Wrap Up

Oh my gosh! Rex and I had the same thought about a wrong answer today, too! Does this mean I'm just as good at crosswords as he is? He rated today's puzzle as medium-challening, and I agree.

"Thought 45D: Zephyrs were BLIMPS, not BREEZES (clearly I was thinking of Zeppelins)."

The word zeppelin will forever make me think of The Golden Compass. Wonderful book. Anyways.

I was surprised to see that Rex isn't an embrace-er of new technology. I would think that as a daily blogger and lover of the embedded video and image, that he would also be into gadgets. And I see him as a good example of a "new active consumer" like Henry Jenkins mentions in his book Covergence Culture, as he consumes media (the puzzle) and then creates his own content out of that. But he definitely doesn't like GPSs, and had this little rant about Garmin:

"41D: Big name in GPS devices (GARMIN) — Do not own one and likely never will. It would be more distraction than aid. I would almost certainly drive my car into a lake. Also, I think farming out your sense of direction to a machine—maybe not so great an idea."

I thought Rex's tone was particularly informal today. He swore (sort of: "WTF is "Hollyoaks" and WhoTF is GEMMA Atkinson?"...well he did say, "crap TV"), posted an image of a scantily clad woman, and signed off with a brief, "Gotta go watch 'Conan.'"

His anti-Garmin rant generated a lot of responses in the comments, including this one:

"For the longest time, I thought I had the worst sense of direction. Until a few years back, we were in Rhodos, and I could find my way around perfectly while my husband was totally lost. I realized that I use specific local cues instead of a broad sense of orientation. So, in a place with twisty, windy streets but lots of variety, I shine. It turns out females (even mice) simply do it differently from males..."

I used to have a terrible sense of direction. When I first got my license I couldn't figure out how to get from my house to the mall, despite having done so a million times as a passenger. But when I moved to a city for the first time during study abroad, it was like something finally clicked in my brain. I think it was because everything was unfamiliar and exciting, and so I actually payed attention to where I was. Not to mention I spent a lot of time walking around with my nose in a map.


Before starting this project I rarely read the entirety of Rex's post. Now that I have been reading them every day for a week, I think that I do understand a bit more about who he is as a person. He is a consumer of pop-culture, both current and past, he's a bit silly, and sometimes he's cranky (like when he doesn't like a puzzle theme). Pretty good personality traits for a successful crossworder, if you ask me.