One month of TXW

Jun 13 2024 - posts

As of yesterday, this blog has been up and running for an entire month. That's 34 crossword reviews and a total of 10,326 words. Wild!

The idea for this blog all started with the TXW rules of crosswords (formally known as the "ick list"). I was collecting a list of crossword nits and observations on my phone and was constantly annoying my partner by asking if she felt the same way about them. Eventually that grew into setting up a website to share my pedantic feelings with the internet. I wasn't expecting it to turn into a daily puzzle blog, let alone grow into a newsletter.

To mark the occasion, here are my favorite puzzles since the start of this blog.

Water Fight!

review, puzzmo

This crossword blew me away (pun intended). It has an incredibly unique theme, where each themer is a kind of ship from the game Battleship and the black squares make the grid resemble the game board. It's well-executed, fun to look at, and fun to solve. A tremendous puzzle!

Wanna Hang?

review, puzzmo

It's pure coincidence that today's puzzle managed to make this list (at the time of me writing this, at least). It's just that good. The theme is clever, funny, and well-executed; the fill is above-average, the cluing is packed full of personality. It's not doing something unique, like "Water Fight!", but it doesn't need to. The high level of execution is the draw.

Feline Musings

review, puzzmo

Look, I like cats. This puzzle delivers cats. What more could I ask for?

This puzzle's theme sets up a very satisfying solve. I enjoyed the difficulty curve from start to finish, cashing in on aha-moment dopamine like a cat on catnip.

That's all the highlights I have for now. Till next time!

Wanna Hang?

Jun 13 2024 - reviews

What a lovely crossword. I was originally planning on spicing up the daily a bit with a variety sudoku (spoilers for an upcoming review), but this crossword was just so good that I had to show it instead.

I can't help but list a few things that make this crossword great. The cluing is spot-on, the fill is solid, and the theme is both funny and evocative. On top of that, the theme takes up four downs in a 12x12 grid. That's just impressive.

The theme itself is hinted by IMDOWN, following LETSDOIT, COUNTMEIN, and IDLOVETO, all positive responses to the question posed by the title: "wanna hang?" This is the kind of funny, well-executed theme that makes me wish I had the idea first. Then again, even if I did have the idea first I would've butchered the implementation, especially on such a small grid. Kenny is demonstrating a high level of constructing prowess here by making it seem effortless.

I love that the full-length across PLAYEDITCOOL just hangs out in the bottom of the grid, what a casual flex. Didn't I already say I'm impressed?

There are some great clues in this grid as well. "'Hey SIRI!' (annoying thing to yell in an Apple store)" is a definite highlight. I remember when the Xbox Kinect came out and folks were telling stories of turning off consoles by shouting "Xbox off!" over voice chat. Good times.

"Not today, SATAN!" is a new one for me. Apparently it's a term popularized by RuPaul's Drag Race, whose YouTube clip sits at 1.1 million views.

I'm sitting here gushing about this grid, do I have anything negative to say? No, not really. I guess I could nitpick that "bean" is a weird metaphor for head ("Toppings for French beans?", BERETS). I also misspelled myself into a corner with "Run ____ of (conflict with)", which I filled as AMUCK. Turns out the real spelling is "run amok", which an astute reader can recognize doesn't fit. Woops.

Mixing the Mark

Jun 12 2024 - reviews

A lot of SZA representation going on in the last couple of crosswords. I wonder if she's that popular or if it's input from the editor? Regardless, it doesn't detract from today's puzzle, which if I may, has a very aesthetically pleasing shape to it.

It's not clear to me whether this grid has a theme. On one hand, the puzzle presents two highlights for words that are clued with an anagram. On the other, is that enough to qualify a theme? I don't see any other relationship between MANSPREAD and GRANTOBRIEN, unless I'm missing something hidden in the words. If that's it I'm a little disappointed.

I don't share Puzzmo's enthusiasm for anagrams, a fact I've mentioned many times when discussing their hint system. It strikes me as a cool flex but an otherwise tedious mental exercise that I obtain no pleasure from participating in. The themers in this grid are no different, I mostly ignored the acronyms except to fill in the O and E for GRANTOBRIEN.

I generally had a great time with the difficulty curve, aside from a couple of sticking points. ROZ crossed with PROTO was hard for me to nail down, the former being a complete guessing game on my part and the latter a jumble of attempts that start with PRE. "Pounded ___" (YAM) is a dish that I'm totally unfamiliar with, and was surprised when that was the correct answer. Everything else in the grid was a smooth, fun solve.

Well, except for PITA. Wow did PITA give me a hard time. Look, PITA is rounded and generally cut in half when in bread form. I stand by that. Were the clue referencing PITA chips, I'd be more willing to concede defeat, but for "Bread often cut into triangles"? I get what the constructor is trying to do here but it had me dismissing PITA as an answer as I tried to fill in an alternative, like FILA. Is FILA even a type of bread? It doesn't help that the surrounding clues are esoteric, with the world's longest Beyoncé reference crossed with geoduck.^[1]

Whew. OK now that that is out of my system I can talk about some of my favorite clues. "Points to you, holds up phone, mimes typing, points to self" is legendary (TEXTME). What a fun clue to piece together, kind of like some sort of textual charades. "Spilled the beans, for example?" (MADEAMESS) was also a great aha moment.

Body Temperature

Jun 11 2024 - reviews

A great entry from the Open Submission Week. Even though I got hung up on the upper-right corner this might be my favorite puzzle in the batch.

The theme is an apt pair with HOTHEADED/COLDHEARTED, intersecting at the E. I sent myself down a wild-goose chase by filling IMPATIENT for "Having a short fuse", impacting my time with some overzealous solving. After I realized the theme there was definitely a "oh, duh!" moment of reflection.

The upper-right corner absolutely roasted me. I started strong by plonking OSIRIS; I'm familiar with the mythology and have some lingering memory of its connection to a brand from middle school.^[1] CITE wasn't so tough and ERIE is a gimme for regular solvers. That's about where my luck started and ended.

LUPINE and DRIEST were the source of my troubles, the former clue seems a little easier but I had tried forcing some variation of CANINE in its place. The problem really stems from the downs, ISUREAM and TIPI. Without word separators, ISUREAM is just a spaghetti blend of letters. Not to mention that the clue "That's absolutely true about me!" is accurate, but a bit colloquially distant. Throw that together with an alternative spelling to tepee that I didn't know existed, and you've arrived at my hint usage for the day.

But hey, all that aside I still had fun. I love the SEGA clue, "Company that 'does what nintendon't'", referring to this Genesis commercial. The themer "Difficult to move?" also provides some nice wordplay (COLDHEARTED).

Rainbow Anthems

Jun 10 2024 - reviews

The difficulty curve of this grid is just right for a medium, although that may be helped by the predictability of a PHOEBE Bridgers reference in a music-centered Puzzmo grid. The top half is a smooth solve thanks to an obvious Shakira reference, even with the tricky corner of AZALEA crossing KAZAN. The rest is a pleasure to puzzle through thanks to RECYCLEDAIR, a fantastic bit of fill even if The Postal Service nears the top in my list of least favorite bands.

As far as fill-in-the-blank clues go, RECYCLEDAIR is one of the better ones. The lyrics rhyme, the number of syllables is guessable, the word itself is interesting, and there are a ton of crosses to help the solve. Much better than the Puzzmo usual of "take a boring word and find a song that includes it" approach. If most lyric clues were this quality I wouldn't need a TXW Rule dedicated to it.

I'm impressed by how few three-letter words there are in this grid. Normally three-letter words are the natural by-product of dotting a grid with black squares in pursuit of solvability, the three-letter words themselves unwanted since they're full of crosswordese and abbreviations. Today's constructor did a great job keeping the number down and maintaining a consistent level of interesting words. Impressive!

That said, a few crosswordese still managed to peak through, with YENS as one particularly egregious example (and one I can never remember). I'm convinced that word is never seen outside of a crossword puzzle.

"Knot again!" (RETIE) might be my favorite clue in this grid. A perfect, groan-inducing dad joke.

cry about it

Jun 9 2024 - reviews

Another day, another internet meme in a crossword grid.

The lower-left corner in this grid is absolutely brutal. The rest of the crossword? Easy. But "Anyway, here's ____" as WONDERWALL crossing NANDOS, SWOOPBANGS, and a BTS reference? You'd have to be tapped into the constructor's mind palace to finish this puzzle without hints.

Look, throw me a bone here. I know the song WONDERWALL but am unfamiliar with the meme. I'd hope to fill it from some contextual clues, but instead I've got NANDOS (some chain I've never heard of), "BTS fandom", and SWOOPBANGS^[1] running through it. Maybe if I landed the leading W I'd be set, but it's a wordplay clue with "Freestyled, maybe". This whole sequence of solving made me feel personally attacked. The name of this puzzle is "cry about it" so I think I have the license to complain.

I also have to detract points for this constructor bringing me to the BTS wiki to look up ARMY, since that fill makes no sense. "Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth." Sure.

There's some cute cluing in this grid that I'd spend more time praising if I weren't so distracted by that bottom-left corner. Some highlights for me were "Sound-make-louders" (AMPS) and "'...if anyone cares about what I think...' online" (IMO). Not to mention that GOOGOOGAGA is some fantastic fill that I'd like to see expanded into a proper themed puzzle.

It's hard to tag this puzzle with a difficulty rating because I think if you're operating in the memedom you'll have an easy time. But for those of us who are outside the k-pop circle and haven't been guitar shopping recently, medium.

That's One Small Slice of Lasagna

Jun 8 2024 - reviews

It's good to see a categorical make its way into the Puzzmo rotation. Today's grid has four hefty themers, stacked in pairs of two. It's a solid feat of construction that makes for a great puzzle.

The theme is a list of lasagna ingredients: each of cheese, noodles, meat, and sauce making their way into EXTRACHEESE, POOLNOODLES, MEATGRINDER, and SECRETSAUCE. Cheese and sauce lose a tiny bit of punch because their words are 1-1 with their ingredients (EXTRACHEESE is just cheese but more, MEATGRINDER is a totally different noun). But this tiny nit doesn't detract from an overall fun solve. Last thing I'll say about the theme is that POOLNOODLES doesn't create a particularly appetizing image in my head.

Shoutout to MEESE crossed with ASTER, the hardest corner of this grid. I'm a little surprised that I couldn't put this one together but I was so far down the flower rabbit hole that my brain was no longer functioning. I only needed the "s" from ASTER and I should've looked at the cross, but there I was, running through every letter in the alphabet. I later watched as my partner slotted MEESE instantly and I was blown away by her wizadry. If only my showerthoughts were as interesting as "If more than one goose are geese, why aren't moose meese?"

I loved seeing IMP clued as "Cheeky little creature in 'RuneScape'", it brings back some good memories. I recall having to kill what felt like hundreds of these cheeky bastards on a quest to retrieve four colored beads. Yeah, I'd call that a childhood well-spent.

Same Same, But Different

Jun 7 2024 - reviews

I can't say I've been much of a fan of the Open Submission Week themeless grids that Puzzmo has been publishing. Each one has felt like a substantial step down from the usual ACVX, and lacks a theme to otherwise distract from bad fill and awkward cluing. This particular puzzle might be my least favorite of the bunch. It's nice that the constructor has a personal story to share, but a good puzzle that does not make.

VIDEOGAME as an "activity" is forcing it. You might play a VIDEOGAME, but you never VIDEOGAME. It's a noun, not a verb. At least there's a cute cross with "What Remains of Edith FINCH" to make up for it. Although, describing Edith Finch as immersive might be a bit of a stretch. I'd opt for PONDEROUS.

Working out APHANTASIA was a fun little puzzle. I was stuck on AIL for the longest time, having filled ILL with IOUS and looking at a partial fill with ...TASII. Thinking about "phenomenon" in a clinical context helped me make a "-phobia"/"-ia" connection, allowing me to slot ...TASIA and AIL.

As for the other corners of the grid, there's just a boatload of crosswordese that doesn't feel like it passes the edit for a themeless puzzle. It certainly doesn't help that a few of these have appeared in some very recent grids, with ARO, GAL, and OPAL already well-exhausted. Add to that POI, AIL, LIB, and VEEP. Ugh.

Head in the Game

Jun 6 2024 - reviews

I have zero interest in basketball but today's crossword was still a fun solve. The highlight was landing BASKETBALLIQ after plonking QUO, there were just the right number of easy crosses for the "Q" revealer to nudge everything into place. Bonus points since the shape of the grid looks like a Mario squid.

While the bottom half of the puzzle was a clean solve, I struggled (somewhat unnecessarily) with the top half. I have no familiarity with IMMANUEL QUICKLEY so I had to solve every surrounding cross before I could fathom an answer. And those surrounding crosses aren't the easiest solves, with LULU, IQUOTE, and LYNXES, the last of which I filled BOBCATS before I realized the answer had to be plural. Bad solving on my part.

Speaking of bad solving, after reading "With 9-across, Toronto Raptors shooting guard who wears #5" I somehow thought "wears #5" corresponded to the highlighted themer 9A (I was blinded by the pretty crosshatching, I guess). When QUICKLEY was revealed I was left asking myself, "is that an item of apparel?"

I have somewhat of a beef with ASTO crossing SXSW, the latter being an especially annoying Texas crosswordese. At least SXSW is self-referential in this grid and can somewhat justify its existence. ASTO is just plain bad fill and "Regarding" does nothing to redeem it.

The theme feels a little weak, in way of the longest answer only barely referencing the other two themers. I didn't even notice that the IQ in BASKETBALLIQ matches the initials of IMMANUEL QUICKLEY until I read the post-solve description and revealed the hint. But at the same time, I don't think this grid would be improved by removing BASKETBALLIQ. It's probably the best fill in the grid.

New Yorker: Wednesday

Jun 5 2024 - reviews

Changing it up this week with a full-sized solve. As far as I can tell The New Yorker doesn't title their puzzles, so I haven't figured out how to title these reviews. This is cutting-edge stuff.

The New Yorker runs its easy puzzle on Wednesday and today is no exception. It's a light and breezy solve, yet still crunchy enough to be an enjoyable puzzle. The bottom third took me the longest to fill, with a few crosses not ringing any bells against an unfilled STILETTOHEELS. Once I filled the shoe (pun intended) the grid unlocked.

PAX Romana is a new one for me, which is somewhat surprising from someone who spent four years studying Latin. There's another Roman reference in the lower-right corner with TROY, "City infiltrated by means of a giant wooden horse, in the Aeneid." The downfall of Troy marks the beginning of the journey of Aeneas (the hero of, you guessed it, the Aeneid) goes on to meander around the coast of Italy in search of a new home town. That town eventually becomes Rome.

Anyway there's already enough Latin nerd going on in this review so it's time to move on.

Without the Puzzmo editors to tell me whether a crossword is themed, I keep second guessing myself that this is a themeless grid. Where's my post-solve letter from the constructor? The longest fills in the grid are the full-lengthed acrosses WHATMORECANISAY and GOTINTOHOTWATER, a couple of fun idioms. Both were a joy to piece together, not immediately guessable but inferrable after a couple of the words are partially filled.

I was especially impressed by IDINA, which strikes me as an incredibly well-placed name. It's fun to puzzle out with the crosses ATTIC and OHIO, both of which have a few different possibilities given their clues. This was probably my favorite section in the grid.