PUZZLE #77: "And the Bartender Says, 'Why the Long Puzzle?'"

PDF
PUZ

Then the bartender says "Why the short posts?" and I say "School, mostly." 

Major shoutout to Chris King for letting me bite his style for the pdf version of this puzzle (semi-spoilers in the link). And, unrelated shoutout to Chris King for writing one of the coolest metas I've ever seen.

Also I haven't tested this with other solving programs, but do know that Black Ink will almost definitely crash if you try to open this puzzle. If you run into that with your program, the applet should be workable (if a little jumpy).

Hope you enjoy!
Paolo

[5:07 Pacific Time: UPDATED to fix a misspelling in the grid!]