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FRIDAY PUZZLE – This one by Tim Croce was a tough trek for me. I admired it, not only for its toughness, but also for the crunchy long entries and the devious cluing. This was a humbling experience for me.

It’s Friday, so you would expect things to be tough. And it’s always nice to learn something from your crossword puzzle. I did not know the word OSCINE, for example, but I sure as heck do now. That’s the kind of entry you look at after painstakingly piecing it together and you never, ever forget it.

But it got me a fabulous puzzle opener in “GOD, I HOPE NOT.” I love that entry, and it makes its debut today, so congratulations, Mr. Croce. I had ITUNES STORE, STEVE CARELL and ROSINS (although I messed myself up by misspelling it RESINS for a while), all of which helped me with the clever ITE for “End of Samson?” (think luggage). I guessed the O.

Then I got stuck again in the scrabbly center of the puzzle. I’m not fond of spelling out vitamin names like B TWO, but then they’d be completely banished from crosswords, and when you banish the vitamins, your health suffers. Fortunately, I’m somewhat up on my Rimsky-Korsakov and knew of “Le COQ d’Or,” but please don’t ask me to sing any of it.

And so on. I was grateful for any toehold I could grab, and I worked to piece them together until they all met up with each other. I guess that’s par for the Friday course, but I’d like to highlight some of the really cool stuff I saw along the way.

In addition to the above, I really liked DIE LAUGHING, RELEASE DATE (especially clued as “National coming out day?”), DEMONESS, TEA DANCE, TREE RINGS, TURNED THE TABLES, SUNTAN OIL, ACIDIFIED and DIVISIBLE. (Don’t ask me why. I just liked writing those last two in. Some entries are like that.)

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THURSDAY PUZZLE – I don’t normally give out stars or special accolades for puzzles because I think each one should be considered on its own merit, but I will freely admit that I have a special weakness for constructors who can make their grids do incredible things. And today’s puzzle by Kacey Walker and David Quarfoot does incredible things.

There will be people who don’t like this grid, because they feel that the only fair puzzle is one in which each entry has only one possible answer. To them I say, whatever floats your boat. This one floats mine. I don’t personally know anyone besides Mr. Quarfoot (and his collaborator Ms. Walker, whom we meet for the first time today) who could pull something like this off.

The granddaddy of New York Times crossword multiple-possible-answers-in-a-single-slot -that-also-work-in-the-crossings is, of course, this puzzle from 1996, which took no chances when running the name of the victor in that year’s presidential election. There have been a few others since then, but today’s puzzle blows them all out of the water, and we have some lovely SCRABBLE racks to thank for that.

Speaking of which: A far less disciplined writer could make a well-worn joke about that, but frankly I’m tired of getting smacked with a rolled-up copy of the morning edition, so disciplined I shall remain. I hope those of you who are tempted will follow suit. One further note: I have no idea what will be marked correct in any of the electronic versions of today’s puzzle. Due to the multiple possibilities of the theme answers, I would imagine it would be very difficult to code.

Ms. Walker and Mr. Quarfoot are both SCRABBLE enthusiasts, and they offer three possible racks (I’m watching you guys in the comments!) at 26-, 36- and 44 Across. Now here’s the incredible part: Not only can you ANAGRAM the words in each slot to make three possible SCRABBLE-legal entries (at least as of today; see Mr. Quarfoot’s notes below), but there are four letters in each entry that can be switched around, and those “switchings” work in all of the crossings as well. Is that clear? It’s tough to describe, so I highly recommend just solving and enjoying it. The grid will be a mess, but who really cares? You don’t run across fun ideas like this every day, and at least in this SCRABBLE game you don’t have to worry about your pets eating your tiles.

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Administrivial Free Puzzle Book Alert! Puzzazz has a free e-book of Hangman riddle puzzles called “Jumping to Conclusions,” written by Bruce Leban and available as a ‘thank you’ to their customers and supporters. Click here for more information about how to download it.

WEDNESDAY PUZZLE – Sometimes puzzles that have been accepted for publication wind up in inventory until a good time to publish them can be found, and that’s the case with today’s grid by Patrick Blindauer.

You can read more about the acceptance process for this puzzle in Mr. Blindauer’s notes, but what makes this interesting to me is seeing how a constructor’s skills evolve over time. There’s nothing at all wrong with Mr. Blindauer’s puzzle today, short of a bit of junk, but compared to some of his more recent theatrical puzzle outings, it’s a bit on the plain side. Today’s theme contains two-word phrases where the first letters start with P and A. The revealer at 38 Across is a nice touch, and the theme entries are lively. I particularly liked PARK AVENUE and PARTY ANIMAL. The only entry making its debut is ASKS OVER.

The clues kick things up a notch. I liked “Bag holder?” for TEAPOT, “Part of a return address?” for I.R.S., “Cause of a gut feeling?” for ULCER and my favorite, “Ones coming out of the closet?” for LINENS (didn’t see that one coming at all.)

Let’s hear more from Mr. Blindauer:

Constructor’s Notes:

This was submitted July 7, 2009, and accepted the following December, so I’m thrilled to see it finally make the paper. It was submitted as a Thursday, though the theme is on the simple side so using it as a Wednesday makes sense.

If I were to redo it today, I’d try to avoid the partial IT HOT and the abbr. SAS, but otherwise the fill seems pretty clean. I’m glad my EPA clue and a couple of my punny clues made the cut.

I’m not partial to partials like IT HOT myself, but if you had avoided it today, Mr. Blindauer, I wouldn’t have had reason to play one of the best movie endings ever:

Your thoughts?

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MONDAY PUZZLE – What better way to start our solving week than with a message from an ADORING constructor?

This is John Guzzetta’s third puzzle in The New York Times, and he’s clearly taken with us. Why wouldn’t he be? We’re fabulous.

Mr. Guzzetta has brought four people — a seismologist, a ship captain, a tailor and an arsonist, which sounds like the beginning of a “walk into a bar” joke — together and had them declare their devotion to us in a way that would tip us off to their vocation (or avocation, in the case of the arsonist) if we didn’t know it already. So the seismologist says, “You really ROCK MY WORLD!” and the ship captain says, “You really FLOAT MY BOAT!” I’ll let you discover the messages from the other two people.

I liked this one. It’s a light, frothy opening to our solving week with no speed bumps, a clean fill and a cute theme. There’s some nice nontheme fill — I liked CAMP OUT, STIR FRY, LIP SYNC and ZEPHYRS.

Clue of the Day for me was “Go for a wok?” for STIRFRY. Because besides the adoration, it always helps to start your week off with a giggle. Thanks, Mr. Guzzetta and Will Shortz.

Let’s check in with Mr. Guzzetta:

Constructor’s Notes:

Hello all! Landing in a Monday slot has been a personal goal for a while, with more failures than I care to admit. I really appreciate those who do it better than I do, with a near-perfect balance of smoothness and snappiness. REATA still irks me, but it permitted STIR FRY, ZEPHYRS, LIP SYNC, and SITCOM, so I went with it. Anyway, I hope the final product suits your fancy!

By the way, I still have a lot to learn about clues, because Mr. Shortz changed most of them.

Remember URI Geller, the mentalist who claimed to bend spoons with his mind? His act has long since been discredited, but he’s back and attempting to bend the iPhone 6 (the smartphone is known for a flaw in the design that caused it to bend when carried in a back pocket), with the help of the British edition of the International Business Times U.K.:

Your thoughts?

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SUNDAY PUZZLE – I spent a good part of my early career in advertising, and I was always amazed at how hard the media department worked to make sure that the clients’ products got in front of the television-viewing audience.

Things started to get really dicey for the ad agencies when the TV-watching public discovered that if they videotaped their favorite shows and watched them later, they could fast-forward through the stuff no one really needs to see, like Beyoncé trying to convince the world that she actually shops at Wal-Mart. Later on, DVRs made it possible to “zap” the commercials at a much faster speed.

But I’ll tell you a secret: I’m glad we can “zap” ADs. People are more in a rush these days, and when you are binge-watching the latest season of “Scandal” all in one sitting, time is money. Zapping those 20 minutes of commercials in each episode add up means you can get back to your life that much quicker.

So thank goodness Matt Ginsberg has come along and is encouraging us to “zap” the AD rebuses right out of his puzzle. The nine Across theme entries are familiar terms with an AD rebus somewhere inside, but if you “zap” them, they make other, mostly in-the-language phrases that have been clued in a punny way.

This is a very clever theme, and it worked well for some of the answers. In particular, I liked taking ON THE SHADY SIDE, dropping the AD to get ON THE SHY SIDE, and cluing it as “Somewhat bashful?” That’s just beautiful. And LEGAL VICE from LEGAL ADVICE, clued as “Cigarettes or booze?” Terrific. Ditto IRISH BALL from IRISH BALLAD. FOLLOW THE LEER? Pretty good, if not a bit icky, and not something someone would normally do. I hope. LIES FIRST? O.K.

Then we get to terms like OPTION AGENCY. Is there such a thing? And I’ve never referred to the “Local afternoon news” as the FIVE O’CLOCK SHOW. The five o’clock news, maybe. CHANGE OF DRESS? I get it, but it just didn’t hit my ears right. BRO MINDED yielded a chuckle from me, but my point is that it’s not a thing, even if you clue it that way. In my humble opinion, manipulating phrases like this should, ideally, yield something that makes surface sense. That’s a tough thing to do to a solver on a Sunday, when there’s so much real estate to cover.