I just finished today's New York Times crossword in 2 minutes 57 seconds, putting me solidly in the top 5% of people who have solved it so far. This is definitely a personal best for me. If I can get down to 2:30 or so on a Monday puzzle before the ACPT next February, I should be able to raise my standing quite a bit.

As many of you know, I just got back from the 32nd Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Brooklyn, New York. This year I improved my performance greatly, finishing 55th out of 674 contestants (9th percentile, compared to 17th last year). I completed all seven puzzles (including puzzle 5, which is always the hardest and the one I didn't ( Read more... )

After a bit of a rest, we drove back to Kahului and picked up a few things at Costco. While Costco's prices on the mainland are slightly lower than normal stores, they are roughly the same in Hawaii, which makes them dramatically less expensive than normal stores. As a result, Costco is usually crowded and hard to park at, but this time it wasn't ( Read more... )

This is a riot!

I finished this morning's New York Times crossword in 4:06, not bad for a Wednesday, netting me the 16th spot out of 539 (so far). The top seven were all under three minutes, but no one finished it in two. :-)

I finished today's New York Times Crossword in 7 minutes and 41 seconds, which is awesome for me and put me well in the top 5% of those who've attempted it so far. It did seem a bit easier than the typical Friday, but even the immortal Byron Walden took almost 5 minutes to finish it, so I feel pretty good.

Today I finished the New York Times crossword in 9:15, making me 16th out of 364 so far. Of course, Byron Walden did it in 4:19, but I'm pretty pleased with my performance. Fridays are very hard.

I've been invited to an audition in Culver City for people who passed the Jeopardy! online test. Until today, I had no idea I'd even passed the test, which IIRC was given almost a year ago. I'm flying to LA on March 11 for an audition on March 12. They originally invited me February 11, but I'll be in Hawaii that day, so I asked to reschedule, and ( Read more... )

I finished this morning's New York Times crossword in 2:53. Unfortunately, due to some sort of connectivity error, I had to go back and fill it all in again while the clock kept running, so I ended up near the bottom, but I have never finished a puzzle in under three minutes before.

Thanks to my friend Alan, I have become hooked on Sporcle, a web site which offers free (ad-supported, of course) games of the "name all of the..." variety. My favorite, hands-down, is this one, which requires you to name all 195 countries of the world in 15 minutes. I routinely get about 90% before time runs out or I give up. I can forgive myself ( Read more... )