"Oh, What a Tangled Web..."

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.
MaineMarge
Posts: 1596
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 9:57 pm

#81

Post by MaineMarge »

Off the couch with my partner’s sturdy arm for assistance. Really fun and interesting all around, Al. Thanks!
I’m off the couch but not ready to get back to work, so I’ll sit here for awhile and enjoy the tulips. Extra credit if you can find Secretariat bottom left. All of our garden faucets have a critter handle.
96600D65-65A2-4899-AF79-FA8E04B127E2.jpeg
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Anita
Posts: 433
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:55 am

#82

Post by Anita »

I think we have it.
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Bird Lives
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Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:43 pm
Location: NYC
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#83

Post by Bird Lives »

I sent this puzzle to my niece. She needed a wee nudge, but she got the idea and then informed me that there's a game based on this same idea. It was on YouTube as a game-show, and now the creator has a KickStarter to raise money to create a home game.
Jay
FKelly
Posts: 315
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:09 pm

#84

Post by FKelly »

Submitted my best guess. I've been ruminating on this answer since Tuesday.
I seems to be missing one letter, yet I have a few extra letters near the end that don't seem right.
So, delete the extra letters and add the one letter needed to come up with a sensible one word answer.
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Al Sisti
Posts: 2037
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 1:28 pm
Location: Whitesboro NY

#85

Post by Al Sisti »

Leaderboard additions as of Friday:

37 minimuggle
38 CPJohnson
39 MaineMarge 
40 Snood
41 Anita
42  Bonnibel
43 FKelly

Reveal will be tomorrow night after 10 PM; the answer, the mechanism, the proof... and, alas, the apologies.
Naptown Kid
Posts: 56
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2020 1:08 pm

#86

Post by Naptown Kid »

Yet another Muggle Meta struggle for me. Things are looking real bleak for a solve, as other life activities—lawn-mowing, lacrosse watching, entertaining— impose themselves. I will look forward to the reveal, but I had to react to Al’s nod to the Firesign Theatre. They provided an absurdist soundtrack to my misspent youth. Wish I had access to Gary, the Truth Seeker, for some help on this one. Or at least some blue moss.
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Scott M
Posts: 454
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:10 pm
Location: Charlottesville, VA

#87

Post by Scott M »

Naptown Kid wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:48 am Yet another Muggle Meta struggle for me. Things are looking real bleak for a solve, as other life activities—lawn-mowing, lacrosse watching, entertaining— impose themselves. I will look forward to the reveal, but I had to react to Al’s nod to the Firesign Theatre. They provided an absurdist soundtrack to my misspent youth. Wish I had access to Gary, the Truth Seeker, for some help on this one. Or at least some blue moss.
I'm right with you. After a week of fishing and golfing with a couple of our mutual friends, I just don't have the brain power left to get through this one. But at least our boys put a whooping on the Hoyas today. Looked like a championship caliber squad. An all-ACC Final Four is not at all out of the question.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain
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Al Sisti
Posts: 2037
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 1:28 pm
Location: Whitesboro NY

#88

Post by Al Sisti »

The answer to this meta, as found by 44 solvers, was MISTAKES.

Where to begin? Hmmm… There’s nothing special about the grid, no obvious themed entries, just the usual crossword stuff with some standard trivia facts. Well, the fact is, eight of those facts – so widely unquestioningly assumed to be true – are wrong.

I tried to come up with clues that would yield an answer in the grid that wouldn’t be questioned or raise any obvious alarms, but that, upon further web confirmation, would result in the correct answer. In grid order:

1A: The grid answer that fit was SECRETARIAT, but the real one voted “best horse” was MAN-O-WAR.
4D: It was not Rick who said that phrase in Casablanca (ahem, the greatest movie ever), but ILSA. And nowhere in the movie did anyone ever say “Play it again, Sam.”
12D: The prolific juicer with all the taters was not Barry BONDS, but Sammy SOSA.
27A: Thomas EDISON was a DC guy; it was Nikola TESLA who believed in the power of AC.
39A: Maine was a good guess, and in many regards (in reality and the web), it is the easternmost state. But because the Aleutian Islands spill over the 180° meridian into the Eastern Hemisphere, ALASKA is the easternmost state. It’s also the northernmost and westernmost.
49A: It’s the KELVIN scale whose “zero point” is at 0°. The “zero point” on the CELSIUS scale is -273°.
52D: Lake ERIE is the southernmost of the Great Lakes.
…and finally, 70A. William Shakespeare did have a lot of quotable lines… but this isn’t one of them. Sir Walter Scott penned this in his 1808 poem, Marmion. This misattributed quote is what gave me the idea for the meta.

The initials of all the correct answers in grid order spells MISTAKES, which certainly are pervasive on the Web. (Kids, please don’t use the Web to research your essays!). Oh, and the "bonus mistake" was one I made: TNT is not the same as dynamite, so Alfred Nobel did not invent TNT; he invented dynamite, earning me a "D" grade in bulletproofing. Okay, and OTRE and TRE got flagged for not being the Spanish translations I claimed them to be, but according to Spanish translation web pages, they were correct -- if not the most common. And of course, the web is always correct.

So, most of you guys enjoyed it, but some didn’t (not counting the “mistakes” I made). All I can say to that is to echo the words of the great philosopher, Ricky Nelson, who said “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.” (And then he flew into a mountain, but I digress). I can understand (kind of) that people don’t like having to use Google, but since that was the gist of the meta, it had to be done. Sorry, not sorry. That should cover it.

The random winner this week was Wendy Walker, who will receive her choice of a) a Blarney Rebel Band CD, b) a Utica Club keepsake or c) a $15 donation I will make to a charity of her choice (Wendy, PM me with your address so I can get it to you).

Anyway, thanks for solving, and I hope to be back on a Monday in the not-too-distant future!
MMMasOWaTWsolution.png
Dplass
Posts: 1739
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2019 10:09 am

#89

Post by Dplass »

TRE and OTRE really derailed my little brain...
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FrankieHeck
Posts: 839
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 8:57 pm
Location: West Virginia

#90

Post by FrankieHeck »

Dplass wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 8:37 am TRE and OTRE really derailed my little brain...
Those are the ones that put me on the right path, even though they actually turned out not to be part of it!
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eagle1279
Posts: 307
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 7:00 pm
Location: Indianapolis

#91

Post by eagle1279 »

No mistake about it, a very fine construction! I was very suspicious of the Shakespeare quote so I figured some sort of misinformation or fake news was the answer, but I did not take the time to fact-check other answers that otherwise seemed to be correct, so I was stuck on the couch. (If I fact-checked all my answers that are really guesses that fit, I would still be working on puzzles from 1993 or so. And we didn't even have Google then, did we?) Thanks for the puzzle!
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whimsy
Posts: 2716
Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:51 am
Location: Hopkinton MA

#92

Post by whimsy »

I was pretty certain from the start that the answer would be something along the lines of lies, etc. But I never got it even though the nudges also led me to do some research about accuracy of entries and of the Web in general.
BUT, any disappointment has at least been assuaged by finding out that Al was not putting one over on us regarding Annette. (Because, of course, we all know that anything of any importance does take place in Utica! :) )
Great puzzle, Al! Thanks for the fun!
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Hector
Posts: 1297
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 8:15 pm
Location: San Francisco
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#93

Post by Hector »

This is a great, memorable meta.
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boharr
Moderator
Posts: 3182
Joined: Fri Sep 06, 2019 8:57 am
Location: Westchester, NY

#94

Post by boharr »

A terrific puzzle. Thanks.
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RPardoe
Posts: 736
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2019 4:09 pm
Location: Houston, TX

#95

Post by RPardoe »

Loved the puzzle, but also was amazed how much I mentally abridged the clues while filling the grid
52D for example....mentally solved that as Great Lake staring with H and dismissed the rest of the clue as superfluous.

Got to the bottom (Shakespeare) and in fact was writing Al a PM mentioning he had a mistake in the grid. Then the light bulb hit and I ended the note with a “be right back” as I tried to suss out the answer.
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auee89
Posts: 1068
Joined: Tue Feb 02, 2021 10:55 am
Location: Indiana

#96

Post by auee89 »

Tough one. I only found the first and last mistakes. Try again tomorrow!
Kevin
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Bird Lives
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#97

Post by Bird Lives »

As I was doing the grid, I paused at a couple of entries and thought, "Is that right?" but then continued without giving it a second thought because Al is after all a well-informed guy so he must know. Oh well, like the man said, "You trust your mother, but you cut the cards." Also, if I understand correctly, there are people who get paid actual money to fact-check stuff.
Last edited by Bird Lives on Sun May 23, 2021 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jay
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Hector
Posts: 1297
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Location: San Francisco
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#98

Post by Hector »

whimsy wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 9:28 am Al was not putting one over on us regarding Annette.
I had considered that that entry was a piece because of Britney, Justin, and Christina (and Ryan Gosling as I see, googling, ooh, and Keri Russell -- someone somewhere is pretty proud of their casting accomplishment). But, if I can trust the internet (!), that generation in the Mickey Mouse Club were not known as Mouseketeers.

Opinion of Annette kept to self.
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Wendy Walker
Posts: 1699
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:44 pm
Location: Unionville, PA

#99

Post by Wendy Walker »

So thrilled to win!!! I really thought I had lost my Meta Mojo completely after missing Meanders and here I win MMM! Thanks, Al!
Good luck, fellow Muggles!
minimuggle
Posts: 553
Joined: Wed Nov 04, 2020 7:33 am

#100

Post by minimuggle »

FrankieHeck wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 8:44 am
Dplass wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 8:37 am TRE and OTRE really derailed my little brain...
Those are the ones that put me on the right path, even though they actually turned out not to be part of it!
I agree about tre and otre.....and having a little brain. I still haven't found all of the items but I am loving it. It is funny how I accepted things immediately without checking. Great meta
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