Tag Archives: Alex Rosen

NYT Crosswords 9-12-21 Complete (contains spoilers)

I pulled out 121A Makes less powerful, in video game slang: NERFS because it’s a term I first heard years ago when playing Madden NFL Mobile. I used to play that game all the time. I was in a league that got mad when you didn’t do all your drives and stuff. It was super intense. Then they made the game way more interactive with live play, and it started to feel like what they had done with real Madden. I mean I really liked the game back in the 2000s, but when they started to get super duper technical with every single play and with how elaborate the audible calling was, it just stopped being fun for me. Also they messed with the controls, and when I wanted to cut left with L1 and cut right with R1, I ended up pitching the ball with one of them. I didn’t really want to learn new controls when the old ones were so intuitive.

Title Theme: What a Character!

Rather than go through every single clue that contains a circled letter, here’s what they were:

SEMI and COLON in the shape of a semicolon.

HYPHEN in the shape of a hyphen.

PARENTHESIS in the shape of a close parens.

27A Any of the groupings of circled letters in this puzzle: PUNCTUATIONMARK.
67A One of two in a jack-o’-lantern?: HYPHEN. Because there are two hyphens in the name of that carved pumpkin.
112A How to see the image formed by this puzzle’s circled letters: ROTATECLOCKWISE.
115A What’s formed by the circled letters in this puzzle: SMILEYFACE.

NO! 😉 is not a smiley face. It is a winky face. At least get it right!

I’m also a little disappointed that the puzzle didn’t automatically fill in the dots of the emoticon. I had to do it all by myself in Snip & Sketch.

Finished this one in 32:24.

Day This Wk Best Average 4-Wk Avg Streak Monday 7:37 3:49 9:26 7:25 73 Tuesday 5:22 13:21 10:18 0 Wednesday 10:53 7:38 17:12 11:00 14 Thursday 12:12 28:49 25:08 0 Friday 18:20 16:23 33:24 25:04 14 Saturday 30:47 27:43 34:03 30:50 14 Sunday 32:24 15:11 54:58 44:30 1

Still broken chart

NYT Crossword Puzzle 7-28-21 Complete (contains spoilers)

I pulled out 14A Cookie that has been deemed kosher since 1997: OREO because I remember when this happened. I’d grown up eating Hydrox, the cookie that Oreo copied and that helped nationally recognized kosher symbols rise to prominence. But even after they’d stopped using lard or whatever was making it not kosher in their ingredients, I didn’t eat oreos for months, lest the ones in front of me were from the old pre-kosher run. Now I keep oreos in the freezer because they’re way better frozen. Also freezing the cookies fixes the staleness that seems to plague some sleeves in the Costco boxes.

This puzzle’s theme made a splash.

17A Porky’s significant other: PETUNIAPIG -> PE[T]UN[I][A][P]IG -> TNIAP | PAINT.
11D Somewhat: UPTOAPOINT -> U[P]TO[A]PO[I][N][T] -> PAINT.
29D Where you might find love away from home?: TENNISCAMP -> [T]E[N]N[I]SC[A]M[P] -> TNIAP | PAINT.
61A _ station, Central London railway terminal: PADDINGTON -> [P][A]DD[I][N]G[T]ON -> PAINT.

53A With 21-Across, artist known to 39-Across pigments back and forth onto canvases: JACKSON POLLOCK.

39A Make art like 53-/21-Across (as suggested by this puzzle’s circled letters?): DRIBBLE.

Finished this one in 29:35.

DayThis WkBestAverage4-Wk AvgStreak
Monday7:013:499:288:2067
Tuesday7:515:2213:4012:3810
Wednesday29:357:3817:3617:198
Thursday12:1229:1928:057
Friday16:2334:5629:227
Saturday27:4334:0633:367
Sunday15:1156:4742:247