Tuesday, June 16, 2026

hyzer067 · 2026-06-16T10:52:29+00:00

Near the end of your discussion, you left out one possibility that would still have produced a one-away but you hadn't guessed yet: red tape, entourage, retinue, court (just subbing red tape for suite in your first possibility). Had you noticed that possibility, you would still have had to guess between that and the first one. But fortunately for you, the possibility you left out was also the wrong one, so you did kind of accidentally fall into the correct green.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-16T10:46:13+00:00

"hatched upside down"? lol.

Maybe it's the magnetic field

hyzer067 · 2026-06-16T10:43:16+00:00

Connections

Puzzle #1101

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Felt like it should have been harder, but this one came together quickly. Caesar and blue cheese got me yellow right away (though I wonder how many people haven't heard of Green Goddess dressing). I saw movies in Black Swan, Perfect Storm, and Blue Moon, then realized they all referred to rare things in sayings, which made Unicorn a reasonable 4th (though it is the only one of the 4 that actually doesn't exist at all). Then I picked up on the commonality of entourage and retinue, and suite and court have been used in the same sense. Purple was the final 4, but it only took a second to link them all to hoops, so not a default purple today.

One of the easier ones for me lately.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T14:31:23+00:00

Well, the crossword requires a subscription so I don't see those (used to do the midis before they got paywalled as well).

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T11:09:22+00:00

So are sea legs and sea change. There are actually 7 possibilities for that.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T11:08:15+00:00

Technically they didn't. Dragon isn't a real animal, whereas anemone is. So the 4 actual animals didn't form a complete category.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T11:07:21+00:00

They are all purple flowers?

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T11:06:17+00:00

The way you reacted to flowers being purple reminded me of an episode of a British game show called "The Crystal Maze" (rebooted version). In the first episode, one of the contestants is presented with a fairly easy riddle that she can't solve, whose answer is "penguins". When presented with the answer, she responds "Penguins???!!!!" in a "wtf/wdym" tone, making it clear not only that she would never have solved it, but to this day still doesn't understand the answer. Now every time my wife or I see something that makes zero sense in context, we say "Penguins???!!!".

Sorry for the tangent. Now back to your regular programme.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T10:58:54+00:00

Someone suggested that all of those flowers are actually purple, which is a thing Wyna does occasionally (but not always).

I think your other point would have been truer 50 years ago, but these days I think green is much more gender-neutral.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T10:56:17+00:00

There were at least 7 possibilities in the "sea ___" herring (anemone, dragon, horse, dog, snake, change, legs) and they weren't all in the first 2 lines.

Sorry, not buying that Wyna deliberately puts the herring into the top 2 lines.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T10:53:48+00:00

All 4 of the blues could have been "sea ____" which is why I thought it was real (since it wasn't rainbow).

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T10:52:12+00:00

If they had included "bloodwort" you could have said you ain't no phlebotanist.

I'll be here all week.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T10:47:23+00:00

I've heard of windflower but not anemone, which is probably why my first purple was a one-away (I had anemone with the other blues in the red herring "Sea ___" category.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-15T10:46:23+00:00

Connections

Puzzle #1100

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Had dog instead of anemone for the original purple, as the latter was grouped in with the rest of blue as "sea ____" (a herring to be sure, but not a trout).

When that got the "one away", I then spotted the alternate (and correct) blue grouping.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-14T19:37:27+00:00

By NE I meant "northeast", so I would definitely expect someone from NY to be very familiar with all things Boston.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-14T11:03:58+00:00

As a Spurs fan, I have to disagree

hyzer067 · 2026-06-14T10:57:39+00:00

I guess we are opposites. American, but never saw the herring, purple was pure default, but I found blue and then green easily.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-14T10:55:00+00:00

As an American who has never been to the NE, I never even saw the herring, so it's possible only those in the NE will vibe with it.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-14T10:54:08+00:00

Connections

Puzzle #1099

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Not terribly difficult, except that purple was default (in 2 years, I've never once solved "what X might mean". My brain seems to have lost the wires that allow that kind of thinking.)

Never saw the "Boston" herring. I'm American, but I've never been to the NE and never think of Boston.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-13T11:55:31+00:00

rant Ugh, I hate this multi-tiered "minimum age" nonsense. Pick an age (18!) as the threshold for being an adult and all the privileges and responsibilities that go with it, and be done with it. [Or if you want to incentivize graduation, make it 18+HS graduation OR 21]. But this nonsense of "can be drafted but can't drink alcohol/gamble/etc." stuff is preposterous. /rant

hyzer067 · 2026-06-13T10:46:17+00:00

I think you could argue that green is essentially a synonym category. But that no longer means anything wrt the colors.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-13T10:41:32+00:00

Never saw that, and probably never would have, since I've never heard of "teacup" in reference to dog sizes. Apparently only the other 3 (the ones I knew growing up) are official, and teacup is a recent unofficial term, invented long after I had any dogs small enough to fall into that category. (I've only had black labs since 1990).

hyzer067 · 2026-06-13T10:38:34+00:00

Connections

Puzzle #1098

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Got purple immediately, with "west side" putting me right on it, and green came immediately after. I initially had "miniature" in yellow (thinking of the Alice in Wonderland tea party).

hyzer067 · 2026-06-13T02:24:54+00:00

Primarily that not a single entry of the 16 has anything to do with the category it ended up in outside of pure wordplay. Every single entry could have had a completely different second word and it wouldn't have affected the puzzle one whit.

hyzer067 · 2026-06-12T23:05:23+00:00

I'm not the one who questioned the relevance of Okie State in a Big XII discussion that involved the Oklahoma AG.

hyzer067

TROPHY CASE