NYT Spelling Bee

[ab_grp]

Thanks, ciao_yall! Well, husband finally found the pangram and then another after we had compared.  Not sure I would ever have figured them out.  We had one word left that we couldn't find, and of course it's one we both should have known.  Oh well.  At least I am now free to pursue other puzzles.  And I have to get some duolingo in. 

ETA: Double thanks for the hint! I found a 2-fer, probably same as yours, if your hint was for the second word.  Many thanks!

[cathwen]

Well, I made it to Genius and beyond today in SB, but I don't think that QB is on the horizon, especially since I have not found either of the two pangrams that are allegedly hiding there.   I almost made QB yesterday, though! Just one word shy, but I felt like conking myself on the head with a dictionary when I looked at the answers because the word I missed is built on another word I had found.  I should have gotten it!

I haven't gotten LB for the last day or two, but I got the (a?) 2fer today. 

And I solved the sudokus, but I thought that both the medium and the hard ones were more difficult than usual.

[ciao_yall]

What's driving me bananas is yesterday one of my 3fers was absurdist-tub-blackjack which was *this* close to the actual solution! But since I kept thinking "blackjack" was too weird a word I didn't follow up on it.

ab_grp you are welcome! I found it the nanosecond after I sent the message saying we should try a team effort...

Hit genius, no panagram but good enough for today.

[ab_grp]

Cathwen, which word did you miss yesterday?

I think the past few days of LB have been pretty tough.  I likely wouldn't have gotten a 2-fer today without ciao_yall's help.

As for the pangrams, if you get one you should get the other.  And they give a lot of points together!

I finally finished yesterday's hard sudoku.  It gets to me that I don't notice leads that I should.  I guess stepping away does help, though sometimes it seems like holding certain patterns in my head helps (e.g., this set of numbers has to be here), and I lose that momentum after being away.  But I am sad to hear that today's are more difficult than usual even for you, cathwen! I have a few entries in the medium one but only have notes in the hard one so far.  Usually I can at least get one entry in the first minute or two on hard.   I'll keep cycling through, but I think since it's a weekend tomorrow's will come out this afternoon, too.

[cathwen]

The word I missed yesterday was toponymy.  And I had toponym!  Grrr!

[ab_grp]

Ah, yep! After they had one in there a few days ago (homonymy?) that I missed, I keep trying to add a y to those just in case.  Of course there wasn't a mononymy, apparently.  I also think there is a word in there that I have tried before numerous times to no avail, so maybe they added it or I am just mistaken.

Finally finished medium sudoku today but had to check my answers once or twice (luckily none were incorrect, at least).  Trying to finish the hard one before the next batch comes out.  I think I got somewhere with it, but then I had to break for lunch, so hopefully I can pick back up.

[ab_grp]

Good morning! I got to QB by myself again, which is a nice way to start the day.  The word I missed yesterday was "modem".  I did finish the hard sudoku from yesterday, finally, with some checking and deleting of entries, and I got today's easy out of the way and started the others.  Still working on the medium and hard sudokus, and I see that LB has some interesting letters to contend with.  Looks like ciao_yall found the official solution yesterday, PUBLIC-COXSWAIN?

[ciao_yall]

Morning!

Yeah, pretty much tripped over the LB solution yesterday.

Slow start this morning on the puzzles, but going to read the actual physical paper for a while.

QB? ab_grp that's impressive!

[ab_grp]

Thanks about the QB, but it is a pretty short bee today, and there are enough recent ones that have haunted me that I was not about to forget today.  It's good that it was short given the long Sunday crossword, but luckily that was pretty easy.  Enjoy your reading!

I did manage to finish today's medium sudoku without having to check answers.  Hopefully I can finish the hard puzzle, too.  Two contenders so far for LB, neither that promising.

[ciao_yall]

I am stuck at "amazing" for SB, and lots of 3fers. So hope to achieve "genius" and the 2fer... soon.

[cathwen]

I'm at Genius today for SB, but have not solved LB.  I have some great words, but can't make them work together.

Ab_grp, congratulations on QB! 

[ciao_yall]

With a few hints, got SB "genius." With a few hints AND a search through thesaurus, got LB. It was a gnarly one!

[Parasaurolophus]

I am stuck at "amazing" for SB, and lots of 3fers. So hope to achieve "genius" and the 2fer... soon.

Yeah, it's a hard one today. I think I give up.

[ab_grp]

Thanks, Cathwen! And congrats on genius.  I have four-ish contenders in LB, but still no luck and am about to call it a day.  I now have 3 puzzle tabs open for today's hard sudoku, LB, and tomorrow's sudokus.   Agh. 

I realized I never actually posted the above last night.  The bee today is really hard! I am at 81 points, still no pangram.  Looked at the LB answers from yesterday, not even close. 

[ciao_yall]

Woke up at 4 am, stuck at "amazing" on SB and found a weird 3fer pretty quickly on LB.

On the NYT Crossword comments board there is a whole sub-crowd of SB fans who post hints. They have their own lingo as well - I think they call it getting "emu'd" when a word that won't that is usually in the crossword doesn't pass in the SB. But I'm not quite sure. Today it wouldn't take chacha. So I guess I got emu'd?

There is a smaller sub-crowd that does LB and also posts hints. That is how I found last night's solution. They also have their own word - you will appreciate this - "spotch" - for weird words that make solutions. Ha! As in "I found a solution without a spotch in it."

What really threw me on the last few days' solutions was that LB usually tries to use as few letters as possible. So between the spotches and the many resuses of letters I think it's time to enter a brave new world of LB.