Kevin
Arlington, VA
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Arlington, VA
I love Thursday crosswords. The ones that are a puzzle-within-a-puzzle. And my favorite kinds are the ones where rebus/theme answers result in other valid words or phrases. So this was a great one.
@Howard I had the same thing happen with one circled square empty... but it's not a bug. The revealer is DOUBLE OR NOTHING. The double letters are valid, but so is an empty square (nothing).
I guess I never knew the proper spelling of "bubkes"! Not a word I use often. I thought it was more like bupkiss.
This one was definitely tough, but completely fair for a Saturday. All of the clues made sense to me once I actually got them.
The clue for INVERTED ROLLERCOASTER is correct but the explanation and photo choice here in the article are not. The term does not refer to just any roller coaster that has inversions (goes upside down). It is a type where the train rides below the track, and riders' legs hang down like a ski lift. Patriot at Worlds of Fun in the constructor's home town is a prime example.
RIP to Ask Me Another. The question/puzzle writing on that show was so clever. I was a contestant on the show's Washington DC special episode.
I also dearly miss Ask Me Another! I listened weekly, and eventually had the pleasure of being a contestant on the episode that was taped at the Warner Theatre in DC. Great memory.
@Krad I tried, did not work
Encountered a bug... I entered the rebus squares last. Upon filling the final HOLE, I got the "so close" pop-up... but the graphics appeared and the clock stopped. The puzzle is showing as gold in the archive, so I guess I got it, but I did not see the normal gold pop up!
Great construction work by Kareem! I love when Thursday theme entries like these result in other real word/phrases. Very clever to put NOTABLE in the NW corner, it fits the clue with or without ICE. Took me a few more clues to realize what was going on.
@Maggie NYT the thing to know is that most of these puzzles are published on Thursdays. Thursdays *always* have some kind of twist to them. It isn't a rebus every time, but you should always come into Thursday expecting some kind of puzzle-within-a-puzzle. I love the challenge and the mystery, so Thursdays are my favorite. But if they end up not being your thing... skip em! You do you. Rebus themes will come up a few Sundays per year, and very sparingly on other days.
@B I don't understand how one could prefer having no visibility into the process and no differentiation between a long response time and and email never received. And maybe streaks are irrelevant to you, but seeing my 1000+ day streak when I complete the puzzle each day is a huge part of the joy of doing the crossword for me. I have now had my streak mess up because of hotel wifi issues two times. Seems like that is a software improvement the NYT games team could make so that they don't need to respond to emails asking to restore streaks. Even after re-connecting and refreshing the page on my completed crossword, the result does not save to the server. That could be fixed.
@B This would mean that they got rid of their autoresponder, which is a terrible move. I want visibility into the process. I want confirmation that my email has been received and didn't just go into the void. It has been 9 days since my first contact.
@Howard Sometimes the puzzle completes in your browser but does not sync to the NYT servers. My trick for this is to check the puzzle in a different browser or on a different device. If it's incomplete, complete it again. Otherwise you can contact support and ask for your streak to be fixed. I'm over 1200 days and had to do that 3 times.
I really enjoyed the theme and felt that this was a pretty impressive construction. That said, this puzzle was not a satisfying finish for me, I had to relent and look up SNEAD (thought it mightve been SNEED, neither AVE nor EVE make sense to me for "Senatorial greeting") and AIKIDO. I thought 99A was XENU, though AIKIDU didn't really feel right.
@Mark The phonetic spelling of letters is my least favorite type of answer, but if you're going to play NYT Crossword you'll have to get used to them. They come up quite often. I've recently been learning how to solve cryptic crossword clues (via Minute Cryptic). Referring to the "edges" of the word is a very cryptic-esque clue.
@Jared Wood Solving definitely gets easier with practice. Difficulty varies week to week. This was one of the easiest Saturdays I've seen, my time was just under 9 minutes. 15-20 is a typical Saturday for me. On the other hand, this week's Thursday took will nearly 25 minutes for me, quite a struggle.
@IL Agreed. There were much better ways to clue MAC given that most people will be getting MOET from crossings. I've never heard that use of "mac" in my life.
I have been trying to get a streak fixed after a WiFi issue on Sunday Aug 17 caused my gold result not to be recorded. I have emailed support MULTIPLE times and haven't even received the automated reply indicating that a ticket has been opened. I received one the last time I had a problem (and the problem got fixed within a day). What is going on??
@Chris It's because of the way rebus squares work. They can be programmed to accept multiple variations of the answer. In all cases, entering just the first letter of the answer is acceptable. I think this is for people that have issues using the rebus button. So the "most correct" answer is to enter EYE as a rebus. But if you just put E, it will be accepted.
@Howard Go to the puzzle page, question mark icon, "Report a Bug" If you use the app, Report a Bug is in the app settings.
@Edward IONE / ROUE is natick-ier. I got it, but it was one of those answers that felt wrong as I wrote it, particularly on a Monday.
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