Linesmen should be seen and not heard (Sunday brunch: August 4, 2013)

Temporary post: internet access is spotty, full post with links to follow.

My first games of the State Games of America went pretty well.  Since three of my assignments are as linesman and only the first was as referee, and all the games I worked last season were as referee, I was a little concerned about remembering the division of labor and my proper skating lanes.

The National Post cryptic by Hex has a linguistic theme.

The New York Times has a Fred Piscop Puns and Anagrams behind the paywall.  Look for a solution posted here tomorrow.

The Wall Street Journal has a Rows Garden by Patrick Berry which is one of the easiest Rows Gardens I’ve ever done.  I got a decent number of the acrosses on the first go through, some of the blooms snapped into place, and that resolved more acrosses.  I was down to one row before putting the puzzle down and got it the next time I picked it up. 

Nathan Curtis had a bit of a hiccup with his planned post, so he gives us a quick and deceivingly tricky variety crossword with a simple minimally-intersecting grid.  The puzzle is in fitting the answers into the grid.

Xanthippe has a new Sunday-size brit-cryptic, but no PDF yet.

I was remiss in not noticing some new Kevin Wald variety cryptics: not on his regular page but on the convention cryptics page.  The 2013 puzzles were unveiled in Austin.  They are definitely hard, but not the hardest I’ve seen from him.

“I'm going to put the puck on this side of the dot because the ice on that side is still wet.”