David Pearce

🧵 I have to say, I’m NOT much of a fan of the recently introduced “ME” section. I don’t NEED that “Welcome back, [player alias]” popup THING. I know who I am! I was doing just fine BEFORE, without any NEW software jazz to get used to. But leaving that aside: Today I learned how DIFFERENTLY the crossword stats are presented, and they will certainly have to be corrected: Unlike before, where EACH DAY was shown with a very readable vertical BAR GRAPH, of AVERAGE, THIS WEEK, and BEST, now that easily readable format has been CHANGED to individual horizontal bars, AND THEY JUMP MARKEDLY from stat to stat, 😒‼️ FOR EXAMPLE, my Tuesday AVERAGE TIME is 20:43. So far, so good. BUT THEN, I tap on the THIS WEEK graph, and it says I solved today’s puzzle in 12:39 minutes, but it LOOKS LIKE I took about AN HOUR, compared to my average, because the horizontal bar is about 3️⃣ times longer than the AVERAGE. And the same visual miscues exist when I want to see my BEST times. You have GOT to fix this backward step in your crossword stats. IT’S JUST NUTS! Does anyone else agree?

Gonna have a LOT of pushback from ME if he thinks TYPEWRITERS are obsolete, I can tell you that, 😉‼️

🧵Wow, that Curie family, and their FIVE Nobel Prizes, 👀! Below, from Wikipedia: “Irène Joliot-Curie (French: 12 September 1897 – 17 March 1956) was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her husband, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. “They were the second married couple, after her PARENTS [emphasis added], to win the Nobel Prize, adding to the Curie family legacy of FIVE [e. a.] Nobel Prizes. “This made the Curies the family with the most Nobel laureates to date.”

🧵“Point of no return?” isn’t ICE ? I thought it was, until it wasn’t.

Present company here EXCEPTED, the world just seems to be getting more & more stupid: 101 Across: A mnemonic is needed for the points of the compass 🧭 ⁉️

🧵I don’t know, and I haven’t read through the comments, but the Marvel Universe sense I know is SPIDEY-SENSE. That’s what makes Spider-Man so relatable: His humorous, easy-going, boy-next-door demeanor.

Hey, Deb, I hope you’re doing very well, 😉👋🏽. Best wishes, David

THAT was a cute, fun little puzzle! Very nice!

🧵Let me put it this way, in the whole SPIDEY-SPIDER debate: I can accept SPIDER🕷️, if I see a citation or discussion about the sense.

🧵I have been admonished that this is NOT the right forum to complain about & seek to change the NYTG stats displays. Fair enough, I agree to all that. But ’fore I go, I’d like to add one last little degradation that people should be aware of: I’ve completed over 4,000 NYTG crosswords, some using AutoCheck, many using Wikipedia. Always learned something interesting. ONE THING I won’t be able to know is how many puzzles I’ve completed, because the counter now reads “4,0..,” AND THAT’S IT. I have to make do with only the hundreds & the thousands place, 😒‼️

Oh. THOSE kinds of sides, 🙄. Aha! This was one of those puzzles where I solved it without hints & in good time, but still didn’t get the entire gist.

Maybe I should put this complaint elsewhere, but on the other hand, maybe readers will be interested here. I’m complaining about the SPELLING 🐝 of WEDNESDAY, MAY 22. I have long given up on Spelling Bee EVER improving, or otherwise responding to players’ suggestions. “Let facts be submitted to a candid world.” Today, these words are not accepted: DAVIT, and CAVITATE (and CAVITATED), which are not complicated medical or scientific words. I hope New York Times Games feels my anger & disappointment. I think the SPELLING 🐝 is pretty much a travesty.

I say again my extreme discouragement regarding the new crossword stats. When I mentioned it yesterday, it was recommended at least 33 times, so other people found it worthwhile, and I thank those readers. If I may be forgiven for using an almost sacred phrase, the problem has to do with “The Fierce Urgency of Now”: We really don’t care about how our puzzles stack up to other days, because the puzzles get harder each day. We want the stats of NOW, “how did my solving stack up to other Wednesdays, in terms of AVERAGE, TODAY, and BEST?” We don’t want to tap from screen to screen to see how Wednesday stacks up to Thursday, etc. The way the stats used to be presented was able to show that AT A GLANCE. I hope NYTGames will put the stats back like they were before,

🧵 I liked it. I think it is great, and my humor & Eaton-Salners’ humor get along like two peas in a pod🫛, 😉!

🧵A BUSYNESS or BUSINESS of ferrets I can get behind: I didn’t know that collective noun. • PAH as an exclamation… . Let’s just say that was new to me, 😒! ———— ✌🏽😉👋🏽

I think the puzzle was great. I finally just got the WHOLE point, a hole-y cow🐮, a cow with holes, C🕳️O🕳️W! Very cute. I LOVE REBUS PUZZLES! My only gripe here is that the circle⭕️d rebus answer should have been left BLANK, because they are, after all, HOLES 🕳️. BOTH filled-in and unfilled-in rebus have been allowed in other puzzles. In fact, that unpredictably made more than one of my puzzle solving times LONGER THAN IT HAD TO BE, as I had diligently filled-in all the REBUS answers, only to finally find that AutoCheck crossed out my rebus answers, and wouldn’t LET the puzzle FINISH until all my diligent rebus answers were ERASED. Seems to me, when the rebus is HOLE, a BLANK should be allowed.

Regarding today’s Mini, 1️⃣ Across, I don’t think it’s exactly kosher to say that MILE can precede both STONE or AGE. I mean, MILE STONE is two words, MILEAGE is one. Yes, it’s technically correct, but I don’t like mushing prefixes together with separate words. A little sneaky, I think.

This fun puzzle reminds me of another planetary puzzle: • I’m pretty sure it was a New York Times puzzle, although it’s possible I did it in the back of a Washington Post Magazine. • Let’s say it WAS The Times. It was set to coordinate with a famous modern eclipse (of the Sun, I’m pretty sure). The puzzle may be from 15-20 years ago (not ancient). • The twist-in-the-wrist of the story was that the “Eclipse” happened across the top of the puzzle, from west to east, I guess like the actual eclipse. • And being that one I did in pencil✏️, I remember using half-moons, crescent🌙moons, etc., to mimic the eclipse going across the puzzle, from left to right. • Whoever did that puzzle, well, I’m still talking about it now, 😉‼️

I loved this puzzle. Confusing, as it should be, but fun and mentally challenging (I’m not a fast speller any more). A lot of real “spelling it out”. • But as soon as I got to replace on the mound, I put in LIEVE, without knowing why. But it fit. • Thanks, 👋🏽.

🧵 ( groan… Sigh… Grown sick [sic] )

Looking forward to all my crossword friends gently pummeling me, but what is (a) TAKI? I don’t get that one.

🧵That’s some “snappy” & fun writing in the first paragraph, and I thank you for it. 😉👋🏽!

A “bout” is a SPREE ? That’s new to me! And I’m AT SEA a-bout LOCS.

🧵Now THAT’s the kind of BALLROOM we need, and not the kind that necessitates tearing down the entire East Wing, 😒!

🧵I got it now. I’m tracking with you! I think it was excellent, 😉👋🏽!

Hmm? I say again, before reading Deb’s discussion, hmm, 😉?!

🧵Oh, BROTHER! I got it now, but I was AT SEA. I could sort of see Bassist in a foursome, And ℹ grokked that Nacre and mother of pearl are the same thing. But as I tried to parce the explainer, all I got was AS TAR IS BORN . Of course, ICE doesn’t sound like Nice, France), nor does ASCENT really sound like NASCENT‼️

🧵Ms. Keller has a great sense of humor, I know she’ll be back, 😉!

🧵Aha! “II,” as in “the second (one)” I thought it meant two LETTERS-“I,” in the answer. So BACK IN THE HABIT has two “I-s” so I thought, “good to go there”. But LOST IN NEW YORK only had one “I,” so—[thinks, cartoon bubble]—the I-s must double up, so EM{II} and NEGRON{II}. Ok. But what about ANY of these movies? I haven’t seen ANY! I saw HOME ALONE out of those four there, but no sequels at all. So what about FREDDYS REVENGE ? FREDD{IIE}S REVENGE ? But no…, 😉👋🏽!

🧵It’s one of those times: I “solved” it, but I’m still AT SEA. Far from land. AFAR. I’m about to read, but the clues were NOT “cracked” by me, as my app says! Anyway, Hello Deb, & Friends. Nice to talk to you all. ———— ✌🏽😉👋🏽.

Today’s crossword was hard for me, and it’s only Tuesday. That gives me only a glim hope for the future. Especially because GLIM isn’t allowed on today’s Spelling 🐝 ‼️ Not a glimmer of hope for this very normal, everyday word. Isn’t GLIM normal, or am I crazy, or both, or none?