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Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:06 am
by EmilyW
I did not find the missing link. I started out convinced it was golf related with par at the beginning of the puzzle, and thought I was screwed since that's about the extent of my golf knowledge. I also chased the ONE, NINE, TEN rabbit and words with one letter differences. I ended up submitting an answer I knew was wrong right before the deadline but I got a kick out of it anyway. I saw TACOMAN/OMAN and EMANATE/ATE. If you take the extra letters in the first words and spell them backwards, you get CAT NAME. My cat's name is Cleo which isn't enough letters, and I couldn't think of any famous cats with 5 letters. I considered tabby, but thought that was too close to recent meta answer tally. "Links" made me think of lynx, so I moved on to big cats and submitted TIGER.

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:15 am
by FrankieHeck
DrTom wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:40 am
Wendy Walker wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:17 am I was distracted for a while by SEA-TAC in the bottom right and thought the strategy might be airport acronyms.
And TACOMAN reminded me of the time when my brother and I, with our usual overinflated sense of agency, wrote to Frito-Lay suggesting they use the Village People song "Macho Man" to advertise Nacho Cheese Doritos ("Nacho, nacho man! I wanna be a nacho man"). They said thanks but no thanks and sent us some coupons.
Darn, I like Fritos, wonder if I could send them a jingle done to the tune of Born Free, "Born Frito, Frito as cheese flows..."?

Was thinking of you this week-end because there was a piece on TV about a man in Uniontown, PA who has been harassed by the Police many times but ran to the site of a bad police car crash to pull an officer out of a burning vehicle that would definitely have taken his life. It was a very nice story (well as nice as one with a car wreck in it can be) and was very much appreciated during all of the negative reporting that abounds.

I always do a double take when I see Uniontown because I am from near Unionville, PA - MUCH smaller.
I live about 25 miles from Uniontown, and it is quite small. Unionville must be microscopic.

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:24 am
by DrTom
FrankieHeck wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:15 am
DrTom wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:40 am
Wendy Walker wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:17 am I was distracted for a while by SEA-TAC in the bottom right and thought the strategy might be airport acronyms.
And TACOMAN reminded me of the time when my brother and I, with our usual overinflated sense of agency, wrote to Frito-Lay suggesting they use the Village People song "Macho Man" to advertise Nacho Cheese Doritos ("Nacho, nacho man! I wanna be a nacho man"). They said thanks but no thanks and sent us some coupons.
Darn, I like Fritos, wonder if I could send them a jingle done to the tune of Born Free, "Born Frito, Frito as cheese flows..."?

Was thinking of you this week-end because there was a piece on TV about a man in Uniontown, PA who has been harassed by the Police many times but ran to the site of a bad police car crash to pull an officer out of a burning vehicle that would definitely have taken his life. It was a very nice story (well as nice as one with a car wreck in it can be) and was very much appreciated during all of the negative reporting that abounds.

I always do a double take when I see Uniontown because I am from near Unionville, PA - MUCH smaller.
I live about 25 miles from Uniontown, and it is quite small. Unionville must be microscopic.
Wow, I must have been asleep at the keys, I didn't see I wrote Unionville, not Uniondale. No that it makes much difference, Uniondale is so small that I sneezed once while going through town and was 20 yards outside the village limits by the time I recovered. It's biggest claim to fame right now is that it is a nice stopping point on the PA-NY Rail Trail.

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:25 am
by Joe Ross
I've got your warren...


20200710 WSJCC Missing Links RHs.gif

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:30 am
by ClayD
Did anyone go down the APEX rabbit trail? Once I found the APEs and MANs, I noticed that an alternate answer for ACME was APEX. It has APE and also follows the same pattern as MANy with a single letter after the theme word. Thought perhaps that was part of what was "missing", but I abandoned it pretty quickly after it went nowhere

ClayD

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:32 am
by zacmoretz
Bob cruise director wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:21 am To make sure everyone knows, we have been having zoom telecconferences Tuesday evening

Yourpalsal will put the link and time here later Monday
Would love to join in but I threw my phone out the window when I saw the answer to this one! 😀

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:37 am
by boharr
MajordomoTom wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:05 am On my later review of the grid, I suddenly noted - "there are a LOT of APEs in this grid".

I then went ... how many? 5 - ok, what else? Then saw the "MAN" and went - 5 of them, ok what connects?

And it just fell into place.
I did the same except saw MAN then APE.

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:46 am
by boharr
MaineMarge wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 6:57 am Had I HIGHLIGHTED each of them, I might have joined that elusive group of first page solvers.
Exactly. Something to remember. I reprinted, highlighted, and got on shore early.

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 10:17 am
by Bird Lives
FrankieHeck wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:15 am
DrTom wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:40 am

Was thinking of you this week-end because there was a piece on TV about a man in Uniontown, PA who has been harassed by the Police many times but ran to the site of a bad police car crash to pull an officer out of a burning vehicle that would definitely have taken his life. It was a very nice story (well as nice as one with a car wreck in it can be) and was very much appreciated during all of the negative reporting that abounds.

I always do a double take when I see Uniontown because I am from near Unionville, PA - MUCH smaller.
I live about 25 miles from Uniontown, and it is quite small. Unionville must be microscopic.
[/quote]
I grew up in Mt. Lebanon, 50 miles north of Uniontown, but Uniontown was often on our football schedule. I was in the band, and it was a long bus trip.

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 10:23 am
by Tony S
MatthewB wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:54 am I was lost among the rabbit holes until my sister - in - law became obsessed with Louis Leakey and Lucy, the missing link. Once I saw there were 5 apes, I knew that was the correct path... With little more than an hour to spare.
There was a clue, 26d, that read "Anthropologist Leakey" with the answer being LOUIS. I think that may have been a gift from Mike Shenk.

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:07 am
by LesY
Love the word PAPEETE so much this one clicked fairly quickly, esp. once I saw the two "APE" words in similar positioning further down. And then I had Southern Cross playing pleasantly in my head for much of the weekend. Win win!

If the Louis Leakey clue was the nudge then the subtlety was excellent.

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:15 am
by whimsy
Rad26 wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:35 am Saw the APES right away and played with them all weekend. Never found the men. Makes me a monkey’s uncle. Oh well.
Dang! You used my punchline already! :) So I'll have to go with plan B:

After trying to make PARAPET into PARAKEET as well as EMANATE into MANATEE, I finally saw the correct animal, and eventually the MAN, so I ended up considering this puzzle more fun than a barrel of......

I'm wondering which of us saw APE first (or only) and who saw MAN first (or only) and what that might say about us! :D

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:23 am
by whimsy
Tony S wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 10:23 am
MatthewB wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:54 am I was lost among the rabbit holes until my sister - in - law became obsessed with Louis Leakey and Lucy, the missing link. Once I saw there were 5 apes, I knew that was the correct path... With little more than an hour to spare.
There was a clue, 26d, that read "Anthropologist Leakey" with the answer being LOUIS. I think that may have been a gift from Mike Shenk.
And that's the trouble, isn't it? You're never quite sure which are the gifts and which the purposely placed misdirections!
I always think of those scenes with Charlie Brown and Lucy and the football. :roll:

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:24 am
by Laura M
whimsy wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:15 am
Rad26 wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:35 am Saw the APES right away and played with them all weekend. Never found the men. Makes me a monkey’s uncle. Oh well.
Dang! You used my punchline already! :) So I'll have to go with plan B:

After trying to make PARAPET into PARAKEET as well as EMANATE into MANATEE, I finally saw the correct animal, and eventually the MAN, so I ended up considering this puzzle more fun than a barrel of......

I'm wondering which of us saw APE first (or only) and who saw MAN first (or only) and what that might say about us! :D
I was wondering that too! I'm another one who saw APE first, and MAN a few hours later when redoing the grid (which often helps!).

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:35 am
by Wendy Walker
I suggest we have a show of hands on the Tuesday evening Zoom meet-up about who saw MAN first (that would be me) and who saw APE first!

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:42 am
by Hector
oldjudge wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:11 am Does anyone remember the St James Infirmery, the Oasis, and Rozzotti’s?
Antonio's Nuthouse, The Dutch Goose, Old Pro, Edinburgh Castle . . .

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:02 pm
by boharr
Wendy Walker wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:35 am I suggest we have a show of hands on the Tuesday evening Zoom meet-up about who saw MAN first (that would be me) and who saw APE first!
Might there be a correlation to those who do and don't like pineapple on their pizza?

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:10 pm
by MikeMillerwsj
Judging from the response this week, this was a tougher contest than usual. We had 1185 responses, about 87% correct. The others were scattered across a very wide range of guesses, including CHAIN (7), VOWEL (7), CHIMP (3), CANDY, SPORE, DIGIT, TIPPY, THREE, many many others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Yve Lepkowski of Teaneck, NJ!Judging from the response this week, this was a tougher contest than usual. We had 1185 responses, about 87% correct. The others were scattered across a very wide range of guesses, including CHAIN (7), VOWEL (7), CHIMP (3), CANDY, SPORE, DIGIT, TIPPY, THREE, many many others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Yve Lepkowski of Teaneck, NJ!

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:10 pm
by BarbaraK
oldjudge wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:20 am Between first and second year of business school I worked for Exxon’s systems group and built the Treasury Departments first cash management model. That was over a thousand punch cards (does anyone remember key punch girls?).
The fastest I ever quit a job was key punching. 3 hours and I was ready to go to the mall and be a salesclerk.

Re: "Missing Links" - July 10, 2020

Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:16 pm
by Eric Porter
KayW wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:03 am I got diverted into a rabbit hole trying to "link" several of the 7-letter entries that were anagrams of each other with a two-letter difference:

paRApet - papeEtE
actEDon - tacoMAn
aCTedon - oneadAY
GeRmane - emanATe - enameLS

All of course a side-effect of working so many APE-MANs into close proximity in the grid. What an amazing construction!
This is what got me too. There's also
cROatoan - tacoMan
Capers - Tapers

I'd thought it was words evolving into one another. If there only weren't so many words off by one or two letters I would have probably focused on MAN and then found APE sooner.