Speak, Friend, and Enter.

As a dedicated cruciverbalist and compulsive sweepstakes enterer, I couldn't help but fall for puzzle superstar Will Shortz's new Starbucks/NYT-branded Coffeehouse Crossword Challenge. Seriously, kids, this thing is not for amateurs: six nearly-NYT-grade puzzles, plus an actual Sunday NYT puzzle, plus a series of complicated mini/meta-puzzles with their own challenges. (The journey also included some Morse Code, cryptography, and easy trivia questions.) I took on the whole thing this weekend and finally just now put it together and had my moment of truth. (No, I am not telling you how. It was just too much fun finding it for myself, and I wouldn't want to cheat you. I will say that it was kind of a Mines of Moria thing, as noted by this blog that I discovered a little too late to be of use.) So now I'm totally ready for the tiebreaker on Tuesday. I think.

And now I'm wondering: Why did I just post all of that? This blog is really straying. Well, whatever. If nothing else, it'll boost my Google search rank a bit later tonight as the stragglers try to catch up before the deadline. Good luck, stragglers. May you suffer just a little less than I did.

Anyway, this was all a nice way to keep my mind off of this afternoon's second interview with the Essex D.A.'s office. I'm told that the whole thing is just a panel shooting hypotheticals at you. This is a pretty common tactic for interviews with prosecutors everywhere, I guess, which makes me wonder why someone out there hasn't come up with a list of popular hypos that one might expect at such an interview. Maybe I'll be that person, if I'm in a good mood when I get home.