Cazique

Does anyone else see Thursday's puzzle as "Today's Puzzle" on the NY Times crossword site (http://select.nytimes.com/premium/…) right now? And not be able to access today's by creating the link? Or from Will Johnston's site? What the hell?!

To echo so many of you - I am feeling so many feelings... pride in our country, pride in the people, feeling a little bad for McCain, worried at what comes next, all of it.

Most of all, though - my kids are going to grow up in a world in which we won't even be talking about the fact that it's possible for a black man to be elected President -- just a world in which it now goes without saying.

I still don't believe it.

So here's a question: Now that the crossword tournament is in Brooklyn, shouldn't the Connecticut division be lumped in with New England, and Brooklyn be separated out from the rest of NYC as the "host municipality"?

(The fact that I appear to be comfortably #3 in Brooklyn, and on a good day within striking distance of #2, should not be construed to relate at all to my asking this question, of course :) )

As people in some syndicated markets get the NYT 6 weeks late, there are a couple of further blog comments on my 10/31 puzzle today.

If you haven't done the puzzle and don't want to be spoiled, ( Collapse )

For those to whom I haven't been yapping about it all week, my NYT crossword construction debut will be tomorrow's puzzle (Wednesday 10/31) - I hope you do it and enjoy it!

(Many thanks to Eric, saxikath, rpipuzzleguy, canadianpuzzler for helpful feedback when I was writing the puzzle!)

Argh - Did my best to power through it this weekend, but couldn't keep my eyes open past 1 this morning, leaving myself about 100 pages short at this moment. (Never before have I found myself hoping for a subway delay, as I did on the way to work this morning.) Anyway, the end of the saga awaits for the subway home tonight. The book is laughing at me from the other side of my office as I try to concentrate on work.

And I would have finished it, if not for those meddling kids! (Oops, those are my kids.)

Save those spoiler posts another few hours...

I'm looking for some interesting podcasts or short e-books. Potentially to get me to start some sort of organized exercise. I have plenty of music, but could see running as an excuse to get caught up on interesting listening that I wouldn't listen to otherwise. Any suggestions that you think would be interesting to me?

With the convention aftermath and other goings-on, I almost forgot: my first published crossword appears today in the Sun.

It's also available online as an across lite file.

Go do the puzzle that crosswordfiend describes as "fun," along with other words that spoil the theme and hence I won't add.

Con reminiscences to hopefully come soon, but in the meantime, here's an intersection of two of my obsessions, words and Levenger - More Words That Matter.

I'm running / participating in a conference next week. It'll be 35 or so people, and most of the full-group sessions will be in a conference room with some sort of presentation or discussion with leader(s) at the front of the room.

I'm not sure whether we should do round table seating or conference-style (rows of tables with chairs behind them) in the room. Rounds are more intimate and foster conversation better, and rows of tables are stilted and boring, but -- I just feel like if people in that room are going to be focused on the front of the room for most or all of the time, why make half the people turn their chairs around from the table?

Thoughts?