The Times has changed along with the rest of the world, and it is no longer required to use ink, or any other physical marking device to fill out the puzzles - they have an app. As a retirement gift to myself, I bought me a subscription.
When I started working on the puzzles, two years ago, I could pretty much always fill in Monday's grid with no problem. Tuesday, I could do with some help from Google, Wednesday and Sunday were a bit iffy. Thursday, Friday and Saturday were beyond me. (The puzzles start with easy ones on Monday, then get progressively more difficult through the week, with Sunday's puzzle being a larger (thus taking longer to reason through) version of the grid, at the difficulty level of Wednesday puzzles.)
Well, practice helps, and over time, I've gotten better and better at solving the puzzles. I do use Google to help me along, but I have rules for myself. Because the crossword puzzle is so popular, all you have to do is type in the clue, and the answer will pop up. I don't look at those sites, that's cheating. But I figure looking up the winner of the 2012 Best Actor award, or the MVP player in the 1994 World Series, or any other answer I could look up in my non-existent set of encyclopedias, is fair game. I figure this partly because the help guidelines from the NYT say this sort of lookup is OK, and partly because I'd never solve the end-of-the-week puzzles without the help.
Like most apps out there, this one has a hook. If you solve the puzzle, without having the app help you by checking for wrong answers, on the same day the puzzle is published, you get a gold star. If you check your answers partway through, or do the puzzle later in the week, you just get a blue star. And, it keeps track of your consecutive gold star days.
Not that I'm competitive with myself or anything, but this challenge is tailor-made for me. At first, I had only two day streaks (Monday/Tuesday puzzles) in my column. Then, those Wednesday puzzles started to be solvable, and my streak made it to four days.
One magic day, I was able to work my way through a Thursday puzzle; Friday and Saturday fell under my power shortly thereafter. (There is obviously a trick to these things...) My winning streaks got longer - 8 days, then 14, then 30!
I started a new streak in early January of this year. I was able to figure out puzzle, after puzzle, after puzzle. Quite proud of myself, I was, and I made it 146 days before my brain just wouldn't work through a Friday puzzle. I tried doing it that morning, got stuck. I went back to it in the afternoon (usually a good way to work through a stuck point) with no luck. Later that evening, I tried again - same result. I went to bed with my shoulders slightly slumped, defeated.
I checked the answers the next morning - the clues hadn't been so devilishly difficult after all, my brain just hadn't been thinking right. *sigh*
Saturday's puzzle fared no better, but I was able to get back on track Sunday morning.
Since then, I've been watching that streak count creep higher and higher. 30, 50, 100 - I was on a roll. This past week was the real test. Friday's puzzle was the 146th one I'd attempted in a row.
It was touch-and-go there for a bit - but I prevailed. The successful completion of Saturday's grid brought me over the top! Quite pleased with myself, I am.
I mean, I'm not on the level of those geniuses of old - I have yet to complete a Sunday puzzle without help from Google, and I'm a long ways from filling in the grid without backtracking at least one answer - but I'm still thinkin' I'm better than the average bear (to quote Yogi).
I'll keep at it. Perhaps, someday, I'll solve the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle in (the modern equivalent of) ink.
Hey. A girl's gotta have goals. Wish me luck!
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