LAT 6:21 (Kyle) 
[2.00 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 25:02 (Eric) 
[3.60 avg; 21 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) 
[2.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Universal (Sunday) 8:40 (Jim P) 
[3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) [3.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
WaPo tk (Matt G) 
[3.92 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Michael and Oliver Schlossberg’s New York Times Crossword “Roundabouts” — Eric’s Review
Michael and Oliver Schlossberg’s New York Times Crossword “Roundabouts” — 3/29/26 (Click to Enlarge)
Congratulations to Oliver Schlossberg, who is making his New York Times puzzle debut (and also his debut in any publication reviewed by Diary of a Crossword Fiend)!
This was one of those high-concept themes that for me was almost not worth sticking out. Or maybe it was just the thought of trying to explain how the “roundabouts” work.
If you’ve ever encountered one of these driving, it’s just like that: You enter a “circle” and exit to the right at the appropriate point.
I’ll do the first one and leave the other four to you:
- 17A [Convenience store] MART
- First exit: 48D [Kendo or aikido] MARTIAL ARTS, with MART from 17A.
- Second exit: 40A [Stickler for military discipline] MARTINET, again using 17A.
- Third exit: 5D [Common vessel for a cosmopolitan] MARTINI GLASS, again using 17A. The trick here is that you have to read from bottom to top.
I found this slow going, even after figuring out how the roundabouts work. Part of that was undoubtedly the 15 answers that exit each roundabout, which are incomplete and appear as gobbledygook in the completed grid. Part of that was answers that will challenge many solvers, such as 13A ASGARD, 23A TIN HAT, 28A ON VACAY (ugh), 40A MARTINET, 76A ALCATRAZ, 90A MARILYN, 95A DRAGNET, 104A ARMAGNAC, 16D APOLO, 31D EDERLE, 33D MAUSER, 51D DARTH, 108A RECTO and 52D BUTTIGIEG (a spelling challenge for me and, I assume, others). Some of those took a bit of tugging to sort out.
Other stuff:
- 47A [Four Corners tribe] UTE A gimme, as I live less than 25 miles from the Southern Ute tribal headquarters.
- 45D [They’re over two feet] KNEES Not SHOES.
- 46D [Spot in the Bible?] SEEST Cute clue.
Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post Crossword “Lost at Sea” — Matthew’s Review
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “Lost at Sea,” 3/29/2026
Bit of a classic theme mechanism this week, where certain squares in themers are ignored in the crossing entries, and an on-the-nose revealer ties it together. Let’s dig in to “Lost at Sea:”
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- 22a [*Chance for new teams to select players from other teams (3)] EXPANSION DRAFT
- 39a [*Programming problem that occurs repeatedly? (2)] ENDLESS LOOP
- 64a [*Creature believed to have caused a great fire, in an urban legend (3)] MRS O LEARYS COW
- 74a [*Peak (1)] HIGH WATER MARK
- 96a [*Rhyming member of the original inductees to the National Toy Hall of Fame (3)] ETCH A SKETCH
- 119a [Losing out on an opportunity … like this puzzle’s starred answers when reading several Down answers that cross them] MISSING THE BOAT
- 125a [Emulate any of the circled words .. and what you can spell by taking one letter per circled word] FLOAT
So each themers ends with a type of boat (something that FLOATs), but those are “missed” in the crossing down entries, which are valid crossword fill with or without the circled letters, but clued to the “without” option.
The parentheticals in each theme clue point to the letters needed from each boat entry to spell FLOAT, as alluded to in 125a.
“Only” six theme entries (inclusive of the revealer) leaves ample room for longer and entertaining fill, and I enjoyed this more than a typical Sunday as a result. A nicely open grid that makes good use of that space.
Specific highlights: “Off” is a lovely misdirect in the clue for SLAY, used as a verb // This is at least the second time Evan has clued ENID to the “Wednesday” character, who is a highlight of the show. I wouldn’t mind a Barenaked Ladies reference every once in a while, though ;-) // I don’t know a lot about Jean CLAUDE Van Damme, but I do know the below commercial, which I am happy to rewatch // This is the second time this week I’ve seen AUTOBIO in a puzzle, after never seeing it (short for “autobiography”) before. I suppose?
Cheers!
Doug Peterson’s LA Times crossword “DON’T STOP NOW” – Kyle’s write-up
LA Times solution grid “DON’T STOP NOW” – Doug Peterson – Sunday 03/29/2026
Thanks Doug for today’s LA Times puzzle. Let’s dive into the theme:
- 22A [*American Samoa’s capital] PAGO PAGO
- 29A [*Dramatic ending for a tied hockey game] GOLDEN GOAL. At this year’s Winter Olympics, both Team USA men’s and women’s hockey teams defeated Team Canada via a golden goal to win the Olympic title.
- 35A [*Mohair source] ANGORA GOAT
- 55A [*”Stranger Things” monster] DEMOGORGON. A bit of the history of this particular monster through the ages.
- 79A [*Symbol often adorned with a “Doodle”] GOOGLE LOGO
- 100A [*Smugly sanctimonious sort] GOODY-GOODY
- 107A [*Wasting time] GOOFING OFF
- 15D [*Martial arts-themed toy line] LEGO NINJAGO. Ninjago is the titular setting of a TV show produced by the Lego Group in the 2010’s, for which the toy line was created.
- 66D [*Band with the 1998 hit “Iris”] GOO GOO DOLLS. I heard this song on the radio countless times as a kid.
- 117A [Make it big, or a hint to the pairs found in the answers to the starred clues] GO PLACES. Did you spot all the pairs of GOs?
Impressive theme density and variety!
Notes on fill and clues:
- 3D [Immersive gaming gear, briefly] was tricky! I got VR___ off the Acrosses, and first threw in VR HEADSET. Then, when I got 26A STOLES (I couldn’t remember the American Samoa capital off the top of my head) I changed it to VR CONSOLE. Finally, once I had the theme worked out, I was able to deduce PAGO PAGO and thereby get the correct answer, VR GOGGLES. Phew! Great entry.
- 8A [WNBA star Reese] ANGEL. Angel Reese plays power forward for the Chicago Sky.
- 82D [Mesoamerican language family common in Oaxaca] ZAPOTECAN. This family includes the Zapotec and Chatino language groups, spoken by over half a million people in Mexico.
- 111A [Poet Amy who won a Pulitzer Prize posthumously] AMY. Her work What’s O’Clock won in 1926, the year after her death. More about her and her works at Poetry Foundation.
- 97D [Peter of “The Lion In Winter”] O’TOOLE. One of my all-time favorite films.
Ricky Sirois’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Additionally…”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers are familiar two-word phrases except the final word has been changed into an adverb with the addition of LY.
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Additionally…” · Ricky Sirois · 3.29.26
- 23a. [Standard amount to tip per drink?] DOLLAR, GENERALLY.
- 45a. [Sumo wrestler’s shirt size?] MEDIUM, RARELY.
- 57a. [Unlock, like a safe during a heist?] OPEN SECRETLY. Here the first word becomes a verb instead of a noun like most of the others.
- 86a. [Tractor-trailer?] SEMI, FORMALLY.
- 94a. [“Magnificent, I’m 100% in!”?] GRAND, TOTALLY. This one isn’t clued quite the same as the others. TOTALLY is a separate and equal interjection to GRAND, at least that’s the way I’m reading it.
- 120a. [Say “To be honest, I’m just estimating”?] BALLPARK FRANKLY. Another one where the first word becomes a verb.
- 13d. [Makeup of iceberg lettuce?] WATER, MAINLY. I like this one a lot.
- 68d. [Heir to the family fortune?] CHILD, LIKELY.
Not totally consistent in the parts-of-speech alterations, but I still found this enjoyable. It was pretty clear what was going to happen upon uncovering the first theme answer, but the puzzle still kept me guessing throughout. And I was happy to see that symmetry was maintained (at least, near as I can tell), despite eight theme answers with two of them in the Down direction.
Long fill is very good too with highlights MAD MONEY, LASER BEAM, DARWINISM, TATER TOT, ALL-NATURAL, DEATH STARE, OLD FLAMES, and even FOREHEADS. A great set! Some crosswordese made an appearance (ESTAR, TYR, ATTA) but nothing beyond the pale.
Clue of note: 5a. [Palm-rolled hairstyle]. LOCS. Short for dreadlocks. I’ve usually heard them called “dreads” but this makes sense.
3.5 stars.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
I was impressed that this idea worked, and even more impressed that it was still pretty fun to solve. Usually with a feat of construction like this, you have to choose one or the other.
I agree! Really fun Sunday, I really dug the theme and how it worked out. I knew MARTINI GLASS going down, but couldn’t figure out at first how it would go in, then got GLASS (backwards) from the crosses, and when I finally got down to the “entrance” of the roundabout, saw how it worked. Really nice, fun solving experience. Only the NE took me a bit to finish, even after having BUTTONFLIES. Great puzzle!
Working through the roundabouts (what my family called traffic circles back when my father owned a car) in the NYT was actually what kept me going, and I admired how smoothly it worked once I got it. It took a while to figure that out after I saw only that some turns would form new words. I also had to see whether the circles in the centers of each would contribute the letter O.
The fill was much less my thing, and I had doubts about some clues or answers, enough to slow me a long while. Eric mentions pretty much all the sticky points. I don’t think RARE GASES felt quite right either, though. Still, I’ll call the puzzle on balance a novel, creative positive thanks to its theme.
“Rare gas” is another term for “noble gas.” They’re inert gases, but not quite inert. “Stable” triggers some people. These poor elements can’t catch a break.
I certainly know what noble gases are. I majored in physics at a top university and had a successful career developing college texts, including first-year chemistry texts (one of whose authors also wrote a terrific text in quantum chemistry). But no, I’ve never heard them called rare gases.
Rare gas is the earliest name. When more was understood about them, chemists realized some were not very rare at all, so they switched to noble gas or inert gas. There’s no name that isn’t controversial, so we should stick with “the rightmost column of the periodic table.”
Out of curiosity, who did the quantum chemistry text?
Peter Atkins (Oxford University), Molecular Quantum Mechanics (W H Freeman pub.). I feel lucky to have known him and become aware of it. I did myself the favor back then of reading it. I’m sure I have forgotten so much of what I managed to learn.
Apologies. MQM wasn’t published by Freeman. It’s from Oxford University Press.
That’s a nice book. I’ve come at it from the physics side instead into materials, but quantum chemistry is an interesting area.
Took me a while to figure out what was going on with the roundabouts, but I had the trick figured out by the time I got to the last one in the NE. I found the overall fill unusually difficult for a Sunday, but it was finishable with one lookup (APOLO). Pretty good puzzle, more challenging than usual.
APOLO Ohno was one of my rare sports gimmes. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since the Turin Olympics (pretty much the last time I watched a significant amount of any Olympics).
NYT: I found this an unpleasant struggle. It was very hard to see which way the little arrows went, and after I filled it in I was told there was a mistake (or several…). I made some changes but still couldn’t get it right, so hit reveal. BUTTONFLIES was the one that got me. Annoying.
That was y last to fall, too.
+1
Puzzle: Universal (Sunday); Rating: 3.5 stars
The grid structure created a very horizontal board, with lots of long and original fill running across the grid, and just a little too much crossword-ese shorties running up and down. Nice puzzle overall.
NYT: When solving this puzzle in the app, I made the mistake of putting in rebus squares at some of the roundabout exits, so even though I understood the answers I was given an incorrect solve. Seeing the single letters in Eric’s screenshot made me realize that you are meant to think of picking up the letters as you drive around the roundabout, which is much more elegant!
NYT: Well, I don’t much care for roundabouts in real life, and I guess I care less for them in a crossword. I decided to give up with about half the grid filled (some of it incorrectly). Started with rebuses, and decided that didn’t really work, but never quite caught on to the trick. Part of the problem, I think, was that I desperately wanted “Convenience store” to be MINI-MART or KWIK-MART, or something like that. MART by itself doesn’t say “Convenience store” to me.
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 4.5 stars
I thought the WaPo puzzle was a lot of fun today, and I especially enjoyed, as usual, the multiple levels at which the theme worked.
Great puzzle from Evan! Fun solve, fun theme… all it needed was ANI Difranco ;-)
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 4.5 stars
Same. I thoroughly enjoyed myself…I’ve said it before, but it’s true: Evan genuinely cares about his solvers’ enjoyment!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
NYT
A wonderful puzzle. I found the theme challenging but doable with a couple of aha moments. The fill was solid.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
NYT
A puzzle that wants you to admire its constructive cleverness but ultimately is a let down with crappy fill. A real slog.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
A complete mess … and no fun at all.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
NY Times
Late to the party again but I don’t solve in one sitting. I let this one drag out but I enjoyed it, super clever IMHO. I thought about quitting as some alluded tobut I’m glad I didn’t. And BTW, Eric, i liked the inclusion of “And the Band…..”. My son put me on to that song a few years ago and I sing it every once in a while. I love the lyrics and the story behind that terrible battle that few people now-a-days know about. I believe the reason you posted it was the reference to “tin hat”.