Hobbies, Pets

Currently: Crossword puzzling

September 30, 2015

I loooooove crossword puzzles.

I gave up on this one.

I gave up on this one.


I suuuuuuuck at crossword puzzles.

A few months ago, I plunked down $40 ($40!) for the New York Times crossword app for my phone. It’s a lot of dough, but that $40 ($40?!) gives me the NYT puzzle every day for a year, plus a bunch of puzzle packs and the ability to do past puzzles.

If you’re not familiar with the NYT puzzles, here is how they work:

  • Monday: VERY easy.
  • Tuesday: Easy.
  • Wednesday: Medium difficulty.
  • Thursday: Medium-hard difficulty.
  • Friday: Hard.
  • Saturday: Stupidly hard.
  • Sunday: Back down to hard, but larger and usually with a quirky hell-beast gimmick.

I don’t know a lot about movies (I hate movies), the Bible (Catholic) and sports (doughy nerd) and my lack of expertise in those subjects really cripples me. But each day I persevere. So far my longest streak has been Monday-Thursday. My goal is to complete seven days in a row.

Hopefully it’ll be before next year’s $40 ($40?!?) is due.

***

Jerk.

Jerk.

Last night, Ollie got out of the yard through a gap in the back fence and for 30 minutes I was a hysterical mess. While I walked the streets wailing like a banshee, WM found him by thinking like him – he followed bunnies. Where there were bunnies, there was Ollie. A block away, grinning and panting like an idiot.

Time to get that gap filled in AND an updated dog tag with our new address.

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  • scrivener September 30, 2015 at 7:43 am

    I’m also a huge fan of the NYT x-word. My Monday average is seven minutes! But I can only occasionally finish Wednesday without help (like half the time) and Thursday is a struggle. Will Shortz says the Sunday puzzle is intended to be about at Thursday level, which seems about right to me.