This month my age incremented again. On the very anniversary of my birth, I received an email from Will Shortz’s assistant, saying (nicely) that the puzzle I submitted back in November didn’t make the cut. I was prepared for this: a puzzle with a similar theme came out a couple of weeks after I mailed mine in, and well, it’s not exactly that unique in the first place. Also the middle section of my puz is a bit of a stretch. And, I felt bad about not trying to excise 23-A from the puzzle.
But anyway, their loss is your loss! Click here to try it.
The 2018 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament starts this coming weekend. Last year, I complained that the online crossword tournament used a Java applet and would have almost no browser support by this time. This year, the online solver is running a version of my own XwordJS, customized (by me) for the ACPT’s backend (which I had nothing to do with). Here’s hoping it works.
After the 2017 tournament, I hoped to increase my solving speed to be more competitive this time around. In reality, I didn’t put much effort into this goal, so I expect to be about the same. My best NYT Monday time, for that one month when I tracked it, was a hair over 7 minutes, far from the front of the pack.
Meanwhile, I did make a bit of progress in solving cryptics, having done the puzzle a few times in the Toronto Star and actually finishing last week’s. I have to say they aren’t as fun as American style crosswords due to the arbitrariness of the cluing, or so I tell myself so that I can feel less dumb.