"Make Him From Them" - January 29, 2021

[Al Sisti]

Well, we all seem to be singing from the same page. Since I was busy Thursday and Friday I solved the GRID today, looked at it, did some ciphering.....

I can't help seeing that and thinking of the Beverly Hillbillies...

(Paraphrasing from memory)
Jed Clampett: Jethro done graduate the sixth grade. Do some ciphering for us, Jethro.
Jethro: Okay. You want times or guzinta? Five guzinta five once, five guzinta ten twice...

Yeah! "Cipherin' some guzintas"!

[Tonearm]

Well, I'm confused about it but I've got what feels like a clear answer. I'll take it.

[otlaolap]

Hopelessly lost at sea, but as always the ship is nice. The puzzle does not suggest rabbits to me; rather, it suggests prairie dogs. I see a wide open field, and lots of prairie dogs popping up here and there. Some stand up and stay stable for a while and then disappear; others scamper about aimlessly. There are lots and lots of them, all small, all cute, all clamoring at the eye. And they lead nowhere.

These puzzles astonish me about how blind I can sometimes be. On Monday this will happen again. An artificial solace, sure to be demolished on Monday, is that I do not know a darn thing about pop singers except for one or two words that appear over and over in puzzles (like esne and etui used to), so I tell myself that if the answer is visible in the puzzle then I will not see to recognize it, but the solace is solely artificial because I simply see no mechanism (other than prairie dogs) that might reveal the answer.

Think I'll go watch Leicester City (starts in five minutes). That at least will have a result this morning.

[Sara Dacus]

Hopelessly lost at sea, but as always the ship is nice. The puzzle does not suggest rabbits to me; rather, it suggests prairie dogs. I see a wide open field, and lots of prairie dogs popping up here and there. Some stand up and stay stable for a while and then disappear; others scamper about aimlessly. There are lots and lots of them, all small, all cute, all clamoring at the eye. And they lead nowhere.

These puzzles astonish me about how blind I can sometimes be. On Monday this will happen again. An artificial solace, sure to be demolished on Monday, is that I do not know a darn thing about pop singers except for one or two words that appear over and over in puzzles (like esne and etui used to), so I tell myself that if the answer is visible in the puzzle then I will not see to recognize it, but the solace is solely artificial because I simply see no mechanism (other than prairie dogs) that might reveal the answer.

Think I'll go watch Leicester City (starts in five minutes). That at least will have a result this morning.

Prairie dog metaphor very accurately describes what I am experiencing.

[Scott M]

On the shore, waiting for snow.

OOH - DC in a snow storm. My favorite time and place. I remember sitting in a plane at Reagan for hours waiting to take off.

And I remember sitting for 3 hours on 95N in Woodbridge, about 20 miles south of my destination, as the normal 4 lanes of traffic turned into 7 lanes of total anarchy. My view today in Central VA is much better.

[TomAndDenise]

Ashore, we think.

[Prozach]

Ashore with some little nudge from Joe. Not my favorite. The meta, not Joe.

[Bob cruise director]

Good Sunday morning muggles

An active day as we have 5 on the ship and 190 on the shore. My guess is that most of those who were not sure have the right answer or else we are going to have a huge Pageant fest.

Joining the group keeping Isaac in business on the ship are
otlaolap
and Sara Dacus


Making their way to the crowded shore are
DrTom
maprasad
HunterX
Colin
Limerick Savant (I think)
Anabelle
Jaclyn
LaPetiteFlora
EVJ
Peter L
Isa
Henry Paul
Jennifer
Debbie
FirstMax
Zac most likely with Aunt Norma
JRS51
cpelster
Burak
Olaf
tonearm
Trey and Marion
TomandDenise
and Prozach

Stay warm, dry and safe

[BarbaraK]

An artificial solace, sure to be demolished on Monday, is that I do not know a darn thing about pop singers except for one or two words that appear over and over in puzzles (like esne and etui used to), so I tell myself that if the answer is visible in the puzzle then I will not see to recognize it, but the solace is solely artificial because I simply see no mechanism (other than prairie dogs) that might reveal the answer.

There really aren't all that many one-named singers, so unless you're a total google-phobe, you should google it and look through the list. That way you'll be likely to recognize it when you solve.

[Billy M]

On shore. I checked with another muggle and oddly enough (or appropriately enough), my first mechanism was the correct one, but I was overlooking the piece that made it an elegant answer.

[Colin]

Think I'll go watch Leicester City (starts in five minutes). That at least will have a result this morning.

For fear of a spoiler (in case you are watching it recorded) I won’t comment on the result. Suffice to say that it did have a result and was much more entertaining than my Gunners v ManU match yesterday! What a weird season... even I would sack the manager of my Fantasy team!

[KscX]

Ashore. Worked the grid in the car last night riding through the start of the snow, didn’t pick the meta back up, dreamed an answer that was not correct, picked it back up late morning and after a few bad paths, u-turned back to the beginning and said oh ok. Done.

[Sara Dacus]

Good Sunday morning muggles

An active day as we have 5 on the ship and 190 on the shore. My guess is that most of those who were not sure have the right answer or else we are going to have a huge Pageant fest.

Joining the group keeping Isaac in business on the ship are
otlaolap
and Sara Dacus


Making their way to the crowded shore are
DrTom
maprasad
HunterX
Colin
Limerick Savant (I think)
Anabelle
Jaclyn
LaPetiteFlora
EVJ
Peter L
Isa
Henry Paul
Jennifer
Debbie
FirstMax
Zac most likely with Aunt Norma
JRS51
cpelster
Burak
Olaf
tonearm
Trey and Marion
TomandDenise
and Prozach

Stay warm, dry and safe

Yes. Still on the boat. Especially frustrating since I correctly solved my FIRST MATT GAFFNEY WEEK 5 (still feel like the queen of the world the day after), but I can't get this one-and-a-half star difficulty-rated puzzle.

[stmv]

I wasn't able to do this meta until now due to some work stuff. I didn't immediately see it, so I used the trick of explaining how far I had gotten to my wife, when suddenly the solution jumped out at me, so now I'm safely, if belatedly, on the beach.

[ccmac]

I’m on shore! Like a couple of others, I just picked this up this afternoon thinking I would never get the meta by the deadline, but it kind of jumped out at me. However, I’m not a pro at this and I’m not sure my methodology is “elegant.” But since I have an answer, I’m going to stick with it and happily submit.

[Seadub]

Just joined Muggles forum. Ashore since Friday PM.

[Bob cruise director]

Just joined Muggles forum. Ashore since Friday PM.

Welcome to the group and good luck winning the mug

[RichA2]

I have a solution. It isn’t elegant (and as the song goes, “If you ain’t got elegance, you can never ever carry it off”) but I am going to submit it and see what happens. Bob, count me as still at sea until I wake up tomorrow morning and find out whether I made it ashore.

[mflaminio]

On shore. Think it was easy but reading other replies, have my doubts.

[Bob cruise director]

I have a solution. It isn’t elegant (and as the song goes, “If you ain’t got elegance, you can never ever carry it off”) but I am going to submit it and see what happens. Bob, count me as still at sea until I wake up tomorrow morning and find out whether I made it ashore.

If you think you are on shore - any shore, even a deserted island, we count you on shore. You will not be the first to throw a hail Mary and have it caught.