I've been watching the bee with friends in Discord, but please know that if the spell-off has no haters, I am dead.

Linguist moment: heard someone casually directing someone to the "fourth floor" with enough of a Boston accent to drop the Rs.

I can't actually watch the bee today, and the spelling bee website is showing only the wrong spellings for misspelled words, so it's a fun little game for me to figure out what the right spellings are.

I don't have that much to say about the National Spelling Bee prelims, but always a delight to see the words I spelled coming back. (Alcarraza in this case, misspelled this year.)

Some personal news… catch me on tomorrow’s Jeopardy!

Ive been doing the Construct One Crossword Per Week regimen for a while now, it works great bc if i miss a week it just gets tacked onto the next week. Try it!! anyway on Friday im slated to write 1250 crosswords

I don't know if I have many BOTC people following me here, but in case there's any overlap, I'm at Final Three Con, come say hi?

New puzzle from me and @acommonrose.bsky.social ! 🎶 www.puzzmo.com/puzzle/2026-...

Generative AI? The protagonist of Left Hand of Darkness?

Hello from the #acpt where everyone looks disconcertingly like someone I *might* know

This is my obligatory come say hi to me at ACPT post

We are excited to announce Midis for Minnesota, an upcoming crossword pack by Minnesota constructors. Proceeds will support immigrant families in Minnesota who have been impacted by ICE activity. Pack will be released in late April. A preview puzzle by Zhouqin Burnikel is available now.

My last Puzzmo mini is running today, so I just wanted to say a big thank you to anyone who has solved and enjoyed the March minis!

I've started solving the NYT crosswords again in preparation for ACPT, and I don't think they're bad per se, but it is wild to me how some people act like these are so much better than all other puzzles, when they're just... not.

happy 4-Across day from our mini crossword resident @acommonrose.bsky.social 🍄 solve here! www.puzzmo.com/puzzle/2026-...

I probably won't post every individual puzzle here (especially this week when I'm traveling), but I am Puzzmo's resident mini creator this month! www.puzzmo.com/puzzle/2026-...

spotted on ravelry: the pattern to knit the sock pictured on the Wikipedia article for "sock" www.ravelry.com/patterns/lib...

I'm not reposting this as much bc I'm not doing the NYT crossword as much, but please know they're still doing this.

genuinely insane for the new york times to call a new york accent a "mispronunciation"

Lol my "AI crosswords bad" thread got a reply from a (now blocked) account that looked like an AI bot that was saying that I'm onto something about the "potential future" of AI crosswords. To be 1000% percent clear, I do not want AI-generated crosswords. At all. Ever.

In fall of 2022 (shortly pre-ChatGPT), Alex Boisvert and I made an "AI-generated" crossword where all the clues were written by a small language model that I intentionally trained to be kind of bad at writing clues. At the time, I remembered observing that AI could write perfectly serviceable clues.

Teaching a 4:30 class this semester and it is very rude that my computer’s blue light filter keeps turning on when I’m presenting slides

Okay, what do I need to do to get Jet Lag the Game to release Amy's newest puzzle box for the public? I wanna do the crossword in there.

Just saving this for the next time the NYT publishes a bad crossword and/or rejects one of my puzzles

Bought a nice men's suit for a wedding I'm going to, and I have now realized that the men are clearly better than I am at ironing dress shirts.

acrosswordrose.blogspot.com/2025/08/trou... The 15th and final summer puzzle is a tribute to the game Blood on the Clocktower--an idea I've had rattling around my head for a bit.

acrosswordrose.blogspot.com/2025/08/them... Penultimate summer puzzle is up!

Blood on the Clocktower is a very good game, and Trouble Brewing is a very good starter script except for the fact that the evil characters' names and good characters' names are all different lengths, making it very hard for me to make my hidden role themed crossword puzzle.

My friends are doing a cool thing

I walked to the library to return an overdue book even though it was very hot outside, so I think I’m basically a hero

I have morphed from Lolla competitor into frog. (Come say hi if you’re here!)

I was informed at Boswords that NYT is at it again, so I will keep tapping the sign

Summer puzzle 10 is up. Also, I'll be at Boswords tomorrow, come say hi! acrosswordrose.blogspot.com/2025/07/a-co...

Perpetually not the worst thing NYT has done this week but I have a habit to maintain

Btw, I know I've missed summer puzzles for the last two weekends--I got sick and then had busy/stressful travel plans, but new puzzle coming as soon as I manage to clue it!

acrosswordrose.blogspot.com/2025/06/imag... Got real silly in this week's summer puzzle

acrosswordrose.blogspot.com/2025/06/abso... I forgot to post my latest summer puzzle here yesterday, but hey, it's up now!

This week's summer puzzle is a spelling bee tribute (and another Norah collab!) acrosswordrose.blogspot.com/2025/06/take...

xwordswithbabka.blogspot.com/2025/06/them... @danschwartz.bsky.social and I made a puzzle for his blog!

A TRANS PERSON MADE YOUR PUZZLE is LIVE !!!! donate at least $10 USD to an American trans charity and receive 10 puzzles by trans constructors edited by me and @cantorlope.bsky.social beautiful cover art by @pseudonymjones.bsky.social happy pride :) tinyurl.com/transxwords

acrosswordrose.blogspot.com/2025/05/maki... This week's blog puzzle

A very deserving winner (and no spell-off!). Let's gooooo

Screaming at my computer to make the spelling bee words harder

My main spelling bee hot take is that the vocab rounds are bad because it's the spelling bee being ashamed of being a SPELLING bee. Have a spine, and admit that spelling is valuable in and of itself!

Me when the woman singing covers at the random lobster spot in Maine sings Good Luck Babe: Wow, incredible that such a lesbian song has gotten so popular. Me when she immediately follows it with Red Wine Supernova: Okay, are you just gay?

I'm traveling this week, so probably not going to do much spelling bee watching this year! I'm sure I'll pop back in for the finals and have... thoughts on the rules.

acrosswordrose.blogspot.com/2025/05/them... @norahsharpe.bsky.social collabed with me for this week's summer puzzle--a tough themeless

Hey, so if you too are on the "please stop referencing Harry Potter in your crosswords" train, there's an open letter to the NYT games team you can sign forms.gle/Df33KTqr7MbA...

Incredible how you couldn't think of a single possible clue for MENTOR that doesn't mention a TERF