The Spelling Bee by Frank Longo: as I've mentioned before, I love to match wits with the New York Times staff at finding "appropriate" words of 5 letters or more, from 7 special letters. You should try it too.
For instance, in the January 28, 2018 puzzle, the letters t,c,n,k,l,i,e were given and 5 letter or longer words were to be made from those letters. However, each word had to contain the letter K.
The magazine gave ratings:
7 words = good
12 words = excellent
17 words = genius
19 words = the max from the magazine
I really work hard on this puzzle each week and try to beat the maximum. Lately, I have been able to. So, for this week, I found 21 words. (this, of course, strokes my ego)
After the Spelling Bee puzzle, I do miscellaneous puzzles by Patrick Berry. I get nervous while doing his puzzles; they are all different. But I manage to finish them.
After Berry's puzzles, I do anacrostics or cryptic crosswords. Anacrostics are always created by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, and I can't begin to remember how long I have been doing them. At least 40 years... I think so.
Anacrostics and cryptics take me a while to do, but I really enjoy the challenge. This week, the cryptic was created (set) by Cox and Rathvon, a rare situation.
Now, all of the NYT puzzles are overseen by puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Shortz, Longo, Berry, Cox and Rathvon are all longtime members of puzzle world to which I also belong. It's a lot of fun, and I highly recommend joining in.
After all of these puzzles have been completed, I tackle the Sunday Crossword. I usually have to google 5 or 6 clues, especially those having to do with sports or contemporary music. In those cases, I learn something new.
A guy named Rex Parker is OFL (our fearless leader) for the Sunday Crossword. He doesn't set the puzzles, but he does critique it. Rex is one of those puzzle experts who races the clock at competitions (usually held in Connecticut, and is very critical of each puzzle. I do the puzzle for fun and therefore think that each puzzle is a challenge for me and nobody else. And, as I said, I usually learn something from each puzzle. ... So... if you want to keep your brain young.. do some tough puzzles each day. Your brain will thank you and you will get better at them by practice.
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This Sunday, after the puzzles, I enjoyed a few few articles in the magazine, for instance:
An article about ace jet plane salesman, Steve Varsano. Steve was brought up in New Jersey, near the Teetleboro Airport. After a long series of jobs, Steve formed a business devoted to selling the largest most luxurious Jet planes to the .0001% of the rich folks in the world who can afford to pay an average of $90 million dollars for a little transportation.
Steve says that Donald Trump paid $100 for "Trump 1."
I quote from the article: Varsano: "In the U.S., the market is on fire, and you could say it was the Trump bump, or you could say that it was the way this tax plan has energized people to make the jump."
The author of this article, Gideon Lewis-Kraus writes:
"A provision of the (new tax) law actually allowed jet buyers to write off the entire purchase - effective immediately, for those who might want to claim it on a 2017 return."
Suckers!!
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Alex Halberstadt wrote a nice article in the magazine about famous comedian, Rodney Dangerfield. You know, (the No Respect Guy). Here are a few of Rodney's famous quips:
"As a child, I was so ugly, my mother fed me with a slingshot."
"I told my dentist my teeth were going yellow. He told me to wear a brown necktie."
"My last birthday cake looked like a prairie fire."
"At my age, I want two girls at once. If I fall asleep, they got each other to talk to."
My Uncle Allen loved Rodney and imitated all of his routines. I'm anxious to check his routines on YouTube. (I am old enough to remember some of them.)
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