Noted burninator (7).

Actually, the burninatin' was mostly done by a 6-letter fellow named Hinman. Congrats, rpipuzzleguy!

As for me: 13th overall, 2nd New England. I tore through the very hard puzzle 5, but had one crossing I didn't know and guessed wrong on. And then I apparently screwed up something on puzzle 7, which was most likely something stupid. That annoys me.

But, the weekend was fun, as it always is. I spent more time just chatting with people this time, which was great. And I met the NPL's Mr. Tex, aka Mike Reiss, whom I'd never met before and who is very cool indeed. I managed to more or less maintain last year's relaxed approach, and I think that's the way to go, for me.

I also had a cold set in over the weekend, so I feel like utter crap this morning -- but that's not the tournament's fault.

More tournamentiana.

First: I was so happy to see mr_do42 make the A finals. I take minimal partial credit for having encouraged him his first couple of years. :)

Second: The Trogdor reference ("noted burninator") in my last post had to do with a prank we pulled on rpipuzzleguy. He's worn the same Trogdor shirt every year that he's won, so about a dozen of us showed up with Trogdor shirts on Sunday morning. ennirol has the proof.

Third: Eric Berlin's Friday evening extravaganza was a joy to solve. I recommend it. He's selling copies for $1.99 -- more than worth the price, in my estimation.

Fourth: Why the heck didn't I just call in sick this morning?

As I thought.

Yup. It was a dumb mistake.

No, I'm not going to tell you what it was. That would just add to my feelings of STUPID unnecessarily.

But ... geez. Dumb dumb dumb.