"Takeout Order" June 21, 2024

[sharkicicles]

I forget who said “a void” on the Friday zoom call, but that ratcheted up my respect for this puzzle by quite a bit.

[PQ63]

Almost got sucked into a rabbit hole. The grid answer “THANKYOUMAAM” threw me a bit. If you take HANOI, remove the HAN from THANKYOUMAAM, replace the HAN with the O from HANOI you get TOKYO which is another Asian Capital. That leaves the letter “I” as a straggler. But I couldn’t find a similar pattern with the other 4 grid answers. Hats off to Mike for his rabbit holes.

[Ergcat]

So... why is the word "avoid" (as opposed to "bunny" or "cocoa" or "habit")? Does "avoid" have anything to do the title or theme? I thought "takeout order" can be a command to assassinate and "avoid" could be an instruction to avoid direct contact. But that's morbid, isn't it?

AVOID and TAKE OUT both share a synonym “ELIMINATE”(among a couple of others). So I think the title fits as both mechanism direction and confirming the answer.

[Ergcat]

Here’s a TAKEOUT ORDER from REGFISH7 (my DD)….Baby Muggle is on his way today! Regfish7 at the hospital “take this baby OUT!”

[SamKat9]

Here’s a TAKEOUT ORDER from REGFISH7 (my DD)….Baby Muggle is on his way today! Regfish7 at the hospital “take this baby OUT!”

Best wishes for an uneventful delivery and a speedy discharge!

[woozy]

AVOID and TAKE OUT both share a synonym “ELIMINATE”(among a couple of others). So I think the title fits as both mechanism direction and confirming the answer.

See. I don't think AVOID and ELIMINATE are synonyms as ELIMINATE is to actively remove whereas AVOID is to passively avoid.

Still I think a phrase avoiding a letter is valid. I didn't really see it at first but it feels a little better now.

[ship4u]

I forget who said “a void” on the Friday zoom call, but that ratcheted up my respect for this puzzle by quite a bit.

'twas @HeyMikey, I recall, our spirited zoom participant!

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is AVOID. Each of the theme answers includes a contraction that drops a letter (YOU’RE/YOU ARE; NE’ER/ NEVER; DON’T/DO NOT; WHO’S/WHO IS; MA’AM/MADAM). The dropped letters, in order, spell the contest answer.

After a string of tough contests, this was a crowd-pleaser, with one of our highest success rates ever. We had 1,947 entries with a stratospheric 98% correct. Incorrect entries included a few actual takeout orders, including PIZZA (3), SUSHI (3) and FRIES (2), plus IDIOM (5), VIDEO (2) and a few others.

Congrats on this week's winner: Ben Landrum of Reisterstown, MD!

[The XWord Rabbit]

Last week’s feast of four Rabbit hole nominations was followed, unsurprisingly, by this week’s famine. “Takeout Order” by Mr. Shenk resulted in a mob of Muggles on the shore after seeing that the five anchor across entries each contained a contraction: YOU’RE, NE’ER, DON’T, WHO’S and MA’AM. The missing letters spelled out the meta: AVOID.

That being the case, your Rabbit has nowhere else to go but to fill this space with You Tube videos.

First, a musical homage to the answer of this week’s puzzle: It’s Dick Clark’s American Bandstand from 1966. Your Rabbit particularly likes the way the video ends with an “Okay, everybody, song’s over. Get off the stage.”



And this week we have a rare second video.

The passing of Donald Sutherland was sad enough without the omission of one of your Rabbit’s favorite movies in his New York Times obituary: From 1970 it’s Start the Revolution Without Me. Literate and silly (not unlike your Rabbit) here's a clip – and see you next week.

[Bird Lives]

First, a musical homage to the answer of this week’s puzzle: It’s Dick Clark’s American Bandstand from 1966. Your Rabbit particularly likes the way the video ends with an “Okay, everybody, song’s over. Get off the stage.”

"A Must to Avoid" is such an unusual phrase, it lends itself to many mondegreens, especially if, like me, you usually heard it on a cheap AM radio. I thought it was "She's a muscle boy" -- a concept more likely (and more controversial) in 2024 than in 1966.

[Susan Goldberg]

Ashore and missed page one again!

I am GREen with envy for those who found the pATH more quickly than I did--and I tried to go fast! At least I won't be wORN out with endless rabbit holes and rEDOing my grid trying to find the answer. I'm guessing that the muggles will be packed cheek by joWL at the tiki bar this weekend.

I feel Ike you’ve used Great Horned Owl before!!

When I was thinking of a bird for this week, I was surprised to see that I hadn't used Great-horned Owl before. But I double-checked my spreadsheet (yes, my meta statistics spreadsheet has a column for the bird of the week! ) and it wasn't there. I HAVE used Burrowing Owl, Eastern Screech Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl, and Short-eared Owl. We all nerd out about something.

And here is a pic of some Great-horned Owlets at the wildlife hospital I volunteer at. They really click their beaks at you when you go into their cage!

Screenshot_20240621_184306_OneDrive.jpg

They are beautiful! And no wonder I was confused - who knew there were so may owls?