Althouse: "Debbie Rodman, the keeper of a 3,694-day streak, once stood on top of a toilet at Yellowstone National Park in an attempt to receive enough Wi-Fi..."

August 11, 2026

"Debbie Rodman, the keeper of a 3,694-day streak, once stood on top of a toilet at Yellowstone National Park in an attempt to receive enough Wi-Fi..."

"... to solve the Crossword. Ten years in, 'it’s been part of my daily routine for so long, I will never voluntarily give it up,' Ms. Rodman, 67, said. 'Someday when the lights go out, that’ll be how my streak ends.'"

From "What It Takes to Keep a Puzzle Streak for Years/Meet the players who persist through childbirth or intense athletic feats to ensure they solve Wordle and other puzzles every day" (NYT gift link).

12 comments:

Dude1394 said...: Andy is is ONE reason why the starlink cell phone service will have lots of customers. You never know where you will be.; 8/11/26, 8:54 AM
rcommal said...: My dad did the crossword puzzle every day for decades and decades. One of the markers that made me feel sure that he was coming to the end of his road was when he stopped, not very long before he died. For a while, I kept the last puzzle on which he'd worked, in the hospital. Silly, right? But grief is strange, sometimes.; 8/11/26, 8:56 AM
tcrosse said...: My Mother figured that doing the NYT crossword every day would prevent Dementia. It didn't work.; 8/11/26, 9:05 AM
Gulistan said...: What's your longest streak Ann? Current?; 8/11/26, 9:07 AM
Saint Croix said...: Iron Horse!

Lou Gehrig streak: 2,130 games

Ann Althouse streak?

Y'all need to check my math

351 blogging days in 2004

+

365 days x 21 years = 7665

plus the frickin leap years, damn

I'm adding another 5 days for the leapers

That's 7670 days

adding them to year 1 = 8021

now frickin' 2026

31 in January
28 in February
31 in March
30 April
31 May
30 June
31 July
11 August

Her blogging streak is up to 8244 days. More or less. Amazing, AA, truly.; 8/11/26, 9:09 AM
rcommal said...: Gullistan: Althouse hasn't missed a day.; 8/11/26, 9:33 AM
Clyde said...: I've played Wordle every day for 4-1/2 years, except for one day several months ago when I got distracted and forgot to play and woke up the next day to a streak of 0. I had a streak over 200 at the time and was looking forward to trying to break my longest streak of 238, which I got when I first started playing the game, in Hard Mode. As of today, my streak is back up to 169.

For those who like games, I've been playing one called Anthropeum, which gives the player 10 objects from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and asks you to identify when and where they were made. After you play, you are shown what percentile you rank among the people who have played the game that day. Some items are easier than others; one a couple of days ago was a marble bust with the date and location engraved on it. Shockingly, not everyone got 10,000 points on that one. If you want to try, go to:

anthropeum.com; 8/11/26, 9:41 AM
Lazarus said...: Was it a 3,694-day streak in doing crosswords or in standing on toilets?; 8/11/26, 9:43 AM
Clyde said...: And in terms of streaks, I've played Anthropeum 35 games in 35 days.

Also, you get three hints per game, which can be used to give you either a general location (Mesoamerica or West Africa, for instance) or a narrower time frame. I generally pick location rather than time, especially for items like a glass bowl that might come from anywhere in the world.; 8/11/26, 9:46 AM
tim maguire said...: It's nice to be consistent and play every day for a long time, but it is not healthy to care that much about your streak. Nor is it a sign of mental balance that you would go to extremes to not break that streak. It has no value and you would be well served to deliberately break it.; 8/11/26, 9:52 AM
Enigma said...: An OCD hobby, but still 1,000 more wothwhile than the life output of 1,000,000 Critical Studies professors.; 8/11/26, 9:53 AM
FWBuff said...: Every morning, Spelling Bee, Wordle, and Connections. I know I’ve been captured by their game-playing hooks, but I enjoy the challenges (and the streaks).; 8/11/26, 10:02 AM