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There they are folks, your ideals: Crossword editor Will Shortz is the Timesman you love for his brain, and Styles reporter Warren St. John is the Timesman you love for his body.

Shortz — who ever so briefly discussed his domination in an NPR appearance this weekend — had the "brains" category locked up all along. But there was some real excitement in the "body" section. At first it seemed like St. John had a lock on it. But then things got so tight over the weekend we were moved to post a special Sunday update. Here's what we reported yesterday afternoon:

We woke up today to discover a huge Nick Confessore surge, putting the preppy wonk about a hundred votes ahead of the ur-metrosexual at noon. But then St. John spent the afternoon closing that gap. We checked in around 5 p.m. and discovered of all things a tie. This is amazing. Such drama, such suspense, such wow.

Throughout last night, Confessore and St. John remained neck and neck, with the tally returning to a tie several times through the night. Late in the evening, though, St. John had finally pulled a safe dozen or so votes ahead, and he remained there till this morning, when the polls closed. The final result: St. John by 33 votes.

Where did Confessore's late surge come from? The candidate had a confession:

I got a call from my mom today — she's out in Long Island for the weekend — saying that she had rallied all her friends at the beach, plus her book club, plus everyone at some gigantic cocktail party she was at on Saturday night, and then voted from both the computers at the local library.

We feel bad a little bad for Mrs. C. right now — after all that hard work, we imagine her feeling like Oskar Schindler in the final scene, agonizing that she should have sold her car to get just a few more. But we're also genuinely impressed by her dedication to getting her son laid. That's some good mothering.

Meantime, we send hearty mazel tovs to big winners Shortz and St. John. Next time we see you, boys, first round is on us.

Final results are after the jump. And new contest TK later on today.