THIS WEEK IN PUZZLES, 6/24-6/30
PIZZA PARTY
Monday
5:28 solve. Breezy. A good and funky theme and some new takes on classic clues. A couple of down clues that would have been a bit perplexing to me if I hadn’t filled in so many squares with across solves.
Tuesday
7:11 solve. Theme was good. Spanish clue got me today- sometimes a simple thing like grammatical gender will cost me a quick solve. Overall, a satisfying Tuesday.
Wednesday
10:02, terrific theme, solid puzzle all around. A good mix spanning casual phrases to geography to pop culture.
Thursday
When I first got into crosswords, I’d print the puzzles and do them on a clipboard. Always in ink, always on white 8.5x11 printer paper. Sundays I had the paper delivered, so that puzzle page always got done in the traditional way. The app came into my world, and at first, I didn’t love the digital interface, but now, I prefer it. And a theme like today’s theme really drives that home. Unique shape and pretty obvious theme, but still a challenging solve and an innovative use of the app. I usually don’t include a solved puzzle, but the imagery is just stellar.
Friday
Solved in 13:36. A brisk pace for a Friday for me. A couple of real head tilting clues, but ultimately a satisfying solve to kick off the weekend.
Saturday
21:48. This is the kind of mountain I like to climb. Tough clues everywhere. Seemed impossible at times. Lots of fun wordplay and quite a few clues that feel fresh.
Sunday
28:26. Lots and lots and lots of puns.
WORDLEBOT
Well WordleBot, you’ve been pushing me to throw away my strategy and play a little more fast and loose. For weeks, I was starting with the same first three words, but now, I’m more inclined to take a gamble in slot three:
Back in ancient times (1996?), one of my best friends Mr. Andy Adams (who runs an excellent Substack of his own) and his pals worked a menial job in a packing plant before heading off to college. One of their co-workers called everyone BUDDY and that just stuck. We all became BUDDY to each other, and found it to be one of the most delicious all-purpose words out there. Excitement? Empathy? Anger? You can put just about any emotion behind BUDDY and get your point across. So happy it showed up in the Wordle.
IDEAL and YOUTH get me all the vowels, the Y, and some common consonants. I usually would go with GRASP or GRIPS or GRINS here to eliminate the more common consonants and to move a vowel around and solve from there, but since I just had a U and a Y, my gut told me BUDDY was the answer that morning.
WordleBot is goading me to take shots like this. I’m usually much more conservative with Wordle, but now that there are metrics and stats that are provided immediately after the puzzle, some of those insights are encouraging me to try to solve earlier rather than burn three rounds on statistically more common letters. WordleBot, you may prove to be my BUDDY after all.