This is the crossword puzzle thread

Yes, exactly.

Tausig's latest, "Zee Change," gave me a run for my money.

Puzzle people posting record (for them) slow times on today's NYT. Me it was as slow as usual but no slower, although couldn't get the NE, so it was a DNF.

Didn't do as well as this guy http://www.crosswordmanblog.com/, but I had the same difficulties he had.

i did alright on that tausig (though it's a little more challenging that usual) but got stick in the northwest corner.

(stupid sports clues crossing each other)

oh i see

(crossword liveblogging)

Today's Boston Globe puzzle by Cox & Rathvon has a musical theme and is pretty fun.

There was a discussion about a bad crossword on Amy R's blog recently, jaymc. http://www.crosswordfiend.com/blog/2010/04/15/wall-street-journal-41610-and-saanich-news-4910/#more-4692

I've started doing the guardian cryptic again after a looong break and am not finding it too bad (Brendan the other day was Daily Telegraph levels of easiness), although Araucaria seems to have got much harder than he used to be (GR much stupider obv). You know you're in trouble when you don't even understand the answers, or why they're the answers.

And those reverse clues w' anagram indicators in Wednesday's really got me confused.

Bacon and eggs etc as clue to RAF basket (6,9) = cooked breafast
Square clue for a padre? (6,6) = parade ground

That latter in particular drove me nuts.

xp Wow, that's bad.

I participated in the Chicago Crossword Tournament yesterday, officiated by (among others) Amy Reynaldo and Anne Erdmann. We did next week's Monday-Wednesday NYT puzzles, and the top finisher for each puzzle then advanced to a three-person final that solved Thursday's puzzle. I didn't come close to the top, but I was fairly reliable: 16th place on the first puzzle, then 14th on the second and 17th on the third.

Finalists were Scott Orman (55th at the ACPT this year), William Hall (296th at the ACPT this year), and Marty Howard (119th at the ACPT in 2007, the last year he competed nationally). Hall won.

Sounds good, jaymc. That's an interesting way that they do the final.

GamalielRatsey, this thread should really be called "This is the US crossword puzzle thread." For UK puzzles go here The official bored-at-work cryptic crossword pass it on thread. , although it has been relatively dead in recent times.

Ah, balls. Sorry. Saw the mention of the grauniad crossword upthread and got my wires crossed. Shall hie me away to the other thread. Thanks James.

Me, I thought the symbol of Wales was a dragon.

Enjoyed reading bbeyond's blog about the Chicago tournament.

Did a few puzzles in The Wrath Of Klahn and really liking it. He has a reputation for making hard puzzles but his stuff his pretty clever and my brain actually wants to solve his clues instead of shrinking from the bad puns as is often the case.

Egregious misspelling in Tausig's Ink Well puzzle in the newspaper yesterday. I know Amy R. test-solves this puzzle, so I check her blog to see what she has to say about it, and to my surprise the grid in that corner has been completely redone. I guess the mistake was caught too late to change it in print?

Probably. He sent it out to the google group with the error and then had to send an errata.

An another note, you can find the daily CrossSynergy puzzles at the Houston Chronicle website here http://www.chron.com/apps/games/xword/puzzles/ (You could also go to Amy R's website where she has the links to all the daily and weekly crosswords)
Today's puzzle is by Bob Klahn if you want to check his stuff out.

Egregious misspelling in Tausig's Ink Well puzzle in the newspaper yesterday. I know Amy R. test-solves this puzzle, so I check her blog to see what she has to say about it, and to my surprise the grid in that corner has been completely redone. I guess the mistake was caught too late to change it in print?

haha, i caught that, i was like wtf?

northwest corner, right? only now i can't remember what the error was.

TUSCON instead of TUCSON.

ah yes

Think you should volunteer to be a test solver, jaymc.

Really.

What I really came to say is, here's a hint: If it ever says "Random movie-or-TV-show's Morales," the answer is always ESAI.

i've given up on "NYC house DJ Morales" ever being a clue

Enjoyed reading bbeyond's blog about the Chicago tournament.
And I see from reading AmyR's blog that he did pretty well. Kudos!

Was tricked today into doing the ****SPOILER ALERT*** Bono birthday puzzle.

Arrgh. Signed up for Lollapuzzoola which is tomorrow but haven't really done a single puzzle in the past month.

I've fallen off myself. Though I did one of Peter Gordon's themeless Fireball puzzles the other night and enjoyed it.

TBH, for a few months I tried to do too many puzzles to keep up with the blogs and got bored by it. Well bored is not the right word, it was messing up my mind, my ability to think, trying to do something faster than I am wired to do. I couldn't retain anything (It was like the first year of grad school) and was left was a really shallow knowledge of things that didn't lead to other things and wouldn't come up in conversation. Doing them all the time was a form of overpracticing. I like the cryptic puzzles in Harper's or the WSJ (which used to be in the Atlantic) and I like the old Sun and the Fireball puzzles and I like certain constructors but there is a diminishing return after that.

But they are probably going to have some good puzzles tomorrow, so I still might go.

Contest yesterday looks like it was pretty good:
http://bemoresmarter.squarespace.com/lollapuzzoola-3

Hopefully I will reach some kind of xword equilibrium again by next March.

I submitted my first query to the Cruciverb mailing list yesterday, on the appropriateness of the word KAFFIR in a puzzle. I only knew it as a variety of lime used in southeast Asian cuisine and was not familiar with it as a racial slur used in and around South Africa.

Anyway, it sparked an interesting debate about appropriate language in crosswords, and I ultimately came to the conclusion that even if the puzzle were published in the U.S., where most people are unfamiliar with the racial slur, those who *do* know the word would most likely find it highly unpleasant to come across in a grid (even it were clued in a non-offensive manner), and therefore it should be avoided.

Maybe because NFL season just began, but the subject of my e-mail was "offensive lime?"

Interesting.

Constructing a puzzle this week, and I've finally got a grid that I like, with the exception of one fill that I'm having doubts about: CAULI.

I thought it could be clued cleverly as "Flower head?" -- but for some reason it doesn't feel like a prefix that can stand on its own in the same way that something like AERO can. But it does come from "caulis," which is Latin for stalk or stem.

I guess part of why I'm having doubts is that it doesn't appear to ever have been used in a NYT or other major crossword before.

I dunno, what do you think?

As I type our friend Beyond is presumably at a tournament in Will Shortz's hometown of Pleasantville.

Don't know what you did about CAULI, seems kind of dodgy to me, although you could probably get away with it in a cryptic by saying something like "6D is rare."

"What may encircle a rising chopper" = GREENBELT

This appeared in the NYT crossword last week & is the most insane clue/answer combo I've ever seen in that journal.

Was this in the regular puzzle or Mel Taub's puns and anagrams?

OK, I see.

Blogosphere says it has to do with karate. AH SO!

Another potentially dodgy bit of fill:

Has minimal brain function: ISAVEGETABLE
(Or "Have minimal brain function: BEAVEGETABLE")

It's a little clunky, but mostly I'm worried about the so-called "breakfast test." The word COMA shows up in NYT puzzles, but usually clued fairly innocuously (like "Deep sleep").

Possible alternative: "Has no awareness." More vague, perhaps, but less morbid.

I'm guessing this sinks it (from a medical journal I found online):

There is nevertheless a dislike, especially amongst relatives of brain-damaged people, of the term ‘vegetative’ mainly because of its association with the word ‘vegetable’. Sadly, the medical profession is not immune to talking about patients as being ‘permanent vegetables’.

"Condition for plug-pull?"

"V-8 candidate"

Or maybe I go with something like "Lie around in a stupor."

"Condition for plug-pull?"

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 11:29 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"V-8 candidate"

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 11:29 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, the first definitely fails the breakfast test. The second reinforces the clunkiness of "be" phrase.

"Constitutes V-8 candidate" then

"What a V-8 candidate must do."

If I encountered "Flower head" = CAULI, I would groan and smile.

If I encountered ""What may encircle a rising chopper" = GREENBELT I would groan and then get very angry.

Oh, I wasn't criticizing the *syntax* of your clue, Tracer, I just think that the general idea of it highlights the awkwardness of a phrase beginning with ISA or BEA. Since "V-8 candidate" would be a perfectly appropriate clue for just plain VEGETABLE, the extra letters in the fill look sort of clunky/ugly.

I should probably just go back to the drawing board with this one.

yeah

"flower head" = cauli is demonically brilliant, i agree