MGWCC #803 — “Keep Your Puzzle Buzz”

[DrTom]

YAY - under 100!!! In at 94 and somewhat amazed that I even solved it. I am feeling like the proverbial cat! This calls for a cocktail!! (oh, and there is a cocktail called a Canary but I do not have the makings for it and it doesn't sound all that appealing anyway)

[lbray53]

Beamed with help. Almost submitted a wrong answer under the influence of being in college in the 70’s.

I think there is a double clincher for the correct answer

[MarkWoychick]

Beamed up solo @115 - fun puzzle and good aha!

[rjy]

Kudos to those solo solvers out there! This was a pretty great challenge that I thought I couldn’t get a toehold on, but got a vague aha-preserving nudge to confirm my rabbit-hole had a bunny in it. Yet another great one from Matt!

[mkmf]

Beamed!

[dlonoff]

I was so sure I had a 100% on this but am marked wrong. Weird. Maybe I mistyped the answer or missed a step.

EDIT: emailed Matt and he accepted my answer. Curious to see where I strayed from the intended answer.

EDIT2: Now I'm pretty sure I see the right answer.

[Alvibu67]

Beamed aboard at #190! Not a solo solve as I needed a friendly muggle nudge

Great puzzle!

Allison (Alvibu67)

[TMart]

Got it, but I can’t explain the missing piece.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

I have been beamed aboard. I wasn't 100% on this, but decided it must be the intended solution. Fun puzzle, and I am looking forward to the discussion.

[Dr.Buttbeard]

Matt has me stumped this week - any kind muggles around to give your friend a nudge before the deadline?

[Kwyjibo]

Not sure what it is about Tuesday morning that I finally see step 1. Had to rush finding the final answer, hoping I did that right.

Update: And I'm on the board, 3rd from last place.

Feeling good about solo solving both a week 3 and wsj this weekend.

[Joe Ross]

Despite help for which I am grateful, I chucked a Hail Mary for which I have little hope.

[WabiSabi]

Well, I earned my "Great Minds" badge.
I guess that's something.

[Guffman]

From Edward Gorey's "Gashlycrumb Tinies" --
No doubt Neville tried to do this meta.

[KayW]

So my hasty buzz-kill submission:

I found the eight entries-within-first-word-of-clue pretty quickly. But sadly I didn't think to highlight them within the grid. Instead, I looked for a five-letter entry that also fit that pattern. I saw AMOCO which is AMOCO(rporation). I was so excited to get SOMETHING that I crossed my fingers and submitted.

When I failed to make the leaderboard, I went back and highlighted the entries and immediately saw CANNABIS. Seeing no CANNABIS synonyms in the grid, I started hunting down clues. 9-DOWN "Productivity may be negatively affected by this" seemed most apt, so my second submission was ENNUI. (Oh wait, MGWCC is one entry per customer. Haha, I sure get spoiled with Crosshare.)

I liked this puzzle a lot and am kicking myself for submitting before investigating further when I coulda had a solo solve. Oh well, there's always next week.

[BrennerTJ]

[Bird Lives]

I still don't understand the long-entry phrase "To ask the question is to answer it?" I'm not sure what it means outside the world of this puzzle. Within in the puzzle, I guess the clue is the question and the entry is the answer, so the answer is contained in the question. Is that it?

[HunterX]

I still don't understand the long-entry phrase "To ask the question is to answer it?" I'm not sure what it means outside the world of this puzzle. Within in the puzzle, I guess the clue is the question and the entry is the answer, so the answer is contained in the question. Is that it?

Within the puzzle, yes, I assume it's referring to how the answer to the clues was contained within the first word of the clue. I was sidetracked by this for awhile. I kept looking for clues like 30D "Ketch's pair." If you ask, "What's a ketch?" the answer is "A two masted sailing vessel," giving you the answer "Masts." But there weren't enough clues looking for the defining feature of the important clue term to make it work.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

I got "cannabis" quickly, but then was a little iffy on the pot-> ENNUI connection, even seeing after POT in "Productivity". But after looking for other cannabis related words, I decided that 9D must be the intended end-point.

Was anybody else distracted by other wordy clues? Such as...

"River known for its lovely valley" when LOVELY has the first two letters of LOIRE
"Lakeside contraption" has two long words, neither of which come to mind from REEL
"Singer headlining the Super Bowl halftime show in February" Why specify February?
and the one that nagged at me the most: "National Lampoon's European Vacation son" He was also Russ (or Rusty) in the original Vacation and other sequels, so why specify the little-loved European Vacation?

I wonder if these were camouflage for the relevant eight entries.

[Streroto]

KAS 5. I had to reread the solution several times to even understand it.