Brain exercise, 9 letters
I've become accustomed to my office Secret Santa hooking me up with the annual Get Fuzzy page-a-day calendar. This year, I didn't get one ... so after three weeks of page-a-daylessness, I figured I'd hit up Barnes & Noble for a calendar fix.
In general, I avoid B&N. Once upon a time, I piddled my days away working at B&N, where I was paid meager wages to force smiles at customers. At some point after I left to pursue editing (best decision I've ever made), the corporate B&N offices swooped in and fired my boss, a stern but approachable woman who'd been there since the store opened. I heard about it later from one of my former B&N coworkers, who said he — along with most of the other employees — felt the firing was out of line and had quit in protest.
Now, I greatly respect my former coworkers ... and I trust their judgment. If they were willing to quit their mid-management jobs on the spot and thrust themselves back into a crappy job market, then something really had gone wrong.
So to make a long story slightly longer, I don't shop at Barnes & Noble. Ever....Except I really really needed a calendar, and theirs were 75 percent off. Catch: They were out of Get Fuzzy calendars. Boo, hiss. So I ended up with a passable 2nd choice: The New York Times Crossword Puzzles 2006 Calendar.
I'm a big fan of crossword puzzles. I work them before bedtime unless I'm busy playing Animal Crossing. And I consider myself quite good at crosswords, probably because my grandmother had me working them when I was 7 years old. I've had plenty of time to learn the double entendres and those 3- and 4-letter "filler" clues that seem to pop up on every single puzzle that has ever been created. (Example: To the ___ degree," 3 letters.)
I'd love for somebody to buy me the Hammacher Schlemmer crossword puzzle: 7 feet by 7 feet, 28,000 clues, 91,000 spaces. But I believe these NYT puzzles are going to keep me tied up for a while. I'd forgotten that they get harder day by day — Mondays are quite easy and Saturdays are damn near impossible.
... No, I don't know off the top of my head who the 1995 NFL Man of the Year was. Nor do I know the year Helsinki was founded. Bah.
The calendar is edited by Will Shortz, as is the 750-puzzle crossword book I'm currently tackling. The difference is that I'm comfortable working the book in red pen. The one page in the calendar I've managed to finish is answered completely in pencil, with eraser marks sprinkled liberally throughout.
Mom says working crosswords will ward off dementia. That's great, assuming I make it through the calendar without losing my mind. :-)
P.S. Hi, Em! Hi, phone-dude Garrett! Pull up a chair and stay a while!
posted by Kate at 6:18 PM
Copyright 2001-2009, L.K.C.S. It's MINE, all MINE. If you wanna use it, gimme credit and a link, okies? And don't run with scissors, because you're just going to poke somebody's eye out with that thing. No, really. 
9 Comments:
You want a mental challenge, try taking up cryptic crosswords. They're hard to get the hang of, but if you do, they're addicting.
I do crosswords with a pen too, which always makes me hum that Tori Amos song Happy Phantom: "They say Confucius does his crossword with a pen..." College girlfriend loved Tori Amos. We saw her in concert, second row, and Tori makes eye contact with audience members the entire show, and it creeped me out whenever she looked at me.
Oops, off on a tangent. I don't do crosswords nearly as much now, since I do Soduku. Like you, I was getting bored by knowing all the regular clues they use in every one. I'm also torn, because I don't like them to be too easy, but I don't want to be forever stumped by an impossible clue.
I too, have become addicted to Sudoku to the detriment of corssowrd puzzles. At some point, I'll have to start picking up the Sunday edition of the Washington Post, just so I can do the mammoth crossword in the magazine.
Smacky: You'll notice I linked that song to the words "red pen." :-) Huge Tori fan. Have every CD, every single. Would love second row seats.
Sudoku is addictive. Fortunately, I got a nice big pack of Sudoku puzzles in my Christmas stocking. Cryptics are fun, as well. I'm a Games magazine freak, and there are usually one or two each month.
Oh! On the way into work, I remembered another clue that makes it into almost every puzzle: Butter substitute, four letters. First one in wins a cookie.
buds?
lol margerine (sp?)
but its probably kurd
oleo is the answer!
Guess I'll trade you the gum for the cookie ;-)
once, i almost felled all the bookshelves in b&n accidentally.
if mine friend wasn't there..you'd be applauding me today!
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