Sometimes I Do A Crossword Puzzle Just Around The Outside

I do the NYT crossword three times a week in their printed editions only.. Sometimes my MO is to do all I can on first pass across, then down, and then work on connections. Other times I start at 1  across and just do connections if possible. I always use pen not pencil. Wed. takes about 20 min., Fri. about 30. Sat is the most difficult - takes 30 - 60 min

Apparently I am a bit of a crossword nerd.

But not an addict.

I could stop any time.

Maybe.

You two are experts.   I do the mini daily, occasionally the Monday full and if I'm feeling lucky, Tuesday.   My brain doesn't work that way.  

I had a good wordle streak of 141 days and got busted on Corer

So now my focus is on Connections - that shit is all over the map 

I've started on Sports Connections and the jury is still out. I don't know enough about WNBA and golf for their puzzles. I got a Wednesday crossword a few weeks ago and was feeling great about the world. Can not get into Strands.

I do the NYT Sunday and Friday crossword puzzles online, and leave the rest of the week for the archive, which goes back to December 1993. I've done the Sunday puzzles back that far, and everything else back to early 2014. Saturdays are my least favorite because they're just stupid hard most of the time. Like hard just for the sake of being hard, and there's other ways I'd rather spend my time.

I tried Wordle a couple of times and just didn't like it, but I'm absolutely addicted to the Times Spelling Bee. It's either the first or last thing I do everyday; last if I'm up around midnight PT, or first if I didn't do it the night before.

Mike - thanks your post I tried a Sunday (on line) for the first time and got it done. I'd been chicken to even try so thanks for the encouragement. A good use of 90 minutes lol. Cheers 

Mike, My friend's son is the editor of the Bee. Super nice "kid." I'll tell him he's got fans on the Zone.

[The first time he did a puzzle, he was about five years old and sitting at a local Hair Cuttery. He found a magazine with a “Fill-It-In”—basically a crossword without clues, just words that you slot into the grid. “It was genuinely love at first sight,” says Ezersky. From there, he got into real crosswords.

In 2017, just out of college, he was hired by the Times to be one of three crossword editors. For a while, that meant reading, evaluating, and editing submitted crosswords (for style, clarity, and fun), which he still does today.

But then, in 2018, he was told about the launch of the Spelling Bee, a deceptively simple word puzzle presented in a honeycomb structure—and Ezersky was going to be its editor.  His first thought was a half-hearted “cool.” He assumed Spelling Bee would be a small task and extra bit of work, but not the defining project of his career.]

https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/artsentertainment/new-york-tim...

> I tried a Sunday (on line) for the first time and got it done

Sunday puzzles are my favorite, Mike. Sure, they're big, and their themes can be challenging, but they're not super difficult. I can usually get one done in about 30 minutes or so.

> My friend's son is the editor of the Bee. Super nice "kid." I'll tell him he's got fans on the Zone.

Sam? How cool, although I need to add that many of us Bee fans have a somewhat complicated relationship with Sam and the game, as the article mentions, because he's the person who decides which words get in the game, and which words do not.

Ezersky doesn’t actually create the Spelling Bee puzzles from scratch. He chooses enjoyable puzzles from a massive computer database, which he likens to “dumpster diving.” But on that day, he picked a puzzle, thought it was everything it needed to be—tricky, but not too tricky, fun to play, clear. But one thing he hadn’t realized: The puzzle was a bit out of date, so it didn’t include the word “clickbait.”

The next day, his Twitter (now X) mentions were filled with angry people complaining about the omission. Among them: Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin), who tweeted at the paper, “You’ve got to get out more.”

zang lolol

same

and i fucking love the bee

which words get in the game, and which words do not

^def would pick this bone with Sam !

Why We Turn to Crosswords in Times of Crisis

On Dec. 18, 1941, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lester Markel, the Sunday editor of The New York Times, sent a memo to Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the paper’s publisher. In light of the bleak blackout hours to come, he argued, it was time to add a feature that The Times had resisted for nearly three decades: a crossword puzzle.

Markel was acting in part on the urging of Margaret Farrar, then the editor of Simon & Schuster’s puzzle books. “I don’t think I have to sell you on the increased demand for this kind of pastime in an increasingly worried world,” she told him. “You can’t think of your troubles while solving a crossword.”

The crossword has served this role — a solace for the anxious — throughout its history, particularly in times of crisis. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/10/opinion/crosswords-comfort-crisis.htm...

As a little kid games magazine was huge for me lol

What do they say about mad magazine in times of crisis?!

I do 4 crosswords and 2 sudukos everyday, I complete 95% of them regularly, and my spelling is still shit. Grammer kinda fucked too.

It's grammar. 

>>>Can not get into Strands.

I dig the strands.  

I do almost every puzzle and game except for Sudoku 

Crossword puzzle never on Saturday /: (;

What would old Alfie have to say about what's going on now? May have to see if the mag is around anymore

> What would old Alfie have to say about what's going on now?

I think A. E. N. would answer your question with a question, Jill: Is what's going on now putting a smile on your face? If it is, dig into it. If it isn't, find a place to focus your attention that does.