XWord Muggles Forum

Hector wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 12:41 pm I have the answer, but there's an oddly missing piece. A friend "won" a 27A, of which he's absurdly proud, yet I'd forgotten the crucial fact.

That's cool! Also, I feel the same way about my answer.

Think I have it.....

Finally got this one! I feel like I got what amounts to a nudge from some comments here, but I needed it, so thanks! I thought it was a great mechanism although I don't understand the missing piece. I bet there's a really clever explanation though...

I got it. Not sure why this took so long, and there seems to be a missing piece, but it’s a 100%er otherwise.

Got it. Would like to think I could have solved without Peter’s nudge above but who knows.

I like what he did with the “missing” piece.

Finally got it, thanks to Peter's hint and a nudge from a Mugglette to keep going where I was going. Would I have gotten it on my own? I'm gonna go with... we'll never know... but I'm counting it, because (_______, to be inserted on Tuesday).

I like Peter's explanation of the "missing" A - it makes a lot of sense as Athletic Director. After I got Canseco, I had just assumed the rest of the answer was No-A Jose!

I really liked this one, but I would have been more satisfied with the full-circle thing if the meta prompt had contained the word "athletic." (Ideally it would start with that word, like the other theme clues, but I can't see how that would work at all!)

Before the deadline, I had said "Finally got it, thanks to Peter's hint and a nudge from a Mugglette to keep going where I was going. Would I have gotten it on my own? I'm gonna go with... we'll never know... but I'm counting it, because (_______, to be inserted on Tuesday)."

I started along the lines of "because even an "own-goal" counts as a goal," or "even a tip in in the other team's basket still counts as a basket." I hit on the perfect "because" though: "Even a ball that bounces off a fielder's head and ends up in the stands ends up being a home run." I knew that sounded familiar... and it was because it happened to Canseco! Thankfully I remembered that before I posted the ultimate spoiler... https://www.google.com/search?q=canseco ... e&ie=UTF-8

Laura M wrote: ↑Tue Nov 12, 2019 1:21 pm I really liked this one, but I would have been more satisfied with the full-circle thing if the meta prompt had contained the word "athletic." (Ideally it would start with that word, like the other theme clues, but I can't see how that would work at all!)

I would go one step further and say it would've been most satisfying if the answer had been ATHLETIC. If we're going by conventional meta rules (if there is such a thing? Am I just making this up? Could well be. Anyway...), the meta answer should either be the only thing you find (e.g., WSJ 11/8/19 - ALSO) or the last thing you find (e.g., PGW #33 - HUEY LEWIS). Canseco is neither of those. In fact, the last you thing find is that missing A for ATHLETIC. Maybe that's just me though. Also I can see how it would be difficult to clue that answer in the prompt without either being way too obscure or just giving away the mechanism.

damefox wrote: ↑Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:27 pm If we're going by conventional meta rules (if there is such a thing? ...),

I'll chime in here to say that in my view, there isn't, or shouldn't be, much of any "conventional meta rules." What I like most about metapuzzles, both as a solver and as a constructor, is that there *are* no "rules" beyond that the puzzle should be fair and solvable. Otherwise, in my opinion the hallmark of a good metapuzzle is that it has a tight logic or ruleset of its own, but that it *doesn't* follow any definable rules that generalize to other puzzles. After all, to solve a metapuzzle *is* to figure out "what are the rules by which this puzzle operates?"

Those are my two cents. Your opinion about this particular puzzle (that the ending felt somehow messy or unsatisfying) is perfectly reasonable. Though, fair warning, I have a particular affinity for puzzle mechanisms that subvert the logical order of operations (by, say, giving the solver something to find in step x+1 that solidifies his thinking on what happened in step x), so I doubt this will be the last time one of my puzzles does *something* like that. But it's unlikely to look exactly like this one!

Never had a chance with this one. KAS 5.

Did anyone else keep staring at NAPOLEON/LEONARDODAVINCI and ENSIGN/IGNOBELPRIZE?

Hector wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2019 6:06 pm Did anyone else keep staring at NAPOLEON/LEONARDODAVINCI and ENSIGN/IGNOBELPRIZE?

I kept going back to the LEONs, and I don't have the puzzle in front of me, but I think it was ANA there too.