"Storefronts" August 9, 2024

[DennyB]

Jack Daniels & Vernor’s Ginger-ale please!
On shore

[JimmyC1004]

Same thinking as everyone else. Ashore based on Occam's Razor.

[ZazooD]

On shore, maybe too late!

[Cindy N]

I thought for sure I had posted that I was ashore, but it seems not. I'm there!

[Bob cruise director]

Good evening muggles

Our final count is 236 on the shore including our newest muggle @Middle_butterfly

[Zagman49]

Talk about an 11th Hour revelation, Duh!..finally @shore!

[Dave C]

With a very late start, I had a very quick swim to shore.

[Ann]

On the shore!

[EmilyW]

Finally got to the puzzle with an hour to spare. Luckily it was a quick swim and I am ashore.

[hcbirker]

Happy 35th birthday to my twin boys. On the beach n Baja to celebrate!

[kgiano]

Ashore

[Joe Ross]

[hoover]

This metanism reminded me of a MMMM from earlier this year.

[Aragorn]

After at first trying to make something out of AT —> 80, I landed on AT&T but had a hard time getting it to click. The “fronts” part of the title worked, but I was unsure as to why storefronts worked better than any other kind of front.

[steveb]

This metanism reminded me of a MMMM from earlier this year.

It was also reminiscent of the very first WSJ contest crossword, way back on 9/18/2015. The meta answer was a well-known automaker, hinted at by the 5 longest answers all being two words that started with V and W.

(edited to show correct year of 2015, not 2025)

[Joe Ross]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

WSJ has to trot out more readily solvable metas fairly often or they would never retain new solvers. If they had difficult puzzles for 3 months in a row, new-to-contest-crossword solvers would move on.

[FatJack]

I quickly spotted that four answers started with "AT" and included T, yet somehow AT&T never popped into my head! Instead I paddled around in the surf looking for how to convert AT to @ and online commerce. I blame the brain fog on the fact that I was literally sitting on the beach all weekend drinking beer, in the fog! And I'll add: "duh."

[Collegetowngirl]

So! I had been tripped up by seeing “ICT” in three of the four long answers. Then by “Uttar Pradesh” in a clue and “utter” in the grid. Then “esses” and “Exxon” seemed significant. Just kept glancing at it all weekend with no progress until 15 minutes before midnight Eastern and decided I should read what everyone had to say here on the forum. Nobody on the ship at all besides me!?!? How could that be?! Finally looked at the starts of those words and submitted 5 minutes before the bell. Thanks everyone for saving me from what would have been a very woeful slap upside the head today.

[olev]

At first, I only clocked that the theme answers consisted of two words that began with "A" and "T", respectively. Wasn't sure what to do with that. It was only when I stared at the puzzle and saw that 1D was RAN AT that it finally dawned on me that all theme answers began with "AT". (How could I have missed that?! Good question...) ANYWAY, after figuring that the answer must be AT&T, it seemed like a hint that 23A was TEA, such that 1D/23A => RAN AT/TEA or kinda-sorta RAN "A T (and) TEA". Too much of a stretch?? And a final hint seemed to be the last across clue, which ends in "tees". But maybe I'm just seeing what I wanna see - it's happened before... THOUGHTS???

[woozy]

I thought the grid was hard and ATTENDED TO was the first themer I got completely. I noticed some of the other themers began with A and had a second letter T so for a brief moment I thought the mechanism where the themers all started with ATTT. I soon self-corrected but it was a brief sidetrack.

(No a very interesting sidetrack but....)