Since I couldn’t access the Yahoo puzzle, I did today’s Tribune Media services, Inc. in my local paper, and solved it the way I described in a previous post along the lines that the crazy commuter suggested:
I ignored the clues entirely and stared at the grid, looking for the pattern.
The themed answers immediately flew to mind and I wrote them in:
DUPLICATE BRIDGE
IDENTICAL TWINS
SAMEOLDSAMEOLD and
MATCHING OUTFITS
Then, with a doff of my tinfoil hat, I worked just the verticals to fill in the rest of the puzzle.
8 minutes, no mistakes.
And for Twickster and other doubters, there was the same recurring phrase in this and today’s New York Times puzzle:
Antiochus, you did the long ones without looking at the clues and without doing any other words first? That is highly impressive. I did that same puzzle, only it was in the LA Times (I do them online), but I did it my way, of just starting from wherever and going through. It took me 2.5 minutes. But typing is a lot faster, and I certainly went about it a much easier way than you did.
audiobottle, it was a joke - a parody of an experience I actually had on a commuter train with a weirdo who saw puzzle solving as a mystical experience… Please see post 10 above.
But today’s puzzle did take me 8 minutes. But what the hell, I’m probably retarded.
And I referred to all the clues
ahh… sorry I missed the joke. I did read the original story, but I really thought you had managed to do it like that. I was actually being serious in my praise before. Although I’m wondering if we did do the same puzzle - I don’t remember the phrase “Patriotswinbythree” in the one I did.
We’ve arguing kidding back and forth that the recurring words in, say, the LA Times and the Yahoo puzzle, are not accidental, but subtle communiques from one constructor to others.
Twickster, who is a professional xword puzzle editor, excoriates the True Believers such as myself for these fanciful theories.
We meekly submit to her tongue lashings. Sadly, Twickster has been known to resort to violence.
You probably didn’t notice the phrase in the LA Times that I quoted. You must look carefully. Very carefully.
I got a 10:12 online. I think I might try to print it and do it tomorrow: I’m not perfect at getting the direction quite right, and I walked over a couple of answers by mistake.
Out of curiosity, is anybody else using Firefox and having problems with it all crashing when you try to load up a puzzle? It’s happened to me twice now. Sometimes the puzzle will load up fine, and others it will just stop Firefox completely. I’ve never used Yahoo for anything so I’ve never had this happen before.
I did mine on Mozilla. I’ll try Monday’s on Firefox when I get home. Earlier today when I tried it I was having Java applet issues, but I was going through my vpn, so I don’t know if that affected anything.