12/03/2026: Today I went to a farmer's market! Never done that before. I had apple cider for the first time! Never done that before either! I did a saturday crossword! I've done that a few times already. Maybe I should try some more new things?
Wordle 1,659 4/6
Connections
Puzzle #937
01/04/2026: Sunday crosswords are brutal! It took me and my princess to get through the main crossword today.
The mini, on the other hand, was refreshingly easy... Maybe I should've waited for my coffee to kick in before doing it.
Wordle 1,660 3/6
Connections
Puzzle #938
01/05/2026: Went out for Important Financial Business! And was still able to get my newspaper games done.
The mini today is all Princess' work. As I started to complete it she just called out every answer while looking over my shoulder and solved it faster than I ever have. We then did the regular crossword together. I am in awe of my wife's skill at word games.
Wordle 1,661 4/6
Connections
Puzzle #939
01/06/2026: Okay, I have to say it. Today's wordle has to be the worst one yet. A bad combination of double letters and what I can only describe as "that shouldn't count as a word!"-ism.
For the curious, the answer today was OOMPH. I was so mad. And on tomboy tuesday too?! How dare you, Evil Newspaper. How dare you.
Honestly? Bad day for newspaper games. I failed connections because it did that funny "obscure word for thing I was actively looking for in the puzzle" trick, and I was stumped on the crossword for over a half hour trying to figure out what today's Mechanic was. I still don't fully get it.
Hope wednesday's crossies are better!
Wordle 1,662 5/6
Connections
Puzzle #940
EDIT: Came back to this tomorrow and noticed that I accidentally typed "12" instead of "01". I feel like that happens every year!
01/07/2025: Today is an errands day! But I made sure to get my crosswords in before it was time to go out.
Good wordle today! Good word. Took me off guard. I think Wordle is at its best when you finish it and the word you get makes you go "ah, yeah, that's the one."
Conversely, I tend to dislike when the Crossword requires a level of knowledge of American pop culture to be solvable. Just feels like the kind of thing where you can't reason them out, as proper names are not like other words that follow specific rules, or that you can guess via a more elaborate hint than "actor" or "was in [movie]", or worst of all, "[title of movie]." I have to say, so far this year the NYT Crossword has not been great. The Mini, on the other hand, remains as fun as ever.
Wordle 1,663 4/6
Connections
Puzzle #941
01/08/2026: Princess got so mad at today's crossword. It was adorable. We've started making the crosswords a part of our morning routine. It's fun! Once we're back to work we might leave it for just the weekends, however.
Wordle 1,664 3/6
Connections
Puzzle #942
01/10/2026: I usually really dislike rebus puzzles, but I have to say, today's crossword had a fun little mechanic to it! We were stumped solving it for a bit until we had a big "OOOOOH" moment and realized the gimmick today was literally staring us right in the face! Crossword spoilers under the spoiler tag.
It's "phi", which can mean "phi", "io", "oi", "o/i" or "i/o". It made a lot of the clues feel really fun to guess once we'd figured it out! And the rebus solution was given in a clue right at the bottom of the crossword - so if you were stumped, it will tell you exactly what letter to use in the rebus space, and it will also reward you for reading the clues before starting. If it isn't obvious enough, the puzzle itself is shaped like a big letter Phi.
Overall, had a lot of fun with the newspaper games today! Had a nice breakfast! Today could scarcely get better!
Wordle 1,666 4/6
Connections
Puzzle #944
12/11/2026: I am upset! I found out today that somehow yesterday I did Sunday's crossword instead! Why would they post the next day's crossword at noon of the day before? We spent a few good minutes looking around all sorts of places to figure out if maybe we'd made a mistake, but no, it seemed to be just a case of not checking what day the crossword was for.
What's worse, I broke my Wordle and Connections streaks because I got them wrong. In my defense, how was I supposed to know QUARL is a valid answer? The game should've known I meant to say QUARK!
Sad day for newspaper games. Which is a shame, becuase the saturday crossword was really good! Would've been fun to do yesterday!
Wordle 1,667 X/6
Connections
Puzzle #945
01/12/2026: Well, it was a slightly better start - though it turns out I did today's Mini crossword yesterday, and skipped Sunday's, again because the times is weird about what time of the day they publish the crosswords on a given day, so I guess I have to be careful moving forward not to lose my streak again.
Wordle 1,668 3/6
Connections
Puzzle #946
Wordle 1674
3/6
A lucky guess on the third! (and I was playing it off like a joke too, I didn't expect sumac to be an actual word ;P)
01/27/2026: With the chaos of moving in and getting settled into married life with my dear beloved princess, remodeling a lot of the house, doing post-marriage-paperwork things, as well as the problems with shipping my computer, I have let my newspaper games slide @_@ I figured it would be best to leave resuming for a day that I don't feel like I'm rushing. So, here we are.
I would like to go back and at least catch up on the crosswords I missed, for funsies. But I do intend to keep a steady streak.
As for the newspaper games themselves - Wordle was really hard for what word it was, but I think it was a fair challenge. Just happened to be that my usual opener was ill suited for it.
Wordle 1,683 6/6
Connections
Puzzle #961
Sidenote: Does anyone know if there is a daily nonogram anywhere online? I'd like to add that to my daily rotation if anything like it exists.
01/28/2026: Princess was so excited to see "MEDUSA" in the Crossword today. She literally jumped from the couch and you could hear the joy in her voice. It was adorable.
Wordle today wasn't too too difficult. I got lucky with my usual starter. I feel like I'm getting better at these!
Wordle 1,684 3/6
Connections
Puzzle #962
Wordle 1685:
;-;
you guys are making me want to get back into wordle
Wordle 1,685 6/6
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01/30/2026: Princess and I spent a lot of time this evening staring at the clue "Request from someone who's finished all courses" in the crossword and assuming this meant in the academic sense. We spent about 15 minutes just brainstorming what that could be. Grad school has certainly traumatized us! Good crossword today, but hard.
Wordle 1,686 4/6
Connections
Puzzle #964
01/31/2026: Today's crossword was a lot of fun! lots of long fills that felt properly challenging, lots of puns that made me and princess go "oh, duh, I get it" with a grin on our faces. That being said! I could not for the life of me find the one mistake I made, so I had to use the autochecker. There goes my streak! Sadly I fat fingered the tab so I didn't take a screencap of my time today. Was in the 30 minute range.
The mini was surprisingly hard today! o.o It usually takes me little more than 30 seconds to complete but today was a several minutes puzzle. Slightly longer too.
Wordle 1,687 4/6
Connections
Puzzle #965
02/01/2026: Connections today felt really frustrating! We could not for the life of us figure out the themes, and stumbled onto one by mistake. Connections continues to be the game I struggled most in my rotation. Princess often looks at the screen and goes "oh, bullshit" at some of the solutions.
Speaking of princess, today's crossword hit a sore spot for her specifically! We were both very confused by the clue "LETTER SYMBOLIZING THE RATIO OF A CIRCLE'S CIRCUMFERENCE TO ITS RADIUS", which was 3 letters. We were stumped since we figured that would be some variation of "pi" or "2 pi". Turns out to have been "TAU" instead, which I was just confused by, but princess took issue with as apparently that is a thing that is being pushed to replace the aforementioned. I wouldn't know, she's the engineer, but it was funny to stumble onto Math Politics while doing the crossy's today.
Otherwise the theme was... Fun, but obtuse, we couldn't solve it without a few lookups and the help of the blog. Some of the answers felt like moon logic puns. Some of them made us laugh a lot. Two of the clues, "MESSING UP ON STAGE" ("DEBRA") and "GRAB THE CHIPS AND DIP" ("CASHIN") are up there as some of my favorites today. I'm looking forwards to Monday's crossword being easier.
Wordle 1,688 4/6
Connections
Puzzle #966
connections is always so difficult for me, it makes me so frustrated. 
Wordle 1,689 4/6
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Connections
Puzzle #967
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