XWord Muggles Forum

Merry Christmas from the beach!

REMINDER: Our weekly Friday Zoom will be at our usual scheduled time of 4:30 pm Eastern time today. Please plan to join us for our pre-Christmas get together. If you haven't solved this week's meta, we will be offering eggnog nudges, sometimes referred to as noggin nudges
If you have solved, we will be offering our usual comraderie and good cheer.

All are welcome! Click on the Muggle Zoom Room tab at the top of the page. Hope to see you there!

Ashore -- what a wonderful meta for a rainy Friday.

Went down a rabbit hole that Ship4U saved me from by first throwing a life preserver, and eventually rowing me in with a life-boat to finally bring me to shore. Thank you Don!

Second Meta I've been able to solve since starting up on these several weeks ago... Just starting to learn how to solve them, and how to find that epiphany where the answer strikes

MatthewL wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2023 11:32 am

DrTom wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2023 11:02 am

Joe Ross wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2023 10:52 am
NOTE TO ALL: The grid does not have to be completely filled before the meta can be solved.

It does if you are an OCD like some of us (myself, of course, included)

I was going to say anal, but OCD works too.

I nearly *always* fall into that category. But as I was late starting and was doing by sneaking peaks into my cell phone, I decided to hurry up my thinking by allowing myself to think about the meta while solving. I was able to solve by looking at three clues and answering two of them. That was all it took. I was able to verify by skimming a half dozen more clues and entering one. So roughly 14 clues read and three clues entered and a 100% cinch in about 1 minute and 49 seconds. Then it took me over an hour to finish the grid and I still don't think I did it right.

But I think in 5+ years of doing metas this is the *only* time anything even remotely like that had ever happened.

On Shore! I liked this one a lot.

On the beach!

Thanks for the masterful and fun puzzle Mike Shenk! You rule! And thanks for not putting a lump of coal in my stocking!

I'll have a Sierra Nevada Cdelebration IPA along with a fine cigar.

Merry Christmas all!!

Fifteen minutes of blankness and then the mist cleared. A nice Christmas gift indeed.

Solved, again with help from daughter.

Bob cruise director wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2023 4:50 pm This is no fun!! No rabbit holes. Just a quick swim to shore

I was in a rabbit hole. If anyone is interested, on Monday I will be giving lessons in How to Manufacture a Rabbit Hole While Ignoring Blatant Markers for the Solution.

Ashore!

MY, MY. Lots of Christmas Spirit(s) here.

Ho ho ho! Ashore without the brat's...I mean, The Smarter Half's help! Oh, frabjous day! My turn to lord it over her!

Just pull the bung and gimme the keg.

Merry Christmas to all my Muggle friends and kibitzers.

I saw something but couldn’t make sense of it. Looks like 1,000 people on the shore and me on the ship. Working these puzzles keeps me from getting a big ego.

On shore. Embarrassed that it took me more than 5 minutes to figure it out! LOL. But very happy with a quick solve no matter what.

Ashore.

Early Christmas gift from Mike Shenk! And an early zoom call with my kids.

Unfortunately, while my kids are/will be in the area, I may not be able to see them. My wife and I both tested positive for COVID Monday. Sadly for her, my wife has been miserable the past week and a half. But she is finally starting to feel better today, thank goodness. Oddly, I have zero symptoms. Yet I just tested "positive" even more strongly than I did on Monday, when I also didn't have any symptoms. So we will probably be in quarantine and not seeing family, or even my kids, for Christmas.

Hope everyone has a happy, healthy, safe holiday with their family and loved ones! (And here's hoping that the former and the latter are not mutually exclusive. Though with some families.... I understand.)

Ashore. Happy Holidays to all!

Ashore — sniffle sniffle — need a hot toddy or … OH! I just remembered we got some Tom & Jerry batter in an effort to revive a holiday tradition of my wife’s parents from the hard-drinking 1950s in Minnesota! Oofta!

Great to see everyone of the ZOOM! Thanks for coming on and Merry Christmas to all!

Solved. Nice Zoom call.

Ashore! After I recognized the path to solution, I was able to get my family involved. Appreciate this holiday gift from Mike! Happy Christmas.