"Ringing In the New Year" - December 27, 2019

[matthewmoravec]

Ashore again for the first time in a few weeks. Since it was New Year's themed hopefully it means I'll be on shore a lot in 2020!

[Janet]

Still hanging out on ship.

[PHOFER]

After much flailing, I found the way to shore. A very nice puzzle by Mike. Happy New Year!

[Devilbunny]

Keeping Isaac company. Guess I should have put the beach warren on AirBnB this weekend. I was out of town anyway...

[MajordomoTom]

chatted with my daughter earlier today.

she reminded me that there's a police APB for a house burglar, thought to be about 5'5", allegedly using psychic powers to know when you're not at the home.

Yes, there's a small medium, at large.

[ccmac]

I’m relatively new here and have only solved a few of these puzzles. I thought I was on the right track with this one, but I’m not getting anywhere. Hopefully something will come to me soon; otherwise I guess I’ll have to stay on the ship.

[Hidden in 3D]

I'm sad to report that I am hopelessly lost at sea. Actually, I'm not all that sad about my situation because I have had too much fun playing with my 15-month-old granddaughter this weekend instead of concentrating on the meta. (She is an expert at demolishing my elaborate structures made of blocks.)

Happy New Year Muggles!

[Joe Ross]

So this dog walks into a bank carrying a small porcelain figurine and approaches the teller, one Patricia Whake, to inquire about obtaining a home loan...

I'm betting there are almost none of you who cannot finish this very old, very "ooooh" pun/joke - am I right?? I mean I will finish it if you want but I'm almost certain several would drive to my house and pummel me. (please don't arrive on an Arabian stallion, I'm afraid of pummel horses!)

It's a knick-knack, Patty Whack. Give the dog a loan!

So, a giraffe walks into a bar...

[Bob cruise director]

Our final count is too many bad puns and jokes and 12 on the ship and 91 on the shore

And to our newest muggle, BobC1547, we hope the puns and jokes don't scare you away

New to the ship's bar are
Devilbunny
ccmac
and Sara who is Hidden in 3D

While getting to the shore are
DaveWa
Debbie
memay131
BobC1547
rexthree
phofer
and Matthew M

Good luck winning the mug and stay safe this New Years Eve

[alexis'mom]

I like cruising... been a long trip but thankfully Isaac hasn't run out of chocolate and irish mist!

[Bird Lives]

After swimming around in many wrong directions, I have finally joined the shore party. It's OK if all the hors d'oeuvre trays are empty and the ground is littered with empty Clos Vougeot bottles. Even in my depleted state I am super impressed with Mike for this one. Happy New Year.

[jmorgie7]

clueless. sigh. too embarassed to tell isaac

[WBYonder]

I really didn’t look at it since Friday night, but I thought I was on the right track. Spent some quality time with Isaac, then picked it up about 10 minutes ago. Saw the light and submitted it after 5 minutes. On shore with about a half hour to spare!

[MajordomoTom]

unofficial solution: NOISEMAKER

this one required a bit of extra work, but it's really simple once you see it

first, you need to note that there are ten and only ten clues with numbers provided in them - nicely, they are the digits one through ten. Take the answers to those clues, and write them down, from ten to one.

Ten is 55A and COUNTSDOWN
Nine is 10D and KATEHUDSON
Eight is 16A and ICESKATING
Seven is 47A and SAMPRAS
Six is 41A and HEXAMETER
Five is 33A and ISLAM
Four is 5A and SWEAR
Three is 15A and FAKE
Two is 46A and TEA
One is 62A and ROPE

Then you need to perform yet another countdown - take the 10th letter of the first entry above, that's an "N", then the 9th entry of the next, that's an "O", etc.

Spelling out NOISEMAKER, which is something associated with New Year's Eve and possibly (if it's the right kind) could be used for RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR.

I'm starting to think we need two ratings - one for the grid (this one wasn't difficult) and one for the meta/puzzle (which, I'll agree with the comment made before - it's SAD - simple and difficult. If you don't see it, it's difficult, but once seen, it's simple.

I was able to produce the list of these words - finding the digits ten through one in the clues was a pretty clear path to ... something. But there I stopped, looking at first letters, last letters, and trying to find patterns within the ten words The "countdown" part of the clues to give me those words convinced me that this was the correct way to go.

It took my wife looking at that work to say "what's the 10th letter of the first, the 9th of the next ..." and after NOIS, I knew it was a productive path to take to its conclusion.

and ... it had bothered me for a while that I was "using" three of the four ten letter answers from the grid (not using 26D, for ... whatever reason, as it doesn't have a number in its clue), but the answer fit so perfectly that I was able to move on. I guess a NOISEMAKER is an example of something you can use to RING IN THE NEW YEAR, yes?

HAPPY 2020 TO ALL! GOOD LUCK ON THE MUG!

Tom & Kathie, St. Louis

[Joe Ross]

[FrankieHeck]

Before my son pointed out which letters I should be using from the ten answers, I tried using the first letters of each. Broke out the Bananagrams and came up with the following. Took a picture because I knew it would be terribly wrong. (Though I did first google the term to see if I was missing out on a fun New Years tradition.) -- Edited to add that I just read the Crossword Fiend write-up, and I see I was not alone!!

[Tony S]

IMG_20191230_000925_01.png

As I said earlier this is one of my favorite metas of 2019. Hats off to Mike Shenk and best to all in 2020.

[Tina]

I eventually found the right answer, but my first attempt involved the first letters of the theme answers: CKISHISFTR. This seemed to almost anagram to FIRST KISS, which is a New Year's Eve thing, isn't it? First kiss of the New Year at midnight? Anyway, Happy New Year, Muggles! Kisses all around. Here's to another fun year of metas and forum fun!

[Eric Porter]

I eventually found the right answer, but my first attempt involved the first letters of the theme answers: CKISHISFTR. This seemed to almost anagram to FIRST KISS, which is a New Year's Eve thing, isn't it? First kiss of the New Year at midnight? Anyway, Happy New Year, Muggles! Kisses all around. Here's to another fun year of metas and forum fun!

I thought the same thing and alluded to it in my earlier post. I saw a few other people say similar things, so I thought that I wasn't the only one trying to get FIRST KISS out of those letters.

This one wasn't too hard for me as we've seen several puzzles where you have to look in the clues, not the grid. Indexing into an answer is common in puzzles so it was the first thing I tried because I'd noticed that the earlier numbers in the countdown all corresponded to long grid entries.

If the WSJ is taking suggestions for 2020, I would suggest having the puzzles get harder every week of the month like I've heard MGWCC does. Sometimes we get streaks of squeezy puzzles, then streaks of difficult puzzles.

[BethA]

I was rather surprised to wake up alone on the wrong shore, after feeling I had an answer which clicked solidly!! I did manage to use the first letters of the theme answers, after discarding attempts at FIRST KISS, also. I saw that in order, they spell: CK is his FTR. Casey Kasem is his (we’re talking countdowns), for the RECORD! The confirmation click came with 61A Numbers = SONGS !!! So obviously I sent in “Casey Kasem’s Year End Top 100 Countdown”.

Oh well. Tomorrow is a new day, and Thursday is a new meta puzzle.

FTR, my list of shame this year includes these 5:
Lima (Bamako)
Yuma Sumac (Isaac Hayes)
Francis Scott Key (Hearst)
Wonder Twins (Touchè Turtle & Dum Dum)
Noisemaker (Casey Kasem’s Year End Top 100 Countdown)

I’ll be a little late to this week’s meta, as the Bearcats will be playing in the Birmingham Bowl on Thursday at 3:00! Go ‘Cats!

Happy New Year!