MGWCC #794 — “I Guess That Counts”

[Bird Lives]

I liked the mechanism, and regret that I needed a nudge to see or hear it. Ditto the Easter Egg. Even after I got the idea, I could think of only one person but didn't think it was the answer. I rarely watch the news, and when I do, it must be the wrong broadcast, so this was a name I know only from Internet sites and discussions.

[rjy]

Kind of crazy: from crosswordfiend, Matt says AGNETA in the lower left (AG=Silver, NETA anagrams to NATE) was an accident. I took it as confirmation of the answer…

[Al Sisti]

Kind of crazy: from crosswordfiend, Matt says AGNETA in the lower left (AG=Silver, NETA anagrams to NATE) was an accident. I took it as confirmation of the answer…

I finally beamed up at 11:57 today... but I took a route I'm sure no one did. I spent the first four days -- well, until about 11:45 today -- looking at/counting "i"s; an "I" started the first word of the first themer, the second word of the second, the third of (what I thought was) the third themer... anyway, that got me nowhere, but when I get what I think is the hook, it's *really* hard to let it go. Finally, at about 11:45, I had to admit "Uh, that probably was not the metanism," so I started looking at it from the prompt. Hmmm. "often" appears on the news... so not an anchor or a regular. I Googled every combination of "person most often interviewed on the news," "panelists," and almost every kind of pundit I could think of. Finally, I saw the word MATH coming up diagonally from the (often important) SE corner, so at least that narrowed down my search... kinda. Math person? Why would a mathematician "often" be on the news? Then it hit me: maybe someone like Bernanke? That enumeration didn't work, so I Googled "Most popular economists," and a few names down was Nate Silver -- whom I'd never heard of, but it fit the enumeration. But really? Of all the 4,6 names in the world? What are the odds? Still it was three minutes to the deadline, and although I've learned to be cool with losing a streak, as long as I don't ruin my goal of not taking/asking for, etc., nudges of any kind, still it felt kinda weird sending in that name out of nowhere. And then I saw AGNETA -- as you did -- and I took that as the sign that my answer was correct. Still, I let out a whoop when I saw that I had beamed up -- but to find out that AGNETA was unintentional? Unbelievable.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

This was fun to solve. I got there by the method that is usually especially unproductive for metas: Finding words by tracing crooked paths from square to square in the grid.

From "counts" in the title, I looked for numbers and found I could trace out 'four' and 'five' in the middle of the grid, even unsure at that point in the solve that those middle across answers were themers. Then when I saw REE in 'sand reef' and asked myself where the TH could be, it put me on the right path. But I don't know if I would have ever got all the way there without the clarification to the prompt. I think I would have spent a lot of time saying "now what?" since EVAN ends the 1-7 count cleanly.

I was one of those who wasn't 100% sure that Silver was the right Nate, but sent it in anyway. I discounted AGNETA as a guidepost because I was looking for something more meta-nistic to get me SILVER, but after other people mentioned it in the Last Call, I decided it must have been intentional. But now we find it wasn't!

[minimuggle]

I can not wait to see the mechanism on this one. Kudos to everyone who solved this puzzle. You guys are my heroes.

[HoldThatThought]

I can not wait to see the mechanism on this one. Kudos to everyone who solved this puzzle. You guys are my heroes.

If you are not otherwise aware, the weekly MGWCC, the Friday WSJ meta, the monthly Muller Music Meta, and many of the major daily non-meta puzzles (NYT, LAT, USA Today, American Values Crossword Club, and others) are reviewed, solved and discussed, day of, on the long-running Diary of a Crossword Fiend website. In fact, this week, Matt Gaffney reviewed and explained his own puzzle, which can be found here: https://crosswordfiend.com/2023/08/22/mgwcc-794/

[HunterX]

I didn't see AGNETA as the (unintentional) confirmation. But I saw the fact that Nate Silver is the founder of FiveThirtyEight, three numbers run together, as confirmation.

[minimuggle]

I can not wait to see the mechanism on this one. Kudos to everyone who solved this puzzle. You guys are my heroes.

If you are not otherwise aware, the weekly MGWCC, the Friday WSJ meta, the monthly Muller Music Meta, and many of the major daily non-meta puzzles (NYT, LAT, USA Today, American Values Crossword Club, and others) are reviewed, solved and discussed, day of, on the long-running Diary of a Crossword Fiend website. In fact, this week, Matt Gaffney reviewed and explained his own puzzle, which can be found here: https://crosswordfiend.com/2023/08/22/mgwcc-794/

I wasn't aware... thanks so much!

[schmidzy]

I didn't see AGNETA as the (unintentional) confirmation. But I saw the fact that Nate Silver is the founder of FiveThirtyEight, three numbers run together, as confirmation.

A muggle on the discord also pointed out that squares 5 & 38 and 53 & 8 are both N & S!

[Joe Ross]

I can not wait to see the mechanism on this one. Kudos to everyone who solved this puzzle. You guys are my heroes.

If you are not otherwise aware, the weekly MGWCC, the Friday WSJ meta, the monthly Muller Music Meta, and many of the major daily non-meta puzzles (NYT, LAT, USA Today, American Values Crossword Club, and others) are reviewed, solved and discussed, day of, on the long-running Diary of a Crossword Fiend website. In fact, this week, Matt Gaffney reviewed and explained his own puzzle, which can be found here: https://crosswordfiend.com/2023/08/22/mgwcc-794/

I wasn't aware... thanks so much!

This week was a rare exception that we didn't publish a reveal in the MGWCC topic.

Tamara @BrennerTJ and I have been creating the reveals for @MattGaffney's site beginning with MGWCC #660 in January of 2021. There have been rare times when the crosswordfiend reviewer hasn't solved or didn't create a reveal that Matt will step in on fiend & post one of ours.

Matt tries to alternate using our reveals on his site, with the other posting here. The rotation doesn't always work out & we can miss posting. It happens when both are expecting Matt to use our reveals. We try not to duplicate.

Also, it's sometimes difficult to be here exactly at noon, Tuesday's, or for the various delayed deadlines we've seen in the recent past. crosswordfiend has had this issue, too, understandably.

We could use the help of any muggle who will commit to posting the MGWCC reveal each week upon its deadline. This muggle is welcome to create their own reveal, or they can be added to our email messages where we trade reveals, then use whichever is meant for XWord Muggles.

This site operates on the volunteer efforts of muggles. This is one area we can use help rather than refer muggles away.