New York Times, Wednesday, July 29, 2020

The idea for this theme came during a visit from Amanda's older brother Art. We were discussing recent news about a large password leak. That got us thinking about all the password requirements — numbers, letters, special characters — and how we could look for normal phrases that met the same requirements. It was a hard search to find these three but we're very happy with them. Many thanks as always to the editing team for adding some great clues, like 46-A!

Ah, those annoying prompts saying "sorry, passwords must contain at least one letter, number, and special character." Come on, just let me use "Jeff123"!

Uh oh. Now that my secret is out, I better go change my passwords. "Jeff321" it is.

TWO PERCENT MILK is such a beautiful example of STRONG PASSWORDism. A number, a special character, and some letters, all in a common phrase. Perfect!

(Okay, I admit it. I confidently filled in ONE PERCENT MILK and steadfastly stuck to TOOO, OWON, and MISE. I was so sure MISE was edible. Not so much.)

IPHONE SEVEN PLUS isn't as good, since it's nearly as obsolete as my sad little Razr flip phone. I'm holding onto my Razr, since it will some day be as amusing to my kids as rotary phones are to me.

ONE MICHELIN STAR … don't most people say that a restaurant got "a" MICHELIN STAR? While solving, I couldn't force myself to believe that ONE MICHELIN STAR was a real phrase. (Something like ONE STAR REVIEW feels more solid.) A better clue could have fixed that, wording that acknowledges that some restaurants have two or even three MICHELIN STARs, but ONE MICHELIN STAR is still a solid rating.

Alternatively, the search strings *ONE*STAR* and *STAR*ONE* turn up a few juicy phrases like COLONEL MUSTARD and STAR JONES. They wouldn't be consistent, but there's something neat about ONE being hidden, perhaps increasing password strength? I'd have enjoyed it if all the themers had hidden numbers.

POUND might also be useful, as in a TEN POUND NOTE or a COMPOUND SENTENCE.

Solid gridsmanship, as I've come to expect from Amanda and Karl; delightful bonuses in DAREDEVIL, SCHLEPPED, NO SWEAT, I BANKER (we finance types love entries like these). Better yet, they worked in those goodies without prices to pay. When your gloopy shorties are … OPS? CONG? EPEE? That's it? That's excellent attention to detail.

Fresh ideas are hard to come by, and much appreciated. If all the phrases had been as spot-on as TWO PERCENT MILK — or featured hidden numbers, as with PAULA POUNDSTONE — this would have gotten serious POW! consideration.