By the Numbers - December Mega Meta 12/22/2020

A monthly, music-themed meta crossword published at noon on the first Tuesday of every month. The puzzles increase in difficulty each month, and at year end there is a 13th puzzle (the "Mega-Meta") that invokes each of the 12 monthly puzzles. Currently available at https://pmxwords.com/, as well as through the Washington Post website here: MMMM at WaPo
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KayW
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By the Numbers - December Mega Meta 12/22/2020

#1

Post by KayW »

The meta for this puzzle is the mega meta for 2020, a song from the 80s.
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
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KayW
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#2

Post by KayW »

...and a dumb question: if I solved the mega meta earlier this year, am I supposed to submit for this as well?
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
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FrankieHeck
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#3

Post by FrankieHeck »

KayW wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 12:30 pm ...and a dumb question: if I solved the mega meta earlier this year, am I supposed to submit for this as well?
You don't have to submit, but you can if you want to leave a comment or a rating.
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C=64
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#4

Post by C=64 »

I'm excited to find out what the red herring is, because I stumbled onto the mega answer when I thought it was the red herring.
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KayW
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#5

Post by KayW »

C=64 wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 12:41 pm I'm excited to find out what the red herring is, because I stumbled onto the mega answer when I thought it was the red herring.
Same here. I got the mega meta sometime over the summer. But the one time it would have "paid" to find a red herring, I was oblivious to it! :lol:
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
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sharkicicles
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#6

Post by sharkicicles »

I didn’t try to do the mega meta this year, but this is a fun one.
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Hector
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#7

Post by Hector »

Same, I never got around to trying for the mega meta after finding the red herring. If anyone would be willing to explain what the mega mechanism was in a PM, I'd be grateful.
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TMart
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#8

Post by TMart »

I got the mega meta early, but never found the red herring. And I'm not really sure I found the true path to the mega, so I'll be curious to see Pete's writeup when it comes out.
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hcbirker
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#9

Post by hcbirker »

That was fun. I looked for the mega meta a few times, just didn't spend a lot of time on it. Now I'm going to look back to see how it was done.
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#10

Post by Laura M »

Fun puzzle, even after having gotten the mega earlier!
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#11

Post by FKelly »

DOH! (dope slaps forehead) Should have seen it earlier, but its nice to solve the mega-meta anyway.
How in the world did two people solve it on Feb. 5? Quantum tunneling?
Still looking for the elusive red herring, which seems more difficult to find than the mega-meta oddly enough.
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BarbaraK
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#12

Post by BarbaraK »

Wow, how did I manage to not notice that all year? I even had some of the relevant info marked on my puzzles, but never put it all together - really never came close.

I can understand now how people got it in March. No idea about the February ones though - they must have just been lucky guesses?

I may go back and take another look for the red herring. (I think I can still guess that even though I've solved the real answer.)
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ky-mike
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#13

Post by ky-mike »

I found the mega puzzle today pretty straight-forward. Curious as to how the monthly puzzles fed into this (I haven't looked back yet).
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spotter
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#14

Post by spotter »

After this puzzle, I just got the mega meta, as well as the red herring. But I still don't know how the mega was shown in the 12 monthly puzzles, I only got it from this last puzzle. Can somebody please PM me to explain? I see how the red herring answer is revealed now.
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Cindy
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#15

Post by Cindy »

BarbaraK wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:07 pm Wow, how did I manage to not notice that all year? I even had some of the relevant info marked on my puzzles, but never put it all together - really never came close.

I can understand now how people got it in March. No idea about the February ones though - they must have just been lucky guesses?

I may go back and take another look for the red herring. (I think I can still guess that even though I've solved the real answer.)
I got it in March because my husband noticed the necessary pattern and I googled!
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#16

Post by ChrisKochmanski »

I'm in the "got the mega meta (in April) but never found the red herring" school. But I don't feel too bad about it because ...
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/66811eb6-c ... 66b7c8ca1e
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#17

Post by Hector »

I think this year there's a reason many of us have gotten one but not the other of the mega and the red herring.
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TMart
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#18

Post by TMart »

After seeing Pete's write-up, I see that I am one of those who got it after two puzzles through an incredibly lucky guess. I found the red herring mechanism of 12-12-12 and 11-11-11 in the first two puzzles, saw it as a countdown, and lobbed in "THE FINAL COUNTDOWN" as a guess that turned out to be correct. By month 6, I saw "THE END" spelled backwards in the clues for those grid entries, but I failed to realize it was the red herring, since I had used the red herring process to guess the real answer. I should have realized that since that mechanism ended after 6 months it probably had something to do with the red herring. Not sure I would have ever gotten this one for real! Definitely better to be lucky than smart!
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Hector
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#19

Post by Hector »

Wow, even after I solved the reveal meta, I assumed that the red herring and the mega used exactly the same material. THE END means "final" as well as being part of "It's The End . . .", and the count-down of only the "final" six of twelve months also cuts off the red herring pattern. I wasn't likely to guess "The Final Countdown" on that basis, though, as it's the type of music I was aggressively ignoring at the time.

Also, I'd been concerned that all this finality might have meant that Pete was wrapping this franchise up; I'm very happy that he's not.
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MikeM000
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#20

Post by MikeM000 »

So apparently the 14 shaded squares spelling out the answer was a misprint that Muller didn't know had happened. Not having experience with the MMMM before this year and kind of weaving in and out of them each month, I was all "aren't these supposed to get harder each month? Maybe that doesn't apply to the Mega."
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