August 9, 2017 - "Birthday Bash" - Francis Heaney, edited by Ben Tausig

Difficulty ● ● ◐ ○ ○

Puzzle Notes

Dear friends: 

Francis Heaney brings us Birthday Bash, a 4/5 difficulty puzzle.

The winners of our contest from two weeks ago are Steven Golden (Lollapuzoola attendee), who sent a picture of his computer, and Kim Scudera (non-attendee), who sent in a picture of her Yamaha mixer and speaker. Thanks to everyone who played!

Meanwhile, a less-fun update: the AVCX has been in a holding pattern recently. We have multiple problems with our technical infrastructure, and I apologize to those who have not been sent their puzzles regularly. We are in the process of a major transition designed precisely to fix our existing problems. Our goal is to avoid any kind of interruption that youll notice. 


Its been a difficult year, and weve worked on a variety of fronts to keep everything going smoothly. Our technical transition has been more difficult than expected. Ill spare you the details, and simply say that I love writing and editing puzzles a lot, and that I look forward to (hopefully soon) focusing on that rather than administrative stuff. I really only have one request, which is for your patience and understanding. If youve written with a download issue, a subscription problem, or anything else, Im keenly aware of it, and were working as quickly as possible to resolve any issues.

The reasons for the AVCXs existence are to give great constructors an outlet, to practice inclusivity of various kinds, and to try to model fair pay in an industry (not just crosswords, but content) that trends otherwise. Those are still our goals, and thats what were working on, always.

 

Thanks,

Ben and the AVCX crew [avxword.com, @AVCXWord]