NYT Spelling Bee

[ab_grp]

Yay about the 2-fer last night, ciao_yall.  Sorry I missed that! That is so funny about spotch.  As far as the emus go, my interpretation from the crossword comments is that the emus are the censors of the comments page.  So sometimes comments don't show up, and people figure the emus are the cause because they posted something that was taken as offensive or such.  But I haven't read the comments thoroughly in a while, so I could be wrong.  That's my recollection, at least.

We finally got the pangram in the bee.  Well, husband got it, I declared that I would never get it, and then I saw it right away.  Funny how that works.  We got a few more points but were still about 20+ points from QB and gave up.  One of the words we missed was obvious, and we usually get it.  But the other four were more obscure to us and would likely not have been identified unless we stumbled upon them.  I tried something very close to one of them but no cigar.

Managed to finish today's medium sudoku in a little under 40 minutes, continuing from yesterday, no errors.  I was then doing pretty well at continuing the hard one and realized I had a problem, checked answers, had to delete a bunch, and had to revisit my assumptions for some cells.  Oh well, I will try again.  Still haven't solved yesterday's, either, so plenty on the agenda.  And I only have one (poor) contender word in LB so far.

[ciao_yall]

Thanks ab_grp for the cross-cultural tip!

Went over there after I managed to hit "genius" on my own. Still going to be there for a while - I can't quite get some of the more arcane ones.

Also tripped over the solution to the LB. Well, it was a good hint and I got it right away. So be forewarned if you go visit there - spoilers abound!

Back to prepping and college politicking.

[Langue_doc]

I've been feeling quite pleased with my SB solutions. On Jan 1, got to QB within 30 minutes without even having to play around with letters--decided that this was an auspicious beginning to the New Year. On other days I've been making it to almost QB, but deciding not to pursue the solutions to the bitter end. I've also been finding the pangrams without much effort except on the day it was 'mollycoddle' or something similar. Despite not finding the pangram, I made it to at least 40-50 points above genius.

As for LB, I tend to give up easily as that's the lowest on my list of puzzles. I find several first words and give up if I can't fit the remaining letters into a single word. Coxwain was one of my first words, and if I had tried harder, I might have found the first word and then managed to get coxswain as my second one. I was nowhere near the solutions to yesterday's LB. I wish I could be enthusiastic about LB the way you all are (sigh!).

I've been chugging along with the crosswords. Sunday's took a long time to solve. I've been managing to solve them before going to bed which means that I'm a day ahead with the crosswords and the sudokus. I don't think this trend will continue once classes begin (sigh!!!)

[cathwen]

I never got back to LB yesterday.  Today's LB is confounding me.  I've found some very long words that ought to leave letters that can be made into another word, but no solution is presenting itself yet.  Not sure I'll get back to it later. 

I thought SB was kind of hard today.  I did find the pangram and made it to Genius, but it was an effort.  I am annoyed that they rejected chacha.  Do they consider it a hyphenated word, perhaps?  Come to think of it, on the rare occasions when I have written it, I do hyphenate it:  cha-cha. 

Langue_doc, congratulations on your frequent QBs and almost QBs! 

I got the sudokus today, but yesterday--oof!  Does anyone else suffer from what I call "fat finger syndrome"?  That is, you think you're entering one number, but instead your finger is between two numbers and has actually entered the one you did not intend.  Usually, I notice that, but not always!  And yesterday was a fat finger syndrome day.  I had to backtrack a couple of times to undo the mistake (which had multiplied to mistakes).  Sigh.

[Langue_doc]

cathwen, I always, always, try chacha and then chachacha with no luck. The program does however accept another reduplicated word (think height of fashion) which I find to be rather inconsistent on the part of SB.

My fingers are always typing the wrong key, especially on the phone!

[ab_grp]

Congratulations on starting out of the gate so strong this year, Langue_doc!

I also keep trying chacha.  There are a couple other words that seem similar that are accepted, one of which Langue_doc alluded to.

I definitely have finger issues on my phone, usually with the crossword.  If I don't check carefully, I sometimes end up being misled by my earlier typo.  But I do think that can propagate much further in sudoku.  I tend to get more tripped up there with trying to remember what the candidates were in a cell if I entered a mistaken entry.  I can usually backspace and repopulate it, but if I deleted the entered number as a candidate elsewhere and can't remember where it was, that can be an issue.

Finally finished today's hard sudoku after much back tracking.  Still working on yesterday's!

[ciao_yall]

I'm happy to share LB hints. Not sure I would have found it myself. Combination highbrow/lowbrow words.

[Langue_doc]

I'm tempted to ask for a hint as I'm truly stuck on LB. I did get several interesting first words though.

[OneMoreYear]

I'm impressed with those of you who can solve the medium and hard sudoku puzzles online. I can do the easy ones online, but have to print the medium and hard ones to use my solve strategy.

I don't think I'd be successful on the LB, even if I had a subscription; SB is enough spelling for me with only 7 letters to use. I'm not a good speller, such that even common words look wrong to me even when they are spelled correctly, but the bee is a fun way to continue to attempt to improve, and it's motivating to see the excitement on this thread.

Happy solving, everyone!

[Langue_doc]

Tomorrow's crosswords and sudokus are done; made it to QB; failure, alas on LB.

I finally completed the preliminary vertex puzzles, so the program now "allows" me to play the daily puzzles. This one probably gets released at the same time as SB and LB, so I'm done with my puzzles for the day.

[ab_grp]

I'm impressed with those of you who can solve the medium and hard sudoku puzzles online. I can do the easy ones online, but have to print the medium and hard ones to use my solve strategy.

I just started solving them myself (and not well or quickly), but I have found a solving technique that is doable via online entry (put in candidate entries for any numbers for which there are only two possible locations in a 3x3 container).  Some people do all candidates, but I think that would be hard to keep track of (though I haven't tried yet).  I'm sure there are more sophisticated ways of solving, but that approach has really helped me at least get a little better at it and is easy to do online.  I don't know for sure if that is what they refer to as Snyder notation. 

As for LB, that was really impossible for me for a while.  I think it's because I initially thought you had to physically draw the connecting lines between letters in the word (you can do that but don't have to... typing in is quicker).  I think that constrained my thinking way too much, because I would be trying to figure out where to start and trying to always go in the same direction.  That's probably something wrong with my mind.  Once I realized you can just type in words that you see, it became a lot easier and more like the bee but just with different constraints.  Sometimes the answers pop out, but a lot of times it can be pretty tough.  I haven't gotten many 2-fers lately.

Yesterday I had flunky as my only contender but did not get and probably never would have gotten aperitif.

Congrats on QB yesterday, Langue_doc! I tried dachi I think but not dacha, should have gotten chai (as part of the acai acacia chai we look for), and I don't think I would have gotten indica or indicia, though I had jokingly suggested indicand.  Interestingly, it looks like indicia was in the database but not indica, so maybe they added indica at some point? Anyway, that is a huge QB in my book.   I haven't done much with today's yet.  Still gotta do coffee and crosswords.  And try the new sudokus!

[ciao_yall]

Yeah, I found "flunky" pretty quickly, but "aperitif?" Like I said, when I went over the the NYT crowd I saw a pretty clear hint. Don't think I'll be going up there again unless desperate. I was especially proud yesterday of "pyrite," "epaulet."

LB - Found a 3fer this morning. SB - Up to "nice" but it wouldn't take "coir" so I think I'll do real work for a while.

[ab_grp]

Pyrite and epaulet are good words! I haven't looked at LB much yet other than to note which letters might be more difficult.  Of course, a word that uses most of them jumped right out at me, but same side syndrome...

But ayeeeee I solved the hard sudoku in just under 30 minutes! I did have to check my answers one time after running into an issue but just had to delete one entry and turn that back off and was able to finish.  I'll take it.  Still working on medium, which is already over 30 minutes. 

Husband got to within 1 point in the bee today, so we counted the numbers of four-letter words we had starting with different letters, and he was able to figure out the final one.  He had to help me with my final three words. 

[ciao_yall]

I would have had a 2fer if not for the same side thing. Grrr.

[ab_grp]

Argh I just came up with what I think is a really good LB contender word but can't figure out what goes with it!