To celebrate my upcoming wedding this summer, I am pleased to offer a new puzzle contest, “My Big Fat Fun Wedding.” The puzzles are pitched at an easy-medium difficulty level, but I hope beginners and experts alike enjoy them. Solvers who submit the correct final answer by the end of the day on May 31, [...]
Sometimes we grouse about themes or fill or clues that don’t quite meet our standards for what we want in a crossword. You know what, though? No matter how clunky or stilted that one section of a puzzle blogged at Crossword Fiend may be, it never does seem to use an answer word to clue [...]
Tags: Ben Tausig, Brendan Emmett Quigley, Ed Sessa, Frank Longo, Randolph Ross, Samuel A. Donaldson
Tags: Bob Klahn, Emily Cox, Henry Rathvon, Merl Reagle, Patrick Berry, Pete Muller, Samuel A. Donaldson
NYT 5:15 LAT untimed (Jeffrey) CHE 4:50 CS untimed (Janie) WSJ 12:25 (Jeffrey) Hmm, I am wiped out after a long day of cooking and eating. Not sure I’ll actually get to all of the Friday puzzles this week. We shall see.
Tags: Brendan Emmett Quigley, Gary Steinmehl, Jeffrey Wechsler, Randall J. Hartman, Samuel A. Donaldson
Onion 4:33 NYT 3:15 LAT 3:04 CS untimed Hey, did you all figure out the New York Times crossword contest last week? The trick was to punch out the {HOLE} rebus squares in Mike Nothnagel’s Thursday puzzle, overlay the grid on Mike’s Friday puzzle, and anagram the letters peeking through. The letters spelled out a [...]
Tags: Doug Peterson, Pamela Amick Klawitter, Samuel A. Donaldson
Newsday 10:45 NYT 6:25 LAT 4:23 CS untimed
Tags: Barry C. Silk, Merle Baker, Samuel A. Donaldson, Tony Orbach
Newsday 6:38 NYT 6:33 LAT 4:38 CS untimed WSJ Saturday puzzle 19 minutes—whoo-hoo, it’s a Hex cryptic! (PDF here) Did the rest of you watch the Scripps spelling bee on TV tonight? There were some crazy-hard words in the mix, and some surprisingly easy ones (gnocchi! netsuke! I know these words!). I watched an hour [...]
Tags: Anna Stiga, Emily Cox, Henry Rathvon, Randall J. Hartman, Robert H. Wolfe, Samuel A. Donaldson, Stanley Newman
Newsday 6:52 NYT 5:46 LAT 3:51 CS untimed WSJ Saturday Puzzle (acrostic applet recommended) I dunno, 4 to 6 minutes, maybe Announcements, Category 1: Birthdays April 24 is the birthday of several friends of the blog who are pretty terrific people: My son Ben hits double digits, capping a decade of parenting by me and [...]
Tags: Barry C. Silk, Mike Shenk, Randall J. Hartman, Samuel A. Donaldson, Thomas Heilman
NYT Hours and hours! (Sam) LAT 9:15 (Sam) Newsday 48:17 (Sam) CS untimed Amy’s in transit from Chicago to a secret sunny destination for spring break, so it’s me, Sam Donaldson, sitting in for the weekend puzzles. Wait, that means I have to go public with my solving times on the Saturday puzzles? Eek! Well, [...]
Tags: Bob Klahn, Brad Wilber, Jeffrey Wechsler, Samuel A. Donaldson
 |
Category: