# The crossword daily double **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 31, 2005, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602 "2005-01-31T15:37:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2005, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/41 "2005-02-04T22:40:02Z")
> [@Antiochus](#): > > Well, hell, the rest of us don’t stand a chance. 🙂 > > I think you should keep the **Nero Blanc Trophy** on your mantle. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve won it by default. Nevertheless, I’m still game. (Must be a mild case of masochism.) > > But we’ll need more participants than just the two of us. Coming in second in a field of two is coming in last. Just kidding. I haven’t timed myself on them for a while, since I usually don’t have enough free consecutive minutes to do it all at once these days. Let me see if the current Times puzzle is free. (You will need to register.) I get it delivered, so I don’t remember. If not, we can do the Yahoo puzzle (pretty easy) or one of the others. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/42 "2005-02-04T23:13:40Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Just kidding. I haven’t timed myself on them for a while, since I usually don’t have enough free consecutive minutes to do it all at once these days. Oh well, I am releived that you are not timing yourself anymore. It isn’t foreplay, man. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/43 "2005-02-05T06:31:46Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > Oh well, I am releived that you are not timing yourself anymore. > > It isn’t foreplay, man. 😃 But I read in the New Yorker that Henry Hook times himself… And you can have your sexual fetishes, and I have mine. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/44 "2005-02-05T07:16:33Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > **astorian** ’s right. There’s a double handful of convenient words that pop up in crosswords all the time. For years, Charlie Chaplin’s wife **Oona** was in a puzzle every week or two. **Uta** Hagen would have been long forgotten if not for crosswords. **Uma** Thurman, **Aga** Khan and **Emo** Philips also turn up a lot. Everybody say it with me: _ **OONA UTA UMA AGA EMO!** _ Don’t dat feel _goooood_? No? Oh well. (If it did, go [here](http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.fan.letterman/msg/a89a04e435f9a4b5).) Anyway, 3- and 4-letter words with 2 or 3 vowels would seem to be the Tinkertoy connector wheels of crosswordom. > [@](#): > > Right now, I’m fighting my way through an eight-year book of New York Times Sunday crosswords. I’m on number 69 of 400. My usual crossword rule is that I never look up any answer (it’s not sporting.) I think during the old guard era at The Times it was actually _expected_ that you’d keep a hand on your dic. (-tionary.) Either that, or that the typical “solver” had postgraduate degrees in at least two wildly unrelated disciplines (eg: medieval history and inorganic chemistry). “Solver.” Yeesh, I loathe that word. Sounds like a little silver tray, or a nasty chemical. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/45 "2005-02-05T12:17:03Z")
Funny as hell! Thank you, **Beware of Doug**. I think this is the second time you mentioned your eight-years of xwords book. Please tell us the title and editor. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/46 "2005-02-05T12:55:36Z")
> [@Antiochus](#): > > Funny as hell! Thank you, **Beware of Doug**. > > I think this is the second time you mentioned your eight-years of xwords book. > Please tell us the title and editor. Oh shite! It wasn’t you with the crossword book. Was it **Voyager**? How many of us are in on the puzzle contest? And what is the reward? How about giving the winner a special sig to sport until the next contest rolls around. ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/47 "2005-02-05T13:01:44Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > Hey, since I am a frustrated virgin at this, is there a way for me to build/construct my own crossword puzzle on-line for others to try? > > Being that I think I am so smert. There’s a program called [Crossword Compiler](http://www.crossword-compiler.com/) that looks good. It’s $50, but seems to have all the features of [Across Lite](http://www.litsoft.com/), the big name in the field, for $500. Let us all know when you’re done! ---
**Author:** ![Iceland\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/4bbf92/32.png) [@Iceland\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iceland_Blue)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/48 "2005-02-05T13:03:14Z")
Ahem! What about the Brits? Someone send me a New York Times,I’ll join in! ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/49 "2005-02-05T14:09:15Z")
I often wonder if anyone else handicaps their puzzle solving. I.e., put in your own rules to make the solving more challenging, and thus make the puzzle last longer. Fact is, I like to take things slowly, especially with a very good puzzle, to savor the composer’s ingenuity, humor, etc. I started doing this with the then syndicated moron-level puzzles that appeared daily in our local paper. Usually, I study the clues and grid for a good starting place, select a clue and write in the answer. From then on, I build off that word by solving at least one of the intersecting clues., and thus work my way through the puzzle. No jumping around to vacant portions of the grid. By the time I got around to bitching to the newspaper editor about the dumbass puzzles he was buying, I was hooked on this system., and now always try to do this with every puzzle I work on. (No, I have never succeeded this way with a Saturday Times puzzle.) Happily, our paper (Danbury News-Times) has now copied the NYT by making the Monday puzzle a snap, with each getting harder as the week progresses. Sundays are still on the boring side, though. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/50 "2005-02-05T16:38:49Z")
> [@Antiochus](#): > > Funny as hell! Thank you, **Beware of Doug**. > > I think this is the second time you mentioned your eight-years of xwords book. > Please tell us the title and editor. It was me. The title is _The New York Times Jumbo Sunday Crossword Puzzle Book (Eight Volumes in One From the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzles, Volumes 1-8)_ Copyright 1996 by Random House, Inc. and published by Wings Books. It doesn’t exactly name an editor, but there is a brief foreword by Will Weng. The numbers on the bigger puzzles are tiny, so I keep a magnifier handy. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/51 "2005-02-07T03:18:08Z")
> [@Antiochus](#): > > I often wonder if anyone else handicaps their puzzle solving. > > I.e., put in your own rules to make the solving more challenging, and thus make the puzzle last longer. Fact is, I like to take things slowly, especially with a very good puzzle, to savor the composer’s ingenuity, humor, etc. I went to the Games Merriam Webster tournament in 1986, and I noticed that the champion solvers did all the acrosses and then all the downs, since that increases your speed, not having to jump across the clues. I did an entire book of Middleton acrostics once never filling in any letters until I solved the entire thing - not quite in my head, since I looked at the grid, but almost. Then I lost interest in them. That was when I was in grad school, and smarter than today. Look for a new thread on the tournament. Won’t be NY Times, since you have to pay, not just register, to get access. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaGirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8491ac/32.png) [@GorillaGirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaGirl)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/52 "2005-02-07T05:32:39Z")
Wow, I think I’m gonna be horribly out-classed, but this sounds great. Can I get in on this tournament? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602/53 "2005-02-07T08:07:33Z")
> [@GorillaGirl](#): > > Wow, I think I’m gonna be horribly out-classed, but this sounds great. Can I get in on this tournament? Anyone can get in. See [this new thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=301039) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crossword-daily-double/287602.md?page=2)