Saturdays are my favorite puzzle of the week to solve, so I'm ecstatic to debut with a themeless (sharing the weekend with my favorite ... read more
Saturdays are my favorite puzzle of the week to solve, so I'm ecstatic to debut with a themeless (sharing the weekend with my favorite constructor, Robyn Weintraub, is icing on the cake)!
I started constructing crossword puzzles as part of a family challenge where each member set an improbable goal with the hope that we could all learn to embrace failure and love being really, really bad at something new. I've loved word puzzles since elementary school when I would "solve" the crossword by asking my dad nearly every clue... so learning to make the puzzles seemed like a fun challenge, and getting one in the NYT seemed like a near impossibility.
This puzzle started with trying to build a central triple stack grid with long downs running through them and chunky corners. I didn't have a seed entry. Instead, I just focused on trying to work in lively answers that would leave me with fun cluing angles and limiting gluey bits as much as possible.
My favorite puzzle clues are the echoed "Pot holder" clues, and my last-minute addition clue for HOTEL CASINO.
Bio: Lance is a pharmacist who recently moved to Mint Hill, NC, so his family could be closer to nature, hiking, and adventure. He helps his amazing wife homeschool his 11, 8, and 5-year-old kids. The older kids will be learning crossword solving/constructing this school year, so hopefully, it will be a race to see which of us will appear next!
Jim Horne notes:
Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen who is hawking CURE-ALLS at a medicine show. Let's talk ASS. That convenient word has a long ... read more
Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen who is hawking CURE-ALLS at a medicine show.
Let's talk ASS. That convenient word has a long history in crosswords, usually referring to a beast of burden or a despicable person — "Jenny", "Jack", or "Jerk". Today it's an intensifier as in, "this is a good ass puzzle." Hmmm, that doesn't sound right. You want the puzzle to be bad ass. Apparently that intensifier is also sometimes a reverser. Pro tip: regardless of what you think of your neighbor's ass, do not covet! It's a top ten no-no.
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" is the famous opening line in Daphne du Maurier's novel, Rebecca. ENYA should watch her step! Fortunately, it's not the same place. ENYA renamed her Dublin castle Manderley. That was a popular thing to do.
I love clues like "The N.F.L. mascot Roary, for one." I have no clue about sports mascots. But yes, I do! The clue is in the clue. Roary is an odd spelling, right? Roary must be a LION.
A "future-altering decision point" is a SLIDING DOOR. You may know that metaphor from the 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow movie. It's a popular literary trope. The super-hot-now writer Taylor Jenkins Reid used it in her novel Maybe in Another Life.
Have a great ass weekend! Er, I mean an atrocious ass weekend. Nope, still sounds wrong. Phat ass weekend? Forget it. Have whatever kind of weekend you want.
AI results are often bogus, but can sometimes be insightful or entertaining, and occasionally even helpful.
Analyzing...
Statistical Analysis
Day of week comparisons
Rebus puzzles are ignored when calculating averages. Flow averages also exclude disconnected grids.
Distribution of answer words by length
Letter distribution
Scrabble Score: 1
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Thumbnails
Various thumbnail views are shown:
Standard view shows the grid pattern most clearly
Open Squares (those which don't touch any block, even diagonally) are blue
Vowel distribution
Scrabble score uses the same color key as above
Freshness view shows unique answers in red (see colorized grid below)
With answers
Puzzles that may be similar to this one
Crosswords that share the most words with this one:
Unusual or long words that appear elsewhere:
Identical grids
Other puzzles with the same block pattern as this one:
Topologically similar grids
Colorized grid for Sat Jul 30, 2022
The next two sections attempt to show how fresh the grid entries are.
In this view, unusual answers are colored depending on how often they have appeared in other puzzles.
Unique answers are in red, red overwrites orange which overwrites yellow, etc.
Unique
1 other
2 others
3 others
4 others
Freshness Factor
Freshness Factor is a calculation that compares the number of times words in this puzzle have appeared
in other Modern Era puzzles. Click here for an explanation.
The chart below shows how many times each word has been used across all NYT puzzles, old and modern including Variety.