Constructor: Nathan Hasegawa
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: COUNT / SHEEP (60A: With 61-Across, advice for an insomniac ... or what you can do 12 times in this puzzle, reading across and down (not including this answer)— RAM, EWE, and LAMB can be round a total of 12 times if you treat the finished puzzle like the most remedial word search puzzle you've ever seen
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Word of the Day: LAMBO (37A: Expensive Italian car, informally) —
Don't turn my grid into a kids' placemat puzzle and call it a crossword. Please. All this theme does—and I mean All it does—is compromise the overall quality of the fill like crazy and make the whole solving experience dull and somewhat tedious. Exhibit A: RENEWER (22D: One extending a library book loan). At no time, under no circumstances, on no planet is that an answer that anyone wants to see in their grid. It's an awkwardly ER'd word that is here *solely* to give us one of our twelve (Why Twelve?) SHEEP. Exhibit B is ECRUS, the most abominable thing in the grid; while not technically a themer itself, it's sandwiched right in between two theme answers (HEREWEARE, SHEEP) and crossing another (MAEWEST). No way you're seeing plural (!) of already tired crosswordese if desperate times didn't call for the desperate measures that ECRUS represents. As you're solving, you're not thinking, "ooh, look at the sheep!" (That's something you say while driving around New Zealand.) Instead, you're wondering why the fill is so dry and odd. Only later do you realize, "oh, it's because three RAMs were all squeezed together in the western part of the grid ... for some reason. And to make solvers finish a puzzle and then go Back and hunt for 12 sheep... why?? Where is the fun there? No way I would've done it at all if I hadn't felt obligated to post a fully sheep-searched grid. I'd just take the puzzle's word for it and get on with my day. Instead, I had to sit there like an idiot and not just do a word search, but do a word search For The Same Three Words. Even a child would be insulted by such a chore. Oh, and good luck to you if you decide to tell a real insomniac to COUNT / SHEEP. If all they do is tell you to f*** off, consider yourself lucky.
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. (Italian pronunciation: [lamborˈɡiːni]) is an Italian brand and manufacturer of luxury sports cars and SUVs based in Sant'Agata Bolognese. The company is owned by the Volkswagen Group through its subsidiary Audi. (wikipedia)
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People in MENSA aren't "smart," stop propagating that dumb idea (41A: Smart society). [Club for self-styled geniuses], that works. This, from the wikipedia page, is instructive:
Roland Berrill, an Australian barrister, and Dr. Lancelot Ware, a British scientist and lawyer, founded Mensa at Lincoln College, in Oxford, England in 1946, with the intention of forming a society for the most intelligent, with the only qualification being a high IQ.
The society was ostensibly to be non-political in its aims, and free from all other social distinctions, such as race and religion. However, Berrill and Ware were both disappointed with the resulting society. Berrill had intended Mensa as "an aristocracy of the intellect" and was unhappy that the majority of members came from working or lower-class homes, while Ware said: "I do get disappointed that so many members spend so much time solving puzzles."
I think we've had about enough Mario-related answers for this month (TOAD, again, meant nothing to me) (64A: Ally in Super Mario games). Only struggles for me today came when I wanted BONE-TIRED instead of BONE-WEARY (I've only heard and would only use the former) (19A: Completely exhausted), and then, crossing BONE-WEARY, there was ON A WHIM, which I thought was ON A DARE or maybe ON A LARK (4D: Impulsively). Later, there was ECRUS, which my brain wouldn't let me accept as real. Oh, and I went with ANACIN before MOTRIN (25A: Tylenol alternative). But that was it for challenge. Hoping for better things tomorrow.