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So here I am at the crossword tournament; I'm clearly not having my best year, but I doubt I've embarrassed myself, either.

One of the many puzzle handouts was a contest crossword which asked you to write a knock-knock joke on the back of the crossword. I thought I should write an original knock-knock joke for the occasion, so this is what I came up with:

Knock knock.

Who's there?

FDR.

FDR who?

If the art of raising the dead weren't fictional, it would actually be possible for Franklin Delano Roosevelt to be knocking on your door.

In addition to crosswords, a lot of games get played at the tournament. I just finished a game of Cluesome, a game for a large group in which you try to come up with a clue that will be solved by at least one person, but not more than half the number of people playing. So you're going for obscure, but not too obscure.

I find the game entertaining since I hardly ever know the right answers, so I just spend most of my time making up cheap jokes. For instance, someone gave the clue "Tiffany case title". I had no idea what that meant, so I guessed "U.S. vs. 'I Think We're Alone Now' ". (The real answer was "Diamonds Are Forever", a movie featuring the character Tiffany Case.)

There has been one significant glitch at the tournament this year, and one which seemed pretty predictable. Before puzzle 6, Will Shortz announced that a group of high school students had volunteered to collect papers for that round. We were a little concerned about that over in my corner, and for good reason, it turned out -- some of them wrote incorrect solving times on answer sheets, potentially throwing the tournament rankings out of whack. So if I don't make the top ten, I'm blaming the high schoolers.

Posted by Francis at 11:20 PM