"Risky Business" - December 11, 2020

[gdshort]

Made it to shore. Great "aha" moment this week!

[DrTom]

Dang, haven't even gotten a chance to look! Too busy stomping out lives and saving disease! Oh, wait, I think I have that reversed....

Maybe this evening if I am not zoned out - these early wake ups are not as easy as they used to be.

[SewYoung]

Just as a FYI (and I will post this several times), the WSJ is sensitive to our addiction and the fact that both Christmas and New Years days are on Fridays this year. The contest will be published Thursdays as normal.

Now the only problem is that each of us and our families will have to figure out how to cope with any social (limited participation and social distancing of course) gatherings on those two eves.

Well Bless Their Hearts! Thank goodness for enablers.

[bhamren]

On shore. Printed it yesterday and forgot to do it until now.

[DBMiller]

Done and done.

[Bob cruise director]

Good morning muggles

First we welcome our newest muggle Bob Kerfuffle - always great to welcome additional muggles to the clan

We have 5 on the ship and 53 on the shore. and many more plugging along

[mheberlingx100]

Not seeing it yet. There’s still plenty of time left but history has shown that if I don’t get it by now, I never will.

[NDStegs]

On the shore! Impressive construction!

[mflaminio]

On the beach! Nice one and not too tough! Thought the grid was hard!

[Meg]

Enjoying my first margarita on the beach as an official user!

Bob, your name is so familiar! Are/ Were you a frequent poster on the WSJ site?

[MMac]

Ashore. Even more impressed than usual by the construction. This is hard enough to solve but to retrace the steps Mike Shenk must have gone through to create it - keeping within all the norms of symmetry, balance, reasonable cluing, moderate difficulty, avoiding the obscure - I just don't see how they do it. Hats off.

Further, it's funny how a puzzle seems easy when one of your first rabbits is the right one. The right path always seems obvious in hindsight, but when you're lost it just looks impossible. I'd like to see a graph of how the rated difficulty climbs from Thursday to Sunday!

[paige11]

Ashore!

[mattythewsjpuzzler]

Finally on shore. It's amazing how obvious all these are AFTER you get it! Will hit Isaac up later in the day. Ciao!

[flyingMoose]

Not seeing it yet. There’s still plenty of time left but history has shown that if I don’t get it by now, I never will.

I resemble that remark.

[flyingMoose]

I'd like to see a graph of how the rated difficulty climbs from Thursday to Sunday!

I have been curious about the same thing. From my casual observations, the rating typically rises by at least 0.5, although one recent rating dropped by that amount. I wonder if the microMug calculation can be used to determine a "true" rating.

[CallMeShane]

Played around with the right idea until it finally fell.

[madhatter5]

On shore!

[Bob cruise director]

My brain is a little 22 across. Up most of the night with an ailing dog (he's ok now). Think I'll shelve this one until tomorrow.

Heidi
Is that a variation on the "dog ate my homework" excuse?

[Dplass]

Not seeing it yet. There’s still plenty of time left but history has shown that if I don’t get it by now, I never will.

I resemble that remark.

Me three.

[Flananigans]

On the ship...staring at the shore. Will keep thinking...inspired by all the reports of a clever construction!