XWord Muggles Forum

Hi all and welcome to the thirty-sixth installment of the MEOW!


For technical reasons, I regret that I have but one PDF file to give for my solvers.


The answer to this meta is four letters long.


https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Alternate Downloads:

PDF on one page

Excel


Good luck!



Kitten

Calico

Persian

Puma

Lion

Didn't even know these guys existed -- but NK did --

Nice one again. Thanks, mad!

A fine construction of a puzzle! I want to see the next one made out of LEGO bricks. Haha
"Don't disparage the power of the Dark Side!" ~Darth

Finally, the cat is free. The obvious eluded me for a loooooong time.

oldjudge wrote: ↑Wed Aug 04, 2021 9:40 pm Finally, the cat is free. The obvious eluded me for a loooooong time.

Ditto!

Another Muggle, via PM, was telling me, “You’re almost there.” But the cat remained stubbornly in the bag. Finally I handed the puzzle to my much-brighter-than-me wife, explained where I had gotten to, and in about 20 or 30 seconds, she said, “Well, the answer is … “

How much off and on staring could I have spared myself by passing off the puzzle to her during happy hour and snacks on the back deck many hours ago?

Good one, Josh!

Hiding in the Meta Cave of Shame for not getting this one sooner and needing a 2x4 to the head to do so!

In fact, find the whole thing a bit ironic given other recent conversations on the site here - will clarify post reveal if needed.

TL;DR: Solved and submitted (finally)

A 2x4 to the head. That’s what it felt like, all right. But finally the screaming cat has clawed his way out of the suitcase. Nicely constructed meta!

My cat is free. Clever puzzle.

Thanks to DrTom (who else?) for pointing out that the clue for 30D is medically misinformed.

Tom, your knowledge of blood clots is not in vein.

Nudge Saturday!

There should be a certain four-letter word screaming out at you from the grid and the title. That word is not the answer, but it is the key to getting to the answer.

Don't worry, no fancy math is involved. Just some simple exponentiation.

Clue numbers are involved

Got it with nudge help as well as with a nudge from another friendly muggle! I was taking things either far too much at face value or not enough at face value depending upon how you look at it - LOL.

Cats out of the bag... finally! New to MEOW puzzles and I needed the nudges although I was on the right track! Clever one! Does one submit answers somewhere??

Ergcat wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 11:15 am Cats out of the bag... finally! New to MEOW puzzles and I needed the nudges although I was on the right track! Clever one! Does one submit answers somewhere??

You PM the creator of the puzzle (in this case: @madhatter5) with your answer.

Happy International Cat Day! I needed all of the spoiler nudges, but the cats are out of the bag now.

To my delight I finally solved the puzzle, to my horror I needed to be led almost by hand to the solution. I had the right idea early on just never executed it. I thought I saw lots of problems with the puzzle but the problems were all mine. Josh continues to amaze and amuse with novel and brain challenging mechanisms. We are so lucky to have talent like his and Will's working for us. If they ever joined forces for evil then even Dr. No or Ernst Blofeld would know fear. I'm proud to call them both colleagues and Muggles.

Oh, and this was my cat after finally escaping in frustration from that bag, she was NOT happy!

Solution:


The gigantic cube in the grid (and the title) indicated that the key was to look at cube-numbered entries (1, 8, 27, 64). For clue 1, there is both a down and an across. 65A told you which one was needed. In clue number order those entries were:

FIR
STN
AMER
UBIK

Concatenating these entries together we get FIRST NAME RUBIK - i.e. the first name of the inventor of the Rubik's cube. The answer is therefore Ernő

A rare photo of a very young Erno --