Trip number two starts today. A couple of months ago, Sabers punched his ticket to the US Fencing national championship in Columbus. This was his last year in the Y14 category so it gets harder from here, and we'll take the opportunity to get the Nationals experience.
Puzzles this weekend are easy. So easy that I'm going to offer folks a tougher version of Hex's WSJ cryptic. That puzzle, "Fireworks" is just 11 by 11, and since the special squares are marked and enumerations are given, you'll get the theme really fast. I won't fault Hex for making something that easy: their last opus (just two weeks ago!) was pretty hard for a WSJ puzzle, and this makes a nice entry point for those who've never tried a variety cryptic because they're too intimidating.
Nathan Curtis posted a nice Snake Charmer that is a little different than usual in that the words form two overlapping loops rather than a single loop that goes back on itself. You'll get what I mean when you see that the starting points of one set of words are marked with numbers and the others are marked with letters.
If you didn't see the comment from the June 21 entry here, Xanthippe let us know that she has posted some crossWHOrds and other puzzles in that vein. They're in the British style, so expect emphasis on the "play" part of wordplay. Go cross swords with her at crossswords.wordpress.com. While the site is lovely, unfortunately, the puzzles aren't very printer-friendly.
The Sunday Times variety puzzle is an acrostic by Hex. Meanwhile, Deb reports (spoilers) that Friday's Times puzzle by Joe Krozel broke the record for fewest words in a grid, though some will grumble at the aesthetics of the result.
If you use Puzzazz, there's an update for you: they now make the New York Times puzzles available for solving in the app. You have to subscribe to the NYT puzzle site: enter your login info and the puzzles will download to your device automatically so you can solve on the go. That ought to drive some more subscriptions and also some more Puzzazz downloads.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Making the Wall Street Journal puzzle more challenging
Hex have a variety cryptic in this weekend's Wall Street Journal. As printed, it's very easy. Want a harder challenge? Take away the enumerations from the clues and take away the locations of the special squares, and try it that way.
Across
4 Hack a directory for conspirator
10 Fifty equals a number having flexibility
11 Musician is in love with droid
12 Leaped after the leader made the calls
13 Spool of yarn mostly going up and down
14 Mastermind in Greene novel
15 Republican club outside a capital in North Africa
16 Many a standard situationat a fully booked inn?
17 House left empty by mid-October
19 Crackpot toiling over a carving
22 Gang holding a Biblical kingdom
24 Young socialite took in campaign event
25 A bakery choice pronounced wrong
26 Part Fitzgerald intended for audiences
28 Trial alternative: settlement
29 Crowd circling Oregon swamp
30 Measure all but the stern of Columbian boat
31 Two companies performing a Ron Howard movie
32 In no hurry taking eggs back?
Down
1 Smooth kind of shot by tonsillitis doc
2 Some biscuits I'm baking for an animated cat
3 Snake I call ambitious
5 Homes for a bard's first poetry
6 Morning test lacking ethics
7 One supporter behind large sign
8 Cocktail time embraced by lounge performer
9 High fashion, in the opinion of a Wild West sidekick
13 Live dance maintaining an unsafe pitch
17 Enron log tampered with part in aircraft construction
18 Line that's painful in figure of speech
20 Three hemming at mutual pact
21 Consider again about skinny kid's face
22 Charted the comeback of actor Johnny America
23 Wild animal urge breaks up laughter
24 GOP foe backing no evil person
27 Kinky item to download in New York
Friday, June 28, 2013
All-in
Double issue of The Nation last week, so no new puzzle this week. Also no new posts at Word Salad.
At Sunday brunch last weekend, I mentioned that Nathan Curtis’s latest deserved its own post. Called “A Curtain Call for Borbonicus and Bodley,” Nathan composed it as a warm-up for this year’s MIT Mystery Hunt. Hunts are gaining popularity, and have been put on in several different cities. Teams of solvers have to get through a variety of different puzzles (word puzzles and non-word puzzles, many absolutely unique) and travel around the campus or city to get clues and eventually find the finish line. From what some have said about the experience, you'd better be prepared for an all-nighter or two.
What I find about the “hunt” puzzles I’ve tried is that they need your undivided attention. Some of them have no rules, but knowing the theme and some of the previous answers will point you towards a solution. It’s not the kind of pastime I can put on the clipboard and devote a few minutes to before bedtime. Not all of us have the time or inclination for such intense events, but Nathan’s warm-up will give you an idea of whether this is a kind of recreation you’ll find enjoyable.
So go over and meet Borbonicus and Bodley. Even if you don’t go all-in and attempt to solve the whole thing, there are a few puzzles that work well on a stand-alone basis, including the cryptic “What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?” which Nathan posted a few months ago and a very clever variety crossword in the labyrinth style (Anyone know who originated it? Most of what I’ve seen are from Mike Shenk.) Blinky, that Inky, Pinky, and Clyde will help you with. There are also puns to groan at.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Handshake line (Solution No. 3,287)
Congratulations to the Blackhawks. It's not often that you see both teams pulling their goaltender at the end of the game, but it happened tonight when the Hawks got the tying and Cup-winning goals within 17 seconds. I liked the promo the NHL ran a few times during the broadcast, showing some famous players like Lanny McDonald in the post-game handshake line, with the tagline: "it isn't yours until you shake on it."
On to the week's puzzle, which was another one that will give the purists fits.
Themework: none, other than the circular cross-reference.
Difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): very hard
Political or musical content: none
Solution and annotation to The Nation puzzle No. 3,287 below
the fold.
Plan C (Sunday brunch June 23, 2013)
Sometimes you just need to have a backup plan to your backup plan. I thought we were all set. On the way back to the hotel after my mother's birthday party Saturday, I spotted an IHOP right next to the parkway on-ramp. We'd sleep in, stop there for brunch, and get right on the way home.
We pulled in Sunday morning. A few people outside, but it didn't look crowded inside. Perfect. We got out of the car, walked up, and one of the outside people, who was in an IHOP uniform, told us the restaurant wasn't open yet: the grand opening would be Tuesday. Plan B was the other IHOP on US 1. Drive over there, see a dozen people outside waiting for a table. At that point, nobody wanted to wait, so we grabbed bagels and coffee and got up the road. We made another stop three hours later, and there was no question what we'd order: pancakes, eggs, bacon, biscuits, french toast. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Puzzles were (mostly) easier this weekend.
The New York Times has a straight cryptic by Rosalie Moskovitch. The solution is below the fold. Deb Amlen was on her vacation, so Thomas Gaffney has comment at Wordplay. I was not all that impressed.
The Wall Street Journal has a Spell Weaver variety crossword by Mike Shenk. They added bars to the grid, sacrificing aesthetics in the interest of making it easier for solvers to figure out where to put the answers. Interestingly, I got most of the lower half before making much in the way of inroads on the upper half. Usually I start with a bunch of answers scattered through the grid.
Falcon is still on vacation, so he has a temporary post for the National Post puzzle. You'll be seeing stars after you finish it, and it's not because it's difficult. Seeing as how Falcon gave me my first crossword blogging gig, I'll put a quick solution up in the comments there as soon as I find my copy of the puzzle
Nathan Curtis's latest deserves its own post, so I'll blog on that Thursday.
We pulled in Sunday morning. A few people outside, but it didn't look crowded inside. Perfect. We got out of the car, walked up, and one of the outside people, who was in an IHOP uniform, told us the restaurant wasn't open yet: the grand opening would be Tuesday. Plan B was the other IHOP on US 1. Drive over there, see a dozen people outside waiting for a table. At that point, nobody wanted to wait, so we grabbed bagels and coffee and got up the road. We made another stop three hours later, and there was no question what we'd order: pancakes, eggs, bacon, biscuits, french toast. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Puzzles were (mostly) easier this weekend.
The New York Times has a straight cryptic by Rosalie Moskovitch. The solution is below the fold. Deb Amlen was on her vacation, so Thomas Gaffney has comment at Wordplay. I was not all that impressed.
The Wall Street Journal has a Spell Weaver variety crossword by Mike Shenk. They added bars to the grid, sacrificing aesthetics in the interest of making it easier for solvers to figure out where to put the answers. Interestingly, I got most of the lower half before making much in the way of inroads on the upper half. Usually I start with a bunch of answers scattered through the grid.
Falcon is still on vacation, so he has a temporary post for the National Post puzzle. You'll be seeing stars after you finish it, and it's not because it's difficult. Seeing as how Falcon gave me my first crossword blogging gig, I'll put a quick solution up in the comments there as soon as I find my copy of the puzzle
Nathan Curtis's latest deserves its own post, so I'll blog on that Thursday.
Friday, June 21, 2013
On the Road, Part I (Puzzle No. 3,287)
Today finds me on the first of five trips this summer, but if there's signal and a puzzle, there'll be a post.
Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/174866/puzzle-no-3287
Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): very hard. The solvers who complain about Hot and Trazom’s cluing will find things particularly tough. Even those of us who like the style are probably going to miss some of the twists and rely on intersecting letters to get some of these (23a in my case).
Hozom’s comment: From Point A to Point B (Part I), in which Hot and Trazom debate two-word answers, and particularly the ones where the answer as encoded in the wordplay is a heteronym of the answer as defined. Methinks the correspondent that Hot and Trazom refer to as “John” protests too much. It's a cryptic: it's meant to play with letters and words, and heteronyms are nothing if not wordplay. Not to mention that refs play a fairly significant role in some heteronyms....
Back with the solution on Monday. Join us this weekend for Sunday Brunch, and I'll probably throw a quick In the Pink in the mix somewhere too.
Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/174866/puzzle-no-3287
Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): very hard. The solvers who complain about Hot and Trazom’s cluing will find things particularly tough. Even those of us who like the style are probably going to miss some of the twists and rely on intersecting letters to get some of these (23a in my case).
Hozom’s comment: From Point A to Point B (Part I), in which Hot and Trazom debate two-word answers, and particularly the ones where the answer as encoded in the wordplay is a heteronym of the answer as defined. Methinks the correspondent that Hot and Trazom refer to as “John” protests too much. It's a cryptic: it's meant to play with letters and words, and heteronyms are nothing if not wordplay. Not to mention that refs play a fairly significant role in some heteronyms....
Back with the solution on Monday. Join us this weekend for Sunday Brunch, and I'll probably throw a quick In the Pink in the mix somewhere too.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Bonus hockey (Sunday brunch: June 16, 2013)
I think it was Bill Pidto who coined the phrase "bonus hockey" for NHL overtime, but it's caught on in the Mitchell household. The Stanley Cup final is extraordinarily intense: if you doubt me, just watch the linesmen. They throw extra intensity into their signals, even the washouts (the swinging of the arms when there's no offside as the puck enters the zone or is turned around at the blue line), and the faceoffs get put down a little harder. The guys who are there know they earned their way by solid work through the playoffs, and want to show Toronto that they made the right choice.
Overtime in the Stanley Cup is even more intense, and if you watch closely, you'll see players seeing what they need to do and trying to will their bodies to get to the puck or to take out an opponent, but cruelly, it just isn't there.
Want to feel a little of that? It's crunch time for solvers: will you have to work overtime to solve this weekend's cryptics? Will you get them done by Sunday night?
The July Harpers is out, with a Richard Maltby puzzle. Emily may still be busy with her video series, but she should have the solution and annotation to the June puzzle over at tackyharperscrypticclues.blogspot.com.
The Wall Street Journal weekend puzzle is a Hex variety cryptic called "Loose Ends." It's tough: definitely the hardest weekend puzzle I've seen in the Journal in a long while, if ever. Each of the answers has had its last letter relocated to somewhere else in the light, so you can't necessarily use intersecting words to help you. My approach was to pencil in the unmodified answers anyway, and then I could figure out what letters were possible at a particular intersection. If you rule out everything but one letter, you can fill in at least one half of the light. The solution is below the fold.
The regular straight cryptic by Hex is in the National Post. Falcon is back from vacation with solution and annotation. He's also posted last week's puzzle in case you didn't get a copy elsewhere.
The Times has a Hex acrostic behind the paywall. Deb Amlen has Hex's comments (and spoilers) at Wordplay. It's a Father's Day quote from an expert on parenthood. I look down on the site where his house used to be every morning as I ride the train into town.
The weekly Nathan Curtis variety puzzle is a Snake Charmer. Nathan thinks it's a harder one.
Overtime in the Stanley Cup is even more intense, and if you watch closely, you'll see players seeing what they need to do and trying to will their bodies to get to the puck or to take out an opponent, but cruelly, it just isn't there.
Want to feel a little of that? It's crunch time for solvers: will you have to work overtime to solve this weekend's cryptics? Will you get them done by Sunday night?
The July Harpers is out, with a Richard Maltby puzzle. Emily may still be busy with her video series, but she should have the solution and annotation to the June puzzle over at tackyharperscrypticclues.blogspot.com.
The Wall Street Journal weekend puzzle is a Hex variety cryptic called "Loose Ends." It's tough: definitely the hardest weekend puzzle I've seen in the Journal in a long while, if ever. Each of the answers has had its last letter relocated to somewhere else in the light, so you can't necessarily use intersecting words to help you. My approach was to pencil in the unmodified answers anyway, and then I could figure out what letters were possible at a particular intersection. If you rule out everything but one letter, you can fill in at least one half of the light. The solution is below the fold.
The regular straight cryptic by Hex is in the National Post. Falcon is back from vacation with solution and annotation. He's also posted last week's puzzle in case you didn't get a copy elsewhere.
The Times has a Hex acrostic behind the paywall. Deb Amlen has Hex's comments (and spoilers) at Wordplay. It's a Father's Day quote from an expert on parenthood. I look down on the site where his house used to be every morning as I ride the train into town.
The weekly Nathan Curtis variety puzzle is a Snake Charmer. Nathan thinks it's a harder one.
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