Virginia Is For Lovers -- Complete!

The contest is over!  You can find the answers at my puzzle "site"; and if you're coming late to the party, you will also be able to find a copy of the puzzles there as well.  I had 62 people request the puzzles, and they (you!) donated $602 to the cause, which is quite frankly very exciting.  I also received 41 correct answers, which is also very exciting.  The lucky winners drawn by random.org received gift certificates to ThinkGeek (1st place a $50 gift certificate went to J.T. Williams of Pasadena, 2nd place $25 went to Giovanni P.).  This would normally be the place where I'd make a bad joke about "don't spend it all in one place", except of course you have to.

Some comments about the puzzles:

• Probably the most common response I got was: "Didn't you kinda do the final metapuzzle backwards?"  The answer is: Of course.  I got stuck on doing the final puzzle in strict numerical order and forgot where I had gotten the idea from in the first place.  I think I was just so happy to get Postscript to draw a moderately-acceptable daisy that I wasn't thinking.  Still: Next time I will Do Better.
• The Bogey & Bacall puzzle was one of the last puzzles actually completed, and it showed a bit.  The original inspiration is allegedly the card solitaire game Golf (you know the one, where you can remove a card that is one above or one below the card you just played) but it turned out to look a lot more like "One Away" from The Price Is Right.  More importantly, I was unable to spot the alternate answers that are all over the place in that puzzle, which is bad.  I had intended to write a little computer program to generate all the possibilities from a string to check, but didn't.  I will now as penance.
• I know a lot more Crossword People than Puzzle People, so I was expecting a little bit of confusion from Skyscrapers.  I put the rules in the packet, but either I wasn't clear about it or people just weren't expecting me to actually explain the puzzle (or some of both), so a lot of people were a little bit stuck there.
• The voting for people's favorite puzzle (at least as reported to me) was fairly spread out -- I think just about everything except Romeo & Juliet got a mention from somebody.  I guess that's a good thing.
• The difficulty was deliberately easier (probably a lot easier than some previous work of mine), as the original concept involved two packs, to be solved in pairs, with the easier puzzles loaded into the "partner" pack.  That got dropped relatively quickly, but I stuck with the easier puzzles for a "general population" -- this isn't MIT Mystery Hunt, it's a charity fundraiser, and I knew that a fair bit of my audience wouldn't necessarily be expert at creative-type puzzles.  I think that some solvers got a bit less of an experience than they were hoping for, but I hope it was fun nonetheless.
• We'll definitely do this again sometime!

Puzzle Contest!

I am proud to announce a puzzle contest that I have created, "Virginia Is For Lovers". I am using it to raise money for a local charity, Transitions. Randomly selected winners will receive ThinkGeek gift certificates. (Even if you've never shopped there, I feel confident that you can find something you'll want.)

DETAILS
The contest will run through February 14th, 2012. Interested people need to get a puzzle pack (see next sentence), solve the puzzles inside, and follow the directions given there. To get the puzzle pack and make a donation, click the button:

Alternatively, if you've "given at the office" (or are a starving student, or just don't want to donate to this particular charity), you can send me an email at tabstopva plus sign vifl at sign gmail.com to request a set of puzzles for free, no annoying questions asked. (Also, no non-annoying questions!)

After the end of the contest period, I will randomly choose two people who sent me correct answers as winners, and will then send them their gift certificates.

WHAT ABOUT THESE PUZZLES?
There are eight puzzles (plus a ninth "meta" puzzle to get the final answer), mostly word-based with a little bit of logic. The main puzzles are named for famous couples, and in some cases knowledge of who these people are may be needed to solve the puzzle. I've tried to go for a generally gentle solving experience, although there may be a few tricky points to navigate through.

CAN YOU GIVE ME A RECEIPT?
I could give you a receipt, but I'm just this guy, you know? I'm certainly not registered with the IRS. If you need a receipt for tax purposes, then I suggest donating to the charity directly (if you're donating to Transitions, you can use the link above to find their donation page; or you can donate to a charity of your own choice -- it's your money, after all). I won't mind; just send me an e-mail so I can send you the puzzle pack.

ERRATA:

• The first part of Bogey & Bacall (the "word golf" part) has a couple words with ambiguous possibilities. However, once you work out the method for getting the final answer, you will see which ones are intended. (Thanks Eric Maddy!)
• The first clue in Bertram & Helena is in error; it should read "Site of a supposed UFO landing". (Thanks David Stein!)

INTERESTINGNESSES:

I was originally planning to use Transitions' Paypal button to transfer the money I collected over to them. However, the Paypal button on their web page is broken! However, I believe I have copied the button code and will put it here so that I can use it. (Yes, this is just as complicated as you think it is.)

(Note: This button goes straight to Transitions, not to me.)

The Personal Touch

(I was planning to leave this as a comment on the post linked above in the title, but comments appear to be closed -- or else my browser has decided not to show me the comment box.)

Even in the midst of a contretemps about anonymous/pseudonymous blogging, you can still see a shining example of the value of the personal touch (even if you don't really know who is doing the touching):
Blogger A outs the personal information of anonymous Blogger B: theoretically, this is a bad thing, but it's your job to watch your own back and that's just the cost of doing business, and who are we to say whether Blogger A is a bad person or has even done anything wrong.
Anonymous Blogger B gets the best of *me* in an argument over Twitter four years ago: Blogger B is an asshole.

(Now the part that's specific here.)
When I first started this I actually tried to keep everything separate: my online persona (here and on discussion boards), my playwriting persona (who is now officially declared dead after seven years of inactivity, I think), and my "real" life. Eventually, they all got merged together for the most part. I don't even remember ever watching any James Bond movie all the way through, so I can't say that has any influence. I think it was just my way of internally handling all the little "circles" that I ran in that basically have no other intersection: family, hometown, math, work, puzzles, mahjongg, etc; plus the idea that leading a double life was somehow "cool". (I actually still think this, for some reason.) I have these groups running wild on my Facebook, and they all seem to ignore each other just fine, so I guess there's no need for me to have a bunch of different names.

Program notes: I am now on Twitter, for good or for ill. The handle is <2*2*2*2*2*3> (i.e. my other gmail handle). Also, I am planning to run a puzzle contest, with prizes, for charity in February, and am posting this here because I really need a deadline in order to get everything finished I suspect.

A Saturday in August

• It felt really weird to be in my bathroom brushing my teeth at 7am when I had an 8am flight. The ideas of online checkin + not having to drive one (or four!) hours to an airport have still not really sunk in.
• Flight up non-eventful. Between waiting in the terminal plus on-flight, I got four more puzzles done in the book of Hook 'n' Hex Boston Globe Sundays. Eventually I will finish that book....
• Although the flight up didn't do good things to my back, for whatever reason; it took most of the walk through the terminal for me to get back to standing up straight.
  
• Got my expired MetroCard swapped for a working one. Somehow forgot that the machines in the airport don't take cash, so I guess I didn't have to be so finicky about making sure about cash the day before.
• The transportation the rest of the way went smoothly; no trouble getting off the M60 at the right place, or getting on the Metro. Although the bus ride did finish off the back pretty thoroughly.
• Missed the boat the first time past the church, as I was expecting to go in the big doors where the stairs were; except they were walled over. So, back to the courtyard, find the signs, and down to the basement.
• Got my registration packet and my index card for the team game: "Malia". We were warned to be looking for a team of four, so I figured my group was pretty obvious (and it was). I don't know whether this part was Only Connect-inspired, as there were quite a few generalities (like "Joe") and people who fit into multiple groups (but only one way to get everybody into a group of four, presumably).
• Did some mingling with the group, as always. Round tables with splinters this year, so no resting your hands on the edges. Ended up sitting with Al Sanders (as last year) plus Joon Pahk.
• The final tally appeared to be 172 people this year, and in fact they were still trickling in as 11:00 rolled around, so we started a bit late.
• The play-at-home people are working now, so no more about the puzzles other than JOY. Also, I managed to legitimately beat Joon at one puzzle, but I never finished before Al this year.
  
• The group of us at lunch were a little late coming back, so we missed the first bit of Todd McClary's game, which was apparently to come up with a set of names that fit a category that had no repeated letters anywhere (the more letters the better).
• More puzzles.
• The group game got off to an inauspicious start, as a large chunk of people had already gone home (we, the Obamas, were short one person, and several groups were down to two), so there was much "oh, just find some people to work with".
  
• The group game was straightforward as these sorts of things go; but then even your average crossworder doesn't go for these sorts of things very often, and both of my teammates were stuck at "where are the directions?" So they got the ones with explicit directions and I got the ones that didn't really have them, and between us we made out okay.
• That final puzzle was hard. And another tie in calling "done", but since Al had an error (one of these years, Al!) it ended up not mattering.
  
• The trophies were old ACPT trophies from Ellen Ripstein's closet, which was a nice touch (plus a mug for "Worst Handwriting"). There were a lot of books from Puzzlewright Press, which surprises nobody. There was also an award for "Best former host" which got a lot of applause.
• They handed out ten prizes for each skill division, so that means I did get to hear my name called. People still remembered to chant, too, which was nice.
• Some more chat over pizza and ice cream at the end.
• The trip back was less smooth. I was able to get on and off the subway with no problems. It took me five tries to find the bus stop back to LGA, which is surprising given that most intersections (and this one too) only have four corners at them. I went (twice!) down Lexington Ave instead of down 125th, which just goes to show how bad my sense of direction is after coming up out of a hole in the ground. (It's bad enough just normally.) Plus I was being rained on the whole time.
  
• The bus was rather crowded, but the instant we got into Queens it emptied enormously.
• Upon arrival at the airport, I had convinced myself that my upgrade voucher I had redeemed was usable from the kiosk, which turns out to be not actually true, although I did get a piece of paper telling me to present $49 to the ticket agent. I went up to the agent and told my story, and when he opened up my account, the boarding pass printed out. I gave two ticket agents a chance to take my money, but they both took the opinion "if the boarding pass printed out, it's your seat". I guess that was my prize for the day. That, plus the flight landing about 20 minutes early.
• I think they added a dollar to the daily parking charge since the last time I flew PHF.
• This is a large number of bullet points, but it was a large day.
  

AirTran is leaving PHF a week before the ACPT, so this may be my last trip out of PHF (I'm going to have to look quite a bit for travel plans, since I doubt any of them will be quite the automatic "win" that AirTran from PHF to LGA was, especially with AirTran losing what seems like all of its perks along the way with the merger).

Vacation Day 1: No Rain Yet

Fortunately the thunderstorms stopped yesterday around 5:30, so it was smooth sailing for the evening festivities. Saw The Importance of Being Earnest at the ASC and it was excellent. They do entertainment during the interludes there, and they were definitely working on tying the interludes into the show -- the first break had the cast doing the B-52's Love Shack (I was definitely amused by seeing the actor playing Lady Bracknell, still dressed as Lady Bracknell obviously, doing the Fred whats-his-name spoken parts of the song), and the second had the cast doing I Got You, Babe in pairs. The stage left on-stage seating was taken by a group of scenic females, who were alternately amused and horrified by the cast's attempts to use them in the story. It was a bit of a small house, but it was a Wednesday night in the beginning of July so that's probably expected.

This morning was some more wandering -- a lot of churches today, and a music studio (or at least something labeled a music studio; last night coming back from the play walking past what had appeared to be an abandoned garage next to the hotel, there was definitely a band playing there. Perhaps it's just a very exclusive club). It was pushing 90 I think, then cooled off rather suddenly and given yesterday I decided I should probably get while I was just sweating and not drenched. The rain hasn't showed up yet though, so it may have been just a false alarm. I'll probably go back out tonight and see if there's anything going on north of here.

Update: It never did rain. North of here are a few houses and then the actual library. I also walked out the road I believe I need to take to get out of here tomorrow (the directions I had, while correct in every detail, did not actually help much in getting me here).

Vacation Day 0: Rain

I am on vacation, which is easy to spot because I have internet access. (It's only been 37 days since I had internet at home, and I've only got 5 more to go!) The theme for today has definitely been rain: I woke up this morning to somebody spraying water at my window with a hose (which turned out to be Mother Nature), left in the rain, drove in the rain to Richmond where there was 10 minutes of sun (I even put on my sunglasses!) followed by clouds and intermittent rain until five miles from Staunton when the sun started shining again.

I did the rest and relax thing for a bit when I got here, then wandered off for a walk. We're at the edge of downtown here, it looks like, so I headed that way. Definitely a lot of old buildings that have "Valley Bank" and "Library" and "YMCA" etched into them but are now things like a BB&T and an apartment house and a hotel. Downtown had the usual: some shops, lots of trendy coffee stores and restaurants (including the Zynodoa of Matt Gaffney fame, which didn't look like it would appreciate me in a T-shirt and jeans even if the T-shirt had a parody of "The Scream" on it (which it does)). A zillion lawyers' offices, although since one of the streets (just shy of the courthouse) said Barristers' Row I guess we'll allow it. I'm not much of a picture taker, but there were a couple shots I might have liked to get, but the camera is in NN so never mind. I was out for about 45 minutes and was just getting back when the thunderstorm let loose. We'll see how long this one lasts.

The stated goal of the expedition was to find the ASC since I have tickets for tonight, which didn't actually happen. I suppose if I had looked it up on the map before I left I might have had better luck -- I was thrown off by the fact that, at least according to the map, it is not on the same street as its street address (the street address is Beverley St while the building appears to be on Market St).

We'll see what tomorrow holds -- I might go exploring the other way, depending on the how the weather shapes up (supposed to be hot, which is unfortunate, and not raining, which is fortunate). If worse comes to worst, there's always the Woodrow Wilson birthplace. (Never been a fan of such: even if you grant greatness to Wilson, and I don't know why you would, none of it would really attach to the building where he was born. I walked past it, and it is definitely a building (red brick); more than that I need not know.)

ACPT: The Numbers (2011)

This year I downloaded the full-version, extra-deluxe, double-the-cost version of the scores spreadsheet (thanks Doug Heller for making it available!) which has for everybody not just the points they scored but how they got there (wrong letters, wrong words, minutes on the clock). Granted they will still be making corrections (one of my errors was inexplicably un-highlighted, so I know there's at least one correction to make), but I can have some more confidence in my formulas. Maybe I'll make some pictures. (If you have some requests for pictures, then let me know.)

655 people were there for at least one puzzle, so my current 59th (after making above correction) will still put me in the top 10%, so at least I didn't reach my anti-goal. I missed all of my actual goals though (11500, B finals, and/or no mistakes, which when it comes down to it are pretty much the same goal at this point). The puzzles themselves definitely had a broader difficulty range, but skewing harder rather than easier (much unlike last year). I felt there was only one real clunker (#6; sorry Maura, but don't lie to me in the blurb: those puns were neither names nor from tomorrowland).

Puzzle #1: median score 1130 (corresponding to finishing correctly with 8:xx on the clock); 84% solved this correctly. I finished with 12 on the clock and 1230 points, which was conveniently enough also the top score in the room for this puzzle.
Puzzle #2: median score 870 (the puzzle proper, with no bonuses, is 890 points, so this is equivalent to one blank square with no time on the clock); 38% solved this correctly. I finished with 17 on the clock and 1465 points; top score was 20 on the clock and 1540 points.
Puzzle #3: median score 1390 (corresponding to finishing correctly with 4:xx on the clock); 50% solved this correctly. I finished with 19 on the clock and 1765 points; top score was 25 on the clock and 1915 points.
Puzzle #4: median score 1135 (corresponding to finishing correctly with 9:xx on the clock); 73% solved this correctly. I finished with 15 on the clock and 1285 points; top score was 17 on the clock and 1335 points.
Puzzle #5: median score 380 (corresponding to getting 38 correct words during the time limit); 12% solved this correctly. I finished with 13 on the clock, but 2 errors, and 1155 points; top score was 21 on the clock and 1595 points.
Puzzle #6: median score 1715 (which is not a score you can get to by finishing correctly, but still requires finishing with plenty of time -- one error and 19:xx on the clock is the easiest way to get there); 55% solved this correctly. I finished with 22 on the clock, but 3(!) errors for only 1695 points; top score was 25 on the clock and 2035 points.
Puzzle #7: median score 1670 (again requires an error -- two errors (in one word) and 12:xx on the clock will do it); 32% solved this correctly. I finished with 32 on the clock, but an error, for 2155 points; top score was 37 on the clock and 2475 points.

Looking at this, that means the median solver (well, the median ACPT solver, at any rate) finished five puzzles (but made errors on two of those) and couldn't get through #2 or #5. In fact, going through gives the following almost-but-not-quite "completion" statistics (presumably this doesn't count people who finish in the last minute, as they will have a 0 for their time-remaining just like people who didn't finish. Arguably this is a flaw in the scoring but I doubt it's at the top of anybody's priority list):
Puzzle #1: 632/653 97%
Puzzle #2: 327/653 50%
Puzzle #3: 436/652 67%
Puzzle #4: 575/651 88%
Puzzle #5: 113/651 17%
Puzzle #6: 617/651 95%
Puzzle #7: 424/616 69%

As you can see puzzles 1-4 all had no more than a 15% "oops!" rate, in terms of the difference between percentage finishing and percentage being all correct. It was rather closer for puzzle 5, probably because of so few finishers (113 finishers, and 81 people correct). In contrast, the "oops!" rate for puzzle 6 is 40%, and for puzzle 7 37%. How much of that is fatigue, and how much to the quality/trickiness of the puzzles is a little hard to get at. (For comparison purposes, last year's "oops!" rates:
Puzzle #1: 13%
Puzzle #2: 19%
Puzzle #3: 16%
Puzzle #4: 18%
Puzzle #5: 4%
Puzzle #6: 24%
Puzzle #7: 24%
so a little larger for the beginning puzzles, and smaller for the last two.)

Things, ACPT and otherwise, in handy bullet format

• First good omen of the trip: when I arrive at LaGuardia and put my MetroCard in the machine, I have more money on it than I thought meaning I don't have to put any money in for the weekend.
• Second good omen of the trip: when I step outside, there is a bus already there.
• Early check-in worked again despite me not bothering to tell them, so hooray for the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott.
• Nap time! before the mingling (or in legal terminology "loitering").
  
• The loitering was made more difficult by the fact that the rent-a-cop seemingly couldn't decide where we weren't supposed to be, so every so often he'd clear us out of wherever we had congregated from the last time we moved. Eventually he did decide that we shouldn't be in front of the escalators or around the big table in the lobby, although by that point we were numerous enough that there was always someone in front of the escalators or around the big table in the lobby.
• Although by that point it was dinner time. This year I wandered off with Peter Gordon et al for Indian food and a very good chicken tandoori (which was not the only item of the menu that I was sure to recognize when it arrived, as they also had kebabs).
• Friday night festivities. I don't know (and I doubt that Wz will ever tell) the paid attendance here; my not-very-good estimating sense guesses 250. I was surprised how many people were there while still maintaining a sworn conviction that they didn't like cryptic crosswords, since the main event was a US/UK cryptic crossword tournament -- not that they had never done them, but that they had done them and didn't like them.
• For the Saturday main event, I do what I always do, which is get there a fair bit early, sit two seats in from the aisle, and see who shows up. This year I was around two rookies, an retiree who has been doing puzzles for a while (and was actually more of a cryptic fan, as he had entered many (and won several) of the English newspaper puzzle weekly contests) and who came back for Sunday, and a younger office manager from Brooklyn, who didn't (but insisted she was having fun on Saturday).
• I made many errors (as in six or so) over the last three puzzles (5,6,7) ranging from "understandable" to "I wasn't even thinking of that letter how did it get in my puzzle", which made for a very disappointing day all told.
• There was a one-act crossword-"themed" play presented, that had originally been done for some sort of playwright's playhouse/community theater organization in upstate New York. My reaction at the time was negative. Upon further review, I guess that any one sub-piece of the play was good; however, they were all mutually inconsistent so stringing them all together led to a not-very-good sum total.
• And then there was the "ACPT-zing [pronounced 'amazing'] race", which was a puzzle fest put together by Pliska'n'Chaneski. It appeared to be a very amazing piece of work, although I had volunteered to be a "judge", also known as "Canada", so I only got to see a very small portion of the thing as it happened. It was fun to see people looking for some flag they didn't really know (like Tanzania, or Nigeria, or the Marshall Islands), realizing that I was a country and scooting around to see my flag, and then saying "Oh. Canada." How they made a national anthem out of that I'll never know.
• Speaking of, I thought being a country would be rather restful, but I was just as excited as the players were watching them scurry around.
• The variety show was certainly varied, with a blues theme.
• The B finals had a really very interesting finish -- you should go look for it to watch.
• Dan smoked through the A finals as expected.

Riichi GMT Round 4

And we end not with a bang, but with an anguished cry of despair. I managed to pay for six of the first five hands, since my I-really-shouldn't-do-this-but-I've-lost-the-last-five-hands-and-this-makes-my-hand-able-to-go-out discard gave two of my opponents mahjong, and in RCR they both win. I had a couple good hands towards the end, but it was far too little. I managed to come in last at the table, even losing to the player who wasn't even there. Ugh.

Riichi GMT Round 3

A lot of self-drawn, a lot of dealer winning and keeping the deal -- in 50 minutes and 12 or so hands, we never did get all the way around as dealer once. I won the first three (two as dealer), then there was a draw, then my RHO won six in a row (five self-drawn so that we all had to pay) and was the winner by far. Still, two points, and I've now moved to the right side of the middle to 17th place.