Happy New Year! I'm hoping to write some more later on...it's just been really busy lately.

Dec. 31st

Wishing Everyone a Happy and Prosperous 2010
If you've arrived here by accident and want to know what this blog is all about, please see the FAQ. If you want to suggest how this blog might be improved, please add a comment to the Suggestions Box.

I've posted this journal entry at the start of the day to allow those that wish to to add their comments as soon as they've completed RTC. At the end of the day, I shall update it with a report on the day's play.

I shall studiously avoid reading any of your comments until I've competed myself, and I assume that other RTCers will do the same.

If you are locked out of RTC for some reason (e.g. the bird-on-the-box (404 Error) response because the login server has failed - again), you may be able to compete by using the back-door route http://www.timesonline.co.uk/displayPopup/0,,33015,00.html. Casual readers of this blog should note that unless they have a player name, they will appear as "null" (equivalent to the old "undefined").

Congratulations and commiserations: TBS

Fastest time: TBS
Slowest scoring time: TBS
Fastest non-scoring time: TBS
My time: TBS
First to finish: TBS
Number of entries: TBS

Nina: TBS (to be credited to whoever comes up with what seems to me to be the most likely explanation)

Music: TBS

Here are the results for December, with November's positions shown in brackets:
1 [1] hjseidman (165 points, averaging 6.35 points per day)
2 [2] Jason (134)
3 [19=] Shaun (120)
4 [3] richardg (115)
5 [7] MarkW (89)
6 [11] jon88 (76)
7 [5] tonysever (65)
8 [10] gormlessgracie (61)
9 [9] shanson (59)
10 [31=] Timscmith (50)
11 [8] Vicky (49)
12 [4] aphis99 (46)
13 [6] Heyesey (45)
14 [13] HenryBW (43)
15 [17=] Shane (42)
16 [29=] PeterFowler (34)
17 [12] lickert (32)
18 [21] zebby (27)
19 [15] PeterBiddlecombe (25)
20= [17=] oughamh (20)
20= [31=] andyw123 (20)
22 [16] adamsanitt (11)
23= [14] neil23 (10)
23= [23=] neilr (10)
23= [25] vernonrichard (10)
23= [-] Mark (10)
23= [-] mistigris (10)
28= [19=] Magoo (8)
28= [27] Pieman (8)
28= [-] Scottie (8)
31= [22] Chindit (5)
31= [23=] myles (5)
31= [-] James (5)
34 [-] KarenR (4)
35= [-] duncanshiell (3)
35= [-] xyster (3)
37= [-] DianeRS (1)
37= [-] JohnHarding (1)
37= [-] mrtoad (1)

Congratulations to hjseidman for topping the monthly table yet again, this time by a substantial margin. Congratulations also to Jason, Shaun and richardg for reaching 100 points for the month, and to Shaun, jon88 and Timcsmith for regaining places in the top 10, the last of these despite being absent for a significant part of the month, as were aphis99 and lickert (and possibly others).

This month the only difference between my version of the monthly table and the one the RTC computer would have produced is that I've reallocated duncan's 3 points to duncanshiell. It's possible that Mark (who scored his 10 points on the first day of the month) is Magoo, in which case my version will need further adjustment.

Correspondents to my blog have identified only 16 Ninas this month. As usual I've awarded a point for each Nina, splitting it where more than one person has contributed significantly. Congratulations to jon88 for leading the field yet again, though by a smaller margin than usual. Here are the scores in full, with November's positions shown in brackets:
1 [1] jon88 (5.5)
2 [4=] linxit (aka andyw123) (4.5)
3 [4=] valerian1967 (4)
4 [3] Heyesey (1.5)
5 [2] HenryBW (0.5)

The following solvers accumulated 10 or more points in my "first to finish" table (November's positions are shown in brackets). Congratulations to jon88 for regaining 1st place from AlanJC.
1 [2] jon88 (175 points)
2 [1] AlanJC (167)
3 [4] Patricia (153)
4 [3] HenryBW (130)
5 [6] valerian1967 (105)
6 [11] andyw123 (94)
7 [8] scudam10 (89)
8 [10] trishwain (87)
9 [15=] Carol (79)
10 [9] Heyesey (76)
11 [7] MarkW (68)
12 [5] Jason (48)
13 [-] JohnHarding (34)
14 [12] janetreed (27)
15 [14] Janice (23)
16 [15=] TOBERGILL (14)

Once again the slate is wiped clean, and there's everything to play for in January 2010. Wishing you all a happy new year, and good solving.

Music: something seasonal to finish the year

Paul and I got back together.

OK, he knows nothing about this. But it was memorable for me.

Dec. 30th

raeY ehT

Today was bit of a disappointment after yesterday's triumph, but at least it wasn't a total disaster. Annoyingly I thought of 12dn (Make the best of (something) = OPTIMISE) and 13dn (Composed of small spots = DOTTED) first time through but didn't dare put them in, which meant that I missed the straightforward 17ac (Isotope of hydrogen = TRITIUM), where the initial T would no doubt have prevented my senior moment, and the trivial 19ac (Composed sound = MUSIC), where (with just the final C in place) I simply couldn't see what the clue was driving at.

Congratulations to MarkW for leading the field today, and to Shaun whose 2nd place took him ahead of richardg (who failed to make an appearance) in the monthly table and thus onto the podium.

Fastest time: 1:50 (MarkW)
Slowest scoring time: 2:23 (oughamh)
Fastest non-scoring time: 2:24 (neilr)
My time: 2:08 (6th)
First to finish: jon88 (12:02 a.m.)
Number of entries: 53

Here are today's top 20.

1	MarkW	1:50		11	neilr	2:24
2	Shaun	1:53		12	adamsanitt	2:25
3	gormlessgracie	1:57		13	Shane	2:26
4	hjseidman	1:57		14	shanson	2:37
5	jon88	2:01		15	Chindit	2:44
6	tonysever	2:08		16	AlanJC	3:02
7	HenryBW	2:13		17	PeterBiddlecombe	3:20
8	Jason	2:18		18	mrtoad	3:23
9	andyw123	2:18		19	lickert	3:24
10	oughamh	2:23		20	CrosswordMan	3:27

Nina (credited jointly to jon88 and linxit (aka andyw123)): ABOVE WATER, WATER MUSIC and MUSIC DRAMA overlapping in the four 5-letter across answers

Music: a beautiful performance of this lovely work by the Yggdrasil String Quartet

Following the example of Eric Berlin, I decided to review some puzzle and game highlights from 2009.

January: The Evil Midnight Bombers presented a science-fiction-themed challenge for the annual MIT Mystery Hunt. The Hunt was visually attractive but did not whet my solving appetite as mush as some of the Hunts from previous years. The meta structures in later rounds were diabolically clever and geared more for Hunt connoisseurs than relative novices like me. Still, I had a handful of solving successes on individual puzzles, and enjoyed the camaraderie with the Boston-Cambridge gang.

February: I opted to save some money by staying home ACPT weekend and solving the puzzles online. I hated missing the social aspect of the tournament, but rationalized that I would see most of my tournament buddies at other events. I solved the seven tournament puzzles error-free and finished in fourth place overall (among online solvers).

March: I was pleased to meet several new puzzlers at the LA minicon. The other minicon guests were pleased (?) to meet a myopic mime named Monsieur Trompe L'oeil, who joined forces with Todd Rew to present an unusual game of charades. I had been intrigued with the moderator characters that puzzlers like Greg Pliska and Guy Jacobson come up with for convention games, and wanted to try coming up with my own character for a performance-based puzzle. It was a blast--especially the ad-libbing with Todd--and I look forward to trying something like that again.

May: Al Sanders and I led a free-form lecture on crossword puzzle constructions and solving for a group of honors students at University of Colorado Denver. Katherine Bryant suggested the idea to her father, who leads the program. It was an interesting challenge to work my industry observations into a lecture. Al and I worked well in concert, and several students commented afterward that it was one of their favorite lectures in the series.

June: I launched a no-frills download site where I could post crossword puzzles that had been rejected by major markets are were otherwise unsellable. The site opened the day after the Tony Awards with a puzzle theme based on a predictable Tony result. I had intended to update the site every week or two, but the lack of rejected puzzles and interest in other projects have left the site inactive for the last few months.

July: I brought two games to the NPL convention in Baltimore. Drawing Conclusions, featured on the main program, was a visual trivia game that garnered postive feedback from the players. Octegories was a trunk game that felt ripe for a revival in the after-hours game sessions. The Saturday Night Treasure Hunt left me sweaty but satisfied.

August: Lollapuzzoola 2, a Queens crossword tournament organized by bloggers Brian Cimment and Ryan Hecht, featured a puzzle that I constructed. I attended the tournament and enjoyed the informal atmosphere. My puzzle had a sound gimmick, and it was fun to both watch and listen to the solvers. Peter Gordon, Doug Peterson, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and other constructors presented puzzles with clever twists that could not be easily executed at a large tournament like ACPT.

September: I joined some puzzlers in Las Vegas over Labor Day weekend. We toured the casinos and restaurants, checked out some meeting spaces for a proposed 2010 miniconvention, and finished the trip with some puzzles from Malk Halpin's Labor Day suite.

I wrote another walkaround puzzle for my birthday celebration. Street Smarts 2: Codewalkers invited solving teams to explore the Cherry Creek North area and collect pieces of a complex code that would reveal "What it takes to get where I am today." I needed to provide a few taps here and there, but all of the solving teams eventually found the solution.

October: I had several crossword puzzles run in newspapers in 2009, but "Initial Offerings" (10-4-2009) was my first New York Times Sunday puzzle ever. I had to make some compromises in the grid fill in order to meet editorial approval, but I was happy with the theme.

November: After news of the NYT puzzle spread around the office, some coworkers suggested that I write a game for the office Halloween party. I accepted the challenge and produced "National Denture: Bridge to the Past," where hunters combed the third floor looking for George Washington's hidden trick-or-treat candy and Halloween-themed false teeth. A snowstorm postposed the game until November, but everything else associated with the game went smoothly.

At the November LA minicon I tried out another puzzle collaboration. Ron Sweet and I coauthored Cryptic Cafe, a cryptic crossword challenge with a nod to the classic Cross-Wits game show. It was a fun experiment, but it felt right as a one-off game.

2010: I'm looking forward to making progress on a number of projects next year, notably my maintenance project in which I am manually adjusting scores to the entries in my corssword database. I'm about currently about a quarter of the way through the 8-letter entries. The events I'm most looking forward to is the convention in Seattle and the birthday event--I need to come up with something special to celebrate turning 40.

I love New Year's; not the holiday per se, but I've always been a voracious consumer of end-of-year lists. When I listened to popular music (i.e., the early-to-mid '80s), I hung on every note of the Casey Kasem year-end countdown. I'd await the announcement of Time's Man/Woman/Planet/Machine of the Year with bated breath. I love reading lists of the ten best movies, TV moments, underdog sports stories, albums I've never heard of...it never mattered, really. Taking stock: I've always adored it.

But not this year. I've read a few things here and there, but found myself bored, for instance, with Phillip Niemeyer's "piece of fluff" (to use Arnold Zwicky's term). I haven't sought out anyone's list of anything. I, basically, don't care.

Part of that, I think, is that often around this time I'm at my parents' house (or, similarly, my in-laws'), with little to do but pick up the year-end issue of Time and flip through it, or poke around the web looking at this and that. I mean, I'm still poking around the web, but still.

But that's ultimately only part of it. I think that most of it is that this has been the worst year of the decade for me, and I've got to be honest, it hasn't been that great a decade. (I mean, married, yes; PhD, yes; cats, yes; but all in all.) It's hard for me to name anything good at all that's happened this year, and the few good things that did occur seemed to go sour in one way or another, like my one-semester job this past semester, or the new "socialist" president who I feel has utterly failed to live up to my unrealistic hopes that he might be at least half as progressive as his campaign promised. It's to the point that I find myself dismissing someone else's list of great things from the decade (and sniping in the livejournal of an innocent bystander; sorry about that) because I just can't really see anything good in most of it. (Oh, gee, great, High Definition TVs and iPods. Tell you what, mister: buy me one, and I'll appreciate it as an accomplishment of the decade.)

So unlike people who can say things like "I don't want this year to end" in their year-end summaries—and I'm happy for them, I really am, or at least as happy as I can manage these days—I can't say that at all. I want this year to end. I want this year to end, to the point that I don't even want to write a year-end summary. I don't want to think about the past year. I just want it the hell over with.

Dec. 29th

Bliss! I put in VINICULTURIST for 3dn (Expert in grape growing), but was able to change it quickly to VITICULTURIST once I came to 8ac (Visual data coming from a computer = READOUT), an easy win for someone like me who spent their entire career designing and writing computer software. Apart from that, the only answers I missed at a first read-through were 16dn (Tall, thin, awkward), where I thought of GANGLY straight away once I had the crossing letters in place, and the rather more tricky 1dn (In a different way) where I spent several agonising seconds desperately trying to persuade my brain into some kind of activity before AFRESH surfaced just in time for me to pip Vicky at the post.

Commiserations to Vicky for missing 1st place by just 1 second (as has happened twice to me in the last couple of months), but at least she has the consolation of being the only other solver to break 2 minutes.

With just one day to go until the end of the month, hjseidman (currently on 158 points) is in an unassailable position at the head of the monthly table, and Jason (131), richardg (115), Shaun (111), MarkW (79), jon88 (70), tonysever (60) and shanson (59) have secured their places in the top 10. This leaves the remaining two places (or more if there's a tie) to be contested by gormlessgracie (currently on 53 points), Timcsmith (50), Vicky (49), aphis99 (46), Heyesey (45) and Shane (42), to whom I wish the best of luck.

Back to today.
Fastest time: 1:43 (tonysever)
Slowest scoring time: 3:46 (MarkW)
Fastest non-scoring time: 4:10 (lickert)
First to finish: andyw123 (12:08 a.m.)
Number of entries: 38 (RECENT/FIRST) or 37 (FASTEST)

Here are today's top 20.

1	tonysever	1:43		11	lickert	4:10
2	Vicky	1:44		12	JohnHarding	4:58
3	richardg	2:05		13	adamsanitt	5:07
4	Shaun	2:07		14	DianeRS	5:33
5	PeterFowler	2:52		15	mrtoad	5:43
6	Jason	3:04		16	CrosswordMan	6:01
7	Shane	3:04		17	Puzzleplease	6:23
8	PeterBiddlecombe	3:08		18	StephenRice	6:26
9	neilr	3:32		19	mikesensei	6:55
10	MarkW	3:46		20	andyw123	7:03

Nina (credited to linxit, aka andy123): each across answer contains exactly one A

Music: something celebratory :-)

Dec. 28th

Damn! Damn! Damn! Today was a chapter of accidents. I tried to type in ARCHAEOLOGIST for 6dn (One studying relics of the past), but must have bungled it since I finished a letter short - so I erased it again! I needed three goes at 12dn (Abnormally obsessive), starting with MANIACAL, then changing it to PEDANTIC once I had the E from 13ac (- Spielberg, US director = STEVEN) and finally taking several seconds to come up with NEUROTIC. Worse still, I needed four goes at 9ac (Unpredictable, dangerous). I initially put in RISKY, but then changed it to DICEY when I found that ARCHAEOLOGIST was right after all. However, when I was marked "Incorrect" I changed the E to a K to make DICKY, and left it that way while I tried to find why I was still "Incorrect". This turned out to be FENCRR for 16dn (Swordsman = FENCER), which I'd chickened out of putting in first time through, and after correcting that and finding that I was still "Incorrect", I finally had to change DICKY back to DICEY.

Congratulations to Heyesey for leading the field today, with hjseidman the only other solver to break 2 minutes. Congratulations also to Shaun for reaching 100 points for the month, and to JohnHarding, a relative newcomer to RTC, for making the top 10 for the first time. (Can this be the John C. Harding who appeared several times in the Times Crossword Championship final in the 1990s?) Commiserations to shanson for missing a place in the top 10 by less than a second.

Fastest time: 1:48 (Heyesey)
Slowest scoring time: 3:13 (JohnHarding)
Fastest non-scoring time: 3:13 (shanson)
My time: 3:16 (13th)
First to finish: jon88 (12:04 a.m.)
Number of entries: 45

Here are today's top 20.

1	Heyesey	1:48		11	shanson	3:13
2	hjseidman	1:54		12	jon88	3:14
3	Jason	2:14		13	tonysever	3:16
4	Shane	2:24		14	adamsanitt	3:21
5	Shaun	2:25		15	mrtoad	3:44
6	Pieman	2:30		16	MarkW	3:48
7	neilr	2:34		17	AlanJC	3:48
8	HenryBW	2:43		18	poisson	4:05
9	PeterFowler	3:00		19	PeteN1957	4:05
10	JohnHarding	3:13		20	kath	4:07

Nina (credited to jon88): anagrams LETTERS and SETTLER in the unches in columns 2 and 12 respectively

Music: a Beethoven quartet to calm my jangled nerves

renaissance2010
Turning to photography as a creative outlet during a valiant fight with breast cancer at age 34, renaissance10 survived and set up a photo contest to help raise funds for the Lavender Trust, a nonprofit that provides information and support to younger women with breast cancer. In the first two years, the competition brought in over £65,000 (that's $107,260.73 U.S.!), with entries from 130 countries last year. Renaissance10 recently joined LiveJournal to meet other passionate photographers and find supportive friends.

curiouscupcakes
Holy buttercream frosting! If you have a sweet tooth for sugary goodness or a wandering eye for whimsical confection, this is pure ecstasy iced in deliciousness. Hailing the beloved cupcake as the artisinal canvas of choice, you'll enjoy recipes, photos, and bountiful tips to bake up a batch, whether your taste leans toward French classics or funky and flavorful.

mission101
With New Years in the offing, it's an ideal time to reflect on past accomplishments, make peace with disappointments, and refocus the lens on future goals. This community welcomes you to create a bucket list of 101 things you plan to accomplish in the next 1,001 days. Offering support, guidance, and inspiration, this is a great way to jumpstart those pesky resolutions.

Dec. 27th

I've been so bad about updating that the eventual entry will seem like a year-end (or at least fall) review. Books aren't hard to do, since I've already reviewed them on Library Thing and just need to cut and paste.

"Lovers & Players" by Jackie Collins - I was waiting for an event to start and another early arriver struck up a conversation with me. I didn't really want to talk since I was reading this book, and had just gotten to the part where virginal Amy realizes her pre-wedding fling was her intended's brother. I tried to explain this and it sounded hopelessly trashy - just the way I like my Jackie Collins books. The ending wasn't quite as predictable as usual.

"Wishful Drinking" by Carrie Fisher - The same basic material as the show, but I think it came across better when done live. A thin, fast read (it had to be fast, since the library wouldn't let me renew since others had it on reserve).

"Brian's Girl" by Diane Hoh - Devastated when her boyfriend goes off to college and finds someone else, Kate fails to notice something better closer to home. I'm way too old for these teenage novels.

"Rescue Me" by Gigi Levangie Grazer - I really liked Grazer's "Maneater" and "The Starter Wife" but this first novel focuses on a darker, more gritty side of LA. Other than the saintly Gabe (who could come rescue me any time), I wouldn't trust these characters, or want to meet them in a dark alley.

"Star Craving Mad" by Elise Abrams Miller - Even though the plot was a bit contrived, I loved this novel about a first-grade private school teacher in NYC. I swooned over her love interests and rooted for her all the way (even though she did drink - ick! - too much).

"Charles & Diana: The Prince & Princess of Wales" by Trevor Hall - Written in 1982 when she was pregnant with Prince William, the book seems a bit dated and sad since we know what happens to the fairy tale. Chock-full of photos.

"Only You, Dick Daring!: or How to Write One Television Script and Make $50,000,000: A True-Life Adventure" by Merle Miller and Evan Rhodes - In the early '60s, Miller was hired to write a TV series featuring Jackie Cooper as a county agent in the southwestern U.S. You don't remember this series? There's a good reason, as the showbiz shenanigans unfold.

"Living, Loving and Learning" by Leo Buscaglia - A compilation of Buscaglia's lectures on living, loving, and learning. I remember seeing him speak on PBS, and his vibrancy loses something on the page. Alas, he died of a heart attack in 1998.

"The Ruins of California" by Martha Sherrill - Inez Ruin grew up in drugs/sex/rock 'n roll '70s California, shuttling between her divorced and very different parents and family members. I could not relate to their lifestyle, and did not really like these people.

"Just Like Family: Inside the Lives of Nannies, the Parents They Work for, and the Children They Love" by Tasha Blaine - Fascinating portrait of 3 nannies in NYC, Wellesley, MA, and the Austin, TX area. I've never had kids and know nothing about childcare, but the stories of these normally invisible (yet powerful) women were riveting.

* * * *
NYT weekend puzzles:

Friday, 12/25 (Paula Gamache) 5:33
Saturday, 12/26 (Kevin Der) 6:42

Phew! Not too bad for a Monday, but I panicked when I found that SKID, which I'd put in so confidently for 7dn (Uncontrollable turn/slide), gave me an I as the final letter of 10ac (Pale purple). Surely this had to be MAUVE, but I couldn't offhand think of a word S-E- that would fit 7dn. When I eventually reached it again as my final clue, it didn't take me all that long to decide to take a chance with SLEW (which I was relieved to find was correct), but that alone cost me a point, and appalling typing almost certainly cost me a couple more.

Congratulations to neil23 for rather belatedly scoring his first points of the month to lead the field today. Congratulations also to hjseidman, who has now reached an unassailable position at the top of the monthly table.

Fastest time: 1:28 (neil23)
Slowest scoring time: 2:31 (richardg)
Fastest non-scoring time: 2:50 (Chindit)
My time: 2:07 (5th)
First to finish: AlanJC (12:04 a.m.)
Number of entries: 51

Here are today's top 20.

1	neil23	1:28		11	Chindit	2:50
2	Jason	1:54		12	andyw123	2:51
3	Shaun	1:54		13	Puzzleplease	3:04
4	Vicky	2:04		14	janetreed	3:11
5	tonysever	2:07		15	DianeRS	3:14
6	hjseidman	2:16		16	trishwain	3:31
7	Shane	2:20		17	Pieman	3:32
8	gormlessgracie	2:24		18	AlanJC	3:35
9	shanson	2:25		19	MarkW	3:54
10	richardg	2:31		20	StephenRice	3:55

Nina (credited to linxit, aka andyw123): anagrams MASTER/STREAM and RUBIES/BRUISE arranged symmetrically in a Greek cross

Music: a brilliant parody