The Crossword

XE has a crossword puzzle embedded on the home page, right-hand column.  It's been there for a number of months, and XE works it daily, sometimes more than once.  Her scores have improved greatly since she started.  From 500 points per completion, today she scored 5109!!  The secret is, when you make a mistake, don't sit there and scratch your head.  Promptly erase the bad letter(s) and tab on to the next word.  You can fix it when you've completed as much as you can, and the cursor goes back to the top.

Speed doesn't necessarily count for much.  Accuracy is better.  Sometimes the booboos happen in typing!  Ugh.  When my final score is less than 1200, I go back and try it again to see if I can do better when I know what has to be typed.  Ha.

Anyway, this is one of many crosswords I do per week.  The other daily is the one in the WashPost's Express freebie tabloid that's often just lying about on the bus or metro.  Nobody who just tosses these things to the floor does the crossword.  With such a ready supply, I always make sure to carry a ballpoint pen somewhere in my cargo pants.  Usually I can finish the puzzle by the time I get to my stop, which normally is about 15-20 minutes. 

I also work the Sunday crosswords in the NYTimes and WashPost, if they are available.  I'm not buying these two rags any more.  Not paying a single penny more than I have to for right-wing bull crap.  It just encourages them!  That said, I now can finish both of those in a few hours. 

The other free crossword is a weekly in the Washington City Paper, which comes out every Thursday.  That's really a hard one.  It combines lots of current events and music and art facts plus the author does it in that British ironical style: lots of puns.  That takes me a couple of days.  Last week, however, it was a total mess.  The clues did not match the squares.  E.g. they had a nice clue for #25 down, but no squares led down from #25.  Oh, my!