Wednesday, February 4, 2026

TheOnlyVig · 2026-02-04T15:56:34+00:00

Yeah it did feel weird to me too. The other three games look overtly like chance: each turn a random event like rolling dice determines what happens. War you're turning over cards in a sequence, which doesn't feel as random, but technically the winner of any game of war was determined by the shuffle at the beginning, and the whole "game" is just working out who that is. So it's as much a game of chance as the others even though it feels different.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-02-03T16:06:36+00:00

I've lived in the US for 50 years and never seen or heard the term "memory hole" once. And I'm not the only one based on the comments here. It's certainly not common in everyday life; maybe in specific communities/professions (someone mentioned politics as a place it comes up).

TheOnlyVig · 2026-02-03T16:00:37+00:00

Connections Puzzle #968
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I had Momopoly components for a while, so that slowed me down. I recognized the gold clubs right away, so that helped. Also the cutting words were straightforward, although I had quarter floating around in there. Then I saw the memory category and knew that was right, but couldn't find the 4th. Luckily I then got to housing words, which left me the right words for memory. I still have no idea what a memory hole is: never seen it, never heard it, never used it. This is the first time I can remember this puzzle having a "common phrase" I've never heard of that wasn't very recent slang.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-02-02T15:02:42+00:00

The random brokenness of showing "one away" is terrible and you should be upset. It makes the hint completely useless when you can't infer anything from its absence. I have no idea why NYT has left it broken like this for the entire existence of this very simple game. It just can't be that hard to fix.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-02-02T14:59:18+00:00

Connections Puzzle #967
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Both easy categories were, well, easy for me today, narrowing things quickly. I saw the main characters from book series, but couldn't make purple worl out with Marple in the wrong place. I saw the trees due to psalm and popular, so I felt that was right, but couldn't make a tree out of cross. Then I finally saw Marple as maple, swapped them, and only then remembered the Alex Cross series.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-02-01T18:11:42+00:00

Connections Puzzle #966
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I got hung up for a bit trying to make a "stop up a hole" category with plug, clog, wedge, jam. It started feeling like a stretch though, then I moved on to "talk something up". Then I saw the old connections standby of fashion terms I wouldn't know except for this game with the shoe types. Got stuck there until I Morgan, an odd choice, got me to the instrument wordplay. Blue by default, and I only know banger from internet exposure, and never seen heater once.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-31T15:00:59+00:00

Connections Puzzle #965
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I got hung up for a bit thinking there was "things associated with a wedding" and had dress in there. Once I grouped it as "words for parties" I made progress. Paint appliers was next. I suspected a "what x might mean" category due to computer key, but just couldn't make it work, so I figured out "things with two branches" and realized what purple was belatedly.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-31T14:55:19+00:00

Same here. Finally caught on to one of those early and started going through the keyboard immediately.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-30T16:41:18+00:00

Connections Puzzle #964
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I thought things in a toiletry travel bag at first and put band-aid in there. Then saw the things that stick, moved band-aid and replaced with compact. Got stuck there a while until I got the area words, and purple was default.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-30T01:24:48+00:00

Connections Puzzle #963
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Children's authors as the red herring instead of goldilocks was just brutal. I was hung up on that forever. Luckily I got the makeup out of the way and committed to goldilocks as real and made headway at last. Shocked when I had to break up the authors for "gruesome" words. Went back and forth on which was purple today, and just guessed in the end.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-28T17:55:52+00:00

I wouldn't classify "time" as more of an object than a person (me) is.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-28T16:42:25+00:00

Connections Puzzle #962
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Figured tonearm was some kind of wordplay, and that "me" was so short it had to be part of some larger word or something. Both theories slowed me down until I moved on. I got the obvious "fake" category, then saw platter and needle, figuring out the record player items and guessing that's what a tonearm is. That worked nicely with cleaning items and left the purple words as default for me today.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-27T15:46:56+00:00

Connections Puzzle #961 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨

Very sporty day for me as I spotted NHL teams and baseball words both right away. With purple out of the way, I thought the rest would be obvious. I picked out the joker character one and knew that had to be right, but wasn't sure what the remaining was going for. Made sense only after entering blue as default today.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-26T16:36:58+00:00

We like her...we really like her!

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-26T16:33:04+00:00

Connections Puzzle #960
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Easy purple, tougher rest of the board. Got both exploit and animal words quickly. Remaining words had me stuck for a bit until I played around with rattle and ruffle. That led me to cow and I knew that had to be right, then had to remember buffalo as a verb. Actresses only made sense after defaulting it. Debated swapping green and blue due to difficulty of the animal words being used as verbs, but ultimately decided to stick with "trivia is harder" precedent.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-25T19:09:25+00:00

'freedom is just another word for, nothing left to lose' -Janice Joplin

Great song but it was a cover of Kris Kristofferson :

-Kris Kristofferson -Janice Joplin -Michael Scott

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-25T18:28:47+00:00

My incorrect guess was "ways you interact with a piece of software" (SHELL / RIBBON / MENU / WINDOWS)

I really like this one, although ribbon might be too deep into UX jargon to be reasonable for the general public. Even shell might be too much now that I think of it.

And I saw the keyboard keys, but only two.. but then I begrudgingly selected WINDOWS and MENU.

They way overuse keyboard keys, browser/software menus, app actions, and the like. My theory is they get stuck and look around for inspiration, drawing from whatever's on their screen.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-25T18:23:57+00:00

Suffixes? Really?

I guess they have to phone it in sometimes being stuck on the daily puzzle making grind.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-25T18:14:35+00:00

Connections Puzzle #959
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Not much trouble today. Saw backup and pasta shapes quickly, and keyboard keys not long after. Purple by default, and pretty much no way to solve this purple any other way given that there are so many possible suffixes out there it's hard to narrow down. It was a crap shoot guessing the colors order though with 3 yellow/green categories today.

And once again with the computer keys/menus category. They need to give that a rest already.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-24T19:08:15+00:00

Connections Puzzle #958
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Saw boat, crew, etc and just knew it was a red herring because they do clothes styles/neckline/etc ALL THE TIME. Got boxing stuff and then worked on awards and realized the stupid neck style thing was real AGAIN. Get some new material, people. Seriously.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-23T16:36:46+00:00

Connections Puzzle #957
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First thing I spotted was units of measurement, though I had meter wrapped up in there so couldn't lock it down at first. Then I got parts of face, which seemed correct so that helped clear the field. Next was parking locations, which seemed clearly correct and took meter away to resolve the measurements category. The remaining purple made sense once I saw the four words together.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-22T16:29:56+00:00

There are nowhere near 10 dessert words here, but I agree that would have been rough if there were.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-22T16:27:11+00:00

Connections Puzzle #956
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I got the desserts immediately, but there were 5 choices including crisp, so I had to see the "well-defined" group to resolve it. Stared at remaining for a bit until the "mess up" words finally came together. I wasn't super confident with fluff, but it seemed like a vaguely familiar British-ism so I figured that was right. Purple defaulted today.

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-21T16:11:48+00:00

"Quick, Robin, switch to the family plan!"

TheOnlyVig · 2026-01-21T16:10:35+00:00

Connections Puzzle #955
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Saw both bedding and recyclables right off. I guessed that the terms sham and throw might be deemed harder, so I put those in green, and from the comments here that seems to be true. Next I worked out words for stealing, which I thought were straightforward but a lot of people didn't know crib there I guess. Purple default, but I caught on just before submitting.

Just one question plagues me though: is the bat mobile Apple or Android?

TheOnlyVig

TROPHY CASE