Lola at the Coffee House

Struck a chord, did he, Farmer? I guess you and Osso do crossword puzzles.

Well, look who the cat dragged in.

Haven't seen you in here before, JTT. What prompted you to drop in? News of Wassau's terrific food? You heard about the wide-ranging, scintillating conversations among the regulars? It was pouring out and you needed to get out of the rain? You urgently needed to use a restroom and this was the nearest place where you could find one?

Pull up a comfy chair, JTT, order some of Wassau's delicious food and drink, and enjoy the cozy relaxed ambiance in this place.

Spendius is the current Resident Curmudgeon, and, if he doesn't live up to the job, he loses that vaunted status, along with its perks (a special chair and mug, noise-canceling headphones, etc.).

This thread is resisting...gotta use more muscle.

BUMP.
Pretty please?
With sugar on it?

See, it works if you ask nicely. (Those hamsters have been spoiled rotten.)

Weasels do pop. Anthony Newley explains this.
Clear a space, strike up the band. They've been waiting all night for a chance to play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkzMjXwDFHg

If you press the Reply button then type the first word too fast, then it often clips off the initial letter. Doubt if it's your laptop.

I LIKE crosswords! Big and Colossus - great! I make no apologies. Daily paper - no, don't have time - but Sunday Times, yay - good one!

Not the Daily Mirror or The Sun eh vonny?

One of my colleagues and I occasionally take the streetcar together on our way home after work. She l.o.v.e.s crosswords. Usually has a dozen or so folded up in her giant purse.

When we travel together, we do crosswords together - we have a goal to complete one NYT puzzle before we reach the transfer point in our trip. We've learned that the NYT puzzle that's in our free transit paper on Thursdays is consistently the most difficult. Sometimes we're still finishing it as we pull into the platform.

It's great fun ... we're a bit noisy sometimes as we debate words ... wonderful way to decompress at the end of a day.

hamburgboy's father was a great crossword puzzle worker. He seemed to always have a few on the go.

One of my favourite films is Wordplay - about competitive crossword puzzle players.

I remember Roberta saying - now eons ago - that Thursday was NYT's most difficult crossword.

The "most difficult" eh? What else for a sharp and incisive mind? It's no wonder I'm out of my depth in here. I always take the line of least resistance. Like water coming down a mountain.

A snooze is by far the best way of decompressing. I assume such things are beneath contempt for puzzlies. Especially those who go out of their way to find the "most difficult" puzzles.

What other activities do you look for the most difficult ways of doing them. Have you tried washing up on a unicycle balancing a billiard ball on your nose?

Our whole industrial system is posited on finding the easiest way of doing things as fm will tell you. I suppose doing things in the most difficult manner is to distance oneself from industrial activity and imply that one is not engaged in any such distasteful employment. It flags up poshness.

Strippers specialise in removing lingerie in the most inefficient and difficult process imaginable compared to how easy it is to perform such a simple task. And the poshest ornaments are those which require difficult dusting.

It's me that's out of step I must admit. My scientific background has done my head in.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The New York Times crossword puzzle is a daily puzzle published in The New York Times and online at the newspaper's website.Magmic Games released mobile versions of the puzzle for BlackBerry and iOS devices in 2008 and 2009;[1][2] and then for Kindle Fireand Nook in 2012.[3][4] It is also syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals.[5] The puzzle is created by variousfreelance constructors and has been edited by Will Shortz since 1993. The puzzle becomes increasingly difficult throughout the week, with the easiest puzzle on Monday and the most difficult puzzle on Saturday.[6] The larger Sunday crossword, which appears in The New York Times Magazine, is an icon in American culture; it is typically intended to be as difficult as a Thursday puzzle.[6] The standard daily crossword is 15 squares × 15 squares, while the Sunday crossword measures 21 squares × 21 squares (previously, 23 × 23 square Sunday puzzles were also accepted; in addition a special set of 25 × 25 Sunday puzzles, with two sets of clues—easy and hard—was published in 1999 to commemorate the upcoming millennium).[7][8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_crossword_puzzle

I don't even try the Saturday puzzles! They are murder.

How true, and how rare it is for you to make such an admission.

But, I'm sure that even you could learn how to dance.

Of course, you have to first loosen up, and stop being such an elitist snob. Try it, spendi, you might like it. Learn how to dance.

I have never made any bones about the matter ff. It's the subtext of my posts and quite often explicit as well. If you haven't noticed it is only because you never learned how to read properly. Not that it is uncommon mind you.

Keep away from science. You will lose things you never knew you had. Why all these people want you to lose them is a mystery to me.

I particularly like NYT and Wash Post ones cause Will SHortz always is changing the premises of the puzzles so they dont become just another wordplay and become boring.
I especially liked the one where the words, in order to fit the space had to be scrambled to make yet another word which would also fit with the words similarly scrambled going NS and EW. That was a killer and I think I didnt finish it for weeks.
OnceI get the drift of puzzles (or the algorithm like for Sudoku), I lose interest in them. Must be the ADHD kicking in.

sounds a bit like what we were learning in dance class on Wednesday

how odd. My perception of you has never been of anyone with a true interest in the sciences. hunh. Will have to reconsider.

I was science nerd girl in high school. Took triple math, chemistry and physics my final year. Dropped English. Did degrees in the sciences. I don't remember any science guys who would have grown up to be a spendius. hunh.

You should check out the movie Wordplay (Clickity-click!), of which Will Shortz is (sort of) the hero. The Girl and i both just love it. If you click on that link, there's a trailer for the movie.