Tag Archives: nytcrossword

NYT Crossword 8-4-20 Complete

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I learned a bunch from this puzzle.

Like Brian McKnight would say, “Start it back at 1,” so here we go.

1D Mocking remark: JAPE. JAPE?! No idea.

jape (v.)late 14c., “to trick, beguile, jilt; to mock,” also “to act foolishly; to speak jokingly, jest pleasantly,” perhaps from Old French japer “to howl, bawl, scream” (Modern French japper), of echoic origin, or from Old French gaber “to mock, deride.” Phonetics suits the former, but sense the latter explanation. Chaucer has it in the full range of senses. Around mid-15c. the Middle English word took on a slang sense of “have sex with” and subsequently vanished from polite usage. It was revived in the benign sense of “say or do something in jest” by Scott, etc., and has limped along since in stilted prose. Related: Japed; japing.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=jape

So that’s a thing I now know.

53D Frozen dessert chain: TCBY. We all know that it’s the place to go for the country’s best yogurt, but I haven’t seen one of those since I was on the Santa Monica College campus.

Oh I just checked, and TCBY is still on that campus! That’s pretty cool. Too bad I have to miss out this summer because covid!

NYT Crossword 8-3-20 Complete

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Ahhhh Monday. The return of the simple puzzle. Easy and educational.

30A Ancient carver of stone heads in Mesoamerica: OLMEC. Olmec or Ol’ Mec? To the googles!

They were an entire civilization independent of the Mayas. Worth a read: https://www.mexicanist.com/l/olmec-heads/

Here’s something glaringly sloppy in this crossword:
42D H2O, south of the border: AGUA
47D Light blue shades: AQUAS

But 53D “Huh, funny running into you!”: OHHI was funny because I’m a big fan of the film The Room.

The theme clues of this puzzle are related to 57A The terrible twos, e.g. (one hopes!) … or the start of 17-, 22-, 36- or 45-Across?
JUSTAPHASE
17A Where to go for a fill-up: (GAS)STATION
22A Firm place to plant your feet: (SOLID)GROUND
36A Viewing options popularized in the 1990s: (PLASMA)SCREENTVS
45A Cash or stocks, e.g.: (LIQUID)ASSETS

Pretty good.

NYT Crossword Special March 2020 Equal Pay Day Complete

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There’s no WSJ Friday puzzle, so here’s a special puzzle from NYT from March of this year.

Overall easy, which seems always to be the case for the special puzzles. I don’t mind that. I finished this one in 6:49. And, like the other special puzzles, it taught me something.

14A Music genre from the Caribbean: SOCA

So what even is soca? I’d never heard of it. It’s Soul of Calypso from Trinidad. Its creator, Ras Shorty I, formerly Lord Shorty, born Garfield Blackman, died 20 years and a little more than two weeks ago. He had 14 kids. That’s a lot of kids!

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/jul/15/guardianobituaries2

Have a great weekend, everybody! It’s supposed to be a hot one here in the other Southern California.

NYT Crossword Special July 2020 National Drive-Thru Day Complete

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Since there’s no Wall Street Journal Friday puzzle, I did the New York Times July 2020 special puzzle: National Drive-Thru Day. It was pretty easy and kinda fun. The fun part probably was that there was no mention of Will Shortz, so go Fred Piscop!

The clue for 39A “Get a _ _ _!” (call to an early driver) was one I hadn’t heard before. I was unaware of “GET A HORSE!” But for a while I had read it as call to an elderly driver, and I thought how terrible it was to tell an old person to get a hearse, and I questioned my spelling of hearse because it’s six letters long, and there was only space for five.

Look out for other special monthly puzzles I do to fill the gaps in regular days.

Have a great weekend!

NYT Crossword 7-24-20 DNF

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Back to not finishing, but at least I got close. That upper right side plagued me for a long time. I just don’t know the answers.

The puzzle itself was kinda daunting because of all the open area, but it wasn’t so bad, save for that part that I couldn’t do that prevented me from finishing it. In reality, I don’t even know for certain that what I filled out is even correct, but I’m leaving it as it is so I can go back and finish the ones I couldn’t do.

And regarding 41A Often-counterfeited boots, a friend of mine told me about receiving a pair of counterfeit UGGS as a present and how they were almost pretty good, but it can’t beat a keen eye for sure.

Here’s a reminder that I’m not going to be doing the Saturday NYT crossword because I do that with friends, but I’ll post other puzzles.

NYT Crossword 7-22-20 Complete

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Longest puzzle of the week so far, but I finished! Total time was 20:37, partially because I couldn’t figure out what B+ was. Every answer I thought of (NOTGOODENOUGH, JUSTMISSED, NEVERGETTINGINTOCOLLEGE) didn’t fit. Which brings up a weird dream I had last night that I was taking Spanish class in college and aced the first exam and then got the second exam back and got like 45%. I was confused because I did the same processes of studying and prep as I had done for the first exam, and I thought I’d nailed the second one, but I was deficient. I can take that dream in several ways: (1) I’m still having nightmares about taking tests in college; (2) my proficiency in Spanish is severely lacking, and that isn’t great for someone who lives in Los Angeles; (3) it’s a dream, so whatever; (4) I need to remember that even when I think I’ve nailed it, there’s more to do.

So pretty much this.

Remember the WSJ puzzle where they agreed it was hard to keep up with THE TIMES? Well NYT took the high road in 25D WSJ Competitor (NYTIMES). But I’m not a fan of putting NYTIMES as the answer to a clue in a puzzle published in the NY Times. It’s possible that nobody tells Will Shortz when an idea is bad or isn’t even his because he lives in the world of 57A People are protected when they’re in it: SAFEENVIRONMENT.

I did like the theme of the symbol and element name. I don’t think that should have tipped me off that B+ was a Boron ion, but that wasn’t the worst answer for B+. Also for 61A Man of the cloth? I was thinking DYER, but evidently it was DIOR. Even though it was Christian, it wasn’t religious.

NYT Crossword 7-20-20 Complete

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So this is the first NYT Monday of this blog. I raced through it with almost no skips as I was going through. I was excited by the time I was going to finish, but it turned out I had to finish it properly. I found the error semi-quickly. I had put EDIE when the answer was EVIE. IT was clear that HANDDAC is not a dustbuster while HANDVAC is.

I haven’t yet done today’s Wall Street Journal puzzle, but NYT Monday solved in 6:26 against the average of like 9:20 for my WSJ Mondays has me wondering if the NYT Monday is just substantially easier than the WSJ Monday.

Another thing: Yesterday’s puzzle had STRIPTT (STRIPTEASE because strip+T’s), and today’s had UNDRESS. It’s sounding like the editor’s middle name should be Drop. You know, because then he’d be Will Drop Shortz. Ugh. He makes me so mad. I still have the unused ticket from when he showed up at UCSB. Was it a waste of money to have purchased the ticket? I didn’t know when I bought it that he was about to use my submission without crediting me.

NYT Crossword 7-19-20 Complete

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I think this is the first time ever that I’ve taken the time to complete a Sunday crossword. These usually are just too big for me to want to take on, but today I tried it. And I won! Yes, it took me about an hour, but I got through it.

I struggled a little at the beginning because the double letters seemed like they couldn’t be right. I must have goofed up somewhere. But when I realized what they were, I knocked out a huge chunk of the puzzle:
TRAPPARTISTS=TRAPEZE ARTISTS
CCTHEDAY=SEIZE THE DAY
DIZZCONTROL=DISEASE CONTROL
STRIPTT=STRIPTEASE (You dog, Will Shortz! Letting that one through!)
AMUUMENTPARKS=AMUSEMENT PARKS
CLOCKYY=CLOCKWISE
OLDDSTATION=OLDIES STATION
GGLOUISE=JEEZ LOUISE (or what you’d say when playing Louise in Rocket League)
SURPRIIPARTY=SURPRISE PARTY

Overall, pretty good. Glad I got it done. And I won one 1:01:10!

NYT Crossword 7-17-20 DNF

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This was a tough one for sure. I didn’t finish but called it a little more than half an hour in. The layout was a smiley face, which was cool, but the result was a lot of empty, which I’m OK with. At some point I’ll get it. Just like at some point Will Shortz may realize how hurt I am by what he did to me. I’m more confident in the former.

I started this puzzle on my phone and continued on the computer. Computer was easier to fill out and see things in perspective. I was going to give up way earlier because I have a bunch of stuff to do, but when I got to the computer, things started to fall into place. Were all those things right? I’m certain that the answer is very much no.

For example: Is there a NAMON WAYANS? Maybe! I’M not going to be the one to rule that out.

I do Saturday puzzles with some friends. I give some answers, so I’m going to keep that up with them and just do old WSJ puzzles for Saturdays here.