Oranje volunteers as tribute for September 25

[@dora.7873]

Brussels Sprouts, London Broil

[@Quilter_Di]

Fiona, thanks for puzzle! Was not able to get Fiona’s puzzle. Got the poisonous plants and that was all.

[@dora.7873]

Me too...just the poisonous plants

[@ellensassani]

Me three! Well, I eventually got through the others, but only because Connections Plus offers unlimited guesses.

[@Quilter_Di]

My opening word for Wordle is EARTH. Solved today in 2 and it was my 3rd 2 guess solve this week.

[@ADailySliceOfOranje]

@@Quilter_Di Wow! That’s outstanding!

[@LadyAndreaRose]

Quilter, superb!!! I barely survived today.

[@edithvain7334]

Thanks for playing 😊

[@LadyAndreaRose]

Nice job kiddo! I had 1 mistake.

[@ellensassani]

Well done! By you, I mean! 😆 I only knew one and two thirds of these (poisonous plants and 3 from Hunger Games), but NOW I know lots of soccer terms and some Katy Perry songs besides Firework.

[@hopechazz]

I was OK in Wordle and Connections. I was GREAT in Strands because I LOVE my steaks. I like them cooked MEDIUM RARE. 😊

[@LadyAndreaRose]

Chazz, me too!!! With lots of mushrooms, too!

[@hopechazz]

MUSHROOMS go very well with steak. I also like stuffed mushrooms, Andrea. 😊

[@Quilter_Di]

Like mine medium rare too!!

[@hopechazz]

YUM! 🥩🥩🥩

[@LadyAndreaRose]

Chazz, love me some stuffed mushrooms. Now I'm hungry.

[@Tiqerboy]

Wordle: Got it in 3 : TIGER TRACK TORCH Strands : Probably my all-time favorite : As an obvious carnivore, how could I not find the Spanagram first? Anyway, I think they should have called it "Vegetarians need not apply" Connections : They got me, I had never heard of a Home Run Derby, so my first choice was one-away. after that mistake I did find them without further ado in this order: Yellow: Score of 3 in sporting event / competitions Green : Items used in painting a room. Purple : ______ Derby. Figure Home Run had to go there. Light Blue : Pub Fare : Had no idea these were named after cities (except for Philly Cheesesteak and Buffalo WIngs). Maybe London Broil? Have no idea on Sprouts. In hindsight, Brussel for the Sprouts but for me to think of that before the reveal would take an aha moment, which I don't tend to dwell on, when it's my default solve. Yeah, classic look before you leap because it became obvious the Roller was need for green. Otherwise not hard because of all the words that could only mean one thing.

[@PaulRoehl-fi1iw]

SLINK, CRATE, TORCH

[@briangonigal3974]

London Broil and Brussels Sprouts, named, of course, after New London, Connecticut and Brussels, Wisconsin respectively. So yeah, totally an American thing.

[@ADailySliceOfOranje]

I’m not a big foodie so that might explain it.

[@ellensassani]

😆

[@hopechazz]

I LOVE eating food. If I were rich, I would have a gourmet cook preparing my meals everyday. I would also be laying on a raft in my mansion pool enjoying my drinks/appetizers. 😂

[@Tiqerboy]

LOL, I thought Brussel sprouts were named after Brussels, Belgium and London Broil, probably London England.

[@Tiqerboy]

@@hopechazz I only love eating good food. I only buy my beef cuts on-line at exorbitant cost. Supposedly grass fed, but I can tell the difference. I spend a fortune on cherry juice every month. It's really expensive, but given that I

[@ellensassani]

It would be easy to create a "letters only" puzzle that no one could solve, but I challenged myself to create one that people COULD solve. I hope I am correct. This one and the next one were created for Oranje, so I gave them titles. Well, this one kind of needed a title in any case! 🙂

[@ADailySliceOfOranje]

@@ellensassani 😉

[@LadyAndreaRose]

Wow, just wow, Ellen! I can't wait to try it! We are on a similar wave length, I also did an Oranje specific puzzle just last night and it is twice as tricky.

[@Tiqerboy]

Ellen, I did try your puzzle, had to bail. I eventually found one of the categories after much trial and error and I didn't even understand the reveal. It's only after I bailed and saw the rest it finally clicked in. Sneaky. I'll post my line of thinking tomorrow.

[@ellensassani]

@@Tiqerboy Thanks for trying it. This one was risky. But I wanted to give it a shot. From looking at the stats, it looks like a case of "it really clicked (4) , or it really didn't (8+)".

[@dora.7873]

@@Tiqerboy Same here. I played around with it a while, trying this and that, but eventually I had to give up. It will be interesting to see if anybody (besides Oranje) will get it.

[@Tiqerboy]

Fiona Plate #2 : I had nothing. 🟪🟨🟪🟨Up and coming (FLICK-ON, RISE< ROAR BREAK AWAY) 🟦🟦🟦🟨I eventually saw wandering plants : YEW OLEANDER are two, I figured NIGHT SHADE e sounds like one and *maybe8 NUTMEG could be one?) 🟦🟦🟦🟩Took another stab at wandering plants, I removed NUTMEG so picked CORNUCOPIA, even though it sounded pretty ridiculous. By this point I could not tell if I found them all, aor only had 3 correct ones, so I put this group on the back burner. 🟪🟩🟨🟪Another vague connection of celebratory events, first one wasn't even one away so I had to pick different ones. ROAR, BIRTHDAY RISE TRIBUTE 🟦🟦🟦🟩I really should have stopped here, but I took another stab at wandering plants. I might have picked MOCKINGJAY, and dropped CORNUCOPIA can't remember, obviously I was pretty sure the three I held onto were correct. I decided to bail. The correct answer was FOX GLOVE and it wouldn't have been the last among the remaining choices. The reason why I bailed, even I got what turned out to be light blue correct, I had no idea what to do from there. I did think of ROAR as a Katy Perry song but I'm not familiar with her discography. I have seen the first Hunger Games but I have a feeling that wasn't enough, and I'm having trouble remembering specifics from the movie even though I loved it. I really want to see the sequels. (I think I might have seen one of them, but I don't have a solid memory). The problem is, my mind doesn't retain entertainment related stuff. As for the soccer related slang, forget it, I am not familiar with any of that at all. And it was supposed to be the easy category. Maybe this is a nod to our British audience, but please call it football 🙂 I *did* go to KZbin to listen to the other 3 Katy Perry songs. That puzzle was blue all around. Each of those categories were a perfect blue category but stuffing them all into one puzzle is just a tad unfair. I would have spread those over four puzzles as the NYT likely would have. The reason why game shows are so popular as a TV medium, viewers at home can play along. If they made the questions too hard or obscure, they would lose their audience real quick. Producers realized this early on. The same is true with NYT Connections. If they made the categories too hard, most people would lose interest. There has to be a lot of common knowledge. I read an interesting article on how Wyna Liu designs her puzzles, written when Connections was in the beta phase. The reason yellow, green, light blue and purple were the chosen colors, Wyna Liu used those colors in her spreadsheet when she was thinking of how to link words together. They also follow in Rainbow order : roYGBiV. There was no mention of Skittles on her desktop.

[@dora.7873]

Well said, Tigerboy. I agree. When most of the categories require highly specific knowledge about niche topics, the puzzle seems designed to be as hard as possible, and loses its appeal for me. The NYT puzzles are challenging but SOLVABLE. As you said, If their goal was simply to make their puzzles as hard as possible, very few people would continue to play.

[@ellensassani]

​@@dora.7873I agree.. My goal as a creator is "challenging but solvable". Of course, things don't always go the way I planned. 🙂

[@LadyAndreaRose]

@tigerboy, excellent feedback!

[@Tsteinlauf]

Strands #206 “Claim your steak” 🔵🔵🔵🟡 🔵🔵🔵🔵 9. I decided to go for speed, since I couldn't suss out the wording for the Spangram. Wordle 1,194 5/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟨🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟨🟩🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ADIEU - SNORT - TROOP - THROB - TORCH I didn't shine on this one. 💡🔦😄 Connections Puzzle #472 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 THINGS IN 3'S LIKE HOCKEY, HORSE RACING HOUSE PAINTING NEEDS FOODS SERVED AS STARTERS (Half point) _______DERBY < 5 minutes Creeping up on that illusive 10. 😊 Nice solve on your Strands today, Oranje28!! 👏🎶❤️😄

[@randolpho-]

No one in Philadelphia calls it a Philly cheesesteak.

[@dora.7873]

What do they call it?

[@randolpho-]

And not soon after I typed this the radio hostess said, “I had a Philly cheesesteak.” But I don’t think she’s from around here.

[@randolpho-]

A cheesesteak.

[@dora.7873]

@@randolpho- Makes sense.

[@ellensassani]

Good point. I'm originally from Pennsylvania. I probably didn't start calling it a Philly cheesesteak until I moved to Florida. 🙂

[@ellensassani]

Fiona Plate #2 🟦🟦🟦🟦POISONOUS PLANTS 🟩🟩🟩🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩ELEMENTS IN HUNGER GAMES 🟨🟨🟨🟪 🟨🟨🟨🟪 🟨🟨🟨🟨SOCCER TERMS 🟪🟪🟪🟪??? I failed, but with unlimited guesses eventually figured it out. Blue was the ONLY category I knew. It took two mistakes to figure out the 4th (CORNUCOPIA) for HUNGER GAMES. Then another two to guess what sounded like some kind of slang. I suspected soccer, so since I already failed, I looked it up and then chose NUTMEG. 😆 I know the song FIREWORK by Katy Perry, but I knew NONE of these songs.

[@dora.7873]

My solve was a lot like yours, Ellen. I only knew the blue category. I never saw any of the Hunger Games movies, I don't have any idea about soccer slang, and I'm not a Katy Perry fan.

[@ellensassani]

@@dora.7873 I'm glad it was not just me! 😆 And I learned something! I have now watched videos of various soccer moves. (My favorite is ELASTICO.) I did see Hunger Games, but I didn't remember that that ... thing ... was called a CORNUCOPIA.

[@Tiqerboy]

I've seen Hunger Games. One of my all time favorites, yet it never occurred to me that was in play. Maybe you needed to have seen a sequel to get it? You got further than me. I gave up after 5 tries, finding none of the categories and it wasn't even clear what the categories even were. The hardest puzzles for me are those where I can't find anything obvious.

[@dora.7873]

@@Tiqerboy I try to stay up to date with current events and modern culture. I'm curious about a wide variety of topics. I read a lot. I enjoy music, art and movies, and I'm fairly active online. But we live in an era of such unprecedented information overload, no one can possibly keep up with it all, and we have to pick and choose things that really interest us. So there will always be gaps in our knowledge. I think the NYT puzzle editors recognize this and try to provide well-constructed puzzles that strike a balance between topics that are a bit obscure, and others that are more widely accessible. (I'm sure it's not an easy task.) But I believe this explains why I have so much trouble solving the custom puzzles despite being quite successful at the ones from the Times.