Thursday March 13th N.Y.T.

I really enjoy Rex Parker's crossword page and his comments on the N.Y.T. puzzle. I may never have the wealth of words at my call as Rex seems to have, but I enjoy doing the puzzle in ink in my own tedious way (read slow). I was ready to send an email to Rex until I found that his email address is a MAC address and I work with a PC. I know it sounds elitist, but I couldn't take the time to figure out how to use a MAC site.

I was really looking forward to his thoughts on the 3.13.08 puzzle because I was ready to rant! I don't take the double letters in one box aspect lightly. It was unnerving to finally get it and the reason why it took so long is because the answer to the first clue that I got (1 across) was IRRS.

The 23 a. DEE and 63 a. KEEN

Didn't anyone else get the inconsistency here? In my head: if you're going to double letters in a box, do it all the way. The fact the two R's in 1a. were as usual(each in it's own box) set me up for some time-consuming confusion. In the end: could have been more cleverly constructed.