW, I realized that 1.) it's perfect and 2.) so aren't me.

Normally I don't mind cheater squares one bit, but today the pair gave me a pause. That black square below MCGRAW chokes off the east section so much, leaving only one way in. Same goes for the square above RASHES with the west. Perhaps this wouldn't have been so noticeable if the rest of the puzzle had a bit of a segmented feeling — the NW and SE seem like closets in a house layout, and the NE and SW could be little panic rooms. Take a look at the grid to the left — removing that one set of black squares does so much to let the grid breathe.

And boy, wouldn't it have been nice to have ROFL be at the very end of the puzzle so as to better hide the theme? Or even if there were a symmetrical entry to ROFL. Hmm, now if we could just think of something good … obviously not NYT appropriate, but I can rarely resist wikipedia pages featuring lolcats.

Just a tad too much AGA, SEN / ENS, CMI, OCT / ESTER glue for me today, but overall, a fun theme concept with strong theme phrases.