The one with Ultimate Christmas Crosswords

Ultimate

It's time for Nationals. I don't play for Zero anymore--I moved up to the old(er) man division.

We leave tomorrow and play Thursday, Friday and Saturday. See results here (they should be updated after each game), or read about the action at this page.

Masters is definitely different--tonight we had our only team meeting of the year, which was entirely about the logistics of getting more than 400 pounds of Surly beer to Sarasota.

Christmas

Houston, we have a problem. I have no idea what it is, but The Christmas Cottage has been delayed until 2008.

Actually, I assume the problem is just that the movie sucks.

Crosswords

I'm okay, getting better, at doing crossword puzzles, or at least the New York Times'. (Different puzzles have different styles, conventions, etc. Once you do them for a while, you even get to know something about the different constructors...I'm not there yet.)

But I'm slow. I recently solved a Saturday in about 40 minutes (they get harder throughout the week, and Saturdays are the hardest) , probably the fastest I've ever done. If I finish one of these in less than an hour I think I've done well. Fast solvers are in a whole nother world; for example, the fellow Carleton grad who's one of the best there is did it in under 6 minutes, faster than I can do even the easy Monday puzzles.

I am trying to improve at least a bit, and I've started following some bloggers (Carleton woman, a slightly more mortal SUNY English Prof) who write about each day's puzzles.

Note that I generally enjoy the puzzles a bunch, but if you read this on Wednesday, October 24 (or December 5 if you do the syndicated puzzle) I hope I haven't inspired you to try it out. Today's was dumb, unless you're the type who happens to remember that the Latin term for 'the die is cast' is ALEA IACTA EST. Trust me, that's not normal.

Go Surly,
sg