Do you still play Wordle every day? I sure do. But I don't look at any social media* or texts or anything before I play because I don't like seeing people's completed grids, even without the words! If I see, for instance, one of those patterns where you can tell it's a rhyming word (NIGHT/SIGHT/LIGHT...), or if I see that people had no correct letters in their first two guesses, that gives me clues. So I play first thing before I do anything else online. Then, in a private chat group with some editor pals, we post our completed grids, and a screenshot with the words filled in, and then (big-time word nerd alert:) we each write a sentence using all the words! Meanwhile, I'm on a (drumroll, please) 202-day Wordle streak! (Which means I probably just jinxed myself for tomorrow...)
Then I go over to Merriam-Webster and play Quordle, where you solve 4 Wordles at once, and then Quordle Sequence, where you solve 4 Wordles in a row. And then I do Blossom, which is similar to the NYT Spelling Bee (more on that below), but I like it even better. You have the same setup, with 7 letters surrounding 1 additional letter that has to be in all your words. But here you can make only 12 words, so you want to find the longest ones. And for each turn, one of the letters gives you extra points. It's not as complicated as it sounds, so if you like Spelling Bee, give this one a try! Just give the rules a quick read-through because you want to maximize your points on each turn. My high score so far is 456, but I haven't come that close in a while.
I never played Spelling Bee until a few weeks ago because for some reason I had gotten it into my head that it's a race, and I do not like timed games at all. (I don't even time myself on the NYT crossword, which I do every evening, at my leisure, preferably with a cocktail in one hand and a cat on my lap. I totally get why some people want to challenge themselves to solve as quickly as possible, but to me that would be like seeing how fast you can finish a nice meal. I prefer to take my time.) Anyhow, it turns out that you can take all day to do the Spelling Bee if you like—and I often have to! There's also a Spelling Bee Buddy that will tell you how many words you have left, and will also give you the number of letters in those words as well as their first two letters. I do often have to go there to figure out my last few words. But I don't take any actual clues unless I'm really stuck, and in that case I don't crown myself Queen Bee because it feels like cheating.
And then I head over to Connections, which I really enjoy. I haven't lost since the first couple of times I played when it was in beta and I wasn't really clear on what to do. I would say that at least 25% of the time I come down to the last 4 tiles left and have no idea how they are connected, but I just choose them by default—it's nearly always the purple row. I wrote in suggesting that they add a 17th "distractor" tile, in which case I would definitely lose once in a while. (And they could still arrange them neatly in a 3 x 4 x 3 x 4 x 3 grid.) I doubt they will do it, but that would make it much more challenging. Maybe they could add it as a "hard mode" option?
And that's how I start my morning. Oh, and I also still play SET, which I love because it seems to use a whole different part of my brain than these other games. And I do a few nonograms throughout the day, which is also not at all word-related. My new thing there is solving them without filling in any Xs! It's really challenging and very rewarding when I can do it.
I used to also play Octordle and Sedecordle and a bunch of others, but it got to be too much. But the other one I like is the weekly NYT Flashback quiz, where you have to place a series of historical events in chronological order.
I'm also always in the middle of a bunch of Scrabble and Letterpress games, so hit me up if you'd like to play.
*Speaking of social media, I still mourn Twitter. I didn't close my account because then someone can steal my username, but I don't hang out there anymore. It's so sad. I'm still at Bluesky (and have a few invite codes if you'd like to join), but it just doesn't feel as compelling as the good ol' days of Twitter. I'm also on Threads, and that seems to be where I go when I want to say something. But I say a lot less there or anywhere than I used to. I sorely miss all the give-and-take with my large Twitter gang of editors, authors, journalists, lexicographers, linguists, and librarians, plus all the foodies, Boston-area folks, progressive Democrats, political analysts/historians, cat lovers, etc. I've found some of them in these other places, but it's just not the same. Sob. (And eff you again, Elon, for taking down something for no good reason.)
I'm old enough that I like to think I'm keeping my brain active with a multitude of activities. I do Jumble Crossword daily, Wordscapes daily, Connections, Wordle, Octordle, WhereTaken and WhereTakenUSA. Sometimes I also do Worldle and Statele.
Posted by: Margaret | February 05, 2024 at 08:43 PM
I just do three a day: Wordle, Connections, and the NYT Mini Crossword. I do enjoy them, but I think doing more than that would stress me out! Lol
I agree with you wholeheartedly about Twitter. It breaks my heart. Threads is pretty good, but it gets too quiet. I love the fast dynamic that Twitter used to be. There is still some fun snark on there, but it's certainly not the same. Sigh. Sob.
Posted by: Tonya | February 05, 2024 at 10:22 PM