"You Need Glasses" - August 14, 2020

A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
Locked
brulo
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 6:42 pm
Location: Denver

#261

Post by brulo »

This one came as probably the easiest meta I've ever done. I figured with the hint being a liqueur and the title being "need glasses" the answer would be something to do with replacing/finishing the name of a certain glassware.

Poked around for a couple seconds and found words close to tumbler, after finding the two in the NW and SE corners I quickly noticed the actual word forming a glass around two letters. Quick glances into the other two corners and I was done in less than 5 min total. Really neat meta, wish they all came this easily.
User avatar
Richard
Posts: 348
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:06 pm

#262

Post by Richard »

brulo wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 12:33 am This one came as probably the easiest meta I've ever done. I figured with the hint being a liqueur and the title being "need glasses" the answer would be something to do with replacing/finishing the name of a certain glassware.

Poked around for a couple seconds and found words close to tumbler, after finding the two in the NW and SE corners I quickly noticed the actual word forming a glass around two letters. Quick glances into the other two corners and I was done in less than 5 min total. Really neat meta, wish they all came this easily.

I think this is the easiest META I ever missed. Saw the TUM but never connected to TUMBLER. Instead of an AHA moment I had a "What an Idiot" moment when I saw the answer. Well done Matt.
steveb
Posts: 379
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 5:25 pm
Location: Silicon Valley, CA

#263

Post by steveb »

TPS wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 12:32 am Congratulations to everyone who solved this one - I felt it was tougher than most of the WSJ metas this year. I did feel like it was a very MG puzzle so I am disappointed I didn't solve it.

I have three nits with this one.

1. I've never heard of ANISETTE - and when I pulled up a list of the top 25 liqueurs it was not on that list. I am almost never going to solve a meta that has such an obscure reference. There were complaints about Monopoly or morse code being obscure but both of those things could easily be found on the first page of a good google search and are things in the typical American lexicon.

2. No one drinks liqueurs out of a tumbler - they are typically served in cordial glasses.

3. I don't think it was good construction to have an extra "TUM" in the puzzle w/ STUMBLES

I HIGHLY doubt I would have solved this one either way but I think those were things imperfections w/ this puzzle.

Oh and I submitted SNAKE JUICE - High End VIP Lifestyle. https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/d982cf5c-7 ... 0e9732a563
STUMBLES was the answer that got me going in the right direction. It was awfully close to TUMBLER, and I thought it was odd that RUMBLE was also in the grid. From there, it didn't take long to get to the solution.
User avatar
C=64
Posts: 684
Joined: Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:29 pm
Location: PDX

#264

Post by C=64 »

brulo wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 12:33 am This one came as probably the easiest meta I've ever done. I figured with the hint being a liqueur and the title being "need glasses" the answer would be something to do with replacing/finishing the name of a certain glassware.
Agreed; the title was a dead giveaway.
Schmeel
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2020 2:38 pm

#265

Post by Schmeel »

It was the four MBLs in the grid that pointed me in the right direction.
If anisette is what I think it is, it's pretty prevelant here in Israel, known as 'arak'. Far from my favorite, but I've had a social glass on occasion (usually proffered by someone at a kiddush).
User avatar
Patty
Posts: 84
Joined: Sat May 11, 2019 12:33 pm
Location: Basel

#266

Post by Patty »

I missed this one

I thought the construction quite clever so I showed the answer to my husband. He said I should have asked him about it because he would surely have seen tumbler🙃
User avatar
Joe Ross
Moderator
Posts: 4999
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 4:46 am
Location: Cincinnati

#267

Post by Joe Ross »

TPS wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 12:32 am 3. I don't think it was good construction to have an extra "TUM" in the puzzle w/ STUMBLES
Turn PESKY into PERKY (then STUMBLES into STUMBLER) and Matt might've been accused of leading solvers "astray by words intended to deceive."

[EDIT1: + " 've "]
Last edited by Joe Ross on Mon Aug 17, 2020 8:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
Whole blood, platelets, or plasma: Donate 4 in 2024

PLATELET 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 ENORMOUS 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲:
𝟰𝟬% 𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰,
𝟯𝟬% 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰,
𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿 & 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗮. 𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗘!
Ksoav
Posts: 42
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2019 9:34 pm

#268

Post by Ksoav »

TPS wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 3:18 pm Has anyone on here done Escape Rooms? I had never done one but my GF and I were bored yesterday afternoon and we both mentioned we always wanted to but neither of us had so we went out and did one.

We completed it but not without a couple nudges - I mean the one we did was like the equivalent of solving 6 meta puzzles in an hour - I was impressed by my GF who says she is not a puzzle person but she figured out two of them like inside of 2 minutes.

But the thing I learned is there is a whole escape room community similar to this one except these people literally travel all over to try different escape rooms.
I love escape rooms! The first one we did for New Years Eve with my family, and there were a few other people there to fill the room. We did not end up escaping, thanks to my sister and I confidently leading everyone in the wrong direction... I tried to create an escape room for a team building activity at work and quickly learned how difficult it is to fit that many puzzles together, so I'm even more impressed now when I find a challenging, well-themed room. The most recent one we did was a pirate ship theme which was really well done!
User avatar
OGuyDave
Posts: 169
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:03 am
Location: Naples

#269

Post by OGuyDave »

OGuyDave wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 11:59 am
...

...And just before hitting the "Submit" button, I see what's going on here. Nice puzzle. I can hit the "Submit" button now, feeling much better.
No, I still didn't see what was going on here.

From the beginning, until reading the answer, I read "glasses" as "spectacles", not drinking implements. And seeing "SQUINT" at bottom middle (INT on top of SQU) wasn't going to do anything to change that. Saw that three (all but the NW corner) had TUM (down) and BLE (across), something someone who needed glasses might do. What I thought was the "aha" moment was seeing the up "E". Never saw the "R". Never thought "tumbler". Geesh!

That "SQUINT" is the most blatant example of "words intended to deceive" that I've seen since solving Matt's puzzles.

Makes perfect sense now. Super job, Matt. So elegant!

Wouldn't it be funny if I..., uh, never mind.
User avatar
femullen
Posts: 448
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2020 1:02 pm
Location: Shenandoah Valley, Virginia

#270

Post by femullen »

It's a remarkable coincidence, and I've noticed it only gradually after doing these metas for the past few months: I only solve the easy ones. Like last week's Monopoly meta. And the "Stress Test" meta back in July. Easy, and I solved them in minutes. Theoretically it should follow that, if the meta is hard, I don't solve it. And time and again I find that's true! I wish Gaffney & Gang would tell me up front which are hard and which are easy, kind of like the daily Sudoku ratings. It would save me a lot of time.

En route to and from the Grandkiddies this weekend, I stole occasional glances at the Friday crossword. From the puzzle title, I knew I was looking for some type of drinking vessel. I mean, how easy can you get?

Turns out, though, the puzzle was hard.

8^(
For nudges, feel free to PM me. I won't have a clue how to help you, but you might shove me ashore.
mitchel674
Posts: 79
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2020 11:05 am
Location: Clearwater, Florida

#271

Post by mitchel674 »

Got badly stuck on this one with "you need glasses" making me think about seeing double with AMENAMEN right in the center of the grid. Crossed my eyes so many times that I completely missed/ignored the tumblers. Wound up guessing amaretto due to the double tt's in linttrap.

As for escape rooms, my family loves them. We just did one on Saturday night which was fantastic. 90 minutes long and very immersive with a magician theme created lovingly by the owners. Amazing!
User avatar
SusieG
Posts: 431
Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2020 9:20 pm
Location: Arkansas

#272

Post by SusieG »

I thought this was a very straightforward puzzle: no changing letters or adding words, and only one step. Also fun!

After seeing the multiple “TUM” throughout the puzzle I asked my 24 yo if she knew of a liqueur with tum in the name, several times. “Are you sure?” ;) Happily, I discovered the rest of the word soon after.
User avatar
cbarbee002
Posts: 591
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2020 6:02 pm
Location: Philly Area

#273

Post by cbarbee002 »

Despite the answer being a liqueur, I was absolutely convinced that glasses referred to reading glasses - - I know that doesn’t sync, but in my mind would be just like Matt to throw a curve ball. So, I looked up standard vision charts, and focused on the lines that were “worse” than 20/20 (i.e. you need glasses) - - there must be a way to connect those letters to the grid / solution!! Alas, not to be. It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that I returned to what I noticed first, that being “stumbles” being close to “tumbler”, and that you could turn that word into tumbler by going North/South on the grid when you got to “b”. Looked for similar constructs, totally missing the “tum” coming down the grid, that being the actual construct to look for. Got there, but only after proving, once again, that my tendency is to turn something simple into something much harder.
User avatar
whimsy
Posts: 2718
Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:51 am
Location: Hopkinton MA

#274

Post by whimsy »

Yup - it was the umbles and imbles that did it for me.

Apologies for my earlier POSTUM spoilage. After I wrote that you could order it in one day, I'd written something like: If you have to cut off an arm and a leg, then no matter how speedy the delivery (Thank you Mr. McFeely from Mister Rogers) then it would probably arrive posthumously, which was something Google suggested when I checked out the product. Quickly realized that indicated that the words were similar so I got rid of it. But in doing so I used the word "post!" Geez, stick your other foot in, Claudia! :oops: But I decided to let it ride and not call further attention to it since it seemed it would be read, as it was written, innocuously enough, because I didn't even realize it was part of the meta at the time.

Anyhow, at least when I posted "ashore," I managed to refrain from saying that I'd TUMBLED to the answer! :D
Dplass
Posts: 1739
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2019 10:09 am

#275

Post by Dplass »

Schmeel wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 1:58 am It was the four MBLs in the grid that pointed me in the right direction.
If anisette is what I think it is, it's pretty prevelant here in Israel, known as 'arak'. Far from my favorite, but I've had a social glass on occasion (usually proffered by someone at a kiddush).
Yes it's very similar to arak
Dplass
Posts: 1739
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2019 10:09 am

#276

Post by Dplass »

SusieG wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 8:56 am I thought this was a very straightforward puzzle: no changing letters or adding words, and only one step. Also fun!

After seeing the multiple “TUM” throughout the puzzle I asked my 24 yo if she knew of a liqueur with tum in the name, several times. “Are you sure?” ;) Happily, I discovered the rest of the word soon after.
There's a liqueur called TIM TAM TUM but it didn't seem right. There's also a liqueur called TUM. But it also didn't seem right.
User avatar
Commodore
Posts: 362
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:12 pm

#277

Post by Commodore »

Well, this is an old favorite aboard our ship and led us to the beach:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mH0-leTYJI
User avatar
Janet P
Posts: 553
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:29 pm

#278

Post by Janet P »

I thoroughly enjoyed this one! Just enough misdirection to make the final AHA deeply satisfying.
SQUINT had me going in a couple of directions including trying to make a "Magic Eye" puzzle out of the grid, looking for eye chart runs of letters, and more.
I finally went back to my first rabbit hole in which TUMBLE in STUMBLES becomes TUMBLER by dropping down to the R in YORK. Once I saw the other option of moving up toward the R in LINTTRAP, everything tumbled neatly into place.
And I have always liked anisette!
User avatar
Bird Lives
Posts: 2607
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:43 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

#279

Post by Bird Lives »

I'm with Richard (#262) -- the easiest meta I've missed. The construction seemed to me more like a Mike than a Matt.
If only I'd done this one back when I was drinking Postum (aka 36D). Adding some anisette might have been just what was needed.
Jay
BeTheLight
Posts: 27
Joined: Sat Aug 01, 2020 10:39 pm

#280

Post by BeTheLight »

Did anyone do the Thursday WSJ puzzle, which had a similar concept of words going around a corner? I think that helped see this one. After I noticed the pattern of MBL words, I got really close to the screen as one would if they needed glasses, and that helped me see the similar letters around each of those answers. That probably wasn't the intended way to use the title but it worked!

I think it would be hard to give the metas a rating. Different brains find different puzzles easy or hard. I never got the Monopoly puzzle because my memories of Monopoly don't include the Luxury Tax square at all.
Locked