"You're Surrounded" - September 25, 2020

[JAQT]

Totally LAS -- Yes, that's me waving to all of you on shore from the Lido deck.

Too many rabbit holes and nothing that ever felt like real traction.

At least I got a nice chuckle out of the answer to 45D.

In college, a 10-pack of "Little Knicks" was a special night for us.

Congrats to all who solved.

JAQT

[LaurenB]

I already submitted my guess, but I could use a nudge, if anyone’s willing — just for my own curiosity. This is only my second time submitting answers to the contests, and I was waaaay off last week LOL

[gatogato]

After a nudge I can see what I was indeed swimming the wrong direction lol

[Tom Shea]

I am abandoning Isaac and snorkeling to shore. Since I'm underwater, I can't be totally sure it is the right shore, but it is a shore.

[RDaleHall]

On shore with this one - a little roundabout swimming but made it there.

[Richard]

Got it.

Took a little help. Nice meta.

Richard

[Wendy Walker]

I can't for the life of me make sense of the clue for 36-Across. Too many subjects and objects there for me to parse.

That was exactly my problem. I would have worded it differently.

[pddigi]

Dom made it! He texted me this morning but sharing it would be a spoiler. Suffice it to say that it only took a micro-nudge.

[LadyBird]

I have some very cherished CDs for that reason. AutoCAD 2006, MS project (which I don't even use anymore), and Adobe pro version. I run Adobe 8.3 (have to install 8.1 and do the upgrades, which fixes some printing issues). Since new computers don't have CD drives anymore, have to transfer the files over the LAN and fake out the new computer to think it's reading a drive.

I will cry when McAfee no longer supports Windows 7 (like happened with XP/NT), and I have to 'upgrade' to a clearly inferior product.

So far my list includes

Office 2010 (which has more capability than I will ever know) replaced by Office 365 $100/year
Quicken - now a subscription service for $50/year
Lightroom and Photoshop - now a subscription service for $11/month
Pro Show Gold - out of business - requires new program at $25/month
Downloader Pro - requires upgrade for $50

Enough to drive one to drink.

You are in the right place for that!

[boharr]

Dom made it! He texted me this morning but sharing it would be a spoiler. Suffice it to say that it only took a micro-nudge.

But not a microbrew?

[BrianDavidson]

On the ship for the record. Not much effort applied this weekend though.

[Jeremy Smith]

Still on the ship. It’s not that I’m not seeing anything going on in this puzzle. It’s that I’m seeing too much.

[Jb321123]

After multiple weeks LAS, feels great to be ashore! Fun puzzle. Some just click, others leave me lost.

[SusieG]

Still on the ship. It’s not that I’m not seeing anything going on in this puzzle. It’s that I’m seeing too much.

That was my problem, also. I have officially given up and am reading a book. Good luck to those who made it ashore.

[Bob cruise director]

Good evening muggles
mad
Our final count is 22 on the ship and 120 on the shore

And we have more new muggles since noon - LaurenB, madhatter5 and Fishoutowater

On the ship with Isaac are
Burak
The Thurman8er
Colin
JAQT
Fishoutowater
Brian
and Jeremy

Making their way to shore are
Jennifer
tigerfly222 - extra credit for being in Spain
Billkatz
Mister Squawk
Nalugirl
OGuyDave
Plymouth Rock
Ann
gatogato
LaurenB
madhatter5
Heidi
Gpiggies
Tom S
RDaleHall
Domenic
Richard
and jb321123

Good luck to all winning the mug

[WSJosh]

Finally ashore, after abandoning a tedious rabbit hole.

[RobM]

I got nothin'. Putting pride aside and asking for a nudge. Anyone?

[JeanneC]

Number 121 here.

[FrancesY]

122 yea!

[bhamren]

Amazing. I am on shore. I kind of figured what the rabbit hole was but I didn’t know exactly where to look. Once I saw it it’s amazing how Matt and others can come up with these every week.

I set an alarm for 10 o’clock Sunday night to look at this again in case I don’t get it right away. I’m filling my fourth dumpster with junk from our 2600 square-foot garage as we prepare to list our house. So if I didn’t get it I wasn’t going to sweat.