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August 25, 2008

Saturday NYT crossword reinkings

satcrossword

1 ACROSS: Oil-based paste mentioned in the lyrics to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." (10). I gave this one a mental sing-through and wrote in PLASTICENE. But it's PLASTICINE.

19 ACROSS: Thanksgiving dishes (5). I wrote in BOWLS after having BO filled in. BOATS, instead.

54 DOWN: 0, for 180o (4). I wrote in MINS with the IN crossings, which looks kind of dumb now in a moment of quiet reflection. The answer was SINE. Math answers always fool me, because I assume no one knows math but me (usually accurate).

42 ACROSS: Small, narrow bays (7). I had LETS as the last four letters and tried to write in INLETS before noticing an extra blank square. Oops. ARMLETS, instead.

* * *
Postscript: I'm getting a little disturbed that it's taking me less and less time to solve crossword puzzles. I don't want to be able to solve them quickly, because I depend on them to provide me entertainment at those points of the day when I have nothing better to do (dr appt, waiting for the car, on hold with a phone company, etc). I've already taken to carrying cryptics around, and on Monday and Tuesday (sometimes Wednesday!) I carefully mutilate the NYT puzzle, removing half the clues (ie all the Across, or all the Downs) by tearing the page up, prior to solving it. I really don't want to be one of those people who carry big books of puzzles around. Or Sudokus. One thing that stops me from progressing even more quickly is having a rule to *never* look up answers on the web (well, almost never), and I've never looked at a crossword solution either, at least as far as I can remember. In this way, I slow my progress, because if I don't know a common word for Sweetmeats this week, and couldn't figure it out, well, I won't be able to fill it in next week, either, unless I'm able to guess. To slow myself down, I use a pen and try to fill in the puzzle clue-by-clue, not jumping around the grid at all, like "water flowing down the page." This slows me down a bit. Also, knowing almost nothing about pop music, actors and actresses, and movies helps quite a bit too.

Posted by tplambeck at 09:17 PM

please

Shadow of cat's ears, visible under door
shadow of cat's ears (and tail, far left)


He'd like to get out
he'd like to get out

Posted by tplambeck at 08:44 PM

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