Announcements!

Three things:

ONE: Heads-up! This Sunday's NYT crossword will contain a visual aspect that it's impossible to include in Across Lite or the applet. So if you're a Premium Puzzles subscriber who likes to get the puzzle online, look for the PDF at the Premium Puzzles page tomorrow or Sunday. (If by chance no PDF is posted there, try the Wordplay blog.)

TWO: Teenaged crossword maker Caleb Madison (who made today's NYT puzzle) is teaching a continuing ed class on crossword construction this Sunday, September 13, from 11 to 2, at John Jay College (899 10th Ave., btw. 58th and 59th St.) in New York. The JASA courses are targeted at the 55-and-up crowd, but just try to look older if you don't make the cutoff.

THREE: You probably didn't see All About Steve. Neither did I. But I've enjoyed the roundups of the many bad reviews of the movie. (Meaning the many entertaining reviews of a bad movie.) Californian crossworder Lee Glickstein sent me a link to a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle shaming reviewers for characterizing Sandra Bullock's character as a deluded nut. Ken Bank says, basically, hey, that's mean, the character obviously has Asperger syndrome, and shame on the reviewers for pathologizing her. Mind you, the movie doesn't say she has Asperger syndrome, so this may have been the furthest thing from the movie makers' minds. Lee spoke with the director of Ken Bank's group, and she said a lot of crossword solvers are "aspies." I don't suppose anyone recognized themselves in Bullock's character?