"Can Ya Digit?"

A weekly meta crossword created by members of the forum. Difficulty levels will vary. Hints are usually available starting Wednesday, and solutions are posted on Sunday.
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Hector
Posts: 1297
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 8:15 pm
Location: San Francisco
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#61

Post by Hector »

This was brilliant. Because of the central entry/clue there was no one tip-off but a gradual emergence of the mechanism. Bravo.
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ReB
Posts: 667
Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2020 9:34 pm
Location: East Tennessee

#62

Post by ReB »

I tried, but was never able to connect any of the five clues of 38A to any of the entries, so although I had some sense of how to proceed, I couldn't get a handle to start with. Oh well. There's always next time.
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BarbaraK
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Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 2:37 pm
Location: Virginia

#63

Post by BarbaraK »

My first thought for the journey song was '99 bottles of beer on the wall'. Pretty sure from the start that was wrong because there's no 99 square, but still hard to let go.

My solving sequence was basically the same as Bob's - 3 Amigos and Catch 22 first, then Route 66 and 16 Tons. I also never got the supergroup thing (and I've never heard of them) but knew it had to be an A.

I think you should follow Pete Muller's example and perform the answer for us!
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Al Sisti
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Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 1:28 pm
Location: Whitesboro NY

#64

Post by Al Sisti »

BarbaraK wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:39 pm

I think you should follow Pete Muller's example and perform the answer for us!
That might be the funniest thing I've ever heard...
Dplass
Posts: 1739
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2019 10:09 am

#65

Post by Dplass »

Ouch. Kas 6 for me.
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Wendy Walker
Posts: 1699
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:44 pm
Location: Unionville, PA

#66

Post by Wendy Walker »

Al asked me to share the email exchange between Bob and me during our EPIC JOINT SOLVE. For your amusement:


Bob, 4:27 PM: Have you done Al’s MMM? I have the grid but nothing beyond that.

Wendy, 4:39 PM: No, I have a tight deadline on an annoying book, so I worked on that all morning, and I had a meeting this afternoon to review the inventory book for the historic house where I volunteer. Will download it after supper! Thanks for the reminder!

Bob, 4:45 PM: Get to work then. Don't sit yakking with me.

[Wendy eats supper. Having finished the grid, she commences Googling.]

Wendy, 7:46 PM: Hmmm. I think I see a couple of things. One of Martin Short's movies (Short film) is "Three Amigos" (4D). One supergroup is the Three Tenors but I see no grid connection. One of Henry Ford's films (Old Ford classic) is "Seven Women" (again, no grid connection that I can see). I don't know any Journey songs with numbers in them, but "Oh Sherrie" (49D) is kind of a song of theirs (it's by their sometime member Steve Perry). I can't think of a "no-win situation" example with a number in it. What have you tried?

Bob, 7:52 PM: Bashing my head against the wall. I had to look up Journey as I did not even know it was a group. So I stumbled with that. For Ford, I was thinking cars with no success. For a super group I was thinking the Jackson Five. And a No Win situation could be a Catch 22

Wendy, 7:59 PM: YES, Catch 22, you are right, of course! I will see if I can make anything out of that. Another option for "Short film" might be "one reeler" and the presence of "amigos" might just be a fluke. I think the meaning of supergroup is a band comprising musicians who have already had successful solo careers -- like Cream or the Traveling Wilburys -- rather than just a very successful group.

Bob, 8:00 PM: I agree now on supergroup. I had never heard the term before.

Wendy, 8:10 PM: As soon as I picked up the clipboard I saw that CATCH is 51A, which makes me think that your catch 22 and my 3 amigos stand a chance at representing the correct strategy! Now to find a supergroup, old Ford classic (could well be the car) and a Journey song (which could be a marching song of some sort, and what is with the question mark?).

Bob, 8:13 PM: That looks like the right approach but it painful. Let me look at the cars.

Wendy, 8:19 PM: Yes it IS painful! Fantastic 4 could be the supergroup (it's a movie about a quartet of superheroes). (Get Your Kicks on) Route 66 could be the "journey song." Think how cool it will be if we jointly solve this and get on the leaderboard!

Bob, 8:22 PM: Very cool. For supergroups from a web site I can throw in Frankie Valli and the four seasons because of 49Down. Trio. The Three Tenors like you mentioned and I put this at the top - the problem is that we have two 3's. 213? Star one. Solution 45. Two Tongues. Twenty 88. Crazy 88.
I tried backing into a number with what we have
3 amigos - Amigos is 4D, clue begins with P and 3D begins with M
second one is missing
16 Tons - Tons is 67A, clue begins with S and 16A begins with M
Catch 22 - Catch is 51A, clue begins with F and 22 begins with B
fifth one is missing
This is not leading to any numbers. Five letter numbers are three, seven, eight, forth, fifty and sixty.

Bob, 8:30 PM: The ford is Tennessee Ernie Ford - 16 Tons (67A). the three amigos is a definite also.

Wendy, 8:35 PM: Love it. OK, we've got a 3 (amigos), a 16 (tons), and a 22 (catch) for sure. supergroup and journey song to be determined but possibly 4 and 66. M, T, and B are the 1st letters of those numbered entries. THUMB is a digit. We need to find an H and a U.

Bob, 8:40 PM: Where did you get the T? 16 is another M. I went through this All 173 Journey Songs Ranked Worst to Best (ultimateclassicrock.com) and the only song with a number is Red 13.

Wendy, 8:49 PM: DOH, yep, it is. I think we have to go with the first letter of the 5 "found" words (like T for tons) and I predict we'll come up with a five-letter word that has the meta number attached to it. So far we have T (tons), C (catch) and A (amigos).

Bob, 8:55 PM: the journey song has to be Route 66. I am pretty sure the answer is Mambo - the dance. Now how to squeeze an A out of Super Group?
Answers starting with A are 9,14,34,47,52,and 61.
Could supergroup be something other than singers?
Could the supergroup be the B-52's? That would give us 52 and the A

Wendy, 9:18 PM: What about my earlier guess Fantastic Four? 4D starts with an A.
Bob, 9:25 PM: Is Fantastic Four a group? I thought it was a film series.

[Mark phones to review the day and say good night but quickly realizes all WLW wants to talk about is the puzzle. She mentions that the prompt calls for a number and Bob has already come up with "mambo." Mark: "Oh, yeah, Lou Bega. Mambo #5. There's your answer.")

Wendy, 9:35 PM: Mambo No. 5. I think we got it (with Mark's help)!

Bob, 9:37 PM: But is the answer Mambo - the dance - or Mambo #5 the song?
Or doesn't it matter?

Wendy, 9:51 PM: The meta is supposed to be a number, so the answer is 5. I will submit as a joint solve if that is OK with you!

Bob, 9:52 PM: That is fine with me. But a number can be a song also.

Wendy, 9:58 PM: I will include both connotations in my message to Al.
Good luck, fellow Muggles!
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whimsy
Posts: 2716
Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:51 am
Location: Hopkinton MA

#67

Post by whimsy »

Sorry to say, no way for me. But an amazing puzzle.
And now I gotta go pack to move in with those hunter-gatherers in the rainforest..........
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CPJohnson
Posts: 1078
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 1:38 pm
Location: Kingsport, TN

#68

Post by CPJohnson »

KAS 5 for me; I wasn't even close.
Cynthia
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