NYT Spelling Bee

[ab_grp]

LB today--holy sh$t!

After looking at the LB, this made me laugh! Works on several levels.  No real luck on that yet today, but a few mediocre contenders.

Neat that we found so many different 2fers yesterday.

Ciao_yall, sorry you did not get the QB signal! Maybe the app was being wonky.  Uncool, bee!

I got the hard sudoku done, yay! But I am still totally at a loss on yesterday's.  I cannot find a foothold past where I had gotten to, and the cell it lights up as a hint does nothing for me.  I'll keep at it until the new ones come out later.  I feel like I'm getting better at them but am still missing some reasoning approaches.  I was able to use more distant reasoning to capitalize on the hint cell it lit up a couple days ago, but no luck with that so far on yesterday's.

[Langue_doc]

Good to hear from y'all. Too discombobulated to respond other than to admit defeat with SB--am not a genius. Have to get breakfast so that I can clear my brain.

[ab_grp]

Well, I got to 182 pts in the bee (~83%), still a long ways to go.  I think the banana and coffee helped, and now I have had a bagel, so that may help further.  I hope your breakfast helps you, Langue_doc!

[ab_grp]

Okay, now I'm at 205 on the bee, so got to Alpha but not sure if I will get the remaining 14 or so points for QB.  I think we can safely say there is only one pangram given not enough points left for a second? I have a chance to win the diamond league in Duolingo, so I might spend time on that for a bit but will try again on bee and LB intermittently.

[cathwen]

Alpha!  That's great, ab_grp.  I'm at 155 points, and don't see myself getting much further. 

Also, LB continues to confound me!  I have spent an outrageous amount of time on it and still have not solved it.

[Langue_doc]

Good luck on Duolingo and congrats on Alpha, ab_grp.

I made it to genius and refuse to torture myself further.

ciao_yall and cathwen, I too like to see what others come up in LB. As for today's puzzle, it's sadistic, so have decided not to put myself in harm's way. Besides, tomorrow's crosswords and sudokus should be out, so onward and upward. Dinner first, though.

[ciao_yall]

SB - hit genius. Yay. So just into genius is... Gamma?

LB - Several 3fers, including some close ones. And some good words that eat up a lot of letters but don't leave much to work with. Not there yet.

[ab_grp]

Cathwen, there were numerous times during the bee today that I thought that was it, and then I found a bunch of words I should have gotten.  Not sure what it is with the letter arrangement today that lends itself to that kind of nonsense.   Hope you get some more bee or LB success if you continue!

Langue_doc, I made a similar decision with Duolingo that you did with the bee, but more because the guy I dethroned started pulling some BS, and I was going to waste no further time trying to win legitimately.  I hope you enjoy your dinner and tomorrow's puzzles!

I did get a little further in the bee, to 212.  So, 7 or so more points to QB, and I am about out of ideas.  We will probably compare lists next time we take a break.  No real luck on LB, still trying to work on that occasionally.  At least I did conquer tomorrow's medium sudoku and will wait until tomorrow for the hard one before my eyes fall out from too much screen time.

Time for some wine!   

[ciao_yall]

I sent out my 3fers for you to take a look at. Not all my finds, just the ones I could make 3fers out of.

[ciao_yall]

I found an online LB puzzle solver and said, WTH, I'll just see what they come up with.

3fers - yeah, we got those.
2fers - WTF? I mean srsly these are words I didn't know were words!

So now I can rest easy.

[Langue_doc]

ciao_yall, I saw your message, but got tied up with long phone calls and prep. I don't have any three-fers alas, as I got into the habit of two or nothing after posting on this thread. The perils of peer pressure!

Glad you got the two-fer. Dare I ask about the solver?

ab_grp, hope you got the crown.

The crossword was easy. One of the clues was about a Queens (NYC) neighborhood, and another a long word that I used here today.

[Langue_doc]

SB: WTF?

LB solution: a toned down WTF?

Pardon the foul language.

Happy solving, all.

ETA Got to amazing with the pangram. Now I need a mere 3 points to reach 44 and genius. That will have to wait until my next break.

ETA2 Two-fer on my first attempt, and genius. Get back to work!

[cathwen]

Congratulations, Langue_doc!

After much hair pulling and gnashing of teeth yesterday, I gave up on LB.  But today, I got a 2-fer in the second try! 

I'm at genius on SB.  Now I can relax and get some real  work done! (=work for which I am being paid)

[ab_grp]

Thanks for the message, ciao_yall! Sometimes I think 3fers can lead to 2fers, but like Langue_doc I have started just going for 2fer or nothing after being motivated here.  I hope today's is easier.  At least I finally figured out how to do LB on my phone, though it's kind of a pain without the keyboard.  I tried it a bit last night, but no luck.  Never would have gotten those words!

Got to QB today after finally identifying the remaining word.  It's so short today! And not any obscure words, that I can recall.  Weird bee.  But alas, no QB on my own yesterday.  We did both get to Alpha, and the one I was missing was "neocon", which I am pretty sure I have missed before.  Oh well, a good run.

Congrats on your 2fers and genius levels, cathwen and Langue_doc!

Regarding the crossword, I saw last evening that Rex Parker had tweeted that it was more like a W or Th in difficulty and took him a minute more than his Monday average, so I was interested to try it out.  I didn't think it was difficult at all (sounds like Langue_doc thought the same) and came in 30 seconds under my Monday average, but I think it just goes to show that each puzzle has a unique interaction with each puzzle solver, no matter what skill level or experience. 

Will work on today's hard sudoku and LB after I get pizza dough made... yes, should probably do some real work too at some point, unfortunately!

Happy Monday solving, all!

[Parasaurolophus]

Easy genius this morning; on to the QB!