Old Asian capital / FRI 1-18-19 / D4 dice in role-playing games / Nickname of subzero 1967 N.F.L. Championship Game / California title locale of 1950s-'60s TV series / Figure in Plato's Parmenides / Hack's modern-day rival

Constructor: Andrew Ries 

Relative difficulty: Challenging (7:03)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: PAPAWS (1A: Relatives of custard apples) —

noun

plural noun: papaws

1. 1. 

   another term for papaya.
2. 2. 

   a North American tree of the custard apple family, with purple flowers and edible oblong yellow fruit with sweet pulp. (google)

1. 1. 

   a large fleshy tropical fruit with a sweet yellow pulp.
2. 2. 

   the tree which bears the custard apple, native to Central and South America. (google)

Always disappointed when my favorite day of the solving week doesn't really deliver the goods. There's nothing particularly wrong with this grid, but solving it was a chore rather than a joy. Very few "ooh" or "aha" moments (except, ironically, LEAD BALLOON). Mostly just shrugs and "oh"s. Many answers where I had all but one letter and still wasn't too sure. Needed -ILE to get PILE (1D: Laundry room accumulation). Needed -DS and still kinda guessed at MDS (50A: "Code Black" figures, for short). Had to get to -AGS before I got HAGS (47D: Storied pot stirrers). Had PAPER-OSS and thought "well, T, I guess, but ?" (41A: Time-killing office game involving a trash can). Still not really sure how briefs are "delivered in" the American Bar Association (4D). And PAPAWS ... ? ... I barely know what those are, and the clue was zero help. Other times I'd just get handed an answer, like LISA LOEB, but there was just no joy or interest in the cluing. Attempts at joy or interest, though, often fell flat. Took a while to get BLOOD VESSEL (17D: Needle point?) but even after getting it I had to kinda think about how the clue worked: "So ... it's the 'point' where the needle enters your body?" If you just step back and look at the grid, without even considering the cluing, it's pretty lifeless. The cluing just made it worse for me, as what the puzzle thought was interesting, I did not. No idea why you boringly techify answers like ADS (7D: Google ___) and HOSTING (45A: Web service), or why you turn a perfectly good word like VAT into a foreign abbr. (37A: Price add-on in Eur.) Bizarre. You know the puzzle is not really going to sizzle when the clue the puzzle decides to double up on is ... [1040 abbr.]??? I just don't share this puzzle's idea of a good time.

Five things:

• 33D: Rental unit, often (MONTH)— First, this is a Saturday clue, and it's too clever by 3/4. There's a bunch of this in the grid (see the BOX clue at 56D: Work on hooks, say), but this "ooh, what do I mean by 'unit,' you'll never guess" just thuds when the meaning of "unit" is so badly stretched. This was probably the roughest answer in the grid for me, weirdly, as I had 39A: Norton Sound and such as ISLETS (that's my bad), and this answer crossed PAPER TOSS (?) and HOSTING, which I had trouble with as clued.
• 27D: "D4" dice in role-playing games, e.g. (TETRAHEDRA) — had the TETRA- early and easily but the rest was weirdly eluding me. Wanted only TETRAHYDRA, which sounded like a plausible D&D monster, but ... this clue was about dice, so ...
• 24: Time of one's life (TEENS)— it's hard to think of a more boring way to clue this

• 23A: Post, e.g. (SEND OUT)— again, the difficulty here is just enormous ambiguity about the meaning of the clue word, and then when the actual answer comes, it's really mundane and anticlimactic. Also, I had to play the not-at-all-enjoyable "is it SENDOUT or SENDOFF" game.
• 50D: ___ point (MOOT) — oh, sorry, [1040 abbr.] wasn't the only repeated clue. We've also got this one, repeated with a capital P at 32A: ___ Point (WEST). This pair is hair's breadth more exciting than the IRS one. At least the "P" changes case. You take your excitement where you can find it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)

P.S. NYT constructor count for 2019: Men: 17 / Women: 1

P.P.S. The Inkubator is a brand-new crossword edited and constructed entirely by women. The first Inkubator crossword came out just last night and it is a very good Easy (Monday/Tuesday-level) puzzle (difficulty levels will vary). As you can see by my first P.S., and (if you look it up) by the Very Dismal record the NYT has of publishing women in the last decade+  of the Shortz era, the Inkubator is filling a giant hole in the puzzling world. They're recruiting and mentoring new constructors and creating a cool, inclusive crossword culture, while also trying to turn out innovative and entertaining puzzles. The puzzle I solved last night was definitely women-centric, and I learned a thing or two, but mainly it was just a good, solid, fun, breezy puzzle. One that had a grid and cluing where women's lives and perspectives and achievements were prominently represented. If you're not already a subscriber, check it out. And congrats to editors Laura Braunstein and Tracy Bennett on the successful launch!

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