Wednesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: October 24, 2018

My time: 9:20, not great.

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Today's crossword is brought to us by Michael Paleos, who directs our attention to the POP-UP AD in the corner.  This is an indication that four places in the puzzle, an answer is interrupted by one of these.  Quite literally --- four answers have two circled squares each that have the letters "AD" in them.

Below these are two black squares.  The AD is "popping up" above the answer below, and further is interrupting that answer.  So for example, "Classic strategy in the boxing ring" answer reads as ROPE.  But if you read the AD above as part of the clue, it then goes back down and continues to the next answer in the same row, an answer clued only as "-".  It continues OPE, giving the whole answer as ROPE-[A-D]OPE.

The other themed answers are DEC[AD]ENT, CAN[AD]IAN ("like seven teams in the NHL"), and TRE[AD]MILL ("where you may be going nowhere fast").

PERIDOT is the birth stone for August (and thus "most Leos").  The original birthstone for August was Sardonyx, and then peridot was added, becoming August’s primary gem. The addition of spinel, which can be found in a variety of colors, gives August babies a plethora of options!  This message brought to you by the United Gem Merchants of America.

"Noted piranha habitat" is the ORINOCO River, a 1,330 mile-long river in Venezuela and Colombia.

We've had "tarsals" before and also "tarsi" way back on September 4, 2017, but today we have the adjective TARSAL, clued as ankle-related.

I never saw the movie Coming to America, so I didn't know that Eddie Murphy's character's fictional African kingdom is ZAMUNDA.

Author EDA LeShan wrote books on how to educate children and advocated for stress-free, happy childhoods.

ORA pro nobis is a Latin phrase meaning "pray for us."

A chemical depilatory and rival of Nair is Veet, which was once named NEET and also Immac.  Why they changed it I can't say.  The marketing department just liked it better that way.

"Mujer's boys" is NINOS.  Mujer means "woman" in Spanish, which I really ought to know more of.

I knew BEZEL as the facet of gem, but it also means a ring or rim around a clock or watch face.

"Bit of news in the WSJ" is LBO, an abbreviation I have not heard before.  It stands for Leveraged Buy Out, which is the acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money.

"Ancient relative of a flute" OCARINA last appeared on October 4.

Clever clue: "Launched a teach start-up?" is POWERED ON.

Well, this was NOT SO BAD, but also not so good, time-wise.  I loved the clever theme and how neatly it was used in the grid.