"Position Statement" August 19, 2022

[JPMalone]

First time ashore in a few weeks, really liked this one..

[Wendy Walker]

I presented metas to my work group at 4pm ET and at 430 we attacked the WSJ...with no solution. These are some of the smartest people I know and we're all hanging out with Isaac now.

Major props to Dplass for recruiting Muggle candidates -- and during a work meeting, too, even better! I actually think this puzzle, though it's not easy, would serve as an excellent introduction to metas.

[Red jbb]

This is my first solve!

[rjy]

I’m at risk of losing my stool at Isaac’s… sneak away to explore a rabbit-hole, back for another drink at the bar, another rabbit-hole, another drink. Lather, rinse, repeat.

At this point, it’s probably double-vision of rabbit-holes due to being overserved

[BarbaraK]

This is my first solve!

Way to go! And welcome!

Your first of many - I’m sure you’re hooked now

[Meg]

I’m sooooooo late to the beach. The cabana boy honestly thought maybe a bull shark got me. Too early for alcohol, so a cafe con leche, please kind sir.

[Flying_Burrito]

Ashore, despite the rabbit holes as deep as St Andrew's bunkers. It will have to be beer and why not, I will log off work laptop at 4 pm today

[boharr]

Ashore. Or as everybody is saying, AH shore. More coffee, please.....for now.

[billkatz]

Safely on shore!

[Omnibus]

Ashore. Clever.

[CallMeShane]

Friends, Romans, countrymen, I come to you today to confess my ignorance!

Not a smell, not a sniff, not the faintest trace of a Step 1.

I got nothing.

[BrennerTJ]

Ashore. 🏖

[Dplass]

I presented metas to my work group at 4pm ET and at 430 we attacked the WSJ...with no solution. These are some of the smartest people I know and we're all hanging out with Isaac now.

Major props to Dplass for recruiting Muggle candidates -- and during a work meeting, too, even better! I actually think this puzzle, though it's not easy, would serve as an excellent introduction to metas.

Happily, this "solved" a few problems at once: it let me work on the meta before 6pm on a Thursday, and it fulfilled my manager's wish to have a "fun" meeting every other Thursday at 4PM ET. Recruiting new muggles was just gravy.

(Sadly, since I wasn't able to solve the meta it left some egg on my face, especially after having shown how smert I was for solving 4 out of the last 6...)

[femullen]

Re my previous whimsical post, a colleague informs me, with scholarly references, that haiku lines do not rhyme--not that they should not, implying some level of choice, but that they do not as a matter of canonical form.

As a schoolboy, I was required at several points to compose "poetry," and I made it rhyme, because poetry does. My teachers often encouraged me to slip this constraint and explore poetic forms that neither rhymed nor--gads!--had discernable metre. The emphasis, rather, seemed to be on producing something evocative. Does Dr. Seuss not evoke?

Today I take the instruction of these by-gone teachers to heart and freely slip constraints:

Should haiku not rhyme?
Were I ashore at this time,
I'd have gin with lime.

But at sea with you,
And having naught else to do,
Shan't we rhyme haiku?

[ship4u]

After staring at this all morning and having about 6 cups of coffee, it is finally getting interesting. The only problem is that we can't get it to work yet. So, it may be a candidate for the rabbit hole of the week.

[Barney]

Usual barstool where I expect I’ll be glued for the duration.

[ship4u]

ashore4us!!!! I knew we were on to it, but it took a while to see the final piece. It is such a wonderful feeling when frustration turns to the bliss of satisfaction. It must be noon somewhere, we'll please have a .........

[Toby]

After nothing but dead ends last night, I woke up this morning and saw what to do. Hours too early for a cocktail but coffee and a pastry can be celebratory also. (I’m visiting friends in Berkeley California. While in general I prefer New York, where I live, they do have great bakeries here — and great weather)

[hoover]

I have to say, I hopped on here yesterday and had the chance to be #2 after Al Sisti, but alas, I didn't have any clue (heh heh) as to what the meta mechanism might be. Still on the boat with Isaac. He's getting a little slower at the shuffleboard.

[kawaja]

Crickets. Only crickets.