OT: dilemma re: crossword puzzles

[echappist]

Lately I've gotten into doing crossword puzzles. It started with WaPo crossword (with the auto-check function turned on) to doing the NYT crossword with auto-check, to doing the NYT crossword without auto-check. Of course, I need to look up things here and there, but it would appear that I have been improving.

The dilemma however, is whether it's actually worth my time. The easiest puzzles I can do within 30 minutes, sometimes within 15, but the harder ones can easily stretch to 1 hr 45, with still swaths (say a 4x5 section or two) left unfilled.

Over a week, it may literally end up being more than the time I spend cycling. Now, granted, I won't be able to convert those seven hours (fair assessment for time spent doing the Thursday- Sunday puzzles) fully into something productive, whether that may be putting in a few hours of OT at work, riding my bike, reading a book, learning to cook a new dish, tidying up the house, etc., but one's gotta think that seven hours is a lot of time.

One other thing about all this is that I'm wondering just what I am getting out of it, and my guess is that it leans more toward self-satisfaction (in the sense of, damn, I saw what they were doing in that puzzle and solved it) than any actual learning, in other words, intellectual onanism, if one will.

Perhaps I don't have the right mentality for a crossword solver? Thoughts?

[wc1934]

I hear you - the more you do the more proficient you become - keeps you wanting more. I used to play on line chess but it took to long. Moved onto practicing Italian with Duolingo, but that too was time consuming.


Now I do the NY Times mini so I only "waste" 3 minutes each day.:)

[XXtwindad]

Hey Jim,

Oddly enough, I was thinking about the NYT crossword puzzles the other day. I have a buddy who's a professional dancer. She manages the front desk at the gym I work at. She's also an avid NYT crossword puzzler.

I always spend the first fifteen or so minutes kibitzing with her when I first arrive. Being fond of words, I used to try to help her with the puzzles. But, I had an odd (and unfortunate) realization: I lacked the patience. It was actually frustrating.

Not only do I think doing the NTY crosswords involves skill, it's a kind of antidote to our attention deficit addled society. In fact, there's actually been anecdotal evidence that shows crossword puzzles may assist in fighting Alzheimers: https://www.alzinfo.org/articles/crossword-puzzles-alzheimers/
Of course, exercise has been thought to do the same thing. So, you're doubly covered with cycling.

PS. That's the second time you've used "onanism" in a thread. Had to look it up. Nice one :)

[Tony T]

I also only do the NYT daily crossword mini. I try to do it in under 2 minutes ;)

[jtbadge]

Chasing the gold star streak is like heroin.

[joosttx]

When I retired I set a goal to complete a NYT crossword puzzle without help. I was obsessive about it for about 3-4 months. I think I completed like 3 of them. For someone who is severely dyslexic like me this was the height of my intellectual pursuits. I don’t think I would of devoted so much time if I didn’t think it was such a grail type thing for me.

So, if you are gifted like my wife there is no effort involved and she can complete a Sunday times one probably 50% of the time I n a morning. Guys like me it takes 3 months to get a mid week one. Not sure she would do it if it took as long as me but it wasn’t worth as much either. Hope this helps.

[vav]

Perhaps I don't have the right mentality for a crossword solver? Thoughts?

Time for Sudoku ;)

[wildboar]

Could maybe take it along on the trainer?

[DeBike]

The longer you do them the better you get at it. Sometimes the best thing is to put it down and come back to it later. I do a crossword everyday. I do the NYT Sunday crossword and sometimes I can be finished in a hour or two, with some time away from it. Sometimes it might take me a week with looking at it for a little while now and then.

[echappist]

Hey Jim,

Oddly enough, I was thinking about the NYT crossword puzzles the other day. I have a buddy who's a professional dancer. She manages the front desk at the gym I work at. She's also an avid NYT crossword puzzler.

I always spend the first fifteen or so minutes kibitzing with her when I first arrive. Being fond of words, I used to try to help her with the puzzles. But, I had an odd (and unfortunate) realization: I lacked the patience. It was actually frustrating.

Not only do I think doing the NTY crosswords involves skill, it's a kind of antidote to our attention deficit addled society. In fact, there's actually been anecdotal evidence that shows crossword puzzles may assist in fighting Alzheimers: https://www.alzinfo.org/articles/crossword-puzzles-alzheimers/
Of course, exercise has been thought to do the same thing. So, you're doubly covered with cycling.

PS. That's the second time you've used "onanism" in a thread. Had to look it up. Nice one :)

Josh, really appreciate you chiming in. I think your point re: patience is quite cogent, though it could be said that no amount of patience is sufficient to get one through one of the more difficult puzzles. Some of the harder ones make me feel as if I showed up to a gun fight with a knife, and a dull one at that.

Jest aside, I think I could stand to be more patient, perhaps a lot more patient. In my 20s, I actually read books for fun. Though I didn't read that many, I at least tried to read a few pages every other day. I'm now in my mid 30s (gasp), and I can count in two hands the books I finished in the last decade: Robert Caro's Powerbroker (this one really spoiled me), Dicken's Bleak House, McCarthy's The Road, a few books on personal finance (so more for pragmatic purposes than anything educational), and a few books on training on the bike. That's it. It's actually rather embarrassing when I think about it, and I could do better.

I have been/am a new junkie, and at the present time subscribe to three newspapers (WaPo, NYT, and The Guardian). However, even reading news articles is a pale exercise for patience. It's one thing to get through a few articles, at 5-10 minutes each, because the reason why I'm reading it in the first place was that something in the article interested me. It's quite another to sit through books where nothing interesting seems to be occurring.

I am fortunate to work from home and enjoy quite a flexible schedule. Alas, it's trivial to pick up a book for a 15-30 minute break. Come to think of it, I really ought to try it.

PS. Very good memory; all the time you looked at NYT puzzles must have helped :)

I hear you - the more you do the more proficient you become - keeps you wanting more. I used to play on line chess but it took to long. Moved onto practicing Italian with Duolingo, but that too was time consuming.


Now I do the NY Times mini so I only "waste" 3 minutes each day.:)

but it could be argued that the latter allows you to, inter alia, watch calcio and cycling on RAI, appreciate Puccini, read Dante, etc.

btw, did you find Duolingo actually effective? I ask b/c one of these days (as in perhaps 20 years from now) i'd like to pick up another language.

Chasing the gold star streak is like heroin.

tell me about it :)

now, I don't think i'll ever be able to get a 7-day streak, but it would be nice to solve a Saturday puzzle before I hang it up

Also, I think you are onto something here about the NYT (with the implication that it's a purveyor of something addictive). It's very easy for one to subscribe and start a service (few mouse button clicks will suffice), but it's exceedingly difficult to cancel. The lines are swarmed, and the wait time is about an hour. I've had easier times cancelling TV and internet subscriptions. NYT's behavior is certainly reminiscent of purveyor of addictive substances...

[jtbadge]

The thing about a 7 day streak is that it very easily becomes 10+ day streak. Monday through Saturday get harder as the week goes on, then Sunday is like a Thursday but takes longer, rinse and repeat.

If you keep working at it, solve time goes down, your streak turns into a week or a month, or more.

But then where does that get you? I had a few 60+ day streaks last year, probably missed about a dozen over the course of the year. It's taken me a few years of daily solving to get to this level, and is rewarding in the micro sense, but ultimately I'm still unhappy when I don't finish one and have to start over. Currently a couple of weeks from tying my 72 day record, I'm afraid of how hard I will take it next time I miss a day. It feels like keeping your mind sharp, but really is a huge time sink and psychological challenge.

[AngryScientist]

intrigued, i just read this article.

https://www.nytimes.com/guides/crosswords/how-to-solve-a-crossword-puzzle

pretty funny.

Your officemate keeps bragging about his ability to finish The New York Times Crossword. You hate your officemate.

[OtayBW]

They're not all created equal. The Monday NYT puzzle is pretty easy, progressing through the week with increasing difficulty. The problem that I have with many crosswords is that it's not all about vocabulary skill, etc. - it's often about popular culture and other esoteric themes that no one on earth besides a puzzle enthusiast would know. I'm not going to waste my time chasing down e.g., the full name of Drago's wife, for example.

So, I usually just get my kicks with these when I'm on a plane....

[MattTuck]

I can imagine many worse ways to spend that time.

Before kids, I would sometimes go on deep dives into chess. A few months of playing daily, watching videos/reading lessons, etc. Improve my rating, and see tangible results. Then I'd get busy with other stuff and I'd stop playing and the skill would atrophy until the next time I got the urge.

Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. Just a way to amuse the brain.

The one thing that chess made crystal clear is that there is always a bigger challenge. Always someone better than you. In your case, even if you solve a puzzle, there is always a more difficult puzzle out there that is beyond your abilities. In that kind of environment, all you can do is learn to enjoy the challenge and see if it fits into a balanced life. If the intrinsic reward isn't commensurate with the time you're putting in, scale it back to 2 hours a week and see how that feels.

[Ken Robb]

Time for Sudoku ;)

I do NYT Crosswords but can't understand why SUDOKU is so popular. But I have always been a "word" person with little to no interest in numbers and I'm sure SUDOKU fans must find crossword people a little crazy.

[Ken Robb]

I skip the NYT Sunday puzzle because it's too big and takes too long. In my youth as a recent college grad in NYC we had a gang that would do the Sunday puzzle as a group project/competition over coffee and bagels and pastries.

This is the first I have heard of a MINI NYT Puzzle. It doesn't run in The San Diego Union with the big version.

[Ken Robb]

The Thursday version can be frustrating since they are usually "gimmick" puzzles and if you don't figure the gimmick/theme early on you may be stumped.

[OtayBW]

The Thursday version can be frustrating since they are usually "gimmick" puzzles and if you don't figure the gimmick/theme early on you may be stumped.
Gimmicks - or themes - are OK, as long as they're not some esoteric nonsense known only to the illuminati....;)

[Louis]

I do NYT Crosswords but can't understand why SUDOKU is so popular. But I have always been a "word" person with little to no interest in numbers and I'm sure SUDOKU fans must find crossword people a little crazy.

Ken, Sudoku isn't really numbers, but logic and deduction.

The numbers could just as well be replaced by symbols or letters and still work, but with symbols it would be harder because numbers are so ingrained in our brain.

[e-RICHIE]

I did the end of year LARGE puzzle in the Sunday NYT, got the clue answered correctly, emailed the newspaper to get into the lottery of folks who did the full puzzle AND sent in the correct answer, but didn’t get chosen to win $1,000.

[AngryScientist]

picked up the paper on the way home.

working on the Monday edition now!

[Ken Robb]

Ken, Sudoku isn't really numbers, but logic and deduction.

The numbers could just as well be replaced by symbols or letters and still work, but with symbols it would be harder because numbers are so ingrained in our brain.

HMMM, maybe I'll take another look at Sudoku to see what I have been missing.

[wc1934]

I skip the NYT Sunday puzzle because it's too big and takes too long. In my youth as a recent college grad in NYC we had a gang that would do the Sunday puzzle as a group project/competition over coffee and bagels and pastries.

This is the first I have heard of a MINI NYT Puzzle. It doesn't run in The San Diego Union with the big version.

NY Times online. Quasi puzzle. Very small - about 10 clues and can be solved in under 3 minutes. But it does get you thinking.

[merlinmurph]

My wife is a word person - crosswords, Scrabble, Jumble, Acrostic - you name it. First thing she does when she wakes up is go online and start the NYT crossword. After that, Scrabble. She'll do Sudoku, too, and play against the app in Evil (hardest) mode.

There is a mindset for crosswords that you learn, I've seen, especially with the theme puzzles that have long, tricky/punnish/wordplay answers. My wife eats it up. The most I can handle is the mini.

Waste of time? I don't think so. Mental stimulation is important, and if you enjoy it, that's great.

[tab123]

i'm seriously addicted to crossword puzzles. NYT, WaPo Sundays, The New Yorker (Monday and Friday), the Saturday Stumper (hardest puzzle of them all), WSJ, American Values Puzzle, the Fireball. And there are many more. I'm no speed demon (just like cycling!), but I am much faster than I used to be.

And I love the feeling of satisfaction of setting down a hard Saturday puzzle and figuring out the last few answers during a bike ride! The word play in contemporary puzzles makes them a delightful diversion.

[Tony T]

This is the first I have heard of a MINI NYT Puzzle. It doesn't run in The San Diego Union with the big version.

I Use the NYT Crossword App.
The Daily Mini is free
The next day’s is avail at 10pm the night before (just did tomorrow’s in 1:04 :))

[tab123]

The Atlantic runs a free mini puzzle during the week. The puzzles get longer and more challenging as the week progresses.

https://www.theatlantic.com/free-daily-crossword-puzzle/

[fiamme red]

I used to do the NYT crossword every day at work. At first I could barely get a few clues on the Thursday and Friday puzzles, but after a while I was able to finish them, but they were always challenging, especially Friday's. I would start a Friday puzzle during lunch, and whatever was left over I'd do in the afternoon during lulls at work. If you can't figure out part of the puzzle at first, look at it again later.

True, it's not the best use of time, but it's a good diversion when you want to take your mind off work for a few minutes.

[nalax]

Today's NYT Mini took 48 seconds.

[rwsaunders]

I fly fairly often for work so I do Xword puzzles while I’m waiting for planes to board and taxi and the NYT Sunday edition when I’m on a Sunday evening, cross country flight. The puzzles help to make the most mundane part of flying go pretty fast and it distracts me from paying attention to the legions of passengers who bang you with their backpacks as they pass you in the aisle.

[mnoble485]

Sunday NYT in ink only. It takes awhile but I get there.

Mike

[cinco]

The dilemma however, is whether it's actually worth my time...

Over a week, it may literally end up being more than the time I spend cycling.

I respect what is your benchmark for worthy endeavors.

Andy in Houston

[echappist]

The Thursday version can be frustrating since they are usually "gimmick" puzzles and if you don't figure the gimmick/theme early on you may be stumped.

Gimmicks - or themes - are OK, as long as they're not some esoteric nonsense known only to the illuminati....;)

tbf, the Saturday ones are even worse. Haven't managed to "solve" one yet (in the sense that I look up certain things, as opposed to having to reveal a particular word or just brute force method with auto-check)

I did the end of year LARGE puzzle in the Sunday NYT, got the clue answered correctly, emailed the newspaper to get into the lottery of folks who did the full puzzle AND sent in the correct answer, but didn’t get chosen to win $1,000.

that's a helluva achievement in my books :)
I fly fairly often for work so I do Xword puzzles while I’m waiting for planes to board and taxi and the NYT Sunday edition when I’m on a Sunday evening, cross country flight. The puzzles help to make the most mundane part of flying go pretty fast and it distracts me from paying attention to the legions of passengers who bang you with their backpacks as they pass you in the aisle.

isn't that the truth

basically what I did on our recent flight to Amsterdam

granted, I still wish I had spent some of that time reading

[echappist]

I've decided to stick with it for the time being, though I have restrained my allotted times: 20-25 minutes for M & Tu, 30-35 for W, 1 hr for Th, 1 hr 30 for Fri and Sat, 2hr 15 for Sun

Come to think of it, still a lot of time expended, but oh well.

Btw, got this clue today

https://xufhfq.by.files.1drv.com/y4mqlcQJtLWJmLutdjlsf48FpWQEDKfctvnrvFU6QIuQBBkcnA 2WX5C0-I2l-H7G6nb-7SPiCBV8hZJK9WveyNMKF_ShDBzHlihVCFjqY01qxLX8eL-kQY3udd8-q4d6ZgMxXTn7OQWkXHv-2pyhp4Ms1sS2xBcUQl00Ry_VS9xqArZXkiyAkTF-Lhx1fUIwGTgFf5Kanb_SJ_RGazrSms-tw?width=583&height=660&cropmode=none

[rounder]

I also have noticed that the crossword puzzle gets harder as the week goes on. But for me, I spend way more time on Mon-Wed than for the rest of the week. By Thursday, I know right away that I cannot solve the puzzle, so only spend a few minutes.

The Washington Post puzzle is from the LA Times. Some readers complain that no one here knows anything about movies or Hollywood. Why can't there be more puzzle stuff on D.C. and politics. That would not help me much either.

[XXtwindad]

I've decided to stick with it for the time being, though I have restrained my allotted times: 20-25 minutes for M & Tu, 30-35 for W, 1 hr for Th, 1 hr 30 for Fri and Sat, 2hr 15 for Sun

Come to think of it, still a lot of time expended, but oh well.

Btw, got this clue today

https://xufhfq.by.files.1drv.com/y4mqlcQJtLWJmLutdjlsf48FpWQEDKfctvnrvFU6QIuQBBkcnA 2WX5C0-I2l-H7G6nb-7SPiCBV8hZJK9WveyNMKF_ShDBzHlihVCFjqY01qxLX8eL-kQY3udd8-q4d6ZgMxXTn7OQWkXHv-2pyhp4Ms1sS2xBcUQl00Ry_VS9xqArZXkiyAkTF-Lhx1fUIwGTgFf5Kanb_SJ_RGazrSms-tw?width=583&height=660&cropmode=none

Well, that begs the question: what does this site have more of? 33 down or 36 down? :)

[echappist]

Well, that begs the question: what does this site have more of? 33 down or 36 down? :)

;)

also, you don't want to know how they clued 36 & 44 across.

[DerekWilliams]

It's been a long time but, i'm right there with you on the crossword puzzle love. I can totally spend hours immersed in them, and honestly, I don't see anything wrong with it at all. It's like an intellectual adventure, right? In fact, I've found that crossword puzzles have enriched my knowledge in so many unexpected ways. I've learned random facts, discovered new words, and even gained insights into different fields of knowledge, all thanks to those little black-and-white grids. It's not just a pastime; it's a journey of continuous learning and discovery.

[DerekWilliams]

I think it's all about finding the balance between leisure and productivity. If crosswords bring you joy and that sense of accomplishment, it's definitely worth some of your time, even if it's 7 hours a week. Plus, mental challenges can be beneficial too! But if you're feeling like you could use that time for other activities you enjoy, maybe mix it up a bit. Speaking of hobbies, I've got a passion too. Lately, I've been dedicating all my free time to collecting 1000 piece puzzle (https://journeyofsomething.com/collections/1000-piece-puzzles). In fact, I see it as a fantastic way to take a break from the routine and give my brain a delightful workout. It's like a zen moment where everything else fades away, and you're fully immersed in piecing together a beautiful picture.