XWord Muggles Forum

whimsy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 1:17 am

LadyBird wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:28 am what was throwing me off was that I couldn't figure out how the name of the puzzle SHOW THEM THE WAY played into anything--answer or mechanism or whatever. Does anyone have an idea about this?

TV programs are shows?

"SHOW" as in TV show was the only link that I saw, too. I told all my "nudgees" to ignore the title because I certainly didn't see any link until after I'd solved.
There for a while I was trying to back-solve for "the terrible twos" but, umm, there was no W in the grid...

yourpalsal wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 4:06 am I’ve had very little time for anything between the Jewish holidays and work recently, but I was so psyched to see Wendy got the mug last week!!!

Thank you very much, Sal! We've missed you on the Tuesday evening Zoom meet-ups.

As soon as I got to EIGHT at the end, the ACHT just above it leaped off the grid at me. But I knew that I hadn’t encountered DOC HOLLIDAY or COTTON CLUB or CHACHI on the way down. So I had to revert to just counting the letters.

yourpalsal wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 4:04 am So close! But I just didn’t see it...

I was in the same boat! With Isaac!

It never ever occurred to me to drop eight. Did lots of things trying to pick up eight. That, it became clear, was a loser, since there were then too many letters involved for me ever to get an answer. Knowing I was in a whirlpool from which I would never escape, and knowing this was not a correct answer, I said "eight" and "way" -- long A (there was a long I in the grid) -- so "tasting" and "racing" with "chasers" as a chaser: "tasting" and "racing"? "drinking and driving" -- sure meets the prompt -- and knowing it was futile mortared it eastward to New York.

DaveKennison wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 5:07 am Wow! When I pull a blank, it's a doozy! I'm going to have to think about this one a while to analyze why it stumped me. Totally embarrassing ... .

What he said! I stared at this thing on and off all weekend, but just never saw the light. Good one, Matt!

otlaolap wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 8:38 am It never ever occurred to me to drop eight. Did lots of things trying to pick up eight. That, it became clear, was a loser, since there were then too many letters involved for me ever to get an answer. Knowing I was in a whirlpool from which I would never escape, and knowing this was not a correct answer, I said "eight" and "way" -- long A (there was a long I in the grid) -- so "racing" and "tasting" with "chasers" as a chaser: "racing" and "tasting"? "drinking and driving" -- sure meets the prompt -- and knowing it was futile mortared it eastward to New York.

Same. To me, "drop eight" (the required mechanism) is the exact opposite of "eight is enough" - meaning, "keep eight", which is my big beef with this puzzle.

But then again, someone (I think TPS) said they highlighted the first eight letters, immediately seeing the solution in the remainder of the letters... which I should try next time.

When I fail at these I like to go back and review the methods that I tried. I followed some wild hares with this one!

I saw ELEVEN in MENDELEEV. MENDELEEV has nine letters. BUT if you take out the six letters from ELEVEN you have three left over. Three from eleven leaves EIGHT! A clue? Alas, I had created a math/English non sequitur combo.

Then I noticed the EIGHT hiding in ETCHING and the obvious TEN in SMITTEN. Or the Roman numerals X and II.

I pursued several others as well.

All part of an education. I hope.

This was probably my fastest solve ever.
I thought we’d have to anagram the leftover letters, but not so. The answer jumped out at me, even written out vertically, as was yourpalsal’s.
As to the aptness of the title, I saw Matt just saying, “ This time I’ll just show them (the Muggles) the way”, instead of fishing through his cauldron of diabolical pathways for a killer.
And, indeed, the tv show in 75A was a double hint.
Perhaps ORTS would have been an appropriate title??

ImOnToo wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:33 am I kept trying to come up with "moving back home"

Same here.
With one unemployed adult son living in the attic and another who has been COVID unemployed since April, it was really hard to get past "moving back home."

Also, like YourPalSal, I stared at that vertical abomination for way too long as I tried in vain to make something out of UR OAE.
I'm grateful for all the folks here who posted that it had jumped out at them. That made me keep setting it down and coming back to it until, finally, it did jump right out!

And here's hoping for another Muggle winning the mug this week

I also got caught up in the ACHT and ELEVEN in MENDELEEV. I also spent some time considering the director clues and looking for others, as to direct can mean to show someone the way. The light finally switched on once I poured a Blade & Bow bourbon over a large rock.

Watching folks working with this week's meta reminded of Poe's The Purloined Letter.

Weird coincidence that today is the birthday of Adam Rich who played the youngest (eighth!) child on the TV show of import to this meta.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0723589/

MaineMarge wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 8:54 am This was probably my fastest solve ever.
I thought we’d have to anagram the leftover letters, but not so. The answer jumped out at me, even written out vertically, as was yourpalsal’s.
As to the aptness of the title, I saw Matt just saying, “ This time I’ll just show them (the Muggles) the way”, instead of fishing through his cauldron of diabolical pathways for a killer.
And, indeed, the tv show in 75A was a double hint.
Perhaps ORTS would have been an appropriate title??

See post 296. After I saw it, I thought maybe Matt was referring to his parents' attitude toward television and the way in which they instructed their children.

ImOnToo wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:33 am I kept trying to come up with "moving back home"

My first thought when I saw the contest was "Mom I'm pregnant"

For Wendy and our other editors - I ran across a new word "spaghettification"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... d=msedgntp

I made a detour into this rabbit hole: Based on the center grid entry, I Googled "baseball" and "eight" and found a bunch of stuff about the Black Sox scandal (which is right around 100 years ago now). Spent some time looking for baseball words or names hidden in the grid (or with implied letters just outside the grid, as in "Eight Men Out").
Thought I was onto something with 12D (G)ROUNDER!

Laura M wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 10:19 am I made a detour into this rabbit hole: Based on the center grid entry, I Googled "baseball" and "eight" and found a bunch of stuff about the Black Sox scandal (which is right around 100 years ago now). Spent some time looking for baseball words or names hidden in the grid (or with implied letters just outside the grid, as in "Eight Men Out").
Thought I was onto something with 12D (G)ROUNDER!

Was Eight Men Out on Matt's puzzle site?

My group totally didn't get the meta. I think we had the letters written out but we thought it must be more complicated than that (but we didn't actually see the answer, just the letters). Title was really misleading and totally threw me off. Even the "eight is enough" part didn't help because we were arguing about whether it meant just look at the first eight or just look at what came after. We had an interesting rabbit hole where we looked at Matty Alou's baseball stats and found lots of 8's. We're used to being bamboozled so this was a good reminder to not overcomplicate things even when it feels like there's a deeper meaning behind the title/important clues/etc.

LadyBird wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:28 am This is the first meta--ever--where I saw the correct mechanism for each step without heading down rabbit holes. BUT..........what was throwing me off was that I couldn't figure out how the name of the puzzle SHOW THEM THE WAY played into anything--answer or mechanism or whatever. Does anyone have an idea about this?

I had exactly the same problem! It kept throwing me off!