"I Won't Spoil The Ending" - January 15, 2021

[Nlobb]

I was also focusing on animated movies of the appropriate years. I probably wore out Mr G. Anyway I finally realized they didn't all have to be animated, just the answer. There actually is an animated men in black series...

[Richard]

While I admire the construction of the meta this one made me Google too much.

After wasting time looking for 5 animated movies I saw Coming To. Then had to check the year.
Which Borne came out in that year? I had no recollection of He Got Game.

Curiously I had thought of A Bug's Life when I was chasing the animated movie rabbit hole as
"bathe maggot" but really had no recollection of it either. I guess I am too old.

Congrats to the winner of the mug.

[sphorning]

Finally made it to shore after two helpful nudges. I also was googling animated films, not ALL films, by year. Loved the construction of this one!

[EmilyW]

Any Given Sunday jumped out at me right away. I think this is because the local news here in Kansas City kept mentioning Henne Given Sunday for the last regular season Chief's game since our backup QB Chad Henne was playing. I got the meta pretty quickly after seeing that, which I was glad to knock out early this weekend because I was lucky enough to go to the playoff game yesterday, where Chad Henne saved the day once again!

Wow! The odds of seeing a live game are almost lower than winning a mug! Henne was excellent too, as was Lamar Jackson's backup when he went down. BTW, did I ever ask you if you'd heard of the Irish band from Kansas City, The Elders?

He sure was, but we are all on Mahomes watch here hoping he will be back next week. I have heard of The Elders, they are pretty popular here. Hopefully KC Irish Fest will make a comeback this year and I can go see them live.

[HunterX]

Yes, that was what I guessed. I still wonder about whether someone looks at all the email subject lines and manually moves them to the "correct" folder, or whether they have an automatic filter (e.g. "rule" in Outlook) that pulls them out. If the latter, there is a possibility they don't take into account a variety of potential variations, such as accidental double-spaces or the like. My kids and I even wondered about whether we should send in our email with the answer/subject in ALL CAPS.

Ah, if only these were the biggest dilemmas life had in store for us.... ("First World Problems"?)

From previous comments by Mike Miller, the basic process is that all submissions go into one big list and a random number generator is used to select one of them. Then a human looks at that particular entry and determines whether it is correct. If so, it's the winner; if not another is selected. So formatting variations won't affect your chances of winning. (In fact, I think he even said once that they'll actually look at the body of the selected email if someone ignores the instructions to put the answer in the subject line.)

As for the stats on the number of correct entries, since that's generally phrased as an approximation, I'd guess that's manual/human too. If I were doing it, I'd just sort the list by submission, so in this case "A Bugs Life" and "A Bug's Life" would be adjacent and easy to combine in counting.

Makes perfect sense.

I'll have to come up with another conspiracy theory then for why I haven't won the mug yet...

[michaelm]

I have 4 pm doctor appointment Thursday.
Sure my pulse and blood pressure will be high because of FOMO!

Any readings taken at that point would automatically be invalid in my case!

Wendy, in the barn at Primitive Hall do they have Primitive Oates?

Dr. Tom,
Rather long discography on their part, but because I Did It In A Minute,
Sara Smile, but She's Gone.
Say It Isn't So, I Can't Go for That (No Can Do) and Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

[eagle1279]

In addition to 5-letter movie titles such as "Bambi" (one letter short of IAMB?), I tried to back-solve for the 10-letter "Cinderella." Also thought FORGIVEN might somehow lead to "Atonement." Once I saw COMING TO (America?) and MEN IN (Tights?), I used IMDB to search for movie titles starting with the ending letters of the theme-answer words, which was more efficient than Mr. G because it immediately pulled up the titles and dates and was limited to movies.

But I still had trouble getting to the final answer because I was trying to find a complete movie title from the five words. Seeing MEGA as an anagram for GAME led me on a chase for other scrambles (hmmm, CARIB has letters from AMERICA...). It wasn't until I explained the problem to my wife that I saw ABUGS and the missing word mechanism repeated. Very clever construction!

"A Bug's Life" was not well-known or even barely known to me, but it showed up on my scattered lists of award-winning or most popular movies for that year.

[BethA]

I finished the grid before Dan, but was flailing around awhile when he suddenly hopped on the jet-ski and zoomed to the shore!! He had noticed the embedded words while doing the grid!

I was delayed a bit due to not interpreting the title correctly. Thought that either the “I” was important or that we should focus on the beginnings of the theme words. A lot of action with iMDB and also Wikipedia which has nice lists of top ten movies for each year. Like many, was focusing on animated movies first and even had A Bug’s Life written on my sheet for 1998. I think finally Coming To America clicked, as I just kept looking over the Wikipedia lists.

Had also written down WALL-E as a backup wild guess, assuming it would be a 5-letter answer.

It’s nice when both of us finish before dinner time!

[Wendy Walker]

Any readings taken at that point would automatically be invalid in my case!

Wendy, in the barn at Primitive Hall do they have Primitive Oates?

Dr. Tom,
Rather long discography on their part, but because I Did It In A Minute,
Sara Smile, but She's Gone.
Say It Isn't So, I Can't Go for That (No Can Do) and Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

You will not believe this, Dr. Tom ... there actually IS a musical connection (if not H&O) with the barn, and not a happy one! During a wedding reception one of the band members "took a break" out by the barn ruins, tripped and broke his ankle. He sued us. It ended up being a very expensive fall in (near) Philadelphia for our insurance company.

[SusieG]

A possible caveat on submitting using using the WSJ online form: As of January 1st, Adobe stopped supporting Adobe Flash. Some browsers now flag Flash as a security risk. WSJ's online form uses Flash, which, IMUnqualifiedO, might have been leading to issues the last couple of months. If you can use the form, then your submission should go through. However, it might be safest to email your entry to crosswordcontest@wsj.com.

So is this true? Is WSJ really still using Flash? Or did you just suggest this to draw attention away from the idea that this week's answer included punctuation?

I stopped using the WSJ site for solving because they told me I needed to update my flash, but I do it on an iPad...now I just use the fleeting image website to get the PUZ file and use across lite now. I like it better anyway.

[Joe Ross]

A possible caveat on submitting using using the WSJ online form: As of January 1st, Adobe stopped supporting Adobe Flash. Some browsers now flag Flash as a security risk. WSJ's online form uses Flash, which, IMUnqualifiedO, might have been leading to issues the last couple of months. If you can use the form, then your submission should go through. However, it might be safest to email your entry to crosswordcontest@wsj.com.

So is this true? Is WSJ really still using Flash? Or did you just suggest this to draw attention away from the idea that this week's answer included punctuation?

It isn't true, but only because I was mistaken. Javascript is required to play, not Flash. I mistook the two. I apologize. Thank you for asking, Barbara, or I'd have been repeating this.

I discovered this a few weeks ago when "viewing the source" of the page, then misremembered the software. I do think it's possible that some browser settings are having issues with javascript.

Looking again, today, I saw this:

<!--FAILED SUBMISSION OVERLAY-->
<div class="overlay solution-overlay" id="failed-submission-overlay">
<a href="#" class="close-overlay icon dmsjsOverlayClose">Close</a>
<div class="overlay-content">
<h2 class="text-dialogue-box">There has been an unexpected error</h2>
<p class="text-dialogue-box">Please try submitting again. If this error continues please contact <a href="mailto:david@digitalmarmalade.co.uk">david@digitalmarmalade.co.uk</a></p>
</div>
</div>
<!--/FAILED SUBMISSION OVERLAY-->

So, we have an email address to target to send our complaints.

[flyingMoose]

Any Given Sunday jumped out at me right away. I think this is because the local news here in Kansas City kept mentioning Henne Given Sunday for the last regular season Chief's game since our backup QB Chad Henne was playing. I got the meta pretty quickly after seeing that, which I was glad to knock out early this weekend because I was lucky enough to go to the playoff game yesterday, where Chad Henne saved the day once again!

Wow! The odds of seeing a live game are almost lower than winning a mug! Henne was excellent too, as was Lamar Jackson's backup when he went down. BTW, did I ever ask you if you'd heard of the Irish band from Kansas City, The Elders?

He sure was, but we are all on Mahomes watch here hoping he will be back next week. I have heard of The Elders, they are pretty popular here. Hopefully KC Irish Fest will make a comeback this year and I can go see them live.

#HenneThingIsPossible

[Susan Goldberg]

The swim of shame. Back to boat for me. Did anyone else submit Bambi? I thought answer would end in “I” then the iambic pentameter thing. Female deer in there too etc etc.but it never completely gelled. Love the solution. Good work to all you code crackers

I was obsessed with Bambi the entire time - such that I kept reverse engineering to prove it was Bambi. Definitely threw me off!

[Al Sisti]

Any Given Sunday jumped out at me right away. I think this is because the local news here in Kansas City kept mentioning Henne Given Sunday for the last regular season Chief's game since our backup QB Chad Henne was playing. I got the meta pretty quickly after seeing that, which I was glad to knock out early this weekend because I was lucky enough to go to the playoff game yesterday, where Chad Henne saved the day once again!

Wow! The odds of seeing a live game are almost lower than winning a mug! Henne was excellent too, as was Lamar Jackson's backup when he went down. BTW, did I ever ask you if you'd heard of the Irish band from Kansas City, The Elders?

He sure was, but we are all on Mahomes watch here hoping he will be back next week. I have heard of The Elders, they are pretty popular here. Hopefully KC Irish Fest will make a comeback this year and I can go see them live.

We brought them in to our Great American Irish Festival in about 2007. Central New York quickly adopted them, and vice versa, and they came back for our festival, and several local shows of their own, every year until they retired from touring. I got to be good friends with them (although I don't really know Diana as well as I di the guys). Great musicians and better human beings. I even went to Ireland with them a couple years ago.

[Susan Goldberg]

Guess who got the mug???!? Another, fairly new, muggle!

I joined here in September and have had a blast with these puzzles. Thanks to everyone who helped me over these months.

Wow - congratulations!!!


...hmmm. Perhaps I should quit and rejoin under a new name

Congrats!!

[Omnibus]

BTW, did anyone else see BATHEMAGGOT and think BABE MAGNET and get lost going down that road?

I thought maybe the first part of the answer belonged at the end and it was " MAGGOT BATH" with a leftover "E"

I can't think of a movie where that's a thing that people want to watch...

Yes, but wouldn’t a “maggot bath” be the beginning of a bug’s life?

[Omnibus]

Guess who got the mug???!? Another, fairly new, muggle!

I joined here in September and have had a blast with these puzzles. Thanks to everyone who helped me over these months.

Congratulations and welcome to the Mug Club!

By Muggle rules, you now have to break your mug and send pieces to everyone who gave you nudges.

Just kidding, of course.

[JRS51]

In addition to 5-letter movie titles such as "Bambi" (one letter short of IAMB?), I tried to back-solve for the 10-letter "Cinderella." Also thought FORGIVEN might somehow lead to "Atonement." Once I saw COMING TO (America?) and MEN IN (Tights?), I used IMDB to search for movie titles starting with the ending letters of the theme-answer words, which was more efficient than Mr. G because it immediately pulled up the titles and dates and was limited to movies.

I used IMDB as well, for the same reasons. As soon as I saw that Coming To America came out in 1988 I knew I had the explanation for the mysterious years in parentheses, and that I had the path to the answer.

[LadyBird]

A memory popped immediately into my head when I first saw BATHE MAGGOT.

Back in the late 80's, I decided to celebrate finishing grad school by doing a 23-day Outward Bound Course in North Carolina. It was fairly primitive: no tents just tarps strung overhead, purifying water from streams, carrying everything on our backs, etc. We had several grueling 3-day hikes, 3 days of whitewater canoeing, 3 days of solo, and 3 days of rock climbing. The rock climbing was the start of my misadventure.

For rock climbing, we wore tennis shoes. So I peeled off my wool socks, stuffed them into my hiking boots, and forgot about them. When it was time to hike back to our base camp 3 days later, I pulled out my socks and noticed that they were "moving". As were the interior of my boots. They were covered with maggots--teeming with maggots! The flies had been busy while we were climbing rockfaces. Other people had maggots as well (bootlaces, bandanas, socks) but no one else had them in their boots. I got an empty plastic garbage bag for my boots, tied that to my backpack, and hiked back to camp in my tennis shoes. But that wasn't sustainable because we had another 3-day hike starting the next day.

Fortunately, there was a well with a pump at base camp. So I bathed the heck out of those maggots! I filled the boots with water and dumped them out--and repeated that many times. I scrubbed away with my bandana. And finally (in what was probably a small ethical lapse), I took the bleach from the first aid kit and mixed that with water, poured it into my boots and let it sit overnight. I did discover that these boots really were watertight!

Meanwhile, back at the camp, someone took people's maggot-ridden bootlaces and bandanas and such and boiled them to get rid of the maggots. In our cooking pot. We had rice for dinner that night--I didn't have much of an appetite!

My efforts seemed to pay off. I didn't see any maggots in the boots the next day. I did wear my dark blue hiking socks, figuring it would be easier to see maggots crawling out of the boots that way. Earlier in the course, I had gouged my shin on a jagged branch and it was looking a little infected. I figured that if any maggots did venture upwards then perhaps they would do a little therapeutic wound debridement. I know--gross nursing humor.

[C=64]

Wendy, in the barn at Primitive Hall do they have Primitive Oates?

Dr. Tom,
Rather long discography on their part, but because I Did It In A Minute,
Sara Smile, but She's Gone.
Say It Isn't So, I Can't Go for That (No Can Do) and Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

You will not believe this, Dr. Tom ... there actually IS a musical connection (if not H&O) with the barn, and not a happy one! During a wedding reception one of the band members "took a break" out by the barn ruins, tripped and broke his ankle. He sued us. It ended up being a very expensive fall in (near) Philadelphia for our insurance company.

I assume that Private Eyes were involved.