Holy moly, that was nasty today, wasn't it? Nice theme, but that fill was a killer! Crunchy one to bite into, though, so that was a nice unexpected surprise.

I hadn't heard of much of the stuff you cited as tricky, except for VIRTU - and that only from seeing it before in a puzzle. AVILA, RIPON, TANAKA... "Here's a copy of the home game, and thanks for playing", I thought to myself, except that I was already playing at home.
Howard B | 06.30.08 - 10:07 pm | #

Wow, what a great Tuesday puzzle continuing the redefinition of what a Tuesday puzzle really is. If this were later in the week, the list of things I wasn't sure of would have been normal. LASTS and AVILA was wicked and I really considered a C there, but had some Catholic grade school to help avoid that fall. One of my research scientists taught in Tulsa. I tried armpit for ASHPIT and wondered if that could possibly be acceptable...it wasn't. ADUE and PSIS wasn't an easy stack. I lost almost a minute due to a typo at General Tso having made it a tao, another good thing from China. BTW, had that dish for lunch...really. IDYL was tricky, but surfaced for me only after I had ID_L.
PhillySolver | 06.30.08 - 10:25 pm | #

Um...if it's Kung Pau chicken, what is PUSE? Because Sit (for) seemed to be POSE, I think PAU has to be PAO.

Orange says: Thanks for catching that. Yeah, I had PAO in my grid but typed it wrong in the blog post.

Also? PUSE is the irregular plural of POO...in someone who's not regular.
cyberdiva | 06.30.08 - 10:47 pm | #

That was one of the hardest Tuesdays in recent memory, if not ever. It would have been tough even for a Wednesday, I thought. It's exceedingly rare for me to have a better time on the Sun than on the Times and the Sun was even a 15x16 today!

But difficulty aside, I thought both were great puzzles. I really liked the theme in the Times, although I had a hard time getting the first entry to parse. I had to work this one middle down and then go back to finish off the top.
Al Sanders | 06.30.08 - 10:48 pm | #

I'm with Al...this was the hardest Tuesday NYT I can remember. It definitely felt more like a Wednesday puzzle, and a tough Wednesday at that. Tough theme...and some tough fill.
Linda G | Homepage | 06.30.08 - 11:33 pm | #

Not a bad puzzle...a little harder than a normal Tuesday. I had some trouble on the SW side since I couldn't get "asspits" out of my brain for some reason.

I kind of liked the themed answers which fell very easily for some reason. Not usually the case for me to be sure.
The Asian Badger | Homepage | 06.30.08 - 11:58 pm | #

Tough puzzle for a Tues. Glad the PAU was a typo. Thought I erred again! Would comment more here except my wife thinks I'm obsessed (might be true?) Keep up the good work.
jae | 07.01.08 - 3:15 am | #

More like a Wed or a Thu puzzle, IMO-- VIRTU was new to me, and I don't expect to see new words in a Tue puzzle... Not complaining though, a nice puzzle, I thought.
Matt | 07.01.08 - 5:42 am | #

ELOI and ETUI plus PAO and TSO. I kinda like that but I don't know why. I'm living near KC and have never heard of AVILA U.

I thought the TEENS clue was awesome. Makes it sound like a prison sentence. Which it is. For parents, you know.

Pretty tough for a Tuesday, as all have said. Wonder what else is in the pipeline this week. Wow.
Scott Atkinson | 07.01.08 - 8:27 am | #

Man, I got eaten up by the NYT last night. It wasn't just LASTS and VIRTU, because I couldn't figure out STAT for whatever reason, then I had a typo elsewhere on top of it. Glad to hear the consensus that it was unusually tough...

I knew exactly where the NYS was going with the MOUSEKETEERS, but it wouldn't fit! I'm sure I'm not the only one whose last box filled was the "3".
Dan | 07.01.08 - 1:17 pm | #

i echo al's sentiments exactly--super-tough for a tuesday NYT, and i too finished the NYS faster (which i almost never do, except on fridays). liked both puzzles, though.

asian badger, i did not have ASSPIT, but every time i see ASHPIT i think somebody's going APESH*T.
joon | 07.01.08 - 2:19 pm | #

About that NY Times puzzle of July 1 (yes, I know this is ancient history . . . I am way behind):

Some of the clues you cite as tricky didn't bother me a lot. But some: virtu, alt (optional hywy rte--well, I guess so); eerie--as inspiring fear . . . that's a stretch.

The one that is trickiest, though, is virtu. I still don't understand how that equates to "objets d'art." extremely weak allusion.
Jim Frenkel | 02.08.09 - 3:31 pm | #

It's a dictionary definition of virtu (as distinct from virtue).
Orange | Homepage | 02.08.09 - 3:53 pm | #