A Few (Will) Shortz Notes

A just read an article in the new April issue of Games World of Puzzles magazine about Will Shortz, the current editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle page.  To be honest, I don't even like crossword puzzles all that much.  I much prefer other types, such as cryptic crosswords.  However, I usually try to solve at least one crossword puzzle a week.  I got started when I would pick up the Friday newspaper because of a feature it ran.  I felt a little guilty just getting a paper for one thing, so I would wind up reading most of it and doing the puzzles in it.  When I first started out, it was taking me hours to solve one, and that was with the help of an entire small bookstore of information.  Even with my experience with other puzzle types, it was taking me a while to understand the intricacies use in crosswords.  As time went on, I got faster and had to search for fewer answers.  I got my solving time to just under thirty minutes most weeks, and without having to look up a single clue.  Unfortunately, the paper stopped running the feature, but I kept getting the Friday paper for some time afterwards.  That is until last year, when I started getting the Saturday edition to keep up on a feature on that day.  Even with me previous practice with Friday difficulty puzzles, I am taking about an hour or so to solve a Saturday puzzle; I usually have to look up an answer or two.  I didn't think it would take me so much longer.  Maybe it is the added distractions I face most Saturdays.  (As an aside, it only took me about a half an hour to solve the contest in this issue.   Most of it setting up a letter frequency table, and I was unfamiliar with the answer's theme.)  Back to the article.  What delighted me most was the revelation of some of Shortz's mistakes, especially since one of them was indirectly about my name!  I still have the first crossword puzzle I solved that included my first name as an answer.  I positively giggled when I saw the clue, but I waited to enter it into the grid until I solved a crossing clue or two, just to make sure.  I think the clue was about the mug 'toby' instead of the name.  Why is spellcheck flagging my name as incorrect, just because it is uncapitalized?  If it started with a capital letter, it wouldn't be flagged.  I just checked.  It is not that uncommon a word, or is it?  Never mind.  That should be one word, but the spellcheck says otherwise.  I don't like it.  I better close for this week, before I get frustrated and write something else I would alter regret.

But They Really Do Go Well Together

First, let me say that I am most definitely not a brony.  Yes, I have seen very episode of  My Little Pony:  Friendship Is Magic, and all of the spin-off Equestria Girls movies.  I have read some of the comic books, but I have never even thought about purchasing any of the toys or other related products.  I have thought up some fan-fiction that has eerily come close to what has happened in the cartoon.  At most, I am 55 to 60% a brony.  That being said, I have had some ideas about a RPG base on the show and based on the World of Darkness rules.  Hear me out.  Using Bygone Bestiary as a guide, one could set up a basic system for creating characters and stories.  There would be three primary classes (earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi) with hints about the possibility of becoming an alicorn, with aspects of all three.  Further additions would include other classes both magical (dragons, griffins, changelings) and more mundane (zebra, bison, donkeys).  There could even be suggestions of the mythical hippocampii, sea ponies (not cannon for the cartoon yet, but featured in the original toy line from the 1980's).  There would be systems for natural abilities and magic, as well as story ideas based on the show and comic books.  With Onyx Path creating Pugmire and the Monarchies of Mau, an equine based game would not to far off.  Unfortunately, it would have to be a parody as Hasbro would never give up the license since it already owns a RPG company through Wizards of the Coast and TSR's Dungeons and Dragons.  Still, I think it could work out somehow, maybe as an entry level game for younger players.  Okay, maybe this does kind of make me a brony after all.  Oh well, until nest week.

Waxing and Waxing on and on

Last week, I had a birthday, just after I published my post.  It started to make me feel a little down.  I have mentioned how I had just finished going through the eighty plus World of Darkness supplements that had been damaged.  That got me thinking about where I got many of them, as well as World of Darkness 2.0/Chronicles of Darkness and even Exalted books.  I was kind of trying to figure out if I could slyly ask for an extra discount on my weekly pull because of my birthday, even though I probably wasn't going to pick them up until after my birthday.  That is when I realized that I had been going to them, Page 3 Game Zone, for over twenty-three years!  Over that time, I have bought thousands of comic books (about ten years of which were also destroyed in the aforementioned mishap), hundreds of magazines and trading cards (both regular and CCG's, I used to buy them by the box), a dozen or so books, two comic book related tarot decks, a few boxes of gaming figurines, and even a brush kit that I actually used on some actual paintings (including the one I keep trying to download onto here without any success, don't worry I won't bring it up again).  It just gets me sad is all.  I keep trying to get the confidence to to more with my hobby I guess you could call it, but something is just missing from my reach.  I don't know what it is.  I am running out of ideas for today.  I almost forgot that I needed to do this today because I had so must else to do.  In a few minutes, I am going to try and contact some people I haven't seen or even heard from in years.  I needed to calm down and get my confidence up before I did anything else.  I guess this is it for today as my wrists are really starting to hurt again.  My typing skills are shot and I will have to hunt- and-peck or just scroll with the mouse for the resat of my social media session.  Be back next week.