SMM

I thought the theme was a bit of a stretch as it was full of holes.

It still feels like cheating if one looks up the trivia answers like songs and albums. If this was pre-internet, on paper, It seems unlikely I'd ever get past Tuesday.

Because of the internet issues associated with AWS yesterday I sent this to the email provided, "All of my streaks were set back to zero after yesterday's internet difficulties. Strands, spelling bee, wordle and connections were all affected. I was at 86 perfect Strands completion and today back to zero. While in the grand scheme of things these "streaks" mean pretty much nothing, but I would say they offer different levels of motivation to many people based on their circumstances." I received an unhelpful automated reply. To quote Pink Floyd, "Welcome to Machine"

Let's go back thirty years before the internet was ubiquitous -- were crosswords easier? Each week, I find absurd trivia that there is no way I could get without looking it up and looking it up feels like cheating.

Sorry, not for me. I don't like to look things up and this seemed rife with random trivia. Movie(s) from 1928? I got the double crossing and finally gave up.

Scrabble Score heaven with all the Zs, Ks, Xs and Qs. Unique

athlete tackling El Capitan? Rock Climber fit perfectly and it was all downhill from there. Too tough for me.