MEOW #81 Pent-Up Emotions

[DrTom]

Hmm, the puzzle seems to be a victim of an unexpectedly unclear path and the simultaneous release of other, probably much better, Metas...

[CPJohnson]

OK, I finally see it. Whew.

[rjy]

Hmm, the puzzle seems to be a victim of an unexpectedly unclear path and the simultaneous release of other, probably much better, Metas...

Unfortunately - or fortunately in my case - you have only these fora, and otherwise no insight into how many and for how long people are wrestling with your meta. WSJ is still sitting on the sideline for me, while I double-down in some misguided notion that an AHA here is mere minutes away…

The juice better be worth the squeeze, DrTom

[woozy]

Hmm.... I have written before about nudges that essentially say "Have you trying looking at something in the grid" and you want to respond with a gazillion cusses and start to and then.... oh... there it is.

I figure they must work because you are annoyed you've tried everything the same 7 ways and got nothing. Rather than telling you to try another track altogether the nudge tells you "hey, have you tried [this thing you've been trying for ages]" and you realize there is an 8th way to look at the track.

Anyway Dr. Tom gave me a nudge of "So what do you think you should do with the grid" and .... there it was.

So consider that Nudge number 4: So what do you think you should do with the grid?. I hope you have as good luck with that as I did.

[benchen71]

I freed the cat, thanks to the third nudge. Thanks for your double-trouble puzzles this week, DrTom!

[rjy]

FINALLY got it!

Juice tastes pretty good DrTom!

[DrTom]

Well apparently I nudged (or guilted) some people into solving, the new leaderboard is:

1 SJMcK
2 Mme
3 MarkWoychick
4 Darth
5 boharr
6 meg
7 ChrisKochmanski
8 Schmeel
9 CPJohnson
10 Cinny
11 ReB
12 benchen71
13 rjy

There is still LOTS of time to solve. So get a drink of water and finish off the WSJ, gather a couple of people and do the MG then come back to this emotional little fur ball!

[markhr]

The cat has finally been freed. Enjoyed this one, Tom!

[Dplass]

Solved after many hints nudges and a kick in the rear by the good DrTom.

[ReB]

I'm off the couch but will wait for the contest to close before commenting further.

[Ergcat]

Well apparently I nudged (or guilted) some people into solving, the new leaderboard is:

1 SJMcK
2 Mme
3 MarkWoychick
4 Darth
5 boharr
6 meg
7 ChrisKochmanski
8 Schmeel
9 CPJohnson
10 Cinny
11 ReB
12 benchen71
13 rjy

There is still LOTS of time to solve. So get a drink of water and finish off the WSJ, gather a couple of people and do the MG then come back to this emotional little fur ball!

You forgot me! I was post #8 with a rare early solve!! -elaine ( aka ergCAT )

[Joe]

After a lovely one on one with DrTom in the Zoom room (a session in which we did NOT solve the MGWCC), I believe this kitty has left the bag.

[DrTom]

You forgot me! I was post #8 with a rare early solve!! -elaine ( aka ergCAT )

Whoops, so sorry, you should have been #5 on the solve board!

We have two more today so up to 18.

If you are still working on the puzzle and need confirmation, please PM Madhatter. I have some family issues and will be out of town and away from the computer and good phone service. So if you need to see if you have solved, please ask Josh, He will also post the reeal when it is time.

Tom

[madhatter5]

Tom writes:



Well then, another MEOW down. Josh has agreed to post this for me since I am away on a family emergency.
I really enjoyed this one I’m afraid, simply because it was so simple it seemed hard. You had 7 theme clues and answers. Each one addressed the emotional state of your pent-up cat, and that was how you knew it was a theme question. I guess I got some people looking for hidden emotions, but a LOT of you notice very early on that ALL of the theme clues were Downs. Some down sure, but ALL of them? Plus all were long enough to allow you to count UP from the bottom, which is what the UP hinted to. Ah, but how far to count. There I was counting on you seeing PENT and thinking five. I was going to use PENTA but that didn’t make for a good title.

What happens if you do that? You get the letters CATSOUT (it is in grid order as to where the answers appear but the one had the 5th letter at the top putting it in line with the other letters and it confused some people that it was CATSOTU).

Why did I say it was very revealing, well because when people get the answer (the reveal) of the MEOW, what do we all say? I did that on purpose because a while back someone said, “I wonder what folks would do if the answer to the puzzle was the phrase we usually put in the forum when we solve that puzzle?” So I figured I’d find out. We had a pretty good turnout, and I had lots of fun making the puzzle so a positive experience all around.



Thanks for filling in Tom. I wish for the best for you and your family.

[woozy]

I can't believe it was as hard for me to get as it was. I think there are some syntactic connections a brain just doesn't want to make. I knew it was 5 and I knew we had to go up the down entries. But some how I just couldn't accept "take 5th from the bottom" as legitimate mechanism.

The current MGWCC had a similar block. I can see why he thought it was a week 1 (well, an easy week 2 maybe) but without a clear "trigger" it was much harder. But it really shouldn't have been the Week 7 that so many people (myself included) seemed to make it.

I wonder why in some circumstances things seem fair and in others they just seem (literally) unthinkable.

[Dplass]

I can't believe it was as hard for me to get as it was. I think there are some syntactic connections a brain just doesn't want to make. I knew it was 5 and I knew we had to go up the down entries. But some how I just couldn't accept "take 5th from the bottom" as legitimate mechanism.

The current MGWCC had a similar block. I can see why he thought it was a week 1 (well, an easy week 2 maybe) but without a clear "trigger" it was much harder. But it really shouldn't have been the Week 7 that so many people (myself included) seemed to make it.

I wonder why in some circumstances things seem fair and in others they just seem (literally) unthinkable.

See, I never even thought the "PENT" meant "FIVE" (before DrTom told me...) because "EMOTION" was completely distracting me.

[woozy]

See, I never even thought the "PENT" meant "FIVE" (before DrTom told me...) because "EMOTION" was completely distracting me.

That too. I really assumed it had to have something to do with emotions.

[KayW]

See, I never even thought the "PENT" meant "FIVE" (before DrTom told me...) because "EMOTION" was completely distracting me.

That too. I really assumed it had to have something to do with emotions.

Me three. I was so lost in an ocean (of EMOTIONS) that I would have needed a nudge to get the nudges. Never got PENT=5, ATE=8 until I saw the posted solution

[woozy]

Me three. I was so lost in an ocean (of EMOTIONS) that I would have needed a nudge to get the nudges. Never got PENT=5, ATE=8 until I saw the posted solution

It was that "Ate Up their Time" as an alternate title that made me think maybe it didn't have anything to do with emotions (or time).