Category Archives: Wednesday

Some time ago, some writer must have taken several Klonopins and been scanning Pinterest. Then, they found today’s theme’s “musing” in an inspirational meme about editing and in their barbiturate haze, thought it was somehow a suitable basis for a puzzle.

EDITING A DRAFT OF WRITING IS SURELY AN ART FORM? Huh? Okay? Oh! Hark! It can be edited down to EDITING IS AN ART! Wow! Meta!

I finished today in 20:00 with no problems, but it would have been faster if I had realized that the “musing” was not going to include anything fun, clever, witty, or otherwise interesting. WRITING was the last part of it I filled in because I was racking my brain for something–anything–to make this puzzle something more than a CHEESY boost for writers with INFLATED EGOs.

Anyway, it was fun to see LEANN Rimes today in the puzzle. I guess she has continued to have a career in the past 20 years, but this song from my childhood is still what plays in my head when I hear her name:

Seriously! How could a 13 year old sing that way? Check her birth certificate! I’ll spend the rest of my day off of work (Happy Qatar National Day!) checking out the rest of her catalog.

There’s not much else to comment on in today’s puzzle. PANDAs are cute. I want a TACO. WAWA is a guitar accessory, not a 7-Eleven competitor (Google tells me it’s actually spelled “Wah Wah”). It’s good to see Harry Potter referenced in the puzzle, even if it’s the tragic character of DRACO Malfoy.

Gotta run! And I mean that literally. I’ve got a lot of calories to burn before a week of this:

Hello fellow xnerds. Bella here, making my debut into the world of crossword critiquing.

Current streak to date: 217
Today’s Time: 26:10 (which is about my average Wednesday solve time)

Looking back, I’m not sure why I couldn’t see the revealer. In my mind, I could only think of “Child Stars: Where are They Now?” The AHA moment came right at the end of my solving journey.

I felt like this whole grid was wreaking HAVOC on my mind. So many misdirections… DRAT for CRUD, WRITE for WROTE, GOES for GADS, OLGA for INGA (because I only read Frankenstein and never saw “Young Frankenstein” though I guess I should to bolster my crosswordese).

There were a few bad entries that really stuck out to me (SCHWA?? ENCLS??) But I guess the fill isn’t all horrible. I did like the timely appearance of FIRST SNOW, and I immediately wrote in CORN DOG, a favorite treat of my mother’s. But I will say the theme entries themselves are not exciting enough to warrant the sloggy fill of the grid. They are all normal phrases, but didn’t result in any joy from solving or make the solving any easier.

Here’s to hoping for a better Thursday ✌️

My OTTER title for this entry is “Does Carol Have The BIRDFLU?”

I’m writing this today because Carol has been feeling a bit under the weather the past few days and has forgotten to keep our brand new blog updated! We hope to be reading her little MORELS of crossword wisdom soon.

Today’s puzzle barely gave me any pause at all. It did have a few interesting facts in it, such as Sean Lennon’s middle name and the opening line of THE RAVEN. I love it when destinations I’ve been to, like PRAGUE, are in the puzzle as well as places I need to visit, like RWANDA and PERU. One day I’ll plan trip based on a crossword’s geographical references.

The theme came to me as soon as I made out GOALPOSTS in the southeast. I immediately figured out the rest of the themers and had to go back to suss out MOVING GOALPOSTS. I’ve always heard it as “moving the goalposts”, though I like “Moving Goalposts” as it sounds like it could be the name of the next Faith Hill album.

The only slight hang up I had was initially writing JIM as Tim. Can someone also explain to me how “Step on it!” clues SOLE?

To me, “sole” (rhymes with “guacaMOLE”) means something like “dude” in Samoan (and apparently in other Polynesian languages, too). And speaking of Samoa, everyone should harass an anti-vaxxer today, as the death toll of the horrifying measles outbreak there has reached 52 this week.

Medical professionals have attributed this outbreak to a rise in fear of vaccines that has arisen thanks to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and an Instagram influencer of Samoan decent named Taylor Winterstein. They capitalized on the tragic deaths of two infants who died after being mistakenly given muscle relaxers instead of MMR vaccines. They have been knowingly spreading lies to Samoans in order to enrich themselves. You can read about it here, but the long and short of it is that Ms. Winterstein and Mr. Kennedy should do the world a favor by digging holes and getting into them.

A second Samoan word in the puzzle today is MOA, which means chicken. Chicken happens to be one-third of my dinner tonight, along with some sweet POTATO ravioli left over from Thanksgiving.

PS- I’ve identified at least two more Samoan words hidden in today’s puzzle! I’ll cook this for anyone who can figure out what they are!