XWord Muggles Forum

I have just come in from slogging a several hundred pound snow blower fighting 7 inches of heavy wet snow (aka Sierra Cement if you are at Squaw Valley). Anyone who thinks that a snow blower does the job all by itself has never used one in a big snow storm

I am not a movie buff and after reading all the uncertainty and discontent from the comments, I will be spending the rest of the weekend tending @MaineMarge stern garden planting spring bulbs, clearing out the old leaves and tending the weeping cherry tree so in a few weeks we can have visions like this:

EVJ wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 10:55 am Ashore with a slight nudge. I’ve never seen this group like this. If we were fooled into a pageant is this what the sentiments would be?

Dplass wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 11:02 am

SReh26 wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 10:46 am Made it to the ship! It’s been a while.

Now the hard part starts.

What's the hard part? Waiting?

I’m only on the ship. Haven’t even made it to the ship in ages. I don’t think I can do the meta. My attention span is shot from playing Wordle, Letterboxed and Spelling bee. But Isaac is fun to hang out with. I liked the grid a lot this time.

You know what Donizetti says about l’elixir d’Amour. It rots the brain…

Love is like a cage
Hard to turn the page
Then comes the stage
When he finds out your age

Pursuing the fountain of youth
Not looking long in the tooth
Wrinkles forsooth!
But he found out the truth

I am as old as he
Even though I’m still pretty
For a girl from the big city
It’s down to the nitty gritty

Oh well, you can’t win them all
I knew as much in the fall
He is handsome and tall
I’ll have to wait for the next one to call

No matter what he said
Now he looks afraid
At me, the exotic fair maid
My space he shall not invade

What is the lesson here?
Love is something to fear
Too often I shed a tear
O’er someone trying to endear

A rock and an island, I
Never ashamed to cry
It’s life, one still needs to try
To live, love and get by

Time to listen to some Marlene Dietrich. She always sang it better. As did Zarah Leander, who sang never to cry over love.

Good Saturday morning muggles. This meta has created a high level of frustration based on the comments and the fact that we only have 74 on the shore while we have 14 on the ship. And many on the shore got the answer from the very popular Friday zoom call which had 60 participants. (and thanks to @ship4u Don and his other solvers for orchestrating the zoom calls.

Our ship contingent includes
clonefitz
streroto
femullen
EVJ
meowmiao71
BigPear
HeadinHome
Jace54
hunkra
Moi
auee89
HunterX
Barney
SReh26

And the shore party has:

joe
oldjudge
Al
Heidi
ajk
chriscross
docison
Kay
Cindy
Beth T
Dannyvee
Meg
benchen71
boharr
Flying_Burrito
darth
Chris
MikeM000
CptnCodon
Eric C
Joe R
Laura
Mike H
Don and Cynthia
Les
dplass
rjy
D B Miller
mbryant
Fred
Bill
Bonnibel
hoover
MatthewL
Homer
Beth A
BrennerTJ
MikeyG
Jordanian
Wendy
Deb
TheFusionMoose
sf592000
woozy
Trish
Jean
haydendog
lxpeterson
Al Laubenstein
MarkWoychick
Berto
Burak
Acari
DrTom
ReB
MaineMarge
JaneGummy
batfella
caf.caf Cathy
sharkicicles
Miki
Joepickett
31 Down
Toby
Josh
jimbo1
markhr
Justmarebear
ky-mike
Ergcat
pjc
MajorDomoTom
Tina
turbotron

Good luck to all with the grid and the meta.

SReh26 wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 11:47 am

Dplass wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 11:02 am

SReh26 wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 10:46 am Made it to the ship! It’s been a while.

Now the hard part starts.

What's the hard part? Waiting?

I’m only on the ship. Haven’t even made it to the ship in ages. I don’t think I can do the meta. My attention span is shot from playing Wordle, Letterboxed and Spelling bee. But Isaac is fun to hang out with. I liked the grid a lot this time.

Oh I misread.

Do you also play https://framed.wtf ? It's a fun one.

Bob cruise director wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 11:49 am Good Saturday morning muggles. This meta has created a high level of frustration based on the comments and the fact that we only have 74 on the shore while we have 14 on the ship. And many on the shore got the answer from the very popular Friday zoom call which had 60 participants. (and thanks to @ship4u Don and his other solvers for orchestrating the zoom calls.

Our ship contingent includes
clonefitz
streroto
femullen
EVJ
meowmiao71
BigPear
HeadinHome
Jace54
hunkra
Moi
auee89
HunterX
Barney
SReh26

And the shore party has:

joe
oldjudge
Al
Heidi
ajk
chriscross
docison
Kay
Cindy
Beth T
Dannyvee
Meg
benchen71
boharr
Flying_Burrito
darth
Chris
MikeM000
CptnCodon
Eric C
Joe R
Laura
Mike H
Don and Cynthia
Les
dplass
rjy
D B Miller
mbryant
Fred
Bill
Bonnibel
hoover
MatthewL
Homer
Beth A
BrennerTJ
MikeyG
Jordanian
Wendy
Deb
TheFusionMoose
sf592000
woozy
Trish
Jean
haydendog
lxpeterson
Al Laubenstein
MarkWoychick
Berto
Burak
Acari
DrTom
ReB
MaineMarge
JaneGummy
batfella
caf.caf Cathy
sharkicicles
Miki
Joepickett
31 Down
Toby
Josh
jimbo1
markhr
Justmarebear
ky-mike
Ergcat
pjc
MajorDomoTom
Tina
turbotron

Good luck to all with the grid and the meta.

I'm not ashore, I'm firmly planted at the bar with an open tab.

Grid done but sitting with Isaac at the bar. Just coffee for now, Isaac. I’ll keep working on it. At least I know it’s not me.

Ashore. I felt like Carl Spackler chasing the gopher in Caddyshack. The course is ruined, but at least I got the little rascal!

Dplass wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 11:50 am

SReh26 wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 11:47 am

Dplass wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 11:02 am

What's the hard part? Waiting?

I’m only on the ship. Haven’t even made it to the ship in ages. I don’t think I can do the meta. My attention span is shot from playing Wordle, Letterboxed and Spelling bee. But Isaac is fun to hang out with. I liked the grid a lot this time.

Oh I misread.

Do you also play https://framed.wtf ? It's a fun one.

Oh that’s cool. No I never saw it but my knowledge of movies is pathetic. Reds, Gandhi, Jaws and a few foreign movies. I will tell my friends though, many of whom are movie buffs. Thanks for letting me know about it!

(I think) I've made it to shore.

EVJ wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 10:55 am Ashore with a slight nudge. I’ve never seen this group like this. If we were fooled into a pageant is this what the sentiments would be?

Normally I'd complain the red herring pageants where there is another justifiably correctly constructed answer are unfair because.... there's another justifiably correctly constructed answer. But in this case in the event there were some very clever correct answer.... I'd be on the fence. Although what I think is the correct answer in justifiably correct, it *shouldn't* be. (It's justifiably correct, but it isn't correctly constructed in my opinion.) So I guess I'd consider I was legitimately pageanted. But dirty pool, dude! Dirty pool!

Sometimes life is just too short and you’ve tried hard. If I use the zoom room or get help on a WSJ I don’t submit for the mug! Want to win THAT on my own-some.

The approach that most people do is to attempt to solve on their own and after 24 hours they seek help. What we have seen from the zoom calls is that everyone who contributes (speaks out vs being silent) has gone down one or more of the rabbit holes that everyone else has.

Before the forum and before the zoom calls, we would struggle on our own at some level through Sunday. Speaking for myself, if I did not get the meta by Friday morning, it was unlikely that I would get it by slogging it out through Sunday.

It is also much more rewarding to bounce ideas off someone else who looks at things differently than you do. For some that is a spouse, sibling or child. For others it is someone that they have met through the forum. The AHA moment feels the same both ways.

woozy wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:34 pm ...Although what I think is the correct answer in justifiably correct, it *shouldn't* be. (It's justifiably correct, but it isn't correctly constructed in my opinion.)

I've always felt the first rule of metas is there are no rules. That's what makes them so engagingly challenging. Constructors ruffle my feathers only if the solution path is logically inconsistent or exceedingly twisted - which occurs rarely. Granted some are more elegant than others but they're almost all pretty neat. Aren't they suppose to be fun?

I like doing puzzles on my own. I will guiltlessly confer with my know-it-all homeboy, Mr. G, to solve the more arcane metas (but never the grid). He can be annoying though.

This was cleverly a very noisy meta which made it more difficult.

Ok, I give. If anyone has a hint, I'll gladly take one via DM...

Update: made our ashore with a nudge from woozy and lxpeterson. Thanks!

Ashore - I think - with no nudges.

Haven't looked at this thread yet, but seeing mention of frustration as I scroll down to post, and I found this one *very* frustrating,

Edit: have read the thread now and the many "yeah so there was one thing that...???" comments appear to confirm that I arrived at the right answer.

On shore. Or, at least, on A shore. 🛟

I guess I'm on shore? Seems like a lot of people are dealing with the same uncertainty I am. Not a fan of red herrings in metas. The answer I arrived at is justifiable, in that it follows a pattern, but clunky. If there's a more elegant answer, great, but then my answer shouldn't work at all, regardless of elegance. I can't wait for the Monday morning breakdown of this one.

I have submitted an answer. I have a hesitation, but I did it anyway. May be wrong. May be the same thinking others here have had.

Jace54 wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 4:49 pm Checking in with a loss this week.

Turned the loss into a win while sitting at the airport waiting for a flight!