Tough one, both fill and meta. Took me about 1h47m over two days. The puzzle is here and my log is after the cut.

Don’t forget, this weekend is a favorite puzzle set of mine: Mark Halpin’s Labor Day Extravaganza. I’ll race you, and I’ll probably get my buddy Jonathan to help me. And then I’ll blog our solving logs afterwards, unless I forget.

Log:

0:00:00

Okay, printing, moving day, a golf term…among other things

0:00:15

Looking for a form of transportation. and I have a printout.

0:00:37

1A ARRIVES? 1D SIXTIES? 2D NOVELLA? 4D BUZZES? I don’t know about any of those.

0:02:55

Not putting anything into the top left (and switching to pencil for when I do finally write)

0:03:31

20D TRE! My first answer! sigh.

0:04:58

looking at NW again…

0:08:30

39a MANIA (is this going to take me 3 hours? ugh. maybe i need a snack)

0:10:00

can’t cross it. I don’t know.

0:11:14

guessed 13A ABUDHABI and 7D NBA, meant 1A might be -IN, and remembered(?) IAMS for 6d.

0:11:55

COMESIN/CAMELOT at 1 go together.

0:12:39

5d SHOES

0:14:09

is 28a THS? No idea on 2d… hmmm. oh, 18a EDDIES. 3d is MUDDERS then?

0:15:25

16a MADWOMAN quickly gives EDWIN and LIENS and OBADIAH. finally got NW. just 15 minutes. yay.

0:16:44

if 17a is LEAVEN, then 10d could be RIVIERA.

0:17:40

27a HERES, 21a ICE?

0:18:18

24d I should know this… THORA, WES, CHRIS… MENA!

0:19:07

or maybe 11d is SPEAKER

0:19:39

8a BURST looks great. 9d UNA

0:21:47

12a TONKAS. don’t love IAK 21a. 15a is FINITO, so SPEAKER is wrong. 15d FLAN

0:23:11

14d INSOLE, 23a PORN (how did I not get that with -RN, guessing the right meaning)

0:23:49

PINE/LINE/LANA

0:24:51

31a/d PANE/PAIN? dunno. 42a AMEN

0:25:47

JOANA/ONE-/JAMAICA maybe around there?

0:26:25

39d MACCAM, I guess.

0:28:03

and stuck in the bottom left. maybe I can get 30a/27d.

0:28:30

11d looks like STENGEL after 21a INK

0:28:49

30a TONAL? leads to 27d HOME. 30d TIME?

0:30:21

35d feels like DARIEN maybe… 53a could be NAVIGATE.

0:30:53

51d MAR 47d GAVE

0:33:40

ugh, can’t get more, and none of that is solid. since HOME.

0:36:05

oh flick showers… going with CON/CINEMAS for 36.

0:38:19

finally remembered 44a is BENIN. 44d BASIC 55a looks like RECUSED with that C.

0:40:01

ok, with EMA- I though 50a might be YMASUMAC but now it clearly is.

0:41:10

ah, 38d is MENACED, 41a TIRE, CUM, URINATE (nice crossing), GALENA. finally done with SE.

0:42:55

(hmm, YMA SUMAC is notably reversable, just like LANA was mentioned to do. may mean something)

0:45:51

duh, 52a is ACROSS. 46d MISS? also DUH 54a MATTS. 34d ONEPART, 48a CIALIS.

0:47:08

43d MASS? 46a MAIL, 43a may be MASH.

0:48:20

ok, let’s see… no clue on 40d 35d, 32d, 32a, … have to get 35a or 40a.

0:49:04

maybe 5a is ROSE and 30d is TASK

0:50:36

maybe 32d is LOCH and 40a is … LOCK? and I’m done? I’ll have to google some of those…

0:51:27

Had the drink right, LAI… ROSLYN was right. ok maybe I guessed right. All done.

0:52:26

Now, the meta. Oh, right. need to google 26d… FINN. nice.

0:53:43

Well, there’s COMESIN/CAMELOT/CUM/CIALIS/URINATE… hopefully that’s not the theme.

0:54:15

ACROSS and NAVIGATE near the bottom kind of feel like parts of instructions… let’s look for more.

0:55:38

there are also similar 4s … like LAMA/LANA PAIN/PAIN/ FINN/LINE/LIENS, ok maybe not so similar.

0:57:19

also MISS/MASS/MASH

1:00:32

and MEGA/MENA… and PORN and STAR are together. but all these 4s that are similar, I don’t know…

1:10:06

so that’s MEGA/MENA, LANA/LAMA, MISS/MASS/MASH, PANE/PINE/LINE, LOCH/LOCK.

1:13:58

soundalikes include LOCH/LOCK, PAIN/PANE.

1:19:38

Wondering if MENA/AMEN is important. or maybe all these 4-letters don’t matter.

1:35:16

Not getting anywhere. GOing to let it stew.

1:35:17

Taking another look, new day, new …. intelligence.

1:36:11

I wonder about COMESIN/CAMELOT/MACCAM/CUM/YMASUMAC. A lot of C?M or M?C. All in the corners.

1:42:10

Maybe we replace the main diagonal black squares with letters…. STAR-INK could be S, PORN-MEGA O, FILE-HERES … nothing obvious. onelook.com points out T works.

1:43:22

LINE-TONAL could be A maybe… PANE-LAMA… L … JOANN-ROSE A … MANIA-LOCK C

1:44:33

AMEN-MASH S, CAP-MAIL E … makes…

1:45:09

SOTALACSE …. that’s not a thing.

1:46:09

after telling my girlfriend what a coincidence it is that there’s one letter for each but it makes nothing… I read it backwards…. ESCALATOS! close enough!

1:46:51

submitting ESCALATOR.