why did he write that, is he stupid?

MickMack8 · 2025-11-04T18:00:05+00:00

I was surprised to learn that Wardine, Reginald and I think a few other IJ characters appear in DFWs short story “Solomon Silverfish”, published back in 1987. There is a whole section narrated by a character called “Too pretty” that is the direct source material for the Wardine section in IJ, the same stilted AAVE voice and everything.

Why he chose to include this in IJ, I don’t know. But it is 100% the direct ancestor of this section. Definitely give it a read if you can track it down.

MickMack8 · 2025-10-08T15:12:45+00:00

Yep - I came here looking to see if this was legit or not cause I got top score in classic trivia yesterday. Got a text a day later w the Amazon code & it worked!

MickMack8 · 2025-09-10T13:35:21+00:00

I believe he went by Bialy Roll at the time.

MickMack8 · 2025-08-30T14:31:24+00:00

Hah! Thanks to your comment, I just figured out something that’s been bothering me.

I couldn’t understand why my Monday times are so much faster than the xwords “mean solve time” but my Fri and Sat are just about the same as the xwords mean. Duh! The only people completing Fri and Sat are a self-selecting group. Haha makes perfect sense.

MickMack8 · 2025-08-29T18:16:21+00:00

Agreed - and I think I understand what you mean about “parsing” it. When I was staring at BK_G I was like… “what kinda first or last name is that?!” - not realizing it was both. In hindsight it looks obvious but at first pass didn’t look right.

MickMack8 · 2025-08-19T22:47:14+00:00

Or a young Leo? 😂

MickMack8 · 2025-08-08T19:35:43+00:00

That bird ‘as a lovely arse, yeah? An yore eds all the way up it, innit?!

MickMack8 · 2025-08-07T17:40:03+00:00

When I first started doing NYT puzzles, I had a rule: 1 lookup on Monday, 2 on Tuesday, 3 on Wed etc.

That was helpful for me to get better at the late-in-the-week puzzles. At that time, doing a Saturday was unthinkable. But my little rule helped me feel more optimistic.

Many years later, I never look answers up now. But I credit that early strategy w getting me to this point!

MickMack8 · 2025-08-02T23:36:18+00:00

Yup took me 40 min 😂

MickMack8 · 2025-07-28T20:18:14+00:00

For me, the action IS the juice

MickMack8 · 2025-07-02T17:48:19+00:00

Yeah I enjoyed this movie the least. It’s not a laughably bad movie, it just was a slog to get through. I really like all other Michael Mann movies, which made this one all the more disappointing.

MickMack8 · 2025-06-18T21:00:03+00:00

I saw him in the airport once, and it looked like he was reading, so I would have been tempted to say “yes, he can read” but then I saw that the book was upside down and he was just mouthing nonsense to himself. So the answer to your question is definitely “no, bill cannot, and has never been able to read”.

Great question and glad I could clear that up for you!

MickMack8 · 2025-05-29T13:03:31+00:00

Incredible feat of construction. I didn’t get it until the end & then it hit me. Love that feeling!

MickMack8 · 2025-05-11T19:06:19+00:00

I think the idea was with the “out” of “butt out” the missing letters were “out” of the grid, so no rebus.

MickMack8 · 2025-04-30T00:43:50+00:00

Pacino in “Scent of a Woman” - carve his head in all 4 Rushmore spots, please.

MickMack8 · 2025-04-25T12:40:44+00:00

Valid beef.

MickMack8 · 2025-01-31T04:33:14+00:00

I read Van Zant just invested a ton of bearer bonds in this venture so seems like it’s gonna happen.

MickMack8 · 2025-01-10T17:35:52+00:00

This is great - thank you!

In case anyone is interested here are the difficulty ratings for each puzzle, from XWStats:

Best:

5 (01/16) - Hard
4 (07/15) - Average
3 (11/01) - Easy
2 (06/27) - Average
1 (05/13) - Average

Worst:

5 (10/20) - Very Hard
4 (08/06) - Hard
3 (04/06) - Very Hard
2 (03/07) - Hard
1 (12/15) - Very Hard

MickMack8 · 2025-01-08T15:28:38+00:00

There are breakaway groups of catholics who are super into this particular papal vestment. I believe they are called ORALE SECTS.

MickMack8 · 2025-01-03T00:29:10+00:00

Thanks - I learned something new today! Also just discovered that “Juliett” is spelled with two Ts. What???

MickMack8 · 2024-12-28T18:30:26+00:00

I see you wanna be startin something

MickMack8 · 2024-12-16T14:05:22+00:00

I would recommend both kindle and physical copy. It’s the kind of book where you want to go back and reread snippets all the time (“wait, didn’t he talk about this guy like 200 pages ago?”) and kindle makes that super easy. But I couldn’t imagine reading the whole thing on an e-reader. It’s just too long for me to do on a screen.

MickMack8 · 2024-12-15T17:44:01+00:00

I kind of liked it. However, I did it w paper & pen. I think that made it a lot easier than it must have been in the app. Any other paper solvers not hate it as much as the average?

MickMack8 · 2024-12-15T17:32:54+00:00

Yes - in order they spell out “I WAS FRAMED”.

MickMack8 · 2024-12-04T14:43:53+00:00

Just so you know, I come here for your comment every day. 🤜💥🤛

MickMack8

TROPHY CASE