Thursday, September 10, 2026 — Simeon Seigel, aka "Mr. Thursday", Strikes Again!! 🥳😱

0:00Welcome to Gene and Mike, do the New York Times Crossword. Hi, I'm Gene. And I'm Mike. And today we are doing the Crossword for Thursday, September 10th, 2026. So, on what I've been reliably told is National TV Dinner Day. Whoa, no one told me. No one told you. Did you find yourself well prepared to do this Crossword? No. Really? No, not at all. So you had to adapt on the fly. This was a tricky one. I found it to be very tricky. I had a whole lot of trouble with this just like I had with yesterday's. I'm concerned there's some sort of a streak going on here. Or a streak ender might be coming. That's what I'm thinking. Right. Well, the thing was kind of hard to figure out. But once you figured it out, it certainly helped solve the puzzle.

1:02But it was tricky. Care to elaborate on that? Okay. Well, the thing clues were obvious because they were italicized, but they also had blanks in the words like you were supposed to fill in those blanks. And if you fill in the blanks, it was obvious what the letters were. And they were the same letter in each case. But what you needed to do then was to create a word that described those missing letters. So the first one was 17 across. And that was PR blank, W blank, N K L E with a question mark. So it looks like Perry Winkle without the eyes. So and Perry Winkle is a shade of blue. And so the correct answer there was eyes of blue spelled EYES, but pronounced as if you

2:11were talking about two eyes in a word. And since Perry Winkle's blue, it was eyes of blue. Now, did you get that? No. I had an additional hardship. I forgot what Perry Winkle meant. I looked at that and thought, that's Perry Winkle. And then I thought, what's Perry Winkle? And I had this vision of paint, but not blue, so not blue paint. Right. Uh, another one, 34 across was PR OC blank, D U R E blank. So obviously it was procedure without the E's. So the answer there was E's of operation, because procedure is an operation. So the E's of operation are what needed to be failed in the Phillips blanks. Okay. And we had 51 across. We had GRU blank of blank O R blank O ISES.

3:16So it looks like a group of purposes. And the answer there was without the P's. Right. The answer was P's in a pod, because a group of purposes is a pod. So P's in a pod. Guess they couldn't do group of orcas. No. Too bad. Nope. There's not enough P's. So, uh, and then we had two going down. 45 down was PLA blank E for a blank ASE. So it looks like place for a case without the C's. And the answer there was C's in court. C's spelled S E E S, but sounding like C's as two C's. So, and then we also had 11 down, which was, this is where I finally figured out what they were doing. M I N blank, SC blank, L E. So it's minuscule without the U's.

4:20And then a second word was Q blank, A and T, T I T Y, which would be quantity. So minuscule quantity without the U's, the answer there was U's in a pinch. So minuscule quantity would be a pinch. And what, what you need there are the U's. So U's in a pinch. Right. So, extremely, extremely clever. But boy, hard to suss out when you're trying to do a puzzle. Right. You know, I looked at minuscule quantity and thought, okay, it's got to be tiny something. And so I was trying to make tiny work. Uh-huh. And I was sort of hopeless. Right. The, the one that turned out to be procedure E's of operation. Well, I had a lot of trouble with the A of operation because it was pitching staff question mark. And I thought, oh, it's got something to do with ads. And I went for salesmen, which when you think about it now that I'm thinking about it in

5:23the light of day, a salesperson isn't the same as a person who makes ads at all. They have nothing in common. But last night salesmen sounded really good for a long time. And no, none. Let me just check this for a moment. No, none of the letters worked. No. So, so that slowed me down. Uh-huh. So, and there were other clues that were tricky, I thought. 46 across. The ground dwelling game bird of the Western U.S. Sagehand. Right. Right. I'm like, I got hen. And then I had like, I thought it was maybe Sego for a while. But I think that is not a spice. Sego. Sego. Sego. Sego. Sego has to be something. Yeah, it might be a plan. Oh, okay. So. What did you find tricky? 47 across. Port Mental, a radical environmentalist. Echo tour. Mm-hmm.

6:23Echo tour, probably. Yeah. Just like saboteur. Uh-huh. Or 23 across. More app to cut in lines, say. Pushier. Yes. Pushier. No. I got that sooner than I got echo tour. That was sort of towards the end of things. Because let's see, 43 down was vent opening. And that was pre. I thought that was good. Yes. But they gave me the second E of echo tour. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The very last across clue. Filler akin to like or I mean, you know, spelled YKNOW. You know. You see, I thought they were looking for some specific term, some figure of speech. Oh. And I was trying to think, what do they call those little filler words? Yeah. And I think the answer is little filler words. Yes. So you know, was just akin to, they were just looking for another filler word. Uh-huh. But boy, when I hit the Y and I just did not want to put a K there.

7:26Yeah. Because that did not look like it was going to work. Yeah. Yeah. About 29 down. I thought it was kind of funny. A annoying knuckling. I'm like, what is an annoying knuckle? A annoying knuckle. And then finally it came to me. Oh, noogie. Yes. How about eight down, the grooved parts of golf irons, club faces. Right. I got club and I had like, what am I supposed to call the grooves? But they were just really the groove parts. It was the faces. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't the groove itself, but where the groups were located. Sure. And I thought, well, what do you call the flat part of the end of a golf, the face, I guess. Oh, so you got that fairly expeditiously, it's like it took a little bit. Right. Of course, you are talking to a person who confused salespeople and ad executives. So I didn't have much of a, much of a chance here.

8:28I didn't know 44 across. This would have been very handy. All the sister on the Brady bunch. I headed ending in CIA and I thought, oh, it could be Alicia. That sounded good. Oh, Alicia. Alicia? You've never heard. I can see. Yes. Alicia, you mean Alicia? I don't know how you pronounce it, but I was going for ALY CIA. Marshall. It was Marshall. Yes. That was the correct answer. That's right. I didn't know the horror director Astor 38 across Ari. Did you know Ari Astor? No, I did not. So I wanted to go for a John, Jayl and I thought that sounded like a good name for a horror director. I wonder if they've, you know, sometimes they've had clues like apt name for someone, like apt name for a yoga coach, Matt. Right. I wonder what would be an apt name for a horror director slash? Yeah. Go over. Oh, that's very good. Yes.

9:2850 across. Two, two noise. I thought, well, two. And I thought, oh, two. It made it as a, you know, two. Oh, nice. Two, but then I'm like, well, I can't say can't be two. And it wasn't two. It was chug. Chug, chug, chug. I guess. See, I had 47 down, say again was echo. So I had it starting with an E. So I said, starting with a C. So that was pretty straightforward for me. One clue. I'd have 100. Yeah. I got echo and then I thought, oh, two. But I'm like, oh, no, it can't be two. Six down. I've seen this before, but it didn't register. Utah's blank state university, Weber. Weber state. And I'm trying to guess what they're, what their mascot is. I really hope it's a dancing grill. Oh. I can find it would be a duck. Oh, okay. Oh, yes. I sound water bird. Water foul.

10:28But that would require, wouldn't that require, that would, would require two bees, right? Weber. Because it's just one bee. That would be, well, of course, your pronounce it Weber, don't you? Yeah. Interesting point. I'm still sticking with my dancing grill. Oh, well, I think. 32 down was rotating feature at the cinema. I had the word movie and then I didn't know where to go after movie because echo tour had not occurred to me yet. And so I was thinking, okay, what do they call those things? Kinetoscopes. You know, something out of like the 1890s where you put your eye to something and you'd spin it and you'd see the movie. So I was trying to go for a movie, Kinetoscope, but I only had four squares left. That's right. And eventually got the correct answer of movie real. Yes. But it took a while. Mm-hmm. And right next to that, another tricky one, 52 down. Remote power source. A-A-A. Yes. Yes. So I went, first I had double a's.

11:28Oh. A-A-S. But then 60 across. Skincare brand with a cheerful sounding name was Ola. Yes. That took me a while. Oh, really? You got that. Very clever. I know that was a clever one. It was a great clue. It just, for one thing, I had to get that S out of the way before I could even contemplate S-A. Wow. Mm-hmm. And we had 30. The only gimmie I think in the grid for me, 30 down. Like 29 winners in the first 50 New York City Marathons. Kinet. Yes. I thought has to be Kinet. Yes. And it was for once. Yep. Yep. I did that. 28 across simulator of coastal phenomena, wave tank. Yes. I got wave and then I'm like, what now? Uh-huh. I wonder what they do with a wave tank. Maybe they simulate like a tsunami and they have a little model city or something? No. I don't know.

12:29I think they just, you know, do that to them. To them. Who do we search on waves and what causes them to get bigger small or whatever? I thought it was due to underwater mountain avalanches, things like that. I really don't know. You're not an expert in, uh, in seismology? Nope. Okay. But I got wave tanks. All right. Well, you know 61 across. I think that is it for today. Okay. Thanks everyone for listening. Hope you did well on today's crossword better than us. A Friday's crossword is going to be out soon. We're going to tackle it. We're going to come back and talk about it and we hope you're going to come back and listen to us talk about it tomorrow. Bye. Bye.