word games

I loved the movie Word Play, the documentary about crossword puzzles and the people who love to do them. The American Crossword Puzzle competition was as gripping as a horse race or the Tour de France without the testosterone. It inspired me to buy one of the Will Shortz crossword puzzle collections. Even though I love words and word play, I haven't been particularly good solving at the NY Times puzzles after Wednesday, let alone the harder ones at the end of the week, so I thought that if I practiced and picked up some tips, I could improve. I am now up to puzzle 15 in the book, and the satisfaction of persisting and completing a puzzle is getting me hooked! Today I learned that a 14-letter word for "crossword puzzle devotee" is cruciverbalist.

I stumbled across this word play site yesterday, and I think I'm going to add it to my Morning Coffee menu.