ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ BAG LUNCH]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ BAG LUNCH]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
This one was interesting: as I was exporting the puzzle I realized it practically had vertical symmetry (instead of the left-to-right it actually sports). I gave it a quick thought about a full revision to make it go vertical, until I realized 51- and 53-Across were theme entries. Alas.
Left-to-right symmetrical grids have some minuses. For instance, there are 18 three-letter and 16 four-letter entries in this one. That should help solvers get plenty of footholds in the grid.
But that symmetry still allows opportunities for big chunky corners. The mean word length with this one is 5.16. Course the 65 squares of thematic material certainly helps. FWIW: today’s New York Times puzzle’s mean word length is 5.00 with 47 squares of theme, and the L.A. Times puzzle boasts a meager 4.92 mean word length and 54 theme squares.
I gotta tell you, it’s always fun to throw numbers around while making an argument. Even if the numbers are (a) essentially meaningless in the grand scheme of things or (b) unverifiable. I had a buddy who would always pepper arguments with utterly ludicrous numbers pulled seemingly out of thin air. “Dude I just read this the other week, the average lifespan of a butterfly exposed to nuclear waste is a meager 7.39 hours! You can look it up!”
Anyway. Since crosswords are always referencing baseball, why don’t I continue the trend and become the Billy Beane of puzzles. Instead of “Moneyball” I guess I’m going “Moneygrid.” The name, I guess, makes sense: The higher the number of the mean word length, the more likely the chance the solver’s going to enjoy the experience. Hence: “Money!” Moneygridding, I like that.
See, now I’m having way too much fun with the Puzzle Statistics feature on Crossword Compiler. Puzzle #79 boasted an eye-searingly toasty 6.35 average word length. Now if that isn’t the definition of “money,” I dunno what is.
Not really too much else to say about this one. I was sort of surprised there was a lack of the Scrabble-y letters in the grid. Guess it just worked out that way. There was absolutely nothing I could have done with the hideous 35-Down. I guess that’s inevitable when you’ve got that much theme in there. Favorite clue in the batch was at 2-Down.
Okay, I’m keeping this one short. See you on Friday.
This one beat me up. Can’t say I’ve heard of Patton Oswalt either. I liked Monday’s better.
I confidently penned in MYSTORY 11-down and it was downhill from there. This one was so hard it seemed like there should be a separate version with easier clues.
Patton Oswalt’s hilarious, but the joke was new to me.
I’ve seen KRA a lot lately, Brendan, and not just in your sports crossword manuscripts! The Kra Isthmus has definitely arrived. Are there beaches? I bet there are beaches.
Apparently you have 14 minutes and 43 seconds of extra free time to count up those 137 clues and the length of the answers… What? that seems right, those numbers are unverifiable anyway.
Well, since I’d never heard of HACKY SACK or PATTON OSWALT, the joke was mostly lost on me. And even after finding out what these are, I still don’t get it…I mean, it just doesn’t seem funny to me. My bad. But I still enjoyed “hacking” through this one at my usual pokey pace. SUMPTER, CHOLOS, and DISCH were also newbies to me. I’m with you on REVERSI–love that game.
i’ve heard of PATTON OSWALT and HACKY SACKS (and STEAKS, HIPPIES, and GUTTERS) and the joke was still lost on me. the fill was whatevs but the cluing was interesting in places. CHET on top of HYDE was annoying, although it forced me to make sense of “66 or 1, e.g.,” which was probably your intention. i, too, went for MY STORY, but it didn’t last long. overall i did like this puzzle as much as any other quote or joke puzzle, which may just mean that i am totally ambivalent about quote/joke puzzles; in most cases they just seem to get in the way, ratcheting up the difficulty in a not-super-interesting way (i.e., simply by reducing the number of clued items). when i do like them it’s usually because there’s a payoff, e.g., the quote is thoughtful/relevant/witty or the joke is funny (see above).
— The higher the number of the mean word length, the more likely the chance the solver’s going to enjoy the experience. —
Hey, tell you what — let’s try to prove it! The reason we care about OBP in baseball is because a regression analysis showed OBP was highly correlated to win percentage. So you should have solvers rate your puzzles and then we can find out which grid statistic (if any) correlates to solver enjoyment. This blog is a great place to try something like that. I’d be really curious to see the results.
What do you think?
Also, you need to be the first to put Wii-itis (http://is.gd/XvuX) into a grid. Or has someone else done it already?
Already did it: http://is.gd/XvVX
Fair enough.
Hmm… I think quote puzzles are generally harder anyway. I’ll try and ease it up a bit, whenever I do another one of these message puzzles.
Is the fact that it’s a new joke a good thing?
Unverifiable, perhaps, but a quick drag down menu does all that number crunching for me.
Othello was a requirement growing up.
Fair enough.
I’m game… how do we push this forward?
That’s what I get for not paying attention.
Hm … whoever set up your leaderboard should be able to hook you up with a five-star rating system. I think.
There’s still time to back out if you don’t like the idea of having a number associated with each of your crosswords.
that’s what i remember it being called, too. it’s only the past week or so that i learned it also goes by the name REVERSI. good timing, that!
whew that’s a tough one. quote puzzles always are. 58D made me grin.
I’ll start by saying: thank god Across Lite allows instant fill of WTF’s (such as SUMPTER and “G squared=MIL”). This was another BEQ where I just didn’t have the right knowledge set. But I appreciate it for its doability if I just knew those few things I didn’t, and I thought it was fun overall ( I happen to be a fan of Oswalt, which helps, I’m sure). The theme density is an impressive accomplishment, though clearly it also cuts down on how much the clueless can fake their way through. If I had to pick a nit, I’d say SNAILS are known for being slow, but I’d be disinclined to equate that with “sluggish”, which seems more of a character flaw than a trait. Though “define:sluggish” on google suggests I’d be wrong.
Which is just an excuse to fill in those who missed the joke: Hacky sack is a hippie’s game, and hippies tend to be insufferably vegetarian (and I resemble that remark). If that doesn’t make the joke sensible, well, I guess this one just wasn’t for you.
Do hippies even exist any more?
Weird coincidence of the day, for me: I’ve been reading xword-related books as part of my preparation for … well, something … and just before doing this puzzle, I finished the book in which you, BEQ, are the main non-authorial character. In that book, I learned of an airline I’d never heard of before. That airline was in this puzzle.
/coincidencestory
I wouldn’t say the amount of shorter words gave me much a foothold, considering some of those words were COS, ROK, MIL, OREL, KRA, ANA. I mainly context-clued my way through the quotation to get a foothold with those weirdos.
But highly enjoyable, to be sure.
Don’t let people start rating your puzzles. We don’t deserve to.
Wow! If it weren’t for the Patton Oswalt reference, I would have given up and finished watching “High School Musical.” (It’s for my job.)
What a fun puzzle; and for the folks not getting the joke, well, I guess context is everything. Hie thee to “Feelin’ Kind of Patton” if you want to find out from whence the punchline came. (I think that’s the right album.)
Is there any chance of a Tom Scharpling/Best Show on WFMU-themed puzzle? Comedy geeks everywhere would be immensely pleased, I think.
I will add at this point that my giving up has nothing to do with the quality of the puzzle. Rather, it has everything to do with a half-bottle of wine and an absolute lack of drive and just in general being sort of witless.
While we may not deserve to (and I kind of agree on this point), we want to. I think Brendan would set the criteria by which we rate his puzzles, and I can hardly wait to see the choices!
I got through the top half and then had problems when I didn’t know the author of the quote. I also remembered KRA from, the Onion puzzle from last week, I believe. I found 48 Down more hideous but that’s just me. Otherwise the groovy 60’s was a decent timewarp but I think I’ll stay in the present and eat my ‘rooms in my salad.
tough puzzle. Like others, I don’t get the joke and never heard of this Oswalt character, but I was able to muscle through it with the crosses. Thank God Rte 66 goes through NM!
Who the F*** is this guy and what the F*** does the joke mean????
I guess this one was harder than normal. Have we noticed the new difficulty meter? Per your suggestion, I believe. Might not stick with the thermometer motif. As Matt Drudge says: “Developing …”
Yeah, dense quote themes inevitably bring out the bullshit. Glad you felt it was still doable.
I think the term “hippie” has transcended the original meaning where now it’s any kind of earthy/crunchy granola type. Mike Nothnagel and I can attest our alma mater was teeming with rain stick carrying neo-hippies.
Which reminds me of a joke:
Q: What’s orange and looks good on a hippie?
A: Fire.
I’m thinking about how this whole puzzle rating system would work a bit more.
As Matt Drudge says: “Developing …”
WFMU? Hell yeah. Let me try and think of a way to make it a little more, shall we say, for more general audiences. Don’t want to alienate everybody, now.
Remind me sometime to share my stereotypical ‘rooms experience wherein I came upon the stunning realization that money was just paper.
Thanks for checking in Jesser.
Hey John. Treedweller’s comment up above explains the joke just fine. You can learn about Patton Oswalt here: http://is.gd/ZhMp
Count me in the ‘tough but getable’ category. I would say that Oswalt certainly counts as culturally relevant, but then again since I know him, I WOULD say that. Keep on keepin’ on, bro.
How about “D in Dutch” with the clue being “It’s pronounced de.”