Page 9 of 12
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:00 pm
by elan
Alas. My Packers. Sniff sniff. Even though I suspected it was coming, it still pains me. I've been a Packers fan since the day I was born in Green Bay on a Packers Sunday over 50 years ago.
If you're a 49'er or Chiefs fan...well done. We''re all looking forward to a great game. Your teams are fun to watch!
And may I just quietly hope for a mug to ease my pain?
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:11 pm
by Ffrohbose
Nope. Not this week.
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:21 pm
by BrianDavidson
On shore. Almost didn’t get there this week.
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:09 pm
by Richard
Submitted what I would call an educated guess.
Can not get it all to work but no harm in trying.
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:23 pm
by asechres
No joy this week
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:38 pm
by DrTom
I am hopelessly lost, I see step one I think but to quote some very bad old movies "watch that first step, it's a doozy!" From the sounds of the posts I need to either find fiends, get the wife's help or have children to get further than I have already. Unfortunately my friends think I am odd for liking these things, my wife echoes their sentiments and could not be bothered and I'd never have kids before the deadline so I may be enjoying the onboard festivities. I'll look once more but I see nothing past the obvious.
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:53 pm
by MajordomoTom
your torture will end in about 8 minutes
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:01 am
by MajordomoTom
the deadline has passed
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:01 am
by MajordomoTom
so we have 5 themed answers:
INITIALHERE
SECONDPLACE
MIDDLEAGE
CLEANUPTIME
FINALNOTICE
there are two parts to these - the first parts are positioning for the answer, the second parts are to help us find those answers.
Note that the HERE, PLACE, AGE, TIME and NOTICE are ... the start of 5 of the clues.
HERE: He resides in Valhalla - which is ODIN
PLACE: Placenta or Pancreas, e.g., - which is ORGAN
AGE: Agency that monitors e-cigs - which is FDA
TIME: Timex alternative - which is ROLEX
NOTICE: Not Iceland's Nearest Neighbor, by far - which is QATAR
ODIN
ORGAN
FDA
ROLEX
QATAR
Take those five answers, take the first letter "O", the second letter of the second - the "R", the middle letter of the next - "D" (middle - because we were told 'middle', not 'third'), the fourth letter of the fourth - "E" and the fifth letter of the fifth - "R", and you get:
ORDER
which is a five letter word and was my submission
I tried and tried to force fit "ATLAS" and, for some stupid reason, "NICHE" into the clues and the grid, and failed. But when I started looking at the clues and the strange wording and realized that "He resides" was "HERE" and "Placenta" and "PLACE" overlapped, I had to keep looking at that. And finding "Not Iceland" and the others cemented that that was a valid path (or a very strange coincidence which could not be a coincidence).
It took a bit to play with ODIN, ORGAN, FDA, ROLEX and QATAR to get ORDER, but once it fell out, I was pretty sure that it was correct - no anagram needed, it's a five letter word, but I just wish it more neatly fit the "LOCATION FINDER" name of the puzzle.
Very nice construction, Mr. Gaffney!
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:03 am
by Joe Ross
Tomorrow is a holiday. We *will* not get the official answer for another 23 hours & 57 minutes.
*
*
*EDITS*
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:12 am
by Eric Porter
I also got ORDER. Nice writeup MajordomoTom!
Is cleanup in the fourth theme answer a baseball reference to batting fourth?
It was the "Not Iceland's nearest neighbor, by far" which got me going. The wording of that was so weird. At first I only saw the "ice" part, then an hour later I saw that it was "notice". I'd also noticed time / timex earlier but didn't think much of it. Maybe I was preoccupied on thinking how strange it was to compare it to a Rolex
My biggest rabbit hole was the OREIDA answer and the fact that other 3/4 letter state abbreviations exist. ARI in Arigato. FLA in Inflame. CAL in caldera. IDA (again) as Ida. PENN in Kal Penn. I thought that I was looking for actual locations in the grid. Now that I look back on it, I should have given up on it earlier.
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:17 am
by BethA
My recent attempts at cryptics helped tip me off on this one. I started reading the long answers, as if they were cryptic clues, parsing them differently, and came to: FINAL-NOT-ICE. NOT ICE sounded familiar and all kinds of bells started ringing, ding-ding-ding!!! Found the oddly-worded clue for 68A “Not Iceland’s...”, and knew I’d found the right path! Had tried 4 or 5 other things before stumbling onto this path. Enjoyed it!
Ps. Niners are my backup team. It was easy to root for them when I lived in the Bay Area from 1985 - 2001, including the Joe Montana and Steve Young eras. But it was funny - I thought it was weird no one wore their jerseys on game day, like in Pittsburgh!
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:19 am
by Tony S
MajordomoTom wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:01 am
so we have 5 themed answers:
INITIALHERE
SECONDPLACE
MIDDLEAGE
CLEANUPTIME
FINALNOTICE
there are two parts to these - the first parts are positioning for the answer, the second parts are to help us find those answers.
Note that the HERE, PLACE, AGE, TIME and NOTICE are ... the start of 5 of the clues.
HERE: He resides in Valhalla - which is ODIN
PLACE: Placenta or Pancreas, e.g., - which is ORGAN
AGE: Agency that monitors e-cigs - which is FDA
TIME: Timex alternative - which is ROLEX
NOTICE: Not Iceland's Nearest Neighbor, by far - which is QATAR
ODIN
ORGAN
FDA
ROLEX
QATAR
Take those five answers, take the first letter "O", the second letter of the second - the "R", the middle letter of the next - "D" (middle - because we were told 'middle', not 'third'), the fourth letter of the fourth - "E" and the fifth letter of the fifth - "R", and you get:
ORDER
which is a five letter word and was my submission
I tried and tried to force fit "ATLAS" and, for some stupid reason, "NICHE" into the clues and the grid, and failed. But when I started looking at the clues and the strange wording and realized that "He resides" was "HERE" and "Placenta" and "PLACE" overlapped, I had to keep looking at that. And finding "Not Iceland" and the others cemented that that was a valid path (or a very strange coincidence which could not be a coincidence).
It took a bit to play with ODIN, ORGAN, FDA, ROLEX and QATAR to get ORDER, but once it fell out, I was pretty sure that it was correct - no anagram needed, it's a five letter word, but I just wish it more neatly fit the "LOCATION FINDER" name of the puzzle.
Very nice construction, Mr. Gaffney!
Well done Mr. Gaffney and all those who solved this. A definite KAS 5 for me. I took apart the long answers and combed the clues for hints but never saw the path.
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:20 am
by MajordomoTom
yes, "cleanup" is often fourth in an order, but not always - usually in NL ball, not always in AL ball.
and it's a very rough direction to "#4" in the word, but ... it works.
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:25 am
by DrTom
OK, not if I had had three weeks. I guess I am not yet morphed into a META solver (would that be a metamorphosis?). I did notice the odd "Not Iceland..." but it did not click, and lets face it DERP is just as weird an answer and had nothing to do with it. What I find amusing was that I was going to submit ORDER based solely on my initial reading and seeing what was a batting ORDER (yes there was no lead off, but CLEANUP was enough to make me go there). I didn't do that because, well because that was not solving that was a good educated guess and I'd feel bad if it got the mug while someone who was clever enough did not get it. So, I'll applaud the solvers, applaud the construction and not feel overly bad because for me this was a 5 and I'd never have solved it.
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:27 am
by Inca
I strongly suspected that the clues were involved and that was just one reason that I wasn't enthusiastic about this meta (just my own preference...not a judgemental statement). But even if I decided to go looking at the clues, I doubt I would have seen those beginnings nor taken them through the next step. Hope one of you brilliant solvers win the mug!
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:32 am
by Inca
Joe Ross wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:03 am
Tomorrow is a holiday. We *will* not get the official answer for another 23 hours & 57 minutes.
*
MLK Holiday 2019 - No Monday Puzzle, Friday CC Solution.gif
*
*EDITS*
Curious minds want to know: How do you have the listing with the name of the Tuesday crossword?
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:33 am
by Jeremy Smith
I was able to get the answer with the aid of a few “nudges” but thank you Eric Porter for the one that put me over the top. I had the INITIAL, SECOND, MIDDLE, etc, and I knew I had to do something with the second word of each themer. But I just needed to discern the awkwardly (doesn’t the word “awkward” look awkward in itself)? worded clues to arrive at the meta.
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:54 am
by Softie
Ugh, I had a hunch the Timex clue was involved but I was never going to NOTICE the overlap with the others.
Re: "Location Finder" - January 17, 2020
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:56 am
by elan
Thanks for the writeup! I had INITIAL, SECOND, MIDDLE, and FINAL but took way too long (two days!) to understand CLEANUP until a random family conversation today when I was reminded of the baseball meaning.
So even with ORD_R, and seeing the E in the appropriate fourth position of ROLEX... I didn't think it was a sure thing on Thursday because normally when I find my way ashore everything falls into perfect ORDER. But every other rabbit hole was much worse.
My mind was too much on football (alas, my still-pained heart) and not on baseball. Maybe a FOURTH down clue would've been appropriate this weekend?
Such a fun puzzle though!
See you all next week.
By the way... my split-second thoughts from reading the title were: ATLAS or GLOBE. Fortunately, I quickly realized neither was going to work. This was a tough match to the title!