Thursday, January 8, 2026

BEQ untimed (Eric) [4.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) [3.29 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:37 (ZDL) [3.17 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:26+ (Eric) [3.33 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
USA Today 8:11 (Emily) rate it
WSJ 12:00 (Jim Q) [3.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it

Stella Zawistowski’s Universal Crossword “Jumping Ship” — Eric’s Review

Stella Zawistowski’s Universal Crossword “Jumping Ship” — 1/8/26 (Click to Embiggen)

I forgot to read the title before I started to solve this, but it was obvious from the first set of theme answers that different nautical vessels were involved:

• 20A [Scratching post user] PET CAT/22A [“Ancient grain” that’s actually a seed] AMARANTH Catamaran
• 26A [Treat rudely via phone] HANG UP ON/[Canadian $2 coin] TOONIE Pontoon Perhaps the best thing about having a smartphone is that I no longer answer calls from telemarketers and thus never feel the need to hang up on them. What a crappy job that must be.
• 45A [Don’t spoil it!] ENDING/47A [Having drunk enough] HYDRATED Dinghy
• 62A [Squad with a spiel] SALES TEAM/64A [Slowly undermine] ERODE Steamer

Since the circled letters spelled types of boats, I was able to fill some of them in without looking at the clues for the relevant answers. It’s rare that I actually use a theme that way while solving.

Other stuff:

• 6A [Vessel for frying] PAN/9A [Uses a spatula while frying]/FLIPS/14A [Nice smell] AROMA That’s a nicely evocative set of answers. I made pumpkin pancakes the other day and managed to flip them without too much mess for once. I guess that makes up for having inadvertently used cumin instead of cinnamon. (They were weird, but not inedibly weird.)
• 16A [Goosebump-inducing] EERIE/2D [Lake that sounds like 16-Across] ERIE I read the clue for 2D first and immediately knew both answers. Am I clever or do I just solve too many crosswords?
• 53A [From California to New York, say] EASTWARD I blame Horace Greeley for leading me to try WEST-something first.
• 67A [What Type 2 hair has] WAVES I was well into middle age when I learned that there’s a numbering system for whether hair is straight, curly, kinky or whatever. I spent a minute looking for a mistake here because my original answer for 59D [Zero, in tennis] LOVE was NONE (I know; dumb answer). After fixing 57A ANTLER, TONE and WANES didn’t look wrong as I was scanning the grid.
• 68A [Sophia Wilson’s American soccer grp.] USWNT, for the United States Women’s National Team. Ms Wilson is not a name I recognize.
• 61D [Chillax] REST “Chillax” is one of those words that inexplicably annoys me. The OED doesn’t have a usage for it that’s more recent than 2014, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that someone somewhere isn’t still using it.

Daniel Bodily and George Barany Fireball Crossword “Atomic Fireball” – Jenni’s write-up

I expect the Fireball crosswords to be difficult, and I figured a puzzle titled “Atomic Fireball” would be even more so. Turns out that’s not what the title meant (at least I don’t think it was) and sure, it was hard, but not in a fun way.

There’s sort of a revealer at 61a. I say “sort of” because the revelation is in the clue,  not the answer. [Without exception…and what you can say after the statement “Every square in this completed puzzle is a chemical element symbol.”] In order to do that there have to be rebuses. Since the rebuses aren’t symmetrical, there are often more than one in a word, and some symbols are repeated, this information provides no solving assistance at all. In addition, I am not the member of the family who memorized the periodic table for fun in middle school. It was a slog, and if I hadn’t been committed to blogging it I would probably have abandoned ship.

Since my grid came up as incorrect on Puzzazz and I used “check puzzle” to make sure it was just the rebuses that were wrong, they ended up all empty and I didn’t feel like retyping them. Here’s Peter’s grid. I won’t retype all of the rebus entries. I’ll use the space for comments.

Fireball, January 7, 2025, Daniel Bodily and George Barany, “Atomic Fireball,” solution grid

• 7d [Copacati worshiper] is INCAN which I’m sure is technically correct. Since INCA would also be correct and the rebuses aren’t symmetrical this was – not fun.
• 8a [Chance competitors] are the CUBS. I liked this one! Tinker to Evers to Chance…
• 36d [Star of “The Naked Gun”]. Turns out that Liam NEESON played Frank Drebin Jr. in the 2025 version of the film. Leslie Nielsen, of course, played Frank Drebin Sr in the 1988 original. I’m sure Peter and the constructors thought this was oh so clever. I did not.
• 63a [Prompt engineers’ concerns] are SEARCH OPTIONS. Cute, but again unnecessarily misleading in an already unpleasantly difficult puzzle.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: see above re: Liam NEESON. I didn’t know there was a 2025 version of “The Naked Gun.” I also did not know that the CHINA ROSE was introduced to Europe in the 18th century

Mallory Montgomery and Zhou Zhang’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Time: 6m37s

Difficulty: Breezy (<8m)  |  Easy-ish (8-9m30s)  |  Moderate (9m30s-11m)  |  Rough going (11+m)

Mallory Montgomery and Zhou Zhang’s New York Times crossword, 1/8/25, 0108

Today’s theme: GRADE INFLATION (College concern seen in 16-, 25-, 49- and 63-Across?)

• HIGH DIVE (F -> D)
• CROP TOPS (D -> C)
• OVERBOOK (C -> B)
• A LISTERS (B -> A)

Very clever theme.  Didn’t realize until after the fact that the puzzle is undersized to accommodate GRADE INFLATION as a grid-spanner, which also explains (in part) why I moved through it so quickly.  Was stuck forever hunting for an error in my finished puzzle because I swore his name was stylized as FITTY CENT, and TSU looked like any other correct generic sch. crossing..

Cracking: LAGUNITAS, don’t drink beer much anymore but was always fond of their Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’

Slacking: really nothing to complain about today!

Sidetracking: OAKENshield

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1851 — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1851 — 1/8/26 (Click to Embiggen)

This is not a puzzle that you want to try to solve on a laptop while waiting on your car to be serviced. Brendan’s notes: “Thirty-seven of the answers in this crossword are too long and won’t fit in the spaces provided. Each of these answers will either begin or end in the gray square immediately before or after it, or appear in both. When the puzzle is done, all the gray squares will have been used exactly once, and the letters in them (reading left to right, line by line) will spell out a quote by Dan Antopolski.”

I’d have enjoyed this more if  I’d been able to print this out and actually write in the letters in the gray squares. Having to keep them in my head until I revealed the solution was annoying.

Stuff that caught my eye:

• 1A [Sort of crazy] MADDISH That could have been almost anything.
• 17A [___ of the Sorrows (Irish folklore heroine)] DEIRDRE I’ve never heard of this character and guessed at the last few letters.
• 19A [Don known as the “King of Reggaeton”] OMAR I used to listen to a lot of Spanish-language music, but in the last few years, I haven’t heard much of it except for stuff from artists I already knew. Mr. Omar is not someone I knew.
• 28A [NFL coach Bowles] TODD Another name that I didn’t know and will undoubtedly soon forget. For the record, he’s head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He’s one of the few Black head coaches in the NFL, so I should probably try to remember his name.
• 54A [Menounos of TV] MARIA And another name I didn’t know. If the missing letter trick isn’t enough to slow you down, the names might.
• 65A [Where the drinks are paid for by the organizers: 2 wds.] HOST BAR Not OPEN BAR. I’ve made this mistake before in one of Brendan’s puzzles; “host bar” is just not in my vocabulary. I remember now that there’s a difference between a host bar and an open bar that involves how the alcohol is paid for, but I can’t remember what that difference it.
• 1D [Song made of other song snippets] MEDLEY Not MASH-UP.
• 4D [Director Aronofsky] DARREN Finally, a name that was a gimme.
• 7D [Williams who played Lando Calrissian: 2 wds.] BILLY DEE Another gimme. This puzzle would have been much harder without a few gimmes here and there, but I guess that’s almost always true.
• 24D [With the most candles on one’s birthday cake] OLDEST ELDEST would have worked, too, but the quote checks the letter in the gray square.
• 33D [One of the 2026 World Cup hosts] CANADA To the extent that I have any interest in sports, I sort of follow the FIFA World Cup. The other hosts of next years’ Cup are the United States and Mexico.
• 34D [<<, instead of “: 2 wds.] ANGLE QUOTES I didn’t know that’s what those are called, but it makes perfect sense.
• 58D [Hogwarts gamekeeper and groundskeeper] HAGRID Would I have gotten a Harry Potter answer sooner if the whole thing had fit? Not likely.

That quote? HEDGEHOGS: WHY CAN’T THEY JUST SHARE THE HEDGE? Pretty funny, no?

 Ella Dershowitz’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “No Sweat!” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Answers only make sense if you omit a yoga position hidden within the base phrase

WSJ • 1/8/26 • Thurs • No Sweat! • Ella Dershowitz • solution • 20260126

THEME ANSWERS:

• [*Accidental trumpet sound] BLATHER ON Remove the HERON pose to get the actual answer, BLAT.
• [*Romeo or Juliet, e.g.] BOWL OVER. Remove… BOW? and get the actual answer LOVER.
• [*Eden inhabitant] ASWAN DAM. Remove SWAN to get the actual answer, ADAM.
• [*Noshed on] CAME LATE. Remove CAMEL to get the actual answer, ATE.
• [*Get going] STREET ART. Remove… um… REET? to get the actual answer START. Not sure about that one. ***See my aha moment in write-up***
• [*Not now] THE CROWN. Remove CROW to get the actual answer, THEN.
• Revealer: [Get ready to be shot, and yoga-based instruction for making sense of the marked answers] STRIKE A POSE. 
• Bonus themer/revealer in sense [Yoga positions, six of which must be removed from the marked answers] ASANAS. 

Wow. This was a toughy for me, ironically titled “No Sweat!” Lots of sweat for me here. My complete ignorance of the yoga world certainly didn’t help. I thought ASANA was a specific position, but here it seems to imply that it’s a category of positions? I’m not sure… I better look this up before I make more of an idiot of myself.

Actually a clear ASANA definition is harder than I thought to find. Here’s what may be the best of the ones I quickly browsed:

Asana is the physical practice of yoga and relates to the body. Asana is also another name for the poses or postures of yoga. In Sanskrit, the word asana translates as “seat,” specifically for meditation.

Ok. That works for my understanding of the theme then. I assume that HERON, SWAN, CAMEL, and … REET? … are poses. I’m having a bit of difficulty accepting that last one, but that must be it, right? ***OH WAIT… it’s TREE. 🤦‍♂️ my mind saw the correct answer, START, first before omitting the remaining letters. But there are two ways to find START in this entry. I picked the wrong way. I would prefer if there were no way to make an idiotic mistake like that, but it was probably hard enough to find a set of themers that worked and Ella just trusted her solvers to have common sense, which I am clearly lacking.

I struggled idiotically with BOWL OVER too… LOVER stuck out strongly due to the clue [*Romeo or Juliet, e.g.]. So I read the base phrase as BOW LOVER… which… weird.

Anyway, I started strong but once I realized there was a trick I was struggling to figure out in the theme, I floundered. Never quite recovered. Had trouble seeing the unclued base phrases such as BLATHER ON (fair enough, but not a phrase that comes to mind) to the unfamiliar-to-me ASWAN DAM. Had trouble seeing the poses, and then just assumed they’d all be birds… no animals… no… also whatever REET is (lol). Had trouble finding the actual answers at times also. Challenging, yes! Just not as fun as I normally have on a tricky Thursday because not much of this landed squarely in my wheelhouse.

OTHER MISSTEPS / NEW-TO-ME / ERRATA

• Last spot to fill in was COAT, OAR, and TANS. Clued [Nail polish layer] [Water pusher] and [Sits out, perhaps] respectively. TANS‘s clue was particularly tough for me (I think of tanners as lying out more-so than sitting out). [Water pusher] I found very difficult as well for OAR. I guess I don’t equate rowing with pushing. COAT I should not have been hung up on as long- that definitely would’ve helped.
• [Low lady] ALTO. The “lady” part of this clue isn’t sitting right with me. Not sure why.
• [They’re sought after] HIDERS. Do you seek HIDERS often?
• [“And here’s the quick version,” in internet posts] TLDR. Too Long; Didn’t Read. I’m sure I deserve this initialism often.
• [Power, to Pliny] VIS. New to me as clued.
• [Alcaraz and Sabalenka won it in 2025] US OPEN. Read it as “Alcatraz” at first. Wondered why they’d have awards for prisons.
• [Drowning out the quarterback, say] AROAR. As in “This crowd so damned AROAR, I can’t hear the quarterback!” I’m sure it’s a common coach’s complaint. On a side note, why isn’t AROAR accepted by the NYT Spelling Bee?
• [Part of a wet blanket?] DEW DROP. Good one!
• [Fish with blueberry and blood red varieties] TETRA. Sounds delicious. Quite the opposite of the ones that leave an ODOR as a [Fish market feature].

Packed with theme. I really admire the construction of this. The puzzle itself though just wasn’t much for me- Hard to blame my faceplants on anyone else than me though. 3.25 stars.

Wendy L. Brandes & Sally Hoelscher’s USA Today Crossword, “Wrap Up” — Emily’s write-up

Who doesn’t love just one more gift?

USA Today, January 08, 2026, “Wrap Up” by Wendy L. Brandes & Sally Hoelscher

Theme: each downs themer starts (i.e. “up”) with a word that can prepend “wrap” to form a common type

Themers:

• 3d. [Sci-fi device that miniaturizes objects], SHRINKRAY
• 7d. [Classic British dish with an onomatopoetic name], BUBBLEANDSQUEAK
• 36d. [Places to get bumpers buffed and scratches sanded], BODYSHOPS

A fun set of themers today with SHRINKRAY, BUBBLEANDSQUEAK, and BODYSHOPS. They all filled in easily for me, which is always so rewarding. With the theme, we get SHRINK wrap, BUBBLE wrap, and BODY wrap.

Favorite fill: SAKE, RYES, and QUALMS

Stumpers: FLEA (misdirected–thought about the sport), CAST (needed crossings), and ANTE (also needed crossings)

Lots of fresh fill in today’s puzzle! Plus wonderful lengthy bonus fill too! I feel like I unwrapped one last gift that finally arrived–and it was a good one. Loved the theme and themer set, as well as the awesome grid. Great collab! I hope we get more from these two, as this is a fantastic start to the year.

4.5 stars

~Emily