XWord Muggles Forum

Well fiddle dee dee - I feel so foolish. I got a nudge to go back and finish something I had started (and without that nudge I NEVER would have done it) and then, as the great detectives say "all was revealed". I do truly HATE it when what I feel is so impossible is right there if I take the time to not panic and look through logical eyes (Okay, sometimes someone has to tell me to do that but you get my point).

So, bottom line, I am ashore and I brought a bottle of Pincer 88 Vodka so I can either make drinks or sanitize!!!

Well with all of the activity in the outside world this week, I didn’t get to the puzzle until today and I guess I simply don’t have enough time to ruminate. Still at the bar; but I have some good company.

Struggling noobie here for sure!

BrianDavidson wrote: ↑Sat Mar 21, 2020 10:23 am I’ve got nothing. No longer trying.

Nooooo!!! Keep at it!!

My daughter and I just made it (with a lot of help from some contest veterans), and we're so excited! It's our first time ever doing the puzzle

I keep at it, but when I can't see the path, you should see the pile of words and letters on paper that I generate! I have some clever meaningless anagrams to share later.

I’m very late to the shore party and worried that I won’t be able to find a 6-foot stretch of sand for my social-distancing/beach towel. Had to put this one aside for a couple of days, but when I picked it up for one last look tonight I remembered a thought I had and there it was!

Hmmm. Could be I overthought this. Just this minute looked at it and a solution popped right out. So, while dark getting to the beach, I'll make a run for it.

Omigod, why can't I get this?? I'm good at these, I swear! I have less than nothing, have spent too much time with Isaac, and don't want to give up. But I'm losing my mind.

Finished the grid on Friday then rode ashore this morning.

To win all I needed to know
Was the place in the grid I should go
To reveal every letter
Involved in the meta
When I did it was easy to show

Our final report has 22 on the ship with Isaac and 126 on the shore.

But first we warmly welcome a lot of new muggles: LizandBritta, ClayD, flyingMoose, Patricia P, zacmoretz, rubyredhead, yungchap, stlrose, thejeffbrown. Sorry if I missed anyone in the newbie crowd.

Since lunch Isaac's bar has increased by
joe
Fred F
LaceyK
Patty
Diane
jag
Colin
Christopher
Bird Lives
Susan G
thejeffbrown
stlrose
Connor
Alexis
zacmoretz


and the shore has grown by
DennyB
Susan H
inca
Juliet
Paul D
Ann P
Commodore
rexthree
Domenic
Patricia P
the flying Moose
the Thurman8er
OGuyDave
DrTom
leslie
Limerick Savant
ClayD
Deb
and LizandBritta

Again, welcome to our newest muggles. Our clan numbers 582 strong

And good luck winning the mug.

Stay safe.

My girlfriend did almost all of the grid yesterday, while I was doing something else. When she became stumped, I was able to finish it, including the last long answer. However, no further progress since. Still onboard.
Tomorrow morning, I go back to work in Vermont, and will likely not be let back across the Quebec border for at least a month, due to the current situation
Thank you howardl for the link to The Atlantic article, and thanks to my other Muggle friends for the links to the WSJ articles
Good Night!

Oh dear sweet mother of pearl and there it is. *pounds head on counter repeatedly* I'm on shore and everyone is napping.

Joe wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 10:01 pm Oh dear sweet mother of pearl and there it is. *pounds head on counter repeatedly* I'm on shore and everyone is napping.

And that would be known as a KAS 2

Been busy all weekend. Just did it and got to shore in record time.

I keep being inspired by those who have toiled and then it hits them. I have worked some things to make a 10 letter answer that fits but I know it's not right. But time to submit and scroll slowly at 9 (my time), because sometimes I see just a hint and I'm able to get some of the satisfaction of solving part of it.

Okay this is a first. I submitted my unsure answer. Then I tried something again which I know I did before, but maybe not exactly the right way, and then it was there. So I submitted a second email. Can you submit more than one email? Probably not, or else others would try to submit many right answers to increase their odds. But how do they only receive one email per person?
Well I'm just happy to have solved it.

LaceyK wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 11:22 pm But how do they only receive one email per person?

Prior discussions by WSJ Puzzle staff reveal that they select from all entries until they select one with the correct answer.

My guess is that they build a simple database of answers, email addresses, & times received. It would be easy to search for the selected winning entry's email address for multiple entries.

Ok, here's how I got to my answer.

First, the 5 theme answers:

18A: Home Equity
20A: Holy Water
39A: Flight Simulator (this particular one drove me batty trying to figure out what the frack it was doing there)
56A: Cream Soda
61A: Third Place (i.e., "win, place or show" - show being "third place")

So after lots of chasing of rabbits and other small furries, my wife said "what's the deal - what's that "THIRD PLACE" doing there - what does that mean?" So ... I started explaining to her the use of it, and stopped in mid-explanation, saying, "no, it couldn't be, ... what's the letter in the third position in each part of these 5 themed answers?"

And they are:

MU LT IM ED IA

or MULTIMEDIA, a 10 letter word and ... Multi = Variety and Media = Show, so it's the answer to this week's meta.

Yes, a KAS-2 - an answer that, once seen, has you doing a face palm as to why you hadn't seen it before.

Good luck to all in winning the mug - let it come to a forum member this week!

The answer to the contest is MULTIMEDIA.

Mike Shenk’s contests almost always have a clue embedded in the answers which directs you to the meta solution. And they almost never require external knowledge like Matt’s did last week. I say almost because in meta contests there is no such thing as always.

In this case we had a 10 letter word answer and we had 10 words in the five long answers. So the question is which letters to select. What jumped out at me was the fourth long answer THIRD PLACE. So the first thing I looked at was the third letter in each of the 10 words. And lo and behold, they spelled out the contest answer.