this is the thread where we complain about the new york times crossword puzzle

*shoots air; ground*

Hurting 2 why you braek hart

"If ain't ate all them type'a slaw, I'ma bury myself alive in a goldigger's grave, by great saint scott peter's ghost I tell ya all my ratta-tattin-fracka-lackin'-grabba-grubbin' cowlicked brown-eyed days!"

"Rabbit!"

alan braxe should be in more crosswords

It does kind of sound like it should mean that. But it derives from a word for cabbage, apparently.

diamanda galas

haha the wire needs to start a crossword puzzle on the back page!!

"Rocker Galas"

Eno, Bowie and Cale all seem like good crossword names

the wire crossword puzzle hints and answers

This goes COMPLETELY against the spirit of this thread, but ...

... am I the only person here who both did the NYT crossword and watched the Simpsons yesterday??? That seriously tripped me out!

wha happen???

I'm really glad I didn't see any news of this before it happened, because I was actually sitting on the couch doing the Sunday crossword while watching the Simpsons:

Lisa gets into crossword puzzles and enters a competition. Homer makes a bundle betting on her but then bets against her in the final competition, which she loses to Gil. Lisa finds out Homer bet against her and is outraged.

But then in the end Homer apologizes through the NYT crossword puzzle, the one I'm sitting there working on, which turns out to have not only a diagonal message (something like "DADDY SORRY FOR DUMB BET") but also the first letters of all the clues spell out a long message from Homer to Lisa!

Will Shortz was on the Simpsons

and Burns and Smithers "appeared" on the puzzle segment on Sunday Weekend Edition on NPR

ha! :)

I'm not in the habit of doing the Sunday NYT, since I only sporadically buy the paper, but there was buzz about this week's on the Cruciverb listserv because of the Simpsons tie-in, so I subscribed online last night. I watched the show first, though, so I had some freebie fills.

I had zero idea it was going to happen. It was a little bit scary, actually. Like "did I eat mushrooms and forget about it" scary.

(Although I had been thinking earlier in the episode that there were a whole lot of puzzles appearing, and obviously the artists weren't going to construct puzzles for background art, so surely they had some kind of partnership going with someone to use their puzzles...)

There were a couple of times in the episode where there were quick shots of puzzles that appeared to violate crossword rules -- e.g., two-letter words, letters that only went in one direction, etc. Whenever a whole puzzle was on display for more than a couple of seconds, it was usually fine, but I was surprised that the others existed at all, considering Merl Reagle was credited as a consultant.

Merl Reagle explains how the episode came about (not sure why it's a PDF):
http://www.sundaycrosswords.com/TheSimpsonsBehindtheScenes.pdf

That is mindblowing!

20-across otm lolololololol

How come the NY Times Crossword doesn't have an iPhone app yet :/

(...he said, pretending he's smart enough to do the NY Times crossword)

Jaymc, do a brother a favor and send me the .puz file, unless it's floating about the internets.

there are plenty of crossword apps that allow you to download times puzzles, you just need a subscription

i have a pretty lame crossword app right now

its all numbers and there's no clues.

thats called "sudoku"

E-mailed you, Casuistry.

When Yma Sumac died I felt that the NYT should have run just a blank square in place of the puzzle as a lifetime tribute.

As for "slaws," it's a long-standing NYT policy to reserve the right to pluralize anything & everything. Even personal names might get pluralized, like "OBAMAS." Foreign words sometimes get pluralized in a way that doesn't correspond to how they get pluralized in their own language, as in "RAVIOLIS," for example.

And yes, Brian ENO gets clued all the damn time in the NYT puzzle. So does ELO.

ENOS

thanks for that info josefa, i never knew that

When Yma Sumac died I felt that the NYT should have run just a blank square in place of the puzzle as a lifetime tribute.

Ha, my first thought when she died (after "Yma Sumac was still alive?") was "I bet the crossword community will be all over this news" -- and they were.

Even personal names might get pluralized, like "OBAMAS."

This makes sense, because it can be clued as "Barack and Michelle." If you pluralize personal names, it's preferable that there are at least two recognizable people that share that name. But if that's not the case, you can still sometimes get away with a clue like "Pres. Barack and others" or "Barack's family."

And yes, Brian ENO gets clued all the damn time in the NYT puzzle.

Sometimes his brother Roger gets clued instead (or alongside: "Ambient composers Brian and Roger"). I'm waiting for a reference to Spoon drummer Jim Eno, however.

the slaws of yesterday

why is no one loling at my joke

20-across otm lolololololol

― the dan glickman from the hilarious motion picture association of america (max), Tuesday, November 18, 2008 7:47 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

just looking for a satisfied chuckle as a subtle way of indicating u did the nyt xword today

Jaymc, do a brother a favor and send me the .puz file, unless it's floating about the internets.

me too?

just looking for a satisfied chuckle as a subtle way of indicating u did the nyt xword today

Oh, I thought you were referring to Sunday, and I was like, I don't get it.

Haha, I get it now.

Where can I see this solved Simpsons puzzle?

I believe my 'simp' status precludes me from soling it.

(I tried to solve Friday's before therapy and my therapist and I had like an seven-minute talk about crosswords. Yes I have useful therapy.)

Abbott, here is the solved puzzle. (No clues, though, just the completed grid.)

Discussion of same:
http://crosswordfiend.blogspot.com/2008/11/sunday-1116.html

More discussion:
http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2008/11/sunday-nov-16-2008-merl-reagle-meshed.html

thx duder :D!

so what's the second hidden message in the sunday puzzle?

But then in the end Homer apologizes through the NYT crossword puzzle, the one I'm sitting there working on, which turns out to have not only a diagonal message (something like "DADDY SORRY FOR DUMB BET") but also the first letters of all the clues spell out a long message from Homer to Lisa!