XWord Muggles Forum

I had a couple of things I didn't love about this puzzle and I think that contributed to me not getting it until this late hour.

I'm ashore and looking forward to sharing my beefs tomorrow.

Susan Goldberg wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 5:33 pm This is so frustrating. I know this will be a head slapper when I see the answer. And I’ve spent so much time staring because I know it’s right there somewhere!

As some of the comments suggest, your head might not be the only thing you'll want to slap.

OK, I have the answer thanks to an excellent nudge (shove) from Wendy. Never would have gotten it on my own, so I'm not submitting, but it was a fun rabbit to chase.

wordsmith wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 3:14 pm Crying "uncle" if anyone would be so kind to toss a nudge my way!

Duh, I'm sure Shenk was thinking "CLUE 22 DOWN."

Thanks for the nudges! This one was way too easy to overthink. Kudos to everyone who saw it right away!

I was about to quit and call it a night, but decided to take one last look at it... and I’m on shore. Dom was visiting friends out of town and recently landed back home. I don’t think he’s going to make it. This was far from my favorite mechanism.

Well, after seven or eight nudges SIL and I finally made it to shore. It wasn’t easy, even with the nudges. SIL actually got it. I saw all the instructions but just couldn’t fathom how to execute. I’m in awe of all who solved. And thank you to all the kind nudgers

Cutting it close ... but I'm finally on shore. Talk about being late to the party!

I have spent way too much time on this, but finally got it at 11:10 pm on Sunday night. I didn’t want any nudges for WSJ

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 12:06 pm And Tiger made us all feel good by putting up a 10 on the par 3 12th hole.

Yes - I was sweating there for a minute. He was getting close to my record for a par 3.

On shore. Almost at the last minute.

Just haven't been able to spend much time on the metas lately because of volunteer duties. Count me on the ship this week, Bob! (And last week, too, if you're still keeping stats for that one!)

Well, I enjoyed the Masters but not this meta.
I’ve stayed on the ship all weekend.

There was no need to fill-in one square of the grid. 23A, 36A, & 49A helped, but weren't necessary.

Hmm...I guess ERNA THE STELL was wrong then.

burak wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 3:01 am Just finished the grid and completely lost at sea. I have a strong suspicion that this will turn out to be an underwhelming mechanism that may involve the grid very minimally, but I hope to be proven wrong in the next 24 hours, preferably via a nice aha moment.

Well, I solved it at 11:57 pm and while I'm glad to see that my suspicion was correct, I was unfortunately very underwhelmed by this. There was another meta a couple of years ago where the grid wasn't involved at all. Which is fair, sure, but to me a meta puzzle should involve the grid at least partially if not fully.

What miraculously unlocked my brain -on top of the time pressure which often works for me- was filling in DELETED SCENES in another puzzle I was solving. Human brain is an amazing thing.

I am so surprised by this. Especially since my Hail Mary was the answer, which I didn't submit. I was so close yet so far!

I was totally convinced that "spiel" meant Spielberg I got lost in the grid. And looking for "formerly named" actors.

I tried to anagram the last - or last 2 or 3 letters of all kinds of crap.

It was very satisfying when finally trying the solution mechanism to have it fall right into place - thus the AHA moment!

Boo