This is the crossword puzzle thread

Recently I picked up a copy of the Oregonian in order to do the NYTimes puzzle and I kept it aside for weeks and then finally did it -- it was a Wednesday puzzle and I had a few minutes to spare -- and it was all Latin themed clues, which was nice, and was almost enough to make be believe that divine providence had caused me to hang on to it, almost.

Also while cleaning up I found the enormous bag of old GAMES magazines from the 80s that my friend gave me and which I have yet to explore. Rah!

The difficult part about crossword making is the clues, of course...

it was a Wednesday puzzle and I had a few minutes to spare -- and it was all Latin themed clues, which was nice

omg ysi?

Yes and no. I mean, it takes me several hours to create the fills and usually I'm so relieved to be done that I can rush through the clues in mere minutes. But it's a challenge to make really good clues, ones that will make the difference between an easy and a (more interesting) difficult puzzle. For instance, I like to put a lot of pop-culture references in my puzzles, but a lot of times these are hard to create ambiguous clues for; some end up just being fill-in-the-blanks.

(xpost)

Re: YSI: Oh uh I did it and then recycled it. It might still be in my recycle bin though. But it'll have the answers.

Har, no worries Casuistry. Are we talking about cryptics or non- here btw?

Cryptic thread is another one, mostly UK posters, but jaymc and Casuistry show up too.

i can do ny times up through wednesday 80-90% of the time with a fair amount of ease, thursday closer to 50-60% (usually with some help), friday almost never, and i dont think ive ever finished a saturday ny times x-word

Oh. I have. Either I get hopeless stuck on a Saturday (30% of the time?) or it takes about 45 minutes. Or, it did when I was doing them all the time.

last week's sunday ny times crossword i did in less than an hour (this is not usually the case for me).

i cannot, under any circumstances, ever finish a cryptic crossword

New crossword from me.

Haha "what johns do."

The school clue is super-great, too!

I was momentarily thrown by two spellings not conforming to the way the NYT would render them -- and then in both cases yours seems more Korrect, and theirs seems more of the variEnt.

I'm pretty sure I know one of the two you mean. Is this the other? Because I think that's always spelled like that, even though a word that contains that word has a NYT-preferred variant.

Nope, two different ones -- 9 across and 48 across.

And actually, funny though it may be, I'm kind of annoyed with "what johns do," just because it's a bit of a stretch, even for a Tausig-type puzzle. Really hard to work with five theme fills, though!

Nope, two different ones -- 9 across and 48 across.

Ah! I had originally used the variant for 48-A until I looked it up in Wikipedia and saw that that was a common mistake.

my pops schooled me on that holiday sunday NYT puzzle. :(

i got ben tausig's book and i'm about halfway through it, although his cluing seems to have gotten harder as he went along.

I think you can get away with one giant stretch per puzzle, so long as it's , you know, funny.

Try to be a little sneakier with the clues, maybe? "When Romeo dies" -- the present tense gives that one away far too quickly. Make it past tense, so there's at least a chance that I'll panic for a moment trying to figure out if we know the year -- or, better, "Where Romeo died", and I might think you're going for "GENOA" and realize that won't fit and wonder if I am misremembering the story -- or, maybe even better, for a good Thursdayish clue, find some other character who dies in a similar place, but whose name does not immediately ring of Shakespeare, and I'll be mystified for a while, but it will eventually come to me. Because it's that sort of strip-tease, right?

"What johns do" is nicely phrased for sure, though.

That's a fair point, Chris. My thought process for that clue was basically, "I need something that happens there ... Oh, well, obviously: Romeo dies ... Is that too easy? ... What happens in Othello? ... *reads Wikipedia article about Othello* ... yeah, not really feeling that ... I should probably be working right now ... All right, 'When Romeo dies.'"

That's sort of what I meant about the clues being the hard part. But you saw the movie, right? How Will Shortz basically rewrites half the clues for the puzzles he accepts?

Anyway I'm not trying to discourage you, of course. I just want more awesome crosswords to do.

Speaking of Tausig puzzles: the numbering of the clues in the Onion one this week (the sports issue) is completely off!

Haha, rly? It was correct online.

Yeah, it's bad enough that 1/3 of the down clues are sometimes randomly deleted; this time I was like, "Yeah, that's not gonna work."

Another new one. Title is exactly the same as Ben Tausig's Ink Well puzzle last week but with a different interpretation.

I think this is your hardest one yet, for sure.

Good!

Do you have .puz files?

Wow, jaymc, that last one is really good.

I used to want to make my own crosswords, and looked for books on how to construct them, but never could find any. Are there such things, or do you just get in there and figure it out?

Most books about crossword puzzles seem to have an obligatory section on making them, I think. I read Eugene T. Maleska's book, and boy was he proud of the awful crosswordese he used to drill into his puzzles, but I'm pretty sure it had a chapter on making puzzles.

No, I don't have .puz files. I need to look into that. Also crossword constructors are always talking about a software program called Across Lite?

And thanks, Rock. I just sort of figured it out through trial and error. All you really need to know is the basic rules for what the grid needs to look like: no words shorter than three letters, diagonal symmetry. But any good software (like Crossword Weaver, which I use) will help you make sure you don't do anything irregular.

When I started out doing themeless puzzles, I would just start at the top-right and work my way around the puzzle intuitively. With themed puzzles, I do the theme fills first and then work outward from the middle.

I'm still a little wtf over this Tausig one from the other day (I'm working through his book). The clue is "Good Buddy" and the answer is "CBER". I assume it's CB radio, but still doesn't quite make sense to me?

cockblocker?

I'm guessing that someone who uses CB radio is a CBer, in the same way that Tausig uses the clue "Recipient of 'You've got mail' message" for AOLER.

just "CBer," as in one who does CB? seems ok to me

xpost dang it

http://www.filmaffinity.com/imgs/movies/full/31/317347.jpg

Yeah guys, I know that CBer is one who does CB, but how do you get that from "good buddy"?

that is CB slang, they say stuff like "ten-four, good buddy."

http://www.impawards.com/1977/posters/smokey_and_the_bandit.jpg

Across Lite is the program that you use to enjoy .puz files, and you can get it from the NYTimes website, and they distribute their puzzles to online subscribers in that format. Someone you know might have a year's worth of such .puz files, but he has perhaps already worked through them all.

Also, you're supposed to have no more than [a certain number] of black squares if you hope to get published by the big-leagues, and certain black-square formations are frowned upon (full 90 degree right angles -- basically anything Tetris-y).

I think it's 17% black squares, or 40 squares in a 15x15 puzzle. Though Tausig had one that was 46 recently.

certain black-square formations are frowned upon (full 90 degree right angles -- basically anything Tetris-y).

I didn't know this.

I'm not sure it's as hard-and-fast a rule as the percentage one, but on those rare occasions when I see such a puzzle, I'm always a little startled by it. I dunno, I should flip through one of my NYTimes books to make sure I'm not fooling myself about it.

Diagramless puzzles, of course, are all about that.

http://www.cruciverb.com/index.php/articles/htmlpages/120

A++ for "Paris's friend," Jaymc -- actually took me a while, with excellent payoff

Total pro-level theme on that one, too!

Ha, I sort of wrote that one with you in mind, N!

The "Paris's friend" clue, I mean.

I had to look that one up after I got the answer, I don't watch that show.

At first I thought it was going to be some Trojan warrior. But I saw the show out of the corner of my eye enough when my wife was watching it to figure it out.

I alread e-mailed this to jaymc:

Haha, on your crossword, I initially had CLASH OF THE TITS (crossing with CUTS DOWN)! I know it's CLASH OF THE TANS and GUNS DOWN now. It works with the theme, though!

Derived from CLASH OF THE TITITS?

Suddenly I feel like Jordan knows some way of spelling "titties" that I don't

Ha. Well, that was the first theme answer I got and I thought the theme was maybe just removing two letters.

Yeah, it does kind of work both ways! If only there were an old book about fashion trends and female body shapes, entitled CLASH OF THE "IT" TITS

Just finished this week's Ink Well puzzle. Jordan, let me know when you've done it, because I want to complain. :)

Do you guys do the Harper's crossword puzzle too? Cause I always look at that thing in wonder.

That's on the other thread The official bored-at-work cryptic crossword pass it on thread.

Also just found this in the archives Favorite Oldschool NY TImes Crossword Clues

Was I drunk that day? How did I miss that thread. Gah.

Maleska thought he was making the world a better place by getting people familiar with variant spellings of AERIE. If he didn't preserve such knowledge, who would?

eagles

Don Henle y

Yesterday's NYT theme was gay.

I did a new puzzle and put it in Across Lite (.puz) format. I think it's pretty tight. I can e-mail it to anyone who's interested. Download Across Lite here first, if you don't already have it.

Or I can put it up on Flickr, too -- just give me a day or two.

E-mail it to me! My first name, then my last name, then @gmail.com. Or whatever address you have for me.

Generally assume you can/should e-mail them to me.

Sent.

All I can recall from my crosswording era is that any clue regarding sea eagles has the answer: erne.

Aimless, see the link about a dozen posts up.

The local syndicated easy one has the classic "fruity drinks" clue every other day.

I spent the last few days of being sick solving a book of dumbed-down xwords that the man got for me from the dollar store. Perfect way to pass the time without really having to think.

Dude but now looking at the other thread it had hell of ASTA and ESAU solutions. And some four-letter word for a water pitcher that started with EW but never bothered to look at the finished word once I'd filled in all the other clues. Another frequent one: tipple = SOT.

EWER.

A lot of the crosswords I'm like, "I couldn't do 1/7 of these clues had I not known the bible so well as a youth." Then they throw some "Desperate Housewives" clue at me and fuck if I don't feel like an old, old, old person.

I feel totally lame, jaymc, for having a hard time making my own Jumble puzzles after reading yr breezy description of how you throw together a themed crossword.

We forgot "case=E---" on the other thread.

Is that ETUI?

I tried to play that in Scrabble recently, except I think I thought it was EPUI.

I can't find EPUI in an English or French dictionary, but you do get quite a few google hits for it.

OK, newest one now on Flickr. Have been v. busy with playing music in the last week, but I've got a good theme idea I'd like to work with soon.

Sorry, it's late, that perhaps wasn't clear. The link goes to the puzzle I made a week ago and already sent to Casuistry and robotsinlove in Across Lite format. (I've also revised some clues based on their suggestions.) I wasn't able to make a new one this weekend but hopefully soon.

I kinda dislike the structure of American xword puzzles, because of the way they so often seem more like sets of mini-crosswords that have a single words linking them to one another. I do enjoy doing them from time to time though. Norwegian ones tend to be a lot more interlinked, which I suppose makes them a bit easier once you get going. That's not a rip on your crossword btw, jaymc, just a general petty gripe.

Incidentally, is the Harper's one ridiculously difficult, or am I dumb? I only recently started subscribing to the mag, and I couldn't write a single word in the December xword!? Then I got the solution, and uh, yeah, that was surprisingly unhelpful to me for figuring out how to solve one.

In case anyone is curious, here's what a typical Norwegian crossword looks like:
http://www.tema-x.com/images/702139_2_14.jpg

Norwegian crosswords are some crazy shit!

Cute theme fill from the local free weekly: WWIREMOTES (instead of Wii remotes, all the theme answers had one letter changed).

Jaymc, I will print out your new one for my flight on Fri.

Yeah, lots of European X-words have those arrows. Øystein, re: The Harper's puzzle, you will have to practice to get those cryptic clues. If you want to post a few clues you couldn't understand, I can explain them to you. Or you can post them on the cryptic threads, and the Brits can help you too.

Also, I was going to try to do the puzzle you posted, as one of my many abandoned projects was to learn Norwegian, but I couldn't read it.

Games magazine used to run puzzles with arrows, although nothing quite as complex looking as that. It was fun enough, but having clues that fit in the boxes was a bit stifling.

But yes, cryptic puzzles like Harper's are entirely different and play by their own rules. I rarely get very far into the Harper's one.

i don't know what a "cryptic crossword" is.

Cryptic clues have two parts: one part gives the meaning and the other part gives the wordplay required to construct the letters of the defined word (sometimes this is just another definition of the word). Up to solver to figure out where break between two parts is. Classic example is a clue like

City stylish in the past (7)

Chicago = CHIC + AGO

interesting!

Here's another type of clue, called a container I think:

Foot gets bandage for side (5)

Facet = F(ACE)T

There's totally a mistake in this week's Tausig puzzle.

I'll bet Mel Taub wouldn't have made a mistake.

I did it today, what's the mistake?

The coin is spelled NICKEL, not NICKLE. Although I belatedly realized that this wasn't as big of a disaster as it first seemed: he just needs to move the circle to the first E rather than the last E in SNICKERDOODLE.

Cruel irony: Jordan noticed a mistake in my last one. 33-Down was just mislabeled as 38-Down. I've fixed it.

There was a giant mistake in the Tausig from ... last week, or two weeks ago, maybe. I'm just not doing it anymore. That guy sucks. I mean, nice puzzles, but I can't think of any greater failure from a crossword editor than to have significant errors in your puzzle, like, regularly! Frequently!

I think I remember that one. I still like (love) the dude's sensibility to the point that I don't care about the odd error.

Wait, do you remember what the mistake was, N? This is the first time I've noticed one, and I've been doing them pretty much every week for the last year. I guess what's tough is that he's his own editor.

I can't remember, because I couldn't search up this thread to record it -- I just recall winding up with four empty squares that were completely WTF, because the words were right but they just didn't cross that way! Basically like the nickel/nickle thing, where one letter is a square over and a tiny region is just plain wrong.

There's another one I do remember, although I didn't bother with it long enough to decide if it was a puzzle error or mine -- it had to do with the birthplace of the first UN Secretary General.

Oh, wait, no, I figured that one out eventually.

sounds like maybe you were RONG on the first one, nabs!

unless you are talking about this?

Speaking of Tausig puzzles: the numbering of the clues in the Onion one this week (the sports issue) is completely off!

-- nabisco, Saturday, December 29, 2007 10:37 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Link

No, it was not numbering: it was a letter in the wrong square. I know, I know, I assumed I just had something wrong, but there comes a point where it's like no, obviously these are the answers, they've just don't actually cross right, because someone placed a letter wrong!

Jaymc's completing without noticing makes me sound wrong, I know

Which one was it? Now I'm curious, because I've been keeping up with the puzzles too and I don't remember anything like that.

http://groups.google.com/group/inkwell

I DON'T RECALL

I mean, it's possible I missed a week or two within the last year, too.

(okay i'll leave it alone, but did you look at the link?)

I was gonna say I'd go through those and try to find the error (or potentially MY error), but they've corrected previous errors for the web. I can't imagine there's any correction difference between NYC and Chicago/Madison print editions, though, so maybe it was down to some spelling variant or something.

The title of this one is The National League.

There's also another one I did that I haven't put up yet. But that's because there are two versions of it: dirty and clean. The bottom half is the same for both versions, but I completely redid the top half in the event that I might be able to submit it to a newspaper. (The theme is pretty solid.)

is there a dub version?

Yes, it's instrumental, though.

Also, do you have Across Lite yet, Jordan? You can do my puzzles on-screen now!

no, i keep forgetting to download it! will do.

Let me know when you do, and I'll send you the puzzles over e-mail.

I now have a program that will let me play .puz files on my iTouch! (I know it's not called an iTouch, but it should be!) Except it's v. 0.1 and the interface is not yet very good. But it's an exciting development in the land of jailbroken iTouches, let me tell you.

Ha, Ben T. put his phone # in his crossword book and invites solvers to call him with any questions. Nabisco should take it to the source next time!

Wait ... what?

do you want his digits?

Oh, sorry, I thought you meant that he put his phone number in one of his crosswords, and I was trying to figure out how that was possible.

Haha, it could still probably be done! The theme of this puzzle is: MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER.

You can have numbers in squares (in .puz/Across Lite format, anyway -- the NYTimes has certainly run such puzzles). (You also can do multiple letters in a square, such as the typical puzzle where some boxes have colors in them or whatever.)

I've seen numbers, but not multiple letters!

Also, spelling out numbers is fine, but I can't stand the crossword convention of spelling out letters (CEE, VEE, etc.). Weak.

NYT does multiple letters a lot -- especially if you count symbols standing in for letters (like, I dunno, NON+SED). There was a Sunday trigonometry theme just last week that had single squares containing SIN, COS, and TAN.

There was ILX discussion at some point of the puzzle that had COM, ORG, EDU, and NET in single squares

(ha, but sadly no discussion of the one where certain down clues ran upward, minus the word "up" -- like UPWARD would just be WARD, running up)

jaymc, I couldn't get your latest puzzle. "This photo is private."

Check your e-mail.

Oh wait, the e-mail I have for you doesn't work...

OK, that link should work now.

Thanks!

My Bellsouth email is dead and gone. I've emailed you from my working address.

If it's a B3n Taus1g puzzle, you may be disappointed with a couple of the theme fills this week.

-- jaymc, Thursday, February 14, 2008 5:10 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

oh yeah, what was the theme this week? i think i felt the same way, but i've been finishing up the book of tausig puzzles so it all blurs together.

The title of the puzzle was "Duh!"

SPOILERS AHEAD

So one clue was "Murderer's graffiti?" and the fill was DEFACEOFAKILLER. Which doesn't make sense, since DEFACE isn't a noun.

Also, "Prohibited from buying cosmetics?" was DEBARREDOFAVON. Here, "from" would make a whole lot more sense than "of."

The other two were good, though: TURNOUTDELIGHTS and PUTSDECEITDOWN.

Yeah, I hear you.

I was stuck on the bottom one for a little bit because I had RZA instead of GZA, lol.

someone explain this clue/fill from an old Tausig puzzle, pls: "expensive game box = LOGE"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loge The last definition?

must be

Chris and jaymc and anyone else interested in American cryptics should check out the current Harper's puzzle by Richard E. Maltby Jr., entitled "Score Sheet." In the March 2008 issue.

Will do. It just came yesterday, so.

Have you been doing it all along?

Well, looking at it, occasionally trying one of two, but not exactly finishing it...

http://imgplace.com/image_bin/3912/f8a0b804f24b2895f8fdc83f7b187198.bmp

I'm still making crosswords, btw, I just haven't put them online yet. I've been submitting themes to the New York Sun and getting only rejections so far, which makes me less motivated about finishing the cluing (even though I'm only submitting themes, I have to at least do the grid to make sure that it works). But hopefully there are some other venues that might be interested in those puzzles.

Submitting to the Sun? You think you can start at the top?

I was advised to send stuff there because P3t3r G0rd0n responds very quickly (like within a few days), and it's true, he does, and usually he also explains why he's taking a pass. So that's helpful, and better than waiting for months to hear from W. Shortz. But I also don't really know where else to submit. My goal was to get printed in the AV Club until Ben T. told me that it's a rotating group of eight constructors and he doesn't take outside submissions.

The problem is I don't even do any puzzles besides Tausig and the AV Club and occasionally the Tribune, so I don't know where else my puzzles would fit. I think the Trib might be a little too conservative for me; their daily puzzles at least are always really boring.

I made a pretty good themeless one the other day, actually, with a stack of three seven-letter words in each of the four corners.

Maybe you should some of those Sun puzzle books and see what they're after.

Maybe. I don't think I've seen a Sun puzzle book. In fact, I don't think I'd ever even heard of the Sun until a few months ago.

I have some and I like doing them. I think a lot of insiders think it's the best puzzle out there.

do they have cryptic crosswords much in the U.S.? My understanding of the NYT one is that it's "quick", a enormous vocabulary are much more important than having a certain kind of mind and a lot of general knowledge.

OK, wow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptic_crossword

Like it says in there, mainly Harper's and The Atlantic.

Puzzle on page 13 of my New York Sun Crosswords #15 is by your man Tausig. First puzzle is by Trip Payne.

I'm doing this one here, Ease Out, i suppose it's Tausig? Anyway, I am completely boggled by one of the clues. I have the answer, because i have the crossing words, but the solution/clue make NO sense to me. Can anyone shed a light? 24 down.

Well, no, not if you don't tell us what the clue and answer are...

Yeah, I didn't get that one at all, either.

"What L may stand for" = LGE

I did that puzzle today, and also didn't understand the answer (after getting it w/crosses).

I wasn't sure what the rules were for spoilers or whatnot, heh.

Now that I am looking at it again, lge = large = L stands for it on t-shirts, etc?

Yeah, that's the only thing I can think of, too -- except I've never seen "lge" as an abbreviation for "large" before.

If that's it, it's a terrrrible clue.

Results 1 - 10 of about 615,000 for lge large.

i think i have seen it before on t-shirt order sites and such, sml med lge, but wheneveri see "lge" i think "lg electronics"

Google agrees with you.

aww @ this week's av club puzzle

Funny, too!

ugh, crossword pet peeve = "mikes" as a fill meaning "microphones". second time i've seen it.

better than "mics"?

it's always weird when ya do the puzzles in some random newspaper that only seems to feature puzzles made by a Computer, and both puzzles on the same page have the same stupid filler words on the same day

oh that gets my blood boiling, i tell ye

no, "mics" is correct.

I prefer "mics" myself, but as I once pointed out on some other, long-forgotten thread, "mike" predates "mic" in Webster's by almost 40 years (1924 vs. 1961).

huh. but no one writes "mikes" anymore except noobs, and i like my crosswords to be current!

"mics" should be reserved for talking about acid

Robbins Library (Arlington, MA) presents master crossword constructor Will Johnston on Thursday, April 24 at 7:00 p.m. He will provide a fascinating look at the craft and art behind the puzzles you see in newspapers and on the web every day. Johnston, a nationally published constructor and moderator of /The New York Times/ online crossword forum, will demonstrate and discuss creating puzzle themes, making diagrams, filling them with interesting words and phrases, and writing both tricky and straightforward clues.

You'll walk away from the event with new insights to enhance your own solving, and renewed appreciation of this addictive pastime.

The event is presented by the Cruicverbalists of Boston. For more information, visit http://www.bostoncru.org.

Two new-ish puzzles on Flickr (Casuistry has already done them):

Up All Nite
Around the World (technically themeless, but a slight theme began to develop anyway, which explains the title)

If anyone wants them in Across Lite format, let me know and I can e-mail.

"bro" was an answer in yesterday's NYTimes xword bros

What was the clue?

Pal

I just sent a puzzle to Tribune Media Services. Hoping for a bite soon...

The theme fills on Up All Nite are terrific (the second one in particular). (And the fourth one in particular.)

Thanks! I liked those, too. The third is a bit of a stretch, I know. B.T. said the puzzle "didn't quite work" for him, so I'm not sure if it's worth shopping around or not.

I did Up All Nite, I really liked it. It was more challenging than some of your earlier ones. The only one I thought didn't quite make sense with the clue was 43A, but it's cute and was one of the first theme answers I got anyway.

Keep at it, dogg.

I wanted to make a puzzle called "KKK Meeting," in which all of the fills would have three Ks in them. (Alternate title: "Three Strikes, You're Out.") I came up with an extensive list of possible fills (NEWYORKKNICKS, KNICKERBOCKERS, RIMSKYKORSAKOV, KICKBACK, KAKIKING, KANKAKEE, KNOCKKNEED, KICKTHEBUCKET, KIRKPATRICK, LIKECLOCKWORK) but couldn't get the grid to work. Problem is, once you introduce all those Ks, you have to go the other direction with them, too. (Fun fact: four Ks = KNICKKNACK; five Ks = KNOCKKNOCKJOKE.)

Actually, I may have spoke too soon. I think I know how I could make it work now.

If you're going to call it "Three Strikes, You're Out", then you can use fills like NEWYORNICS, RIMSYORSAOV, ICBAC...

Oh oops xpost unless you just noticed that.

That's not what I was thinking, but that's a fantastic idea.

Goddammit, I just wasted the whole day making that puzzle.

Mmm... well, I won't tell your boss if you don't.

tausig's "theme theme" puzzle this week was fun.

Yeah, I just did that this morning.

I need to make some more puzzles, but themes come to me so sporadically.

Okay, here's a general question. Sometimes you'll see a clue like "Is crooked" and the fill is CHEATS. Would it be appropriate to turn it around, though? -- i.e., the clue is "Cheats" and the fill is ISCROOKED? I can't remember ever seeing something like that as a fill before.

The alternative would be to turn ISCROOKED into a fill in the blank, like if there was a song called "Everyone Is Crooked" and the clue would be "Everyone ________" -- but I'm under the impression that fill-in-the-blanks of longer than 5 letters are generally frowned upon.

This might be better off asked on the Cruciverb listserv, but I'm sort of intimidated to post there.

I think your best bet would be to write a clue with a similar grammatical structure as the fill, right? Bad example: clue ISCROOKED with something like "has been known to cheat."

Actually a better example for ISCROOKED might be "takes bribes"

Yeah, I like that better, too, although there are a number of fills I can make starting with IS, so it doesn't have to be CROOKED necessarily. I've just rarely seen that construction in a puzzle before, so it seemed a little weird.

I can't recall seeing IS in an NYT puzzle, but I'm almost certain they'll use constructions that are essentially the same thing -- HAS something, WAS something, etc.

The answer is: This is highly frowned upon. If you have a phrase for a fill, it should be a phrase that occurs naturally (exception: you know, special themed puzzle answers where breaking the rules would be appropriate), not just some sentence fragment. So, ISCROOKED is a really bad fill -- but the fill-in-the-blank clue is probably the best way to clue it.

Don't think I've asked this before - it may be simple but I'm terrible with cryptic crosswords. There is a book called "Landscape Painted With Tea", which is apparently a crossword clue. Does anyone know the answer?

(Note: I haven't read it for years so the answer may even be in the book at some point, and if so then please excuse my extreme denseness.)

There's a whole other thread for cryptic xwords. Does the title say the number of letters (as such clues traditionally do)?

Ah well, this is all moot, anyway, as I've discovered that I fucked up my grid. This after staring at the thing for like three hours yesterday -- somehow it didn't occur to me that that square in the middle was only part of an across fill, not a down fill. Usually my software program picks up on errors like that. Oh well. Back to the drawing board.

lol @ slate

http://www.slate.com/id/2198171/pagenum/all/#page_start

I resent the conflation of crossword puzzlers with sudoku solvers.

Btw, I just got a rejection e-mail from Will Shortz's assistant. :/

keep at it, maybe the next one will be from shortz!

It was actually a nice e-mail: "Will did appreciate seeing your work, tho."

what a shitty article

Mention a frequent obsession of puzzle people, the NPR "news quiz" show, Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! (Or, as I call it, "Wait Wait ... Please Kill Me!")

i know that wwdtm is pretty corny but dont show your hand and reveal yourself as the corniest motherfucker on the planet with a joke like that

Sorry: Doing puzzles reflects not an elevated literary sensibility but a degraded letter-ary sensibility, one that demonstrates an inability to find pleasure in reading. Otherwise, why choose the wan, sterile satisfactions of crosswords over the far more robust full-blooded pleasures of books?

i was just thinking a few days how even though i read books all the time, that doesn't usually force me to make connections, remember information, and think creatively like xword puzzles do. totally different things, not mutually exclusive (duh).

Also books don't get me to think about an EWER or Myrna LOY nearly as often.

Also also finishing a book feels pretty pedestrian next to the triumph of finishing an xword.

Sorry: Doing puzzles reflects not an elevated literary sensibility but a degraded letter-ary sensibility

...says the guy who just made a pun. Also, by "elevated" I think you mean something like "bourgeois"? But I haven't read the article.

I have long said that there is more poetry in the NYTimes xword than in the average poem.

There were like 10 really bad puns in that column. And I usually care for puns!

i always mix up myrna loy and mina loy

(if the latter was a little more well-known i bet her name would be in a lot of crosswords)

Q: Should I start a crossword blog, in which I post crosswords I've made? (Submitting to newspapers is a drag.)

Y

I was thinking I could post the puzzles in iPaper so they could be easily printed out.

If you did this, it would have the added bonus of finally making me set up RSS feeds, which I am starting to feel like an old man for not having bothered with

Also, I wanted to say that despite doing Tausig puzzles every week for a couple years now, I still can't remember whether Mr. Kweli's first name is TALEB or TALIB.

39A in the av club puzzle today, the clue was "characteristic of some raunchy humor". i had RA_INESS and i really wanted to put RAPYNESS (RAPINESS?).

Puzzle fans should take a look at yesterday's NYT. It's pretty impressive from a construction standpoint. I'll send you a .puz file if interested.

i was having a lot of trouble w/ it for a tuesday! but yeah its a good puzzle

sweet, i will do it. i'm the only one at work today. :D

i kind of hated yesterday's NYT puzzle. :/ Mondays was tough, too.

Some of the fill was lame, but the gimmick made up for it.

i finished it. as i was doing it i was like "i don't know guys, i really don't like some of these clues/answers, what's so great here..." and when i had a couple of spaces left i cheated and looked online for the theme. then my brain exploded.

In the end, it's yet another "Look what I DID! (64A)" puzzle, where we are meant to admire the constructor, not enjoy ourselves while solving. Why not build a crossword museum and hang the completed grid on the wall? Then everyone can ooh and aah, and we can bypass the agony of having to fill the thing out ourselves, under the mistaken assumption that it might be entertaining.

^^^kind of agree with rex the crossword guy's take on it

i dont understand what he means tho--i mean what is an example of an enjoyable crossword

my guess is he means when it seems like a puzzle has a lame fill--and yesterday's had lots of lame fill IMHO--just to satisfy a gimmick or whatever, then it's not enjoyable

but here's his whole take on it

http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2008/12/tuesday-dec-23-2008-joe-krozel-arizona.html

there's definitely a difference between getting the answer to a hard clue and going "nice, that's really clever/funny" and "making up words won't help you".

i dunno--doing xwords like that for me can be like reading really beautifully constructed novels or stories--the joy in the reading/doing comes in that sort of oh wow look how perfectly structured this thing is

its like trying to figure out the mystery while youre reading the story--who cares if the method/motive/whatever is improbably or corny, the fun is in the figuring out

i like a good theme in my crossword with not too much trickery/corny-ness. but what do i know, i can barely finish a wednesday

i just finished it, its pretty boring--i mean its straightforward and not very irritating, but im not gonna remember it like ill remember yesterdays

i finished the Onion AV Club puzzle this morning but have no clue what the theme is. the theme answers are like "Hear 9-Across" but i can't figure out what the relationship between the clues are. :(

I'll let you know when I do it tomorrow -- I like to pick up the print edition and do it on the way home from work.

i didn't get sunday's NYT theme until i looked at rex parker's blog and was like "oh, duh"

Orange discusses this week's AV Club puzzle here (WARNING -- this post spoilers for all of Tuesday's puzzles):
http://crosswordfiend.blogspot.com/2009/03/tuesday-324.html

actually, her blog is a week behind what gets posted on the av club website.

Really? Does that mean the print edition is a week behind, too? Because I know I've checked her blog for AV Club puzzles I've just done.

maybe so. i'll pick up a print copy at lunch in a little while and see what puzzle is in there.

yup, the print copy is a week behind the website.

ohhhhh. i was focusing on the sound of the answers, not the clues.

Give me a couple minutes here...okay, I think I'm onto something. 69A PREYS is clued (Hear 51-Across), which is VIRGINS, clued as [They're chaste]. "Hear" that clue another way, as "they're chased," and you get PREYS. (Is that plural noun kosher? I think perhaps not.)

So let's look at the other theme clues. 1A is (Type A people), who are DOERS. Pronounce it as "Taipei people" to get 17A TAIWANESE.

9A is (One who gets a lot of booze), a DRUNK. The 28A clue (See 9-Across) is simply a standard cross-reference clue, and the answer is the synonym LUSH. 26A (Hear 9-Across) commands you to hear it as "one who gets a lot of boos," or a VILLAIN.

39A (Horse sound) is NEIGH. To 41A (Hear 39-Across's answe) is to pick up its homophone, NEE. Then there's 42A (Hear 39-Across), "hoarse sound"—a COUGH.

23A (Artificial) clues PLASTIC. 55A (Hear 23-Across) expects you parse 23A's clue as "art official," a CURATOR.

62A is (Not allowed), or FORBIDDEN. For 71A (Hear 62-Across), the clue becomes "not aloud," or TACIT.

ohhhhh. i was focusing on the sound of the answers, not the clues.

Me too. (I just did it on the train and stared baffled at my paper when I was done.) In fact, I feel like that's almost a rule, that cross-references are supposed to refer to the fill, not the clue. It's a fun theme, it just could've been clued a little less confusingly.

Also, I was glad that someone in Orange's comment section called out the error I noticed as well: the D in "ordinates" is worth two points in Scrabble.

wow @ the theme of saturday's ny times puzzle!

Was crazy theme, but once you got it the puzzle was way easy for a Saturday.

true (meaning that i could actually finish it)

Just mailed off my second NYT submission; hopefully, they'll like this one. :)

good luck homie

(If anyone wants to give it a trial run, I can send you a .puz file.)

id be up for it

Send me yr e-mail, Lamp.

send me one too j - my full name at gmail.com

hook me up

Sent.

v. nice theme jmc! i had to complete two of them before i got what it was and in total i think the puzzle took me 25 minutes which is about a wed/thurs time for me

a couple of the clues frustrated there were a lot of proper name clues i think? but overall it flowed really well

yeah dude good job--it probably took me about the same time as lamp did, but i somehow didnt get the theme at all until the next day (i thought the thrd one was a reference to samuel morse, which made me think it was a rhyming theme, and i was going, what rhymes with koala?). but i liked it!

Cool, thanks guys!

(I don't want to talk about it too much in public before it's accepted anywhere, but I will note that Jordan had the same thought re Samuel Morse. Which may not be a problem -- it could work as a useful diversion.)

in today's ny times, "modern way to put out an album" is ONCD = lol, will shortz u r old

ha yeah i was trying to think of an itunes/emusic type service w/ four letters

Who's the constructor?

someone who should know better, sounds like (from crossword fiend):

today's puzzle is, i believe, a debut for this constructor. i think i remember reading that this puzzle was used at the recent brown crossword tournament, and that the constructor is a student there. in any event, congratulations to joey weissbrot on at least his NYT debut.

I guess it still could've been Shortz's clue.

also--origami commonly depicts a crane, not a swan, right?

yeah, the swan initially made me think of ice sculptures for some reason

OK, after doing the NYT puzzle for a few weeks after a multi-year hiatus, I now notice the following clues and answers popping up regularly

1) Emmy Winner Ward = SELA
2) Parent's (or Sitter's) Scourge = IMP (or some synonym)
3) Argument Refrain = "AM SO" or "IS NOT" or variant thereof
4) Former Boomer = SST. This is a holdover answer from the Eugene T. Maleska days. Haven't seen ORT or TERN in a while. AERIE still pops up though.

To everything
tern, tern, tern
There is a season
tern, tern, tern

Haven't seen ORT or TERN in a while.

According to xwordinfo.com, ORTS was last used on 3/12 and TERN on 3/20.

Ha, I definitely did both those puzzles, guess I didn't notice/remember these classic answers. That site is pretty useful, thanks for the link. I see that ASTA is still going strong in the Will Shortz era and that ATTU hung around for a while, but died out in 2006.

My pal Ben did a write-up of the first Chicago amateur crossword tournament. Out of the 25 competitors, I was 6th on the Monday puzzle, 9th on the Tuesday (though I had one dumb error, so I would've been disqualified even if I'd finished 1st), and abysmal on the Wednesday, due to one corner that just wouldn't fall into place. Pretty fun afternoon, though.

i liked todays nyt theme even if the rest of the puzzle was boring

I might've done a little better at the tournament if I'd realized from the get-go that the Cubs players were going to be given in order. I knew who they were, I just held off on filling them in until I could confirm how they were going to appear.

Kind of cool that they're perfect 15-letter fills, though.

i had never heard of the players so that didn't help me at all. at the end i had the rest of the puzzle filled in except for those names.

That was maybe a tribute to old school Maleska-style crosswords, where those three guys appeared regularly.

yeah--one of those puzzles thats really easy if youre familiar with the rhyme and probably a big pain in the ass if youre not

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball's_Sad_Lexicon

Was there one extraneous circle today?

Yes, as far as I know.

Thanks for the confirmation. It was the last in the sequence but didn't really figure into the special clues or the bigger picture.

OK, I guess you kind of need that last circle for the big picture.

lol, was going to say, its a weird boat with the "i"

i mean, WITHOUT the i

Oh, I didn't even think about connecting the dots A to B, B to C, etc. I was drawing the lines in the patterns that the clues dictated, and after doing 49-Across ("E-F-G-H-E"), the "I" seemed superfluous.

ditto

ah, see, the way i was working i realized it was a sailboat before i had filled in those clues, so i had basically drawn the whole thing already

Or maybe I should have said "dotto"
(xp)

Yeah, I'm embarrassed to say that I was the one of the people who got 1-Across wrong, because I didn't bother checking 2-Down. (I was too busy tearing my hair out over the bottom-left, since I'd never heard of YEGGS before. I originally had YOGIS.)

yeggs annoyed the shit out of me

Yeggs is old school xwordese too. See also "Pete". Often clued by "Second story man."

http://www.google.com/search?q=yegg+pete+second-story&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

i had never heard of the players so that didn't help me at all. at the end i had the rest of the puzzle filled in except for those names.

Haha, me too -- it seemed uncharitably un-Tuesday-like to cross baseball names with a college athletic conference, a Biblical location, and a boating term, cause I had no chance on those.

i connected on today's puzzle pretty well but didn't get the drawing until i looked it up online after finishing it. maybe if i had done it on paper instead of in across lite i would have been more apt to draw a big ol' boat on it.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/97/257848457_24bcb4bcec.jpg

I was scared going in after reading jaymc's friend's blog, but today's wasn't so bad.

But today's I could not finish.

By which I mean I got nowhere on the SE and next to nowhere on the NW.

But Saturday's was a lot better.

Constructed a pretty solid grid yesterday with one exception that I can't seem to get out of: OHER.

Here's hoping that Michael Oher becomes a huge NFL star and/or The Blind Side becomes a buzzed-about box-office hit. I might just have to wait a few months to find out.

uh, something about an Ohio emergency room?

i dunno if "Subject of Michael Lewis's 'The Blind Side'" is a terrible clue so long as its not crossed w/ anything else as obscure

I kinda wish we could all see that corner and try to do something with it

I'll e-mail the .puz file if anyone wants to see it.

Wait, I've got it:

66. Response you might make after someone spends ten minutes going "oh c'mon, you know, that one show, it was really popular, on Thursday, like a drama, you know that one guy was on it, that guy that was in those Las Vegas movies, and for a while there was that one woman ..."

^^ haha actually you'd have to remove the "oh" from the beginning of that clue

max OTM--referencing the Michael Lewis dude doesn't seem that obscure or tough

Chicago airport changes from a rabbit to a woman

haha "rapper Nelly's favorite Chicago airport"

wouldnt that be oherr

xxp No? OK. I read the excerpt of the book that was in the NYT Magazine in 2006, but I couldn't tell how well-known he was. He might end up being a boon to crossword constructors.

I know some constructors got excited when this movie came out:
http://sachem.suffolk.lib.ny.us/Reel_Rebels/images/post_iousa_crop.png

haha "rapper Nelly's favorite Chicago airport"

In fairness, though, I think it would be Midway, because he can get a good deal on Southwest coming from St. Louis.

ben tausig is killin' it these week with the funny clues (in the inkwell and av club puzzles).

3. ybaB eman taht yltnecer emaceb yrev ralupop, yllaicepse htiw lacilegnave snaitsirhC

50. Runs around naked covered in feathers, or whatever, for the privilege of living in a house that smells like Busch light

23. Norwegian king who...oh, as if you know anything about Norwegian kings

43. Country that recently certified its election results, thus forever ending any doubt about the legitimacy thereof, totally

also the av club puzzle gets points for using "SABIAN" as an answer, finally

these = this

those are like cryptic clues!

3. ybaB eman

Ha, I especially appreciate #3 (although I was reading that as "eBay name" at first and was confused).

(Although tbf, the AV Club puzzle this week was constructed by Francis Heaney. I don't know to what extent Tausig changes the clues, but I'd guess it's less so than Shortz does.)

NEVAEH, RUSHES, IRAN, and is other one just kinda "fill in the Norwegian king name that winds up fitting?"

oh sorry that's THIS week, didn't mean to spoil

xp OLAF or OLAV, presumably.

yeah i didn't want to post spoilery answers. but as long as you're ruining it, i also like "male singer the italians used to go nuts for" for CASTRATO.

i'm sorry :(

NYT article about puzzles disappearing from newspapers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/fashion/12puzzle.html

Oddest quote:
Dunn Miller, a 64-year-old librarian from Oakland, Calif., who was attending the National Puzzlers League convention in Baltimore last week, spoke of losing The Puzzler in terms usually reserved for the breakup of a favorite band, like the Beatles.

“It’s like, why are they murdering us?” she asked. “We’re losing one of our stars. It’s like if some great athlete, Dennis Eckersley, were told by the manager he had to leave early and he couldn’t play for anyone else.”

Dennis Eckersley is the first example that comes to her mind of a great athlete??

(Oh, I notice now that she's from Oakland. Still.)

I for one will miss The Puzzler. Hopefully Henry and Emily will find an outlet somewhere else.

Hey look.

Yeah, but you saw what amateurist said about him.

I have now.

yes

I made a crossword puzzle for Marbles: The Brain Store, a local chain that sells educational games and toys. It's a pretty easy one, I should think (especially since the site gives a hint about the theme).

nice! the linked down clues are good ones.

Anyone notice the glaring factual error in this week's Ink Well puzzle?

ha: is it worth making a point of doing the puzzle later?

Sure. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Tausig just needed to have changed "won an Oscar" to "nominated for an Oscar" in the clue.

the warren beatty one?

xp

Yeah.

OOXTEPLERNON!

Good article in Slate by Matt Gaffney about how easy it is for crossword constructors to duplicate each other's themes.

Do you do Matt Gaffney's puzzle, jaymc?

Just saw this article for the first time: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/fashion/12puzzle.html?_r=1

I used to, but I got too busy to keep up with it. After he published this puzzle a few months ago, he posed a challenge to readers to come up with a 15-letter theme fill that contained no vowels other than U. The best I could do was "BURNSBURNSBURNS" ("What Johnny Cash's ring of fire does), but it did inspire me to write this poem. (The winning entry was "CRUSHCRUSHCRUSH," which I guess is a Paramore song.)

Nice. I think you might have done an embryonic version of it on this thread: Me Need Help! ( A Spelling Thread)

Wow, I don't remember that at all!

The NYT was very, um, challenging today. I gave up and looked at the blogs before I finished it.

While we're at it, the Marbles: The Brain Store puzzle I mentioned upthread has turned into a monthly assignment. You can do my September through December puzzles here. They have to be printed out, but I'll e-mail .puz files if anyone's interested. Also, I tried to make them solvable for a general audience, so there's nothing too-too clever. Just so you know.

(P.S. Ignore the bit under the September puzzle, which makes it look like that's the only puzzle I created. That was put up when that was the only puzzle on the site, and they haven't taken it down yet.)

I liked this comment from Rex Parker today: "Theme answers then lend themselves to preposterous cluing of the sort that adds much-needed thorniness to the typical Sunday solve."

OK, jaymc, I did your September and October puzzles and like you said, nothing too difficult but they were nicely clued. Did somebody edit them for you (although I can't imagine that) or was it all yours?

No, it was all me, although occasionally I look for inspiration here. Thanks!

(Actually, I feel like my cluing could be a lot stronger, because the sort of punnish wordplay that's inimical to good crosswords simply doesn't occur to me that often. I do try to avoid straightforward definitions, if I can help it, in favor of secondary meanings or synonyms.)

I've been ramping up again recently so I'm used to the punning, but sometimes I find it tiresome and I bet your intended audience for that puzzle would too

RHETMENTATEE!

Do you ever do the Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle, jaymc? Themeless Monday is hard!

Aaargh!

If you haven't been doing Merl Reagle's Sunday puzzles, today is a good time to start.

http://www.sundaycrosswords.com/ccpuz/MPuz.php

RIP Dan Naddor.
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-dan-naddor7-2010jan07,0,3697756.story

Today's LA Times puzzle is one of his: http://games.latimes.com/index_crossword.html?uc_feature_code=tmcal

i enjoyed tausig's triple crossword in the mcsweeney's newspaper thing

Do you ever do the Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle, jaymc? Themeless Monday is hard!

I don't, but he just added me on Facebook!

Still trying to decide whether to attend the ACPT next month. Guess I'll look into flights to NYC.

Will you be in the rookie category?

Yeah. I don't think the Marbles tournament I competed in last year counts.

i think i might do it, as the hotel is about a 15-minute bus ride from my apartment

also it is the last possible year for me to enter as a 'junior'

When is the last day to sign up?

dunno when the deadline is but if you register online you get $10 off the registration fee before feb. 13

Airfare is pretty reasonable. Think I'm gonna do this.

nice

i am registered for sat/sun only

Yeah, I dunno about the Friday night thing.

Oh tell me you haven't wanted to hobnob with Andrea Carla Michaels.

BEQ puts an Avatar clue in every one of his puzzles now. I may have to go see it just to get those.

also it is the last possible year for me to enter as a 'junior'

― louis malle-rat (donna rouge), Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:25 PM (5 days ago)

Still on the fence about signing up. Part of the thing is hand-eye coordination: can't physically write the clues in or move my eyes around the grid fast enough even on easy Monday puzzles. So I might sign up but am gonna leave it to jaymc and donna rouge to shoot for the Rookie Prize.

In case you didn't know already, Cox and Rathvon, aka Hex, monthly variety cryptics are back here: http://blogs.wsj.com/puzzle/

. Part of the thing is hand-eye coordination: can't physically write the clues in or move my eyes around the grid fast enough even on easy Monday puzzles.

I have been practicing with a book of NYT puzzles, and I'm definitely trying to improve in this area: e.g., looking at the next clue while filling in letters, skipping between Across and Down when appropriate (I generally due all the Across clues first, then all the Down clues, rinse, repeat -- but once at least half of the grid is filled, this can be really inefficient), etc.

You've been doing a NY Times book? I've been doing a NY Sun book, which has the advantage of having stars to tell you the level of difficulty to expect.

The NYT book has that, too. I'm assuming one star = Monday, two stars = Tuesday, etc.

Hm. Maybe NY Times books we had were kind of old.

Maybe I should get one of those instead since, although the Sun puzzles are very enjoyable, obviously it's Will Shortz who is running the show and editing the puzzles at the contest.

i have an LA times book but there's all sorts of weird fill in their puzzles

I generally due all the Across clues first, then all the Down clues, rinse, repeat

oh, really? i start in the NW corner and try to fill it all in, and work my way through the puzzle that way.

If it's easy enough, I do it the Jordan way, if it's not I do it the jaymc way.

Did I really type "do" as "due"? Wow.

fake jaymc

jaymc vote in my movie poll. *throws subpoena at you, runs out*

OK, I will. I need to think about it carefully, though. Probably this weekend.

I hope they ask about "Live Free Or Die Hard" director Wiseman. I think I've got that one down.

In the book I've been going through, that's clued as "Author Deighton" (or similar) in no fewer than three puzzles.

Haha, yeah that's the older version of that clue.

In your own puzzles I would advise you to clue it "Sweeney Todd's Cariou."

"Steal My Sunshine" band

"1-2-3"'s Barry

You know something, I think BEQ did it recently with the "Steal My Sunshine" clue.

http://www.brendanemmettquigley.com/2009/12/crossword-155.html

34 Across.

Name of my dad

Ha, reminds me of Tausig's clue for DOOM: "Game my dad refused to install on our computer in 1993 because it took up 40 megabytes."

i love that clue and it was totally gettable

Saturday Times was tough this week.

But I loved Merl Reagle's Kindergarten Crime Spree.

Maybe it's just paranoia, but it always seems to me like Times puzzles get harder in the weeks before the tournament.

OK, I'm in.

Grid today was frightening but the actual puzzle wasn't so bad.

OK, I'm in.

Oh hey nice! The three of us should make plans to meet up and say hi.

Sure.

third = me? (i'm actually kind of regretting signing up for ACPT now but i don't think they do refunds?)

I think they do actually.

So, Swedish puzzles on Friday night.

wtf matt gafney in the av club, loki is not a goddess afaik

One week and counting.

OK, today I did last year's puzzles and based on my score came in someplace between Ryan and Brian. So, not too great, but not last place.

Where did you find last year's puzzles?

Friend did it the past two years and he had them. I think they mail you a copy after the tournament.

Jordan, an old screenname of yours was in the Times puzzle today.

what was it? i did the puzzle but didn't notice.

Something about "The Wire"'s Little.

Today's puzzle is impossible. As is to be expected on the Friday before the tournament.

Just got seven emails from Peter Gordon with the beginning of the year puzzles. The man takes care of business.

wtf matt gafney in the av club, loki is not a goddess afaik

― rinse the lemonade (Jordan), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 10:39 AM (1 week ago)

Maybe an easily confused comics fan -- Loki was in a female body for a few months recently in Marvel continuity.

jaymc, here is the True Story of the Great Crossword Puzzle Battle between solver and constructor: http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/ring/

Ha, you know what, I think I read that at the time but totally forgot about it. Good to see you again, Ken.

Also: you did pretty well! Or better than me, at any rate.

Ah, I was at the bottom of C and you will probably win the D division next year. And you were only a few spots behind me as far as Rookies.

All these years I thought it was "alouette, chantez alouette"

What do you do when you have a whole puzzle finished except for 2-3 intersecting answers that are all proper names of people/places that you don't know? I feel like this is where I end up like 25% of the time and it's frustrating because there's no way to "figure out" those answers if you don't know the names of the tennis player or Olympic athlete or Wisconsin lake that they're looking for.

you bitch about the writer/editor on the internet

I just learned this weekend that there's a name for such an occurrence: it's a violation of the Natick Principle, a term coined by blogger Rex Parker in his review of a Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle.

But does n/a constitute 1/4 of the solving public by himself? Maybe he caught a bad break because two out of three of those guys are xword favorites.

It was the one from the Onion this past week, which was pretty easy but the three I'm missing are: "Wimbledon winner in 1988 and 1990" (I've got ***erg), "Body of water by the University of Wisconsin" (lakemen*ota), and "Family name of twin Olympic skiers Phil and Steve" (mahr*). I just don't know tennis players, skiers, or lakes, I guess.

I don't feel like any of those are super obscure or hard, probably, it's just frustrating to get that close to being done and then get stuck and have to quit because there's no way to work those out.

the lake was a gimme (since i drive past it every day and all), and i guessed on the other vowels. but in general i hate those kinds of crossings.

esteemed tennis player johan phlerg

i hate this kind of shit, there was something in Sunday's NYT like that

Once you are stuck like that you might as well look them up.

Only one I know for sure is the tennis player. I have a guess on the skiers, but that's only because I think I've seen the name in a crossword before. Don't know the lake.

http://www.oneacross.com/

Tbh, that kind of crossing probably might happen more in a Tausig or a BEQ or, based on what I saw yesterday, a Fireball puzzle than in the Times. Although what sometimes happens to me in one of those big puzzles is there will be a little trainwreck crossing (one crosses the other two) of (1) Proper Name I Don't Know (2) Funky Abbreviation or Unknown Crosswordese(3) Strangely Misspelled Theme Answer, which is probably what got Mr. Que on Sunday.

Then there's the "is that really a word, or just a verb with a suffix attached to make a new noun?" on Saturday.

tausig & matt jones puzzles are usually pretty tight (and forgiving) imo

it was ENISLE and ALERS

94A: Strand: ENISLE
91D: Yanks and others ALERS

still don't get the Yanks thing?

Yanks = Yankees = members of the American League = ALers

ALers

ah. gotcha. thanks! sometimes i get so stuck on my first definition of a clue, i can't think of others. in this case i thought ALERS was a collection of people who make/drink beer

Heh, in that same Rex Parker post I linked to earlier, there was this comment from Joon Pahk about ALER:

one of my earliest puzzles included ALER with the clue [Brewer before 1997, e.g.]. everybody who solved it said 1) ugh, ALER; and 2) what's the 1997 doing in there? they thought i was using ALER to mean one who makes ale.

except for that Sunday's was pretty satisfying

Ha, jaymc, did anyone mention ALEGAR in that link which I can't see right now?

Anyway, I'm finally used to ALER, but I too hated ENISLE.

i haven't been following this thread but i have a complaint to crossword creators everywhere:

EMAG and EZINE aren't real words. not even salon editors use them. please stop putting them in your puzzles. thanks

I agree with you about EMAG. However: EZINE is in Webster's.

loved this week's inkwell, esp. "song they played over and over at this jamaican resort my wife and i went to" and "improve the taste of, generally"

Haven't done it yet, but ha: he just got married in November. Must've been on their honeymoon.

You know something I don't even do Tausig's puzzles that often so I don't know what I'm talking about, maybe I'll sign up for that group and have them emailed.

Here's a blog post I wrote about last weekend (purposely not hyperlinked):
www.britannica.com/blogs/2010/02/dispatch-from-the-american-crossword-puzzle-tournament

loved this week's inkwell, esp. "song they played over and over at this jamaican resort my wife and i went to" and "improve the taste of, generally"

― rinse the lemonade (Jordan), Tuesday, February 23, 2010 3:32 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I enjoyed this puzzle too.

I'm trying to get back into doing crosswords regularly. When I worked at the office, I'd do the NYT puzzle (usually with coworkers) most days. I've been lazy about it since working at home, plus no access to the NYT.

I finally did the puzzle and enjoyed it as well. Although I had a few errors in the top center: I had CAT for "Swinger?" and misspelled the Chinese guys name with a 'Z' so the arcade game came out NCAZAM. (I thought it might be some kind of Snoop Dogg expression). Maybe if I had actually read the clue more carefully and seen the word "basketball" I would have figured it out.

Ha, already forgot about "Flower's Bud."

Friday Times seems to be not too hard after pre-puzzle craziness.

jaymc, I read your blog post again when I saw it linked to, along with your friend's blog, at the official tournament site. Very nice.

i've lost the ability to do cryptics again. just when i thought i was getting the hang of it.

What cryptics are you doing exactly? There are some easy ones in the Fraser Simpson New Yorker books or, surprisingly perhaps, in the Mensa cryptic books by Cox and Rathvon, puzzles which were originally in a Canadian newspaper.

jaymc, I just looked at the scoreboard again and noticed that you finished exactly eight places behind Ben Tausig.

Hi Jaymc, (don't know KL's alias), et al.

I wrote a lengthy recap of last weekend's Brooklyn tournament that you can check out here.

The link is: http://benbassandbeyond.blogspot.com/2010/02/2010-american-crossword-puzzle.html

That is all.

Already read the that when I saw it linked on the official tournament page but thanks, b.

Take back what I said about winning the D. Even to win that you've got to do really well, considering that the first and second place finishers in D were 56th and 66th overall. If he had been in D instead of C, new poster beyond, who did quite well, would barely have taken third place. Competition is stiff.

Apropos of which is Ryan Hecht's blog post for today http://bemoresmarter.squarespace.com/blog/2010/3/2/ryan-solves-the-nyt-tue-3-2-10.html

Hmm, looks like I dropped a single place.

Me too. Man, I really enjoyed going to that contest. Can't believe we have to wait a whole year. Guess I'm gonna have to try to go to this year's Lollapuzzoola.

wait a whole year for the next one.

Latest Inkwell 43-Down made me think of ilx.

jaymc, I have an idea for you: next March 15, you should write a puzzle with the word "IDES" hidden in it all over the place.

or just IDE

Oh yeah, what max said.

Has anyone figured out how to submit today's NYT puzzle when using the ap? Completing it leaves a blank space(?), so 'submit' does not accept the puzzle.

Ah, did it on paper so did not have this problem. Actually I remember them saying something about the blank space, but don't remember having one. Let me check the blogs.

Um, where is the blank space?

Dead center, unless it requires a 7-letter rebus fill-in.

I don't know what you have there, but this guy, for example, has the solution: http://www.crosswordmanblog.com/

I swear I tried it with an 'H'. Hmm. Maybe something else is screwy. Tnx!

Yep. D'oh!

Overcoming Dictionary Resistance

Merl Reagle's clue "Morlock menu mainstays" made me chuckle this weekend.

Maybe even better than the classic Sun Crossword clue "Barbecue buttinskis."

i got my ACPT refund check in the mail earlier this week, endorsed by mr. shortz himself! they enclosed the puzzles as well - i aced the first three so far...

Wow, did he deduct anything for sending you the puzzles?

yeah, it was a partial refund

NY Times this Sunday had a clue reading simply "muff". People in the cafe LOL'd. Not actually doing the puzzle myself, I never found out what that was all about.

Did that puzzle, don't remember what that answer was.

jaymc is never coming back to thread now that he is Jeopardy superstar.

I'm here! I just haven't been doing very many puzzles lately. Mostly just the Tausig ones, because they're in free newspapers that I pick up for my commute.

Muff probably = ERR, right?

Ha, that's what I thought it must be without bothering to look it up.

This morning I did the crossword in the Red Eye (Chicago Tribune's tabloid for commuters). Ye gods.

One clue was "African nation." The fill was ZAIRE. Which means they're either using 15-year-old puzzles or indiscriminately selecting clues from an old database. These are unsigned puzzles, so for all I know they're created entirely by a software program.

Also, the solution for Saturday's puzzle was shown, and I noted that the grid contained EIGHT cheater squares, which is pretty inexcusable for a themeless puzzle.

offer them your services!

I try to stay away from stuff like that. I figure if Amy R doesn't blog it, I don't have to do it. What does Jon Stewart say in Worldplay, something like "I will, on occasion, in a hotel do a USA Today puzzle, but I won't feel good about myself"

word.

btw, i don't know if they're syndicated widely, but i have a special hate for the puzzles that show up in milwaukee's free weekly. they're sunday-size and really hard, but also with a lot of (imo) terrible cluing and occasional mistakes. even when i finish them i don't feel especially happy about it.

Yeah, I usually don't do the RedEye puzzle, either, but I forgot the book I'm reading, so I needed something to do on the train.

Figured it was something like that.

i've lost the ability to do cryptics again. just when i thought i was getting the hang of it.

― thomp, Friday, 26 February 2010 14:38 (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

What cryptics are you doing exactly? There are some easy ones in the Fraser Simpson New Yorker books or, surprisingly perhaps, in the Mensa cryptic books by Cox and Rathvon, puzzles which were originally in a Canadian newspaper.

― The Great Rick Roll Swindle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 February 2010 02:52 (1 month ago) Bookmark

oh hey thanks! i didn't see this at the time

i'm doing the (uk) guardian's monday-friday crosswords, which are sort of frustratingly irregular and unreliable, difficulty-wise and adherence-to-convention-wise; i should probably get a book and work through it. it feels a bit too much like taking it seriously though.

Ha, I do can't do those Guardian puzzles at all either, even clues that I might have gotten in another context. If you want to see the answers explained, though, go here: http://fifteensquared.net/category/guardian/

This book is great, but unfortunately seems to be out of print: http://www.amazon.com/Random-House-Guide-Cryptic-Crosswords/dp/0812935454/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270494951&sr=1-12

apparently i can blame the british

jaymc, you can briefly be seen in the Time Magazine video of the ACPT.

Ha! Only b/c I was two seats away from Trip Payne.

Yes, exactly.

Tausig's latest, "Zee Change," gave me a run for my money.

Puzzle people posting record (for them) slow times on today's NYT. Me it was as slow as usual but no slower, although couldn't get the NE, so it was a DNF.

Didn't do as well as this guy http://www.crosswordmanblog.com/, but I had the same difficulties he had.

i did alright on that tausig (though it's a little more challenging that usual) but got stick in the northwest corner.

(stupid sports clues crossing each other)

oh i see

(crossword liveblogging)

Today's Boston Globe puzzle by Cox & Rathvon has a musical theme and is pretty fun.