Rex Parker celebrates birthdays

Happy 40th birthday to my friend Michael Sharp, the man known as Rex Parker! Tomorrow is his birthday as well as Thanksgiving. To celebrate, Andrea Carla Michaels and Doug Peterson made a crossword in Rex's honor. The "King of the Blog" puzzle is posted at the Fiend forum.

You know who else is celebrating a birthday this week? Rex's favorite crossword-solving actress, Christina Applegate. Michael created a crossword for Christina's birthday, spotlighting the foundation she started to fund MRI screening for young women at high risk for breast cancer. This puzzle is called "Star Turns," and it's available in Across Lite and PDF at the forum. You'll also want to read the Rex Parker blog post about the genesis of the puzzle. If you can spare a few bucks, please consider joining Michael and me in donating to the foundation, which I won't name here because it's a spoiler for the puzzle (both links in this paragraph are for pages that include a link to the foundation).

Have a happy Thanksgiving (unless you're Canadian or South African or whatnot), everyone!