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.
SusieG wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:18 pm
I was towed to shore. I’m sitting next to the tiki bar — easy to recognize, wearing a dunce cap. Good luck to those of you who figured it out!
Many of us have taken a turn wearing that dunce cap. They keep it behind the bar.
I have my own personalized version. It's kinda like the steins they keep for you at the German beer halls.
I only hope this will be one where I say "I'm glad I didn't spend too much time on it".
Spent the weekend:
Cutting through my well inlet pipe with my backhoe.
Trying to dig a ditch to re-bury it while the water was filling the hole.
Declaring victory, because: 1) now I know where it is 2) I know what parts I need to fix it permanently 3) it is cobbled together good enough that I have water.
Sometimes when raccoons or skunks get close to humans it’s because they’re rabid.
Raccoons are nasty, rabid or not. I don't wish them on friend or foe. Skunks at least scare easily, if you don't do it too closely -- then it's bad. Fun fact, they rarely (but not never) spray inside the hav-a-hart trap. They need to do the handstand to get the distance on their shot.
Got nowhere on this. I was certain I was on the right path but could not get there. I think my meta mojo has up and left—permanently. Good luck, Muggles.
I've had that problem as well. I found an app that decreases the size of the pic (Lit Photo in my case). My only problem is that I can never remember the size it needs to get down to so I usually have to try it a few times.
I just increased the size limit substantially so please try again and let me know if you continue to have problems.
Onshore with a nudge from TPS. The solving mechanism was not close to the methods I was trying all weekend, so I will not be submitting for the mug. I will be enjoying the shore party, however.
I’ve been in the bar since Friday. Lots of rabbit holes and nothing to show for it. It looks like SIL and I are staying on deck this time. Can you see us waving? You all look so festive with your umbrellas, hats, sunglasses, and drinks. Even some of the drinks have umbrellas! I’m heading to the all-night buffet before I fall off this stool. Good luck on winning the mug.
When I looked at the title, I was thinking that I should read the words backwards, but that rabbit hole didn't yield anything. Then I remembered this is a Mike Shenk puzzle, so I started looking for an extra clue to the answer in the list of clues, and it wasn't hard to notice 60A (note the letters DRAW in the clue and in the title). But then what do I make of PASTELS? I went through the grid looking for anything that may be related to it, but found nothing. I usually just reason it out in my head, but this time I said it aloud, "PASTELS". And suddenly I realized I should read it as PAST "EL"s; and then it is a breeze to the answer.
My first thought, before I even did the puzzle, based on its title and the comment about the contest answer, was that "EASELS" might somehow be involved, but I didn't finally figure out its relevance until several hours after I had somehow noticed all those ELs in the grid, looked at the letters that followed them, and submitted my answer. (My subconscious at work, I suppose ... .)
And I never thought about PASTELS! D'oh!
One more comment: Did anyone else try to make something out of that TORSO tucked into the upper left corner?
Last edited by DaveKennison on Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
After submittig LIFEMODELS, though, having done the "past els" logic, I began to fret about the "EL" in LIFEMODELS itself and to wonder where that was to lead.
Last edited by otlaolap on Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:19 am, edited 2 times in total.
DBMiller wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 1:48 pm
I spent a month in Greece with my daughter when she did a summer class there (Photography / Art History). Spending so much time at the Acropolis, I got used to hearing the word - I just couldn't remember how to spell it!
Eric Porter wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 6:03 pm
I always liked the word that's 23A. I think I learned it on a trip to France, but they spell it differently.
I had an interesting and fun time with 23A also --- one of those words that you slip over quickly while reading without actually registering the pronunciation or spelling perhaps, but with a vague sense of its meaning, enough to get the gist of the sentence. Well, I began to enter it in the grid beginning with a "K" --- must have seen it somewhere in the original Greek. I did have the correct middle consonants but had interchanged the "R" and the "T." I guess it wasn't meshing with whatever down entries I already had, so I googled it to be sure I was on track. KATYARIDS got me this --
In other words, I desperately sought help from Google, and all I got was crickets!
.)
