Am aloof to such.
[/quote]
Found the Wikipedia article on this fascinating as heck, actually.
Am aloof to such.
SAUSAGES was my Hail Mary. Alas, no reason to be checking my junk email folder this week to see if my mug email was waylaid!
There is a quote in that article that should appeal to @Al Sisti : "Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs" is a short, lightweight book. But that doesn't mean it won't make you laugh at loud. Or that it won't take you on a fun-filled ride down memory lane after which you will have the tune of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" stuck in your brain.mntlblok wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 12:46 pmThank you for that reference. https://www.deseret.com/1997/6/29/19320 ... orst-songs
Thanks for the Dave Barry suggestion Ann! Googling, I found this excerpt from one of his bad song survey articles. I tried to read this paragraph out loud and couldn't couldn't finish for laughing. Gardeners take note:
Quote is from ChicagoTribune.com article "THE LION MAY SLEEP TONIGHT, BUT THE READERS ARE RESTLESS" Jan 31, 1993 by the great Dave Barry....Many readers are still very hostile toward the song "Wildfire," in which singer Michael Murphy wails for what seems like 97 minutes about a lost pony. (As one voter put it: "Break a leg, Wildfire.") Voter Steele Hinton particularly criticized the verse wherein "there came a killing frost," which causes Wildfire to get lost. As Hinton points out: " . . . `killing' in `killing frost' refers to your flowers and your garden vegetables, and when one is forecast, you should cover your tomatoes. . . . Nobody ever got lost in a killing frost who wouldn't get lost in July as well."
Sausages sounds good to me! My dear old dog would’ve voted for that too! Mine would have been LINEWISE - made up of the only two other four-letter words in the grid that ‘ladder’ into the twelve theme words.
My daughter has a pony and rides in USEF and USDF events. It's 14.2 hands in that world. You actually have to get the pony measured by a USEF or USDF judge every year until the animal turns 8, whereupon you get your permanent pony card. My daughter's pony is exactly 14.2, so just made it. We told him to slouch when he was getting measured.SusieG wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 2:22 pmBelieve it’s the same species, but they’re just different sizes. Horses are over 14 hands high, ponies are under. Hands are how horses’ heights are measured. I grew up riding Western, but I believe the differentiation is 14.2 for English riders.BarbaraK wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 2:15 pmI thought it was her pony. Not willing to listen to the song to find out, but that's what's in my head.Susan Goldberg wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 11:22 am No. It’s called Wildfire by Michael Murphey from the 70’s. It’s about a now deceased former lover. Wildfire was her horse.
And I bring it up only because I was just this afternoon wondering - are horses and ponies different species or different breeds or what? Sure, I could google it, but with all the smart people here there must be an equine expert to ask
Since you've answered my question, I'll try to answer yours. I also use Firefox. And the Submit button is there from the start, not just when you've completed the grid. It's below the puzzle, in a small row of other buttons like "Contest Info." It's nothing fancy, all it does is pop up a window where you enter your name, email, and meta answer.woozy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 12:01 pm "This week it seemed the Submit button was missing from the online version of the puzzle, so I had to submit via email for the first time. Did I just miss it?"
Rather strange. I've never seen a submit link at all on the online puzzle ever. But interestingly, on the non contest puzzles when you complete the grid correctly you get a congratulations pop-up. You don't get that on the meta puzzles as you are not done just by doing the grid. This week I *did* get the pop-up when I completed the grid. I hypothesis, however data-entered the puzzle forgot to indicated it was a meta.
I guess I will further hypothesize that there is something about the Firefox Browser that the script to give a submit button when you complete the grid just fails to work and that is why I have *never* seen one and have no idea what you are talking about.
I do sometimes wonder if *none* of my submissions have ever been received as I've always submitted by e-mail and have never received any form of confirmation.
I have a story about that. I've been submitting answers since the very first WSJ contest five years ago. Not the right answer every week mind you, but most weeks I submit. I played around with the web submission form a few times but mostly I submit via email so that at least I have a record in my sent folder as to whether or not I submitted.
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Hello, we don't always read every note in our contest mailbox but just stumbled on yours--many thanks for such kind words
and hope you and your family is well too!
Thanks, Joe. That explanation helped me more than the one published in the WSJ.
Ok, thanks. Not your best, but fair.
I too was distracted by the LOATHES/LATHES relationship while working the grid but was loathe to take that turn believing it likely led down a rabbit hole 🕳. I felt the eight letter answers broken into four letter words offered a more promising route since there clearly were elements of a word chain puzzle present but after reading about the many wayward paths some Muggles followed, I am grateful for my procrastination. Since I literally left myself only minutes to work on the meta before the deadline, I had no time to overthink the solution. Realizing the chain could not be completed without 2 missing links, I was content with a solution that also related to the hot in the title. Had I had more time I could have perseverated on any number of false leads. My new plan is to spend as little time as possible working the meta and see if that brings clarity in the future.DrTom wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 12:50 am …
I got really distracted by LATHES LOATHES when I was working the ladder because it was SO odd to have either of those words, and especially BOTH of them one letter apart. I spent a lot of time trying to find other "drop a letter" words, but had I done so I would have agonized over the long two word answers. I know Mr. Berry will say "Oh. no that was coincidence" but I'm not buying it
Love Dave Barry! I also have a list of Christmas songs that I write about every year in a series I called "Badvent," where I work backwards from "so-so" to "What the...?"LadyBird wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 3:39 pmThere is a quote in that article that should appeal to @Al Sisti : "Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs" is a short, lightweight book. But that doesn't mean it won't make you laugh at loud. Or that it won't take you on a fun-filled ride down memory lane after which you will have the tune of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" stuck in your brain.mntlblok wrote: ↑Mon Jun 28, 2021 12:46 pmThank you for that reference. https://www.deseret.com/1997/6/29/19320 ... orst-songs
Horse with no Name is far, far worse:
I honestly do not know this "Wildfire" song, but (Apology In Advance for putting this through your head all day) am I right in thinking the performer is the same chap who did..