![]() I could just see that there was a sequence developing, and they all fit, and the crosses checked out. THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY has that gratuitous THE to pick up its fourth "T." I was able to write in TWO THREE FOUR and FIVE very early, without really realizing why they were right. MULTIPLICATIVE INVERSE is far too technical a term for me to love. The theme was leaving me cold, too, so far as I could understand it. MDL couldn't be a randomer Roman numeral if it tried. GERALDS and SESAMES are both absurd plurals. Surprised to see old not-friends like SPEE and ATMAN and ILLE (!?!?). And honestly, it didn't get too much better. I did not have high hopes for how this thing was gonna go. I know it only because I used to do crosswords in the '90s, when megacrosswordese roamed the earth. Can't remember the last time I saw SPEE anywhere, yikes. Started out feeling not very good at all, as the fill seemed decidedly subpar. ![]() ə/ plural abscissae or abscissæ or abscissas ) and the ordinate are respectively the first and second coordinate of a point in a coordinate system. In mathematics, the abscissa ( / æ b ˈ s ɪ s. Word of the Day: ABSCISSA ( 11D: The 1 in (1,2), in math). or the central column's answers vis-à-vis 20-, 39-, 74- and 101-Across) So the numbers down the middle of the grid (which progress from TWO through FIVE) both indicate the number of "T"s in the themer they cross and form the downstroke of a "T" shape-the whole concept is brought together by the revealer, TEETOTALERS (39A: Abstainers. (Unless it just has two dots.THEME: "Down For The Count" - a multi-level "T"-themed puzzle, where the number of "T"s in each themer is the answer that crosses each themer, starting at the dead center and dropping down, thus making a "T" of sorts each time. Given how much frustration and sleeplessness it caused me, I doubt I'll ever make another dot-to-dot. I should have studied Liz's work more carefully - in most of her dot-to-dots, she did well to spread out her letters through the grid in such a way that they didn't interact with the themers, or she used much fewer than 26 dots. Sure, we could shift around letters a little bit here and there, but then they'd get in the way of the themers, or they'd make RUDOLPH look like he was limping, etc. The biggest problem was that it's really hard to make a 140-word Sunday puzzle, period, and it's much harder to do it when every region of your grid is constrained. I probably restarted the process 50 times before hitting on the current arrangement.īut it just got harder from there. And then sometimes one felt like it might be amenable … except for some stupid little corner. Just testing out different arrangements of where to start the path took forever, as we kept having to adjust the position of every single circled letter. Along with some other assorted RUDOLPH-related answers, it felt like the grid wouldn't be so bad to construct. We needed to flesh out the idea with some themers, and ML found a nice split of THE MOST FAMOUS / REINDEER OF ALL. It had been a while, so Mary Lou and I decided to try to carry on the tradition.īut what shape to make? We threw out a bunch of ideas, and the one that stuck was RUDOLPH prancing through the skies, with his RED nose lit up. I hope you enjoyed your solving experience.įor years and years, Liz Gorski had been doing wonderful Xmas dot-to-dot Sunday puzzles for the NYT. Many thanks to Jeff, Will, Joel and Sam for assistance in bringing this puzzle to press. I'm very excited to have another Christmas puzzle as well as a Sunday grid in the NYT. About two months and numerous emails later we got word that the puzzle was in the queue. ![]() ![]() It was quite a challenge, given the 26 fixed points of the picture (Joel mentioned that it felt incomplete without the Z) as well as the theme entries, to work clean fill around. ![]() We were given the go-ahead to proceed with the fill and cluing. We submitted both ideas to Will and heard back favorably from Joel on both grids but the picture grid having the edge. He went off in one direction with the eight reindeer and I came up with the attached grid. I mentioned the original eight reindeer as theme possibilities and Jeff suggested RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER which breaks into 13/13. MARY LOU: I originally contacted Jeff in November of last year about a reindeer themed Christmas puzzle with a dot to dot picture. ![]()
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