According to Gawker, attending a crossword puzzle convention is nerdier than playing Dungeons and Dragons:

This year's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament had a joke from Will Shortz about an obscure word for "needle case." It had contestants gasping at a story about leaving one square blank. It had cosplay. And crossword contestants asked aloud why ESPN doesn't cover their tourney.

Personally, I thought that the etui joke was pretty funny. (As funny as an inside joke, anyway, than the umpteenth Gawker reference to Julia Allison or Tinsley Mortimer.) But maybe you had to be there...