August 09, 2005

The other half of Tuesday

Rich Norris's CrosSynergy puzzle, "...And a Cup of Coffee," was a great Tuesday puzzle. Easy enough, but it felt like I had to think while solving. Fresh fill (MRMAGOO, NAPPY, MARAUD, BADOMENS, MOXIE, WIZARDRY, OLDNEWS) and a good set of clues. I'm still waiting for Rich to construct many more challenging themeless puzzles...

Fellow blogger Dave Mackey made today's LAT puzzle. Congratulations, Dave! According to his blog, Dave also had the July 27 USA Today puzzle (which I admit I haven't done because I'm a proprietary Java applet snob and like only the NYT applet; I get irked trying to maneuver around the grid in other applets). Dave also reports that an upcoming NYT puzzle will be his.

Okay, I reconsidered and tracked down Dave's USA Today puzzle. I was right; that applet is really annoying (it took me twice as long as Dave's LAT puzzle). And once I finished, a little animated doodle guy started prancing around and the puzzle was gone. Dave, I saw some really nice clues in there; one was in the NE corner and one was...elsewhere. I can't see the puzzle anymore, so it's hard to be more specific. (Could you do me a favor and submit your puzzles only to the outlets that use Across Lite or to Games magazine? Thanks!)

CS 3:24
LAT 3:03