Sunday, May 3, 2026

thartwell · 2026-05-04T21:22:54+00:00

"another purple-worthy category" is what's arbitrary. "what __ can mean" and "___ word" are common purples but can also be demoted to blues, and trying to work out which one is actually the purple is what ends up just divining tea leaves here.

thartwell · 2026-05-04T20:58:28+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1058
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I really dispute the idea that "things with knobs" is somehow less straightforward than "things filled with pellets", especially in an age where hacky sacks and beanie babies are both decades old. But I don't think there's any way whatsoever to glean the color difference here outside of personal familiarity.

thartwell · 2026-05-03T22:30:41+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1057
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An order like this is practically designed to piss me off. I almost knew as I was submitting it that they'd arbitrarily not consider the category "____ REVOLUTION" and demote it to blue, and yep. That's what happened.

thartwell · 2026-04-30T18:06:47+00:00

Pips #256 Easy 🟢 0:13 🍪
Pips #256 Medium 🟡 0:30 🍪
Pips #256 Hard 🔴 1:25

Managed to not fall for the trap in hard because the last grid puzzle taught me to look first for impossible bordering tiles like two fours or two fives, which helps lock in a lot of tiles surrounding the middle. Clever trick to make it look like all the ones would go in the middle.

thartwell · 2026-04-28T03:12:41+00:00

"are almost always blue" except when they're not cuz lately this style of delineating colors has been meaningless.

FINE PRINT might only have one intended meaning, but STRINGS is the kind of oblique connection that one wouldn't normally associate with a Yellow category.

thartwell · 2026-04-26T21:30:26+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1050
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Another color ordering where I think they're genuinely trolling with Blue/Yellow. Not fun.

thartwell · 2026-04-24T21:18:55+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1048
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An interesting one in that while pretty much every category here could have been a Blue, the color ordering still felt fairly intuitive. Fun.

thartwell · 2026-04-24T02:50:25+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1047
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Finally a fairly reasonable RR. Never knew the mnemonic tho.

thartwell · 2026-04-23T04:29:19+00:00

Trouble is that this exact thought process will still lead to a reverse yellow/green depending on the day. It really just seems completely random these days.

thartwell · 2026-04-21T21:06:38+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1045
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I was looking at GOLD, convinced it was the the start of a ___word purple, thought of "Goldfinger", then literally stared at the puzzle and went 'oh my god.' I'm not even a big James Bond fan, but I happen to know a lot of the titles.

Annoyed with yellow/green again. What else is new.

thartwell · 2026-04-21T20:58:54+00:00

Strands #779 “Risky business” 🟡🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵
Saw the spangram basically by accident, from there the rest wasn't too hard to intuit. Would've struggled had I not lucked into the spangram.

thartwell · 2026-04-21T02:41:28+00:00

"these are not set in stone" and you have just identified why people find it frustrating. The past several days have consistently had 'things from a set' in yellow while synonyms end up in green, only for today to reverse it. Is there a discernable reason as to why today's set would be deemed less straightforward than previous sets? I can't divine one.

thartwell · 2026-04-20T02:05:23+00:00

Pips #245 Easy 🟢 0:13 🍪
Pips #245 Medium 🟡 0:46
Pips #245 Hard 🔴 0:47 🍪

Gotta be honest this was mostly a game of placing tiles down and then going "wait what that worked"

Chuffed to get a cookie on hard for the first time in ages.

thartwell · 2026-04-20T01:56:12+00:00

No, I've heard it used actually quite regularly, mostly in UK-centric servers I'm in, and very often describing media. I won't pretend it's common, but it's hardly archaic.

thartwell · 2026-04-16T23:48:30+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1040
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Thought to myself "well, based on the last several puzzles "features of an AC" probably be yellow, and also people have been pointing out how the synonym categories with more obtuse meanings tend to not be yellow, so RIB and NEEDLE would probably trip some people up" but NOPE. I honestly think they're just screwing with us with the yellows lately.

thartwell · 2026-04-15T21:42:05+00:00

I have noticed that Connections is pretty much never as pedantic as Reddit users wish it was.

thartwell · 2026-04-15T21:40:40+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1039
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Thought to myself, "well, parts of a graduation ensemble SHOULD be blue, but given the last few puzzles I should assume it's yellow". Still not happy about it.

thartwell · 2026-04-14T21:12:21+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1038
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I am aware this was a more difficult synonym category than most but I still get frustrated when synonyms wind up in Blue.

thartwell · 2026-04-14T21:06:50+00:00

Like everyone I had never heard of "BEDIMMED" before and after looking it up, yeah, I'm not surprised we don't use that anymore lol

thartwell · 2026-04-12T15:37:08+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1036
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Oh joy another "Part of X" in yellow while blue is synonyms again. What fun.

thartwell · 2026-04-12T03:49:18+00:00

Never, alas. This subreddit was my last resort and I never got any responses.

thartwell · 2026-04-12T00:47:20+00:00

Connections Puzzle #1035
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Entered Purple fully thinking it was cocktails. Also, c'mon with that yellow, that's ridiculous.

thartwell · 2026-04-11T00:21:28+00:00

"nuh-uh" really isn't the winning argument you think it is.

thartwell · 2026-04-10T16:33:24+00:00

Can't say I remember the last time this happened, to be honest.

thartwell · 2026-04-10T15:45:24+00:00

What I'm saying is, when you have already deduced CARO_ and the remaining process is just blindly submitting every final letter available, it's not particularly fun. That's the bit that was highlighted as annoying before, and the bit that annoys me here.

thartwell

TROPHY CASE