Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Jonesin’ 5:08 (Erin) rate it
LAT tk (Jenni) rate it
NYT 5:11 (Eric) [3.14 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker tk (pannonica) [4.55 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
Universal 6:46 (Eric) [3.00 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Sophia) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Xword Nation tk (Ade) rate it
WSJ 4:17 (Jim Q) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “OK, OK” — you’ll see them twice. – Erin’s write-up

Jonesin’ solution 3/3/26

Hello lovelies! This week we have a simple Jonesin’ theme of the letters OK found twice in the theme entries.

• 17a. [Dance with a lot of moving parts?] HOKEY POKEY
• 21a. [“Sure thing”] OKEY DOKE
• 41a. [Investigated further] TOOK A CLOSER LOOK
• 56a. [Place for knock-knocks] JOKE BOOK
• 66a. [Korean simmered rice cake] TTEOK-BOKKI

Other things:

• 70a. [Patch or pipe material] BRIER. It can mean a general prickly plant or shrub, or more specifically the tree Erica arborea, which is used to make pipes. Briar is the more common spelling.
• 37d. [Store whose Djungelskog toy was adopted by a Japanese monkey in a viral video] IKEA. A baby macaque in Ichikawa Zoo named Punch was abandoned by his mother after birth. A video caught him running to the Ikea stuffed orangutan for comfort after being dragged by one of the adults. This poor baby, raised by zookeepers and a plushie.

Until next week!

Daniel Grinberg’s Universal Crossword “Make It Work” — Eric’s Review

Daniel Grinberg’s Universal Crossword “Make It Work” — 3/3/26 (Click to Embiggen)

A hodgepodge of jobs get anagrammed here:

• 17A [*Epic drama] PARAMEDIC It was obvious from this answer that this was an anagram theme.
• 25A [*Peach tree] P.E. TEACHER I saw “Peach” and knew instantly that this would be some sort of teacher.
• 36A [Shifts for an employee? … or what 17-, 25-, 48- and 59-Across literally are] CAREER CHANGES
• 48A [*Emoticons] ECONOMIST This pair amused me more than the others. I don’t think of economists as people who would use emoji and emoticons much.
• 59A [*The Arctic] ARCHITECT

The nice thing about an anagram theme is either the answers work or they don’t. There are no “not quite” answers. On the other hand, there’s usually not much amusing about the anagrammed clues.

I find it more challenging than it’s worth to try to figure out anagrams that are longer than five or six letters, so I just wait until I get a few letters from the crosses. But that’s probably not all that different than how I solve crosswords generally.

Other stuff:

• 9A [Bring shame to] ABASH ABASE would have worked, too.
• 27A [Quickly but carelessly] IN HASTE I do things hastily too often.
• 32A [Cuisine that features pad kee mao] THAI I got this from the crosses and just now looked up pad kee mao, also known as drunken noodles or drunkard noodles. Sounds tasty!
• 46A [Back from a boat trip] ON SHORE/66A [Virgin Voyages vessels] SHIPS We crossed the North Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2 about 20 years ago. Time to go again?
• 22D [Opening line to a former advice columnist] DEAR ANN My childhood newspaper was Vermont’s finest, the Burlington Free Press. There wasn’t really much to it, so I read Ann Landers’ column every day.
• 37D [Food that may be sunny-side up] RUNNY EGG The only way to eat fried or poached eggs is with the whites just barely set and the yolks prone to dripping all over you.
• 49D [Country that sounds cold] CHILE Cute clue, but it doesn’t sound all that cold if you pronounce it the way a Spanish speaker would.

Drew Schmenner’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review

Drew Schmenner’s New York Times Crossword — 3/3/26 (Click to Embiggen)

Where, in the theme set of this puzzle, do you find the NYT Mini Crossword? Spelling Bee? Wordle? Connections? Nowhere. Instead, we have a morning routine that’s about as prosaic as can be:

• 18A [Intentionally cause drama] STIR THE POT
• 26A [Learn all the latest info] GET UP TO SPEED
• 37A [“Before we discuss other matters …” or a hint to the starts of 18-, 26-, 47- and 60-Across] FIRST THINGS FIRST
• 47A [Promgoers’ luxurious rides] STRETCH LIMOS
• 60A [Present for an expectant mom or bride-to-be] SHOWER GIFT

Although I’m a shower-in-the-evening kinda guy, I’ll accept this set of answers as containing things many people do when they start their day. It wasn’t until I’d filled in the grid and reread the revealer than I got the connection between the theme answers. That’s fine; I don’t mind missing a theme while solving. (But I hate to encounter a theme that I can never make sense of.)

Other stuff:

• 1A [Garam ___ (South Asian spice blend)] MASALA Does the parenthetical help anyone get this answer? It’s a gimme without the reference to South Asia if you know of this mixture and a “What?” if you don’t.
• 17A [He-Man’s superheroine twin sister] SHE-RA The original He-Man series came much too late to appeal to me, but my comics-loving nephew was a fan.
• 65A [Person with mainstream likes, pejoratively] NORMIE I don’t remember where I learned this term, but I’ve always been a bit smug that many of my likes are not mainstream.
• 3D [Raps freestyle, in slang] SPITS BARS I know that I picked this one up from a crossword puzzle.

Jared Cappel’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Set in Stone” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Things that can be cast

WSJ • 3/3/26 • Tues • “Set in Stone” • Jared Cappel • solution • 20260303

THEME ANSWERS:

• FISHING LINE
• MAGIC SPELL
• PROTEST VOTE
• BROKEN BONE
• FEATURE FILM

On-brand Tuesday. That is, a mostly enjoyable puzzle that makes me cock my head a bit. Why FEATURE FILM when all FILMs are cast? Why PROTEST VOTE when all VOTEs are cast? I mean, obviously they fit better. Those two in particular felt awfully specific.

The fill here was not on my wavelength. At 70 words, we’re deep in themeless territory, but with five long themers, it’s a daunting task to come up with a clean grid with that low a word count. Why not bump it up to 76 and maybe say “Ta-ta!” to the ANNEAL/SPECTRE/LESLIE crossing (which is where I stumbled the hardest).

Three names in a row at 2-Down, 3-Down, and 4-Down is a bit of a rough way to start. Love me some John OLIVER, but I forgot how to spell Tommy WISEAU‘s name, and Steve ZAHN of “Anaconda” (FEATURE) movie fame is new to me. And TEN CC? Or maybe TENC C? Or perhaps it’s TENCC? [Googles] Oh. None of the above. It’s actually 10 CC. I wonder how often that band spells out the 10 part. Playing their referenced song (“I’m Not in Love”) now… very recognizable. Didn’t know the band name or the name of the tune, despite the title being the prominent lyric. And… holy weirdness… what’s up with the whispered motif “Big boys don’t cry…” at around 2:24? It’s like… the creepiest ASMR-ish thing ever.

I put it on repeat by accident. And you know what? I’m fine with that.

SERT and IGA are a couple more names I didn’t know. Probably should though.

TBH I was surprised when Mr. Happy Pencil said my grid was correct.

Not my fave, but there’s something I do love about Weird Tuesday. And this one was in the pocket for that.

2.75 Stars