Once again ...

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Once again ...

... we have a novelty grid. This one is for Monday, Jan. 25, 2010. Here's what the grid is s'posed to look like:

http://www.xwordinfo.com/special/Jan2510.gif

Enjoy?

rp

17 comments:

retired_chemist 8:01 PM  

Enjoy? Not particularly. The special attributes were simply distracting. But that may be just me.

foodie 8:11 PM  

thanks Rex! I solved on line before seeing your post, and wondered at the cluing... Makes more sense now!

I guess there is a note a the top of the on line version, but I never seem to see those.

lit.doc 9:06 PM  

@Rex, I'm sooo look forward to your write-up. I'm looking at my finished grid and the blank-with-arrows grid you provided, but am still in WTF? mode re the theme. Please find some way for this one-might-presume themed Monday puzzle (with yet more circles) to warrant more than "Why?"

Rex Parker 9:08 PM  

Well my write-up is done but won't be posted til 12:01. . . you do know golf is involved, right?

:)

But "Why?" pretty much sums up what I have to say.



rp

lit.doc 9:26 PM  

@Rex, yes, but it's hard to get excited about miniature golf. Don't think Don Q. would trouble himself to tilt at such a small windmill.

Maybe I'm missing something re the symmetry of the ONE PAR/TWO PAR - PAR ONE/PAR TWO layout. Hope so.

Steve J 9:45 PM  

I, for one, am getting tired of the gimmicks. Only the "cutting corners" one paid off, imo. This one doesn't even need the arrows to work (you could just reference the clues. For example, 15A could have been clued as "See 17A and 20A." Weak concept.

matt 9:49 PM  

Novel fill destroyed by a -- wait for it -- sub-par theme.

Yes, I understand that a bogey means one-over-par and an eagle is two-under-par. Are the arrows just pointing to the correct definitions? Is there something I'm missing?

matt 9:51 PM  

Sorry, must have remembered wrong. Now that I look back, the fill isn't all that novel...

lit.doc 9:58 PM  

@matt, isn't a work of pulp fiction still a novel? BTW, LOL at your sub-par pun (construe as you will). ;)

fikink 10:01 PM  

@matt - "sub-par theme" LOL!

Anonymous 10:11 PM  

Please tell the constructors that the online version differs from the print version in the lower left. As a result, my husband and I, who solve cooperatively and simultaneously, could not help each other with
124 and 135 Across and 124, 125 and 126 Down. Or was this part of the theme?

joho 10:23 PM  

This puzzle is timely because the PGA golf season kicks off next week with the San Diego Golf Open now to be the Farmer's Insurance Open. I love golf so I really liked this puzzle. The arrows and circles definitely helped me get BOGEY = ONE over PAR and EAGLE = TWO below PAR. I wish Birdie could have been worked in for ONE under PAR and Double Bogey for TWO over PAR. Do you know that Double Eagles exist?

Fun Monday for me. If we hadn't so many novelty grids lately I think it would have been better received. And, hey, you didn't have know where to fold it!

des 10:23 PM  

As others have mentioned, this was easy to solve without the clues.

@lit.doc
The answers on the top half of the puzzle are ONE "over" PAR and TWO "over PAR. In golf these are both bogeys ("single bogey" and "double bogey").

However, on the bottom of the puzzle, we lose the symmetry because ONE "under" PAR is a Birdie; only TWO "under" PAR is an Eagle.

I guess they were trying for some symmetry with the arrows that Rex showed us, but ugh!

lit.doc 11:39 PM  

@des, thanks. Not a golfer, so hadn't sussed that aspect. Now, I guess, I get the hole thing. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Rube 12:00 AM  

If there were a term for double bogey and it was in the puzz, and if birdie were here, then I would call it great. As it is, all I can say is that this puzz pulled up Milo O'Shea from many years back in the deepest depths of my memory.

Thus, for me there is a "socially redeeming value" to this puzz.

Smitty 10:25 AM  

@Rex I hope these "gimmicky" puzzles continue all week so we get to watch the rest of the phantom menace episodes

Sfingi 12:32 PM  

@Des - thanx for explanation. Didn't need it to solve, but I'm trying to be open-minded about sports and learn something. Even golf, for which I bear a KO scar on the corner of my square head.

  © Free Blogger Templates Columnus by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP