Wall Street Journal hints (June 20, 2015)

Backdated to keep this post off the top.

Below the fold is a hint grid for this weekend’s Wall Street Journal puzzle: a Labyrinth by Mike Shenk. It shows you where the winding words start and end.

Once you’re through with this one, try some Sunday brunch.

Wall Street Journal solution (June 20, 2015)

Backdated to keep this post off the top.

Below the fold is the solution to this weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle: a Labyrinth by Mike Shenk.  I also have a hint grid up in case you’re having a hard time getting off the ground.  It shows the starting and ending squares for each of the “winding” answers. Try it if you don’t want quite as much help.

Wall Street Journal hint (June 6, 2015)

Below the fold are two sets of hints to today’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle: a Rows Garden by Patrick Berry. It’s an easy one, so you probably won’t need much of a hint, but you can also use this to check your answers.

First is a list of enumerations for the answers in each row. Click and drag to see the number of letters in each one. Then there’s a table of the locations for each of the blooms. They’re identified by the row number for that color and then A/B/C/D in order. So the rightmost bloom straddling rows F and G (it’s a dark) would be 2D.

Finished? Like Rows Gardens? Subscribe to Andrew Ries’s bi-weekly series.

Care for a quickie? (Puzzle No. 3,365)

Will Shortz has persuaded the editors of the New York Times to give him the rest of the magazine section page that houses the variety puzzle.  Where there used to be a jump from one of the articles, every week there are now three more puzzles.  The first is a letter bank puzzle (Willz loves these) by Frank Longo, the second is a mini variety crossword by Patrick Berry, and the third is a logic puzzle by Wei-Hua Huang.

Patrick’s recent creations have included a miniature Rows Garden he called Hex Nuts and a version of his snowflake puzzles.  The logic puzzles will appeal to sudoku fans, and give them a different challenge just like variety crosswords do for straight crossword solvers.  If you remember the old Windows game Minesweeper, you’ll be interested in these.

It’s good to have puzzles that can be solved in a few minutes, while you’re waiting for the train or to take a break from some mindless task.  These little puzzles also can serve as an invitation to try out puzzles one doesn’t normally do.  How many cryptic solvers were born of the little 8 by 10s in the New Yorker?  And support for small formats can provide an entry point for new constructors; it’s a much less daunting task than filling a full-size grid.

Link to puzzle:  http://www.thenation.com/article/208233/puzzle-no-3365

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): hard

Agility factor:  low

This week’s cluing challenge (share your clues in the comments): TAPAS

Back with the solution and annotation on Monday: join us this weekend as usual for Sunday brunch.

Trust the force, Luke (Sunday brunch: May 24, 2015

This weekend’s puzzles require a diverse set of solving skills, and a degree of confidence in your solving abilities.  Unlike straight crosswords, some of these make you figure out where some (or all) of the answers go.  If you hesitate at filling in a box because you aren’t sure about the answer, you’re going to run into a wall very quickly.  Get a pencil and an eraser, and trust your instincts.  They worked solving this week’s The Nation puzzle didn’t they?

We’ll start with a diagramless, in the New York Times, by Paula Gamache, blogged (with spoilers as usual) by Deb Amlen.

The Wall Street Journal puzzle is a Patrick Berry box creation called Chatter Boxes.  Hints are posted elsewhere on the blog, and so is the solution.

If you’re needing more structure in your puzzling life, solve the regular weekly cryptics:

• Hex in the National Post (Officers Make No Progress, says Falcon)
• Stickler (no. 83)
• Syndicated in the Globe and Mail 

Wall Street Journal hints (May 23, 2015)

This weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle, Chatter Boxes by Patrick Berry, is one where you have to cross row words with words contained in boxes, but you aren’t told where any of the boxes go or even what shape they are.  These puzzles are pretty hard: first you have to get a couple of row answers in rows atop one another, then you have to use that partial to place a box word, and then that might give you enough to solve the next row word.

If you have one of the row words wrong, you’re in a lot of trouble, since the puzzle depends so much on working back and forth.  That’s when a hint might be pretty valuable.  So click and drag to see the enumeration of each row answer.  The enumerations can confirm or rule out your guesses, and they can also tell you where to place the answers for the middle of the row.  If you need even more of a hint, look below the fold for a hint grid showing you the boxes (but not telling you which answers go in them).

Enumerations: click and drag to see them

row	first	middle	last
1	4	5	6
2	6	5	4
3	4	4-1	6
4	5	4	6
5	4	6	5
6	6	4	5
7	6	4	5
8	4,2	4	5
9	5	5	5
10	4	6	2,3
11	4	5	6
12	5	6	4
13	2,3	5	5
14	5	5	5
15	5	4	6

Wall Street Journal solution (May 23, 2015)

Below the fold is the solution to this weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle: Chatter Boxes by Patrick Berry.  Some hints are also posted, and that post also explains how to solve this kind of puzzle.

Wall Street Journal hint (May 9, 2015)

This week’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle is a variety crossword by Patrick Berry caled “Curly Quote.”  All the answers have seven letters and you’re given the location, but you have to figure out the direction.  As with most these puzzles of this type, some solvers might have trouble getting the first word or two into the grid even though they may have a lot of the clue answers.

One way to get a toehold is to try and find two adjacent answers that have only one letter in common. That letter has to go in the shared space, and with luck, there’s only one way to make the words fit. Get those, and you’re off and running.  The up and down pairs have two letters in common (remember they might not always be consecutive letters).  That takes a bit more thinking to find, but increases your chances of nailing down words once you find that pair of letters.

If you’re still stuck, look below the fold.  There’s a table of answer directions.  Click and drag the appropriately numbered box to see whether the central letter of the “curlicue” contains the first or last letter of the answer, and whether the answer runs clockwise or counterclockwise.

Sunday Brunch (March 29, 2015)

We’ll try the streamlined format again, since The Other Doctor Mitchell was out of town all weekend working a skating competition, and I've been functioning as orchestra roadie, caterer, usher, cook, and more.

Cryptics 

National Post (Hex, blogged by Falcon): “Monkeys With a View”
   Peculiar in that the bottom right was a lot harder than the rest of the puzzle.

Stickler: #76 (congratulations, Australia!)

Maya: no new puzzle, but well played, Black Caps!

Harpers (Richard Maltby): “Search Warrant”
   Which means that the March puzzle (“Tetris”) is blogged by our friend Erica,
   who’s made a very big commitment: not to Vlad (yet) but to a dedicated domain.

Globe and Mail (syndicated): themeless, but hard.

Variety puzzles

Wall Street Journal: “Hunting Season” by Patrick Berry
   Great puzzle, hints and solution provided elsewhere on the blog

NY Times: Marching Bands by BEQ (blogged by Deb Amlen)
   And Deb provides ACPT commentary at Wordplay.
   Note also that BEQ is looking to kick off a subscription Marching Bands series
      like Aries’s Rows Gardens (which I highly endorse)

WSJ solution (March 28, 2015)

Below the fold is the solution to this weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle: “Hunting Season” by Patrick Berry.  I'll offer a hint grid elsewhere on the blog.

WSJ hint (January 17, 2015)

Below the fold is the enumeration of the answers in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle: Telescopes by Patrick Berry.  I found it was easy, but in case you didn’t or you want to check an answer you think is right, click and drag in the table below to find out how many letters each answer has.

Wall Street Journal hint: January 3, 2015

Below the fold I’ve put a hint grid for this weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle, a Labyrinth by Mike Shenk.  If you want less of a hint, click and drag to get enumerations of each of the answers.

Wall Street Journal solution: January 3, 2015

Below the fold is the solution to this weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle: a Labyrinth by Mike Shenk.

Automatics (Sunday brunch: Dec. 7, 2014)

In our last episode, we learned why refs shouldn’t have rabbit ears.  Today we find out that most refs have one thing or another that will instantly draw a penalty if said to them.  If you have one of the growing number of female referees working your game (Hi, Kate!), you’d better not say anything about her gender, or anything sexual in nature.  Every lady partner I’ve had makes that an automatic.

Me, it’s my glasses.  During my playing days and early in my refereeing career, I wore contact lenses.  But as I got older, I found they dried my eyes out uncomfortably.  More importantly, my astigmatism has grown significantly worse, and the contacts didn’t correct for that.  So I got a pair of Rec-Specs, which  are special glasses made with an elastic strap that fits under a helmet. They had the added bonus of protecting my eyes from stray sticks and pucks in the days before they made us all wear visors.

They’re very effective, but they’re also quite obvious (and ugly, I’ll admit).  So inevitably, some wag who thinks he’s being original makes a remark about my glasses being fogged up or something like that when a call goes against his team.  That’s my automatic: two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct.  I don’t care what the score is or whether you’ve been a perfect angel the rest of the game. Then once you’re in the penalty box, I’ll explain: “a referee who wears glasses is a referee who gets his eyes checked every season.”

Put on your solving glasses and have a go at this great variety of puzzles.  The New York Times has a diagramless by Paula Gamache (blogged by Deb Amlen–spoiler warning), while the Wall Street Journal has Patrick Berry’s Cigar Boxes.  Hints for both have been posted elsewhere on the blog.

Variety cryptics?  Two of those, and believe it or not, the one by Kevin Wald is easier.  Tom Toce created another of his three-dimensional puzzles.

Straight cryptics?  A pair of them too.  Hex in the National Post (as blogged by Falcon) and the regular syndicated puzzle from the Globe and Mail.

And variety solvers might enjoy Thursday's New York Times straight crossword (Wordplay link)–it’s not so straight after all.  

So with all that puzzling going on, it’s a good week for Stickler to take a week off and celebrate his daughter’s wedding.  We wish them many blissful years together.  

Wall Street Journal hints: December 6, 2014

Having trouble getting a toehold in the Wall Street Journal puzzle (Cigar Boxes by Patrick Berry)? Look below the fold for some hints.  First I’ll give you enumerations of the row answers, so you can check to see if the answer you’re considering has the right number of letters.  The enumerations can also tell you where to put the middle answer in a row.  I‘ll also post a hint grid with colored boxes (you still have to figure out which answer goes in which box.

Wall Street Journal solution: December 6, 2014

Below the fold is the solution to this weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle: Cigar Boxes by Patrick Berry.  Before you go for the solution, see if a hint is all you need.

Vowels to Bosnia (Puzzle No. 3,346)

Tom Magliozzi (1937-2014)

With the passing of Tom Magliozzi, one half of Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, Ray and the producers of Car Talk put together a memorial program.  One of the pieces in it was “Vowels to Bosnia,” which originally appeared in The Onion. in 1995  It was perfect for Car Talk because of Tom and Ray’s penchant for skewering their NPR News compatriots and the wall to wall coverage of the Balkan wars going on on the network at the time.

So did you donate vowels to Bosnia?  Have no fear, you can still solve crosswords.  The vowelless is a well-known form of variety puzzles, which add an additional challenge because the answers aren’t enumerated.  Solving them requires a good eye for spotting letter patterns.  Crossnerd has created a bunch, Trip Payne has one, Neville Fogarty has one, Andy Kravis has one, and Arthur Schulman has done four for the New York Times.  The kng f th gnr is Frnk Lng.  The constructors all seem to have fun with them.


Now, back to regular cryptics: here’s this week’s The Nation puzzle.

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/191345/puzzle-no-3346

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle):  Somewhat hard.  A few of the answers escaped me on the first go, even after I got the theme.

Hozom’s comment: “A Grat Étude,” in which Hot and Trazom give thanks for their test solvers, and introduce the two newest members of the team.  They also give us a few before and after examples of clues the test solvers helped improve.  

Weekly cluing challenge:  GRATEFUL

See you this weekend for Sunday Brunch, and don’t solve like my brother.

Wall Street Journal challenge grid: November 1, 2014

This weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle is by Mike Shenk and is called Alternations.  The words form a spiral in the grid, and alternating letters from that spiral form two more sequences of words.  The grid includes numbers for placing the main words, but if you want more of a challenge, try doing it in this grid, which has no numbers.

Wall Street Journal solution: Nov. 8, 2014

Below the fold is the solution to this weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle: Alternations by Mike Shenk.

A Great Game (Sunday brunch: November 2, 2014)

Seeing as how Election Day is this Tuesday, I figured I should read one of the new books by a prominent politician.  No, not one of the people angling for the 2016 presidential nomination.  The author isn’t even American: it’s Stephen J. Harper, Prime Minister of Canada.

Though his degree is in economics, Harper has long had an interest in history.  Being a native of the Toronto area, he’s an avid Maple Leafs fan.  When the Society for International Hockey Research was formed, it inspired Harper to pursue that avocation.  He says the research and writing for the project, which began in 2004, was a pleasant release from the stress of politics and work in Parliament.  He had assistance in researching the book’s contents, but the writing is all Harper’s.

A Great Game: the Forgotten Leafs and the Rise of Professional Hockey is centered on the emergence of professional hockey in Toronto, from the beginnings of the Ontario Hockey Association around the turn of the century to the first Stanley Cup for Toronto, won by the Blue Shirts in 1914.  Much centers on the tension between the ideals of amateurism in sport and the rise of professional sport as popular entertainment.  This story, which played out in other sports too, like golf and football, was driven by rising prosperity and the emergence of a middle class.  The upper class no longer had a monopoly on sport or other leisure-time activities.

In the manner of the best popular history books, A Great Game is both scholarly and accessible. There are plenty of anecdotes to illustrate the ways of life before the Great War, and intriguing bits of hockey history like the introduction of goal nets and the practice of dropping the puck in a face-off instead of laying it on the ice (which is how face-offs are conducted in lacrosse, which was an equally big sport in Canada at the time).  Harper also does a nice job fleshing out the main characters: not just the players, but the association presidents and promoters too.

Quotes from newspaper stories of the time knock down the myth that society’s preoccupation with sports is a modern thing: only fans gathered around newspaper and telegraph offices for play by play instead of around a television screen.  The parade welcoming a returning Stanley Cup challenger, even in defeat, was just as much of an event then as it is now.  That points to the only shortcoming of A Great Game: though it is well-illustrated, I would have liked to see more photographs of games and of the surrounding hoopla.

Amateur or professional, try solving these crosswords...

The highlight of the weekend is Hex’s variety cryptic in the Wall Street Journal: Spoonermania.  I don’t think I need to say any more other than some of the clue types will be obvious.  But a few aren’t so much, and in case those give you trouble, I have hints posted.  The solution is also up  Hex also have their usual straight cryptic in the National Post (blogged by Falcon).  More moderate difficulty than easy, but a smooth solve.   If you remember Hex’s fondness for second definitions, you’ll do well.

More straight cryptics are found in the Globe and Mail, and Down Under courtesy of the Stickler.  I found the latter to be a tough one, but I got through it.

BEQ posted a new Marching Bands he brought to Crosswords LA as a bonus for the entrants.  Small (11 x 11 instead of the usual 13 x 13) but creative as BEQ’s work always is.  The other puzzles from that tournament (all straight crosswords, I think) are available for just five bucks, proceeds going to charity.

The New York Times variety puzzle is an acrostic, blogged (with spoilers) by Deb Amlen at Wordplay.