This Recent Time Period in Puzzles

1. OMG OMG two P&A metas in a row. Either Foggy is slipping or I, after 10 years of this, have started to not suck at these. They both seem vanishingly unlikely.
2. My ACPT training: I started working on the big book of Boston Globe puzzles when I got to the auto shop today at 9:30. My hand started to hurt around 12:15, so that's not bad I guess. I took a break and started in again at 12:30 and then the car was ready at about 1. I was unable to solve one of the HH puzzles. :( Bonus observation: Not even Henry Hook can make a Sunday-size quote puzzle anything but insipid, or obscure. It was a bit of a shock to the system to do a "real" HH puzzle after several quote puzzles in a row.
3. Next part of ACPT training: print out Fireball 2, find the Official ACPT Pencil And Eraser, set the kitchen timer to 20:00, and go. It won't be a complete reproduction , because I won't be sitting at the junction of two of those long industrial tables which are at different heights, meaning I have to sit at an angle (because I'm right at the legs of the table) and add some padding underneath the puzzle (so that the puzzle lies flat). Maybe I should just sit on the aisle this year.
4. OMGOMG two P&A metas
5. I got seduced by a quote for my next acrostic, and didn't originally realize that it had 452 characters in it. I have since edited it, and now it's at 294 characters (IIRC). It still might be too much.
6. I have made 0 progress on my idea for an ACPT puzzle suite.
7. I won't be able to bring Matt Gaffney pencils (plural) to Brooklyn, since I've only got one and I'm already dead for this month. (Well, technically the book prizes now include a pencil too, but those odds aren't usually very good.)
   

P&A Progress Post

This is here mainly to remind myself, when I want to throw this entire stack of papers out a window, that I've actually done something with this set. Also, to help me keep track of which ones of these I want to look at sooner rather than later. (And of course all the finished puzzles are implicitly "unless I've done something stupid".)

Shadow of the Vampire: sure looks nice, though
Day Watch: ding! (the hint here was the needed inspiration, so hooray!)
Space Vampires: 0 done, should get to quick
Billy the Kid vs. Dracula: ding!
Let the Right One In: ding!
From Dusk till Dawn: ding!
Monster Squad: ding!
Dracula: ding! (Tell you what: starting in the lower left, combined with the flavortext, originally sent me in a far different direction from where I was supposed to go.)
Queen of the Damned: ding! (currently: favorite puzzle) (and re-ding! because my original answer was (5 8) instead of (7 9) as the hints claim it should be) (and now un-ding! since this answer can't fit in the meta grid now:( )
Cronos: ding!
Scream, Blacula, Scream: ding!
The Hunger: 0.5 done I will always be able to solve the -0ku part and never ever solve the bit where you actually get the answer
The Wisdom of Crocodiles: ding!
Count Dracula: ding! (Used the hint rather than figure out what the total number was supposed to be)
Metas: Mirrors fixed in Being Human, and one word revealed. I have taken a reasonable guess and submitted it (hence making Vamp forever out-of-bounds).

Ten-to-eleven puzzles done already, using a total of three hints: I don't know what's wrong with me.

AND FINALLY: ding ding ding! So back to the original answer for QotD, which made my guess, while correct, even more outlandish (since I had fewer letters now, rather than more). Oh well.

ACPT Questions and Reckless Answers

1. What interesting things are going to happen Friday evening? Good question. There will be a huge crush of humanity trying to meet and greet and set up plans for Friday after the games and Saturday lunch and Saturday night and Sunday lunch and Sunday after the awards. One group getting together Saturday noon will discover that none of them actually knew each other previously, and three romantic couples will form in the protoplasm. Eric Berlin will come up with something interesting, specifically awarding Tyler Hinman and Merl Reagle a free drink from the hotel bar. The rest of the time will be filled with an old tape featuring news reports of the ACPT from 1984, incorrectly indignant letters-to-the-editor from Will's pile, and a pick-your-poison contest where everyone will do the cryptic (as they always do), despite the alternatives of (1) a page of 4x4 Kenken(TM)(R)(K)(P), (2) guessing what's in Henry Hook's pocket, (3) a page of 6x6 Kenken(TM)(R)(K)(P), and (4) a diagramless.

2. What's up with Saturday night? Pliska and Chaneski will come up with something, and will stretch it too far because nobody else will have volunteered something, although this year we'll be able to legitimately do 1 vs. 100 on Saturday night because only 100 people will have bothered to show up.

3. Aren't there some crossword puzzles? Yes.

3a. Well? Byron Walden will make his triumphant return to puzzle #5, which will be a rebus theme involving two Greek letters, two Cyrillic letters, and two Hebrew letters. The subsequent applause after announcing Maura Jacobson's name for puzzle #6 will delay the tournament for ten minutes. Merl will have the Sunday puzzle, and will manage to get 21 puns in a 21x21. Five contestants will break 2:00 on puzzle #1, and Trip Payne will pull a muscle trying to break 2:00 on puzzle #4.

4. Who gets the money? I think it's just reckless enough to answer: Dan Feyer, 2010 ACPT champion.

5. A talent show? Again? Not a talent show: a "variety program", just like Milton Berle used to do. Guests will include Ed Wynn, Martha Raye, and Francis Heaney, who will be so vaguely discomfited at being unable to boycott the awards banquet this year that he will write and perform a self-mocking parody of "Howl".

6. What will be the biggest surprise of the weekend? Will not announcing time/location of the next tournament, as he will be investigating taking the show on the road rather than continue to pay the extortionate fees charged by the Brooklyn site. [Who am I kidding; that will never happen. The real surprise: the hotel security team not kicking puzzlers out of the lobby at the stroke of midnight this year.]