"I Spy" - November 19, 2021

[Eric Porter]

On shore with some help. I should have realized that my earlier approach wasn't exactly it.

[DrTom]

On shore, and not submitting because I needed MASSIVE help. I thought I had the MX at about 3 minutes into the puzzle and then spent 2 days not getting anywhere. Finally I had to send up a flare and of course the answer was VERY evident. I may neve get ot be really good at these because I am not imaginative enough I am afraid.

[Katiedid]

Oh well. Not getting it. Maybe next week.

[PQ63]

Ashore! It’s been awhile. Keep trying. This one is totally solvable.

Grey Goose Martini!

[ky-mike]

I threw in my Hail Mary guess. Weak support for it, so probably not close enough to count for anything.

For the official count, I am still at sea.

[Bob cruise director]

Good evening muggles

Our final count is 70 on the ship and 61 on the shore. A tough week for all and I suspect that the WSJ count will be quite low.

Since lunch we have added the following to the week long party on the ship

rexthree
CaptainVideo
KaiS
CallMeShane
maprasad
Isw
Puzzle mom
Barbara K
Fred
Katiedid
Miki
LittleGood


And the Coast Guard has made sure that these muggles got to shore safely

Susan G
Kay
cinny
EVJ
Richard
Lube On
Secret Adversary
ZooAnimalsOnWheels
Gman
Cap'n Rick
woozy
Eric P
ladybird
DrTom
Hammertime

Have a safe week and Happy Thanksgiving.

[whimsy]

Officially calling it quits.
Yup -- Time to say goodnight -- Slip into jammies, robe and -- Hey! Where'd the other one go?!

[PQ63]

By the way, what happened to the 5 star rating system? It’s not showing up on my phone. I’d give this one .

[LadyBird]

I may neve get ot be really good at these because I am not imaginative enough I am afraid.

Not imaginative! Says the king of puns!

[DrTom]

I may neve get ot be really good at these because I am not imaginative enough I am afraid.

Not imaginative! Says the king of puns!

Oh, I can spin a pun, but I can's pin how may of these are spun. I find myself relying on the ways things HAVE been done as opposed to how they might have been done. I'm sure it is an occupational hazard, nobody wants to hear me say. "what the heck let's try this!"

[Joe Ross]

[Joe Ross]

[Bird Lives]

Oleo wasn’t always yellow. It was white, white as a dove, and it still would be if not for artificial color. Buy until the lthe mid-20th century, many states had laws prohbiting manufacturers from adding color that would make oleo look like butter. Pressure from the dairy industry.

So manufacturers packaged oleo with DIY coloring – a small blob of red dye which you would knead into the margarine while it was still in its plastic bag, and gradually, the white oleo would become yellow.
.

[PQ63]

Once I saw Wasabi I was off to the races.

[BethA]

Kas 5

[escapeartist]

oof

[JRS51]

Very nice! I think this one was very clever!
I did not solve; sometimes when I’m stumped I wait for the answer and I just shake my head or I need to read the solution several times before it even makes sense. This one makes me smile with appreciation of the skill of the constructor. Well done!

[FrancesY]

I can’t believe I didn’t see this. I think the past few weeks set my mind to expect a more impossible puzzle every week. Also couldn’t get past blue Vishnu, green seedlings, red cab….

[MajordomoTom]

DOVE was standing out to me, then APPLE, at which point I started hunting for the others. WASABI quickly surrendered, then LAKE.

my wife found OLEO for me, and I had to lecture her about the various Supreme Court Commerce Clause cases where OLEO was forbidden by various state laws to be yellow, and was sold with dye packs. I also emailed Matt G about that earlier this afternoon - that it wasn't a pure yellow answer, but understandable to non-lawyers.

WHERE'S WALDO? EVERYWHERE.

[woozy]

Personally, I liked my rabbit hole mechanism better.

I like my rabbit hole better too.

GRASS is close to GLASS as in spy-GLASS and CAB is close to CAM as in spy-CAM and ..... DORY is close to STORY (is it?) as in spy-STORY (um, is that a thing?) and SNOW is close to SHOW as in spy-SHOW (oh, come on, now you're just making stuff up) and ROSES is close to ..... not a damned thing.

And I had another rabbit hole:

SNOWden is a famous spy, and ROSENbergs were famous spies (uh, it was an S- not an N {Oh, shut up}) and GREENhall was another (um, GREEN was the clue-- GRASS was what you need to work with {I thought I I told you to shut up})

Now neither of those worked but it's conceivable that we could make a puzzle with that mechanism. And how cool a puzzle would that be?