XWord Muggles Forum

Good evening muggles.

Our final count is 5 on the ship and 233 on the shore.

And welcome to our newest muggles @Stonewizard and @tpomeara Great to have you both on board.

And it is not too late to do both the SSS and Pair-o-Ducks metas. Both solveable and fun.

Had a chance to work/solve the meta this evening after my last HS graduation party. Watched that movie plenty of times in college even if it doesn't target college students: a classic

Think twice ‘fore you touch my girl. Come around nah nah nah nah (can’t remember the rest of the words, but I can still hear the song!) Not my favorite Eve6 song, but always love a deep cut throwback reference!

Now if only I could get the meta. I feel like I’ve done the hard part and the answer is close to staring me in the face but there’s still something I’m missing.

Eric Porter wrote: Thu May 15, 2025 4:57 pm I made it to shore after spending most of the time just getting the grid.

It's been 10 puzzles since one I consider very tricky / difficult. I had trouble with "End Products" & "Sail On, O Ship of State!" which came out in consecutive weeks. We haven't had a puzzle in a while where it took a long time to fill page 1.

MikeyG was the first to solve. His Saturday puzzle was called "Think Twice". This puzzle's title is also a hit song by the rock band Eve 6, but of course it has nothing to do with the solution. There's got to be at least a few people here who have heard of them.

Got it in the nick of time.

It has been an extremely busy weekend at the Hidden house, so I haven't looked at the puzzle since I filled in the grid and saw a few things on Thursday night. Didn't get back to it until just a little while ago and was able to come ASHORE after printing the puzzle and taking a closer look.

I see step 1 and what I think is step 2, but nothing after that. I'll spend a lonely day with Isaac at the bar, while all you smart people are on the shore.

Ashore!

"The 2017 Secret Blend Red Wine is another outstanding effort and checks in as 47% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet Franc, 21% Merlot, and the rest Petit Verdot, sourced from five separate sites and aged 18 months in 49% new French oak. It’s a beautifully textured 2017 with lots of ripe, dark, chocolately fruit as well as subtle spice and earthy notes. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, with sweet tannins and ample fruit, it’s a winner from this estate to drink over the coming decade or so. " - James Suckling

I'm not sure if it was by design, but this one worked in either themer order or grid order. (I used the former.)

I'm no movie buff, so I'm thankful Matt spelled it out for me!

It was easy enough that my TikTok hint featured an empty grid and a song

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjaErP8S/

I danced all night beneath the moon,
Then napped until it hit high noon.
I woke to hear a wild monsoon
I’ll need a boat, and I’ll need it soon!

Drat. I went through all the clues three, four, five times looking for "with" and could not find it. I went looking at all clues for grid answers beginning with "O", hunting for "with", because I already had "C - C O O N" and what else could it's be? Could not find it. Said the heck with it, submitted "COCOON" because why not, and returned to our visit here in Florence. And the church bells are still ringing this morning!

I usually do my crosswords on the actual physical newspaper, in red ink. However, this puzzle is an exception, because for whatever reason, it's released digitally a day earlier than the Friday WSJ.

Having the puzzle in Excel allows me to hit CTRL-F and search for words within the list of clues. That makes it almost effortless to test for potential meta puzzle mechanisms within the clues. I immediately found "player" and "private", which led me to the final answer.

But what was really huge was being able to verify in just a couple of seconds that there was indeed only ONE occurrence of "with" and "will" within the clues. That, more than anything else, made it a no-doubter.

Anyway, I like having the electronic version for meta solving, but I still ink in the answers on the actual paper for my collection!

otlaolap wrote: Mon May 19, 2025 2:59 am Drat. I went through all the clues three, four, five times looking for "with" and could not find it. I went looking at all clues for grid answers beginning with "O", hunting for "with", because I already had "C - C O O N" and what else could it's be? Could not find it. Said the heck with it, submitted "COCOON" because why not, and returned to our visit here in Florence. And the church bells are still ringing this morning!

I could have written the exact same thing. I knew it had to be Cocoon but could not, for the life of me, find 'with'. I did look at Down clues but just never saw it. I submitted Cocoon--what else could it be?

Have a terrific week, Muggles.

The first word of the title is one of those magic words that can have a special meaning in meta-world: INSIDE might implicate the interior portions of key entries, or perhaps suggest we shift certain strings toward the center of the grid. (We’ll see.) The prompt has the feel of one of those specifications that instigates a Final Click but does not aid in the early parts of the solve. Then, as we work the grid, we might notice that our first long entry is clued with a “?”, which often suggests that the constructor is stretching to contrive a couplet of words that don’t usually appear together; this might be done to achieve some artifact in the entry, such as a particular letter string needed for the solve. Those who are curious might be scanning the remaining clues to see if this might be a pattern. Sure enough, the six long entries are clued similarly, thus confirming there are six themed entries and telling us which ones they are. As we work the grid, we note that all six key entries consist of two words – again, words that don’t usually appear together. Once the grid is done, we might scrutinize the six key entries for suspect letter sequences. No joy there, but we can’t help but notice one of the second words – then another, then all six of them – are anagrams of English words. By now, our brain’s Happen-to-Notice light is flashing continuously, as we discover that we’re looking at six three-word movie titles, each of whose “INSIDE” word has been left “OUT” of the entry. This vindicates the title, but our brain’s Now-What? light is flashing, as we wonder how to glean the puzzle’s answer from what we’ve discovered. First things first: We won’t be working with the words and letters in the entries, but rather the “inside” words that were left “out”. Recent experience has us thinking about Alternate Entries, where we might find clues alternatively satisfied by those six words we’ve unearthed. Not this time. The next thing to check is the incidence, among the clues, of any homonyms of those six words. Bingo. Each of those omitted words is present in exactly one clue, so that gives us six entries to look at, then Whoosh! Very clever is the way the title, prompt and key entries work together over time to reveal the movie theme – one might say they act cinegistically. Hat’s off to Matt for a great meta which, like every meta that came before it, is not like any meta that came before it.

Deb F wrote: Mon May 19, 2025 8:24 am

otlaolap wrote: Mon May 19, 2025 2:59 am Drat. I went through all the clues three, four, five times looking for "with" and could not find it. I went looking at all clues for grid answers beginning with "O", hunting for "with", because I already had "C - C O O N" and what else could it's be? Could not find it. Said the heck with it, submitted "COCOON" because why not, and returned to our visit here in Florence. And the church bells are still ringing this morning!

I could have written the exact same thing. I knew it had to be Cocoon but could not, for the life of me, find 'with'. I did look at Down clues but just never saw it. I submitted Cocoon--what else could it be?

Have a terrific week, Muggles.

I wasn't really that crazy about this sort of step 2 (find a clue that contains the word). It seems arbitrary and cheap and not really clever; just busy work in "well, I had to hide it somehow". And with common words such as "will" or "with" they can be difficult to spot in their commonness.

Still I thought the main thrust of this meta was an absolute and enjoyable blast.

So what were the alternate answers? And did any who claim they hadn't heard of the movie have this movie?

otlaolap wrote: Mon May 19, 2025 2:59 am Drat. I went through all the clues three, four, five times looking for "with" and could not find it.

You can search the clues in a pdf file or in an excel file (as mentioned above.)

woozy wrote: Mon May 19, 2025 10:30 am So what were the alternate answers? And did any who claim they hadn't heard of the movie have this movie?

I had a friend how combined "ROCK" from the first themer, and then unscrambling the first letters of the other 5 scrambled words leads to S-W-O-R-D, so he was leaning toward Excalibur. Which also fits with the INSIDE OUT theme.