"Double Trouble" - December 3, 2021

[Colin]

No time - just to say,
Was granddaughter’s fifth birthday.
Onboard I will stay.

[Joe Ross]

[Joe Ross]

[escapeartist]

How does Gaffney think up this stuff?

Very clever construction!

[802puzzler]

LOL, I woke up just now with the answer in my head. But I was.... (10 minutes and) A day late and a dollar short!

[Colin]

Very elegant! Come on you muggles - win the mug!

[stmv]

I'm on vacation in Maui right now without a printer, my first time trying to solve without a printed copy. I pretty quickly saw the missing four quarters, and the three instances of being 8 hours late. The next day I somewhat connected the dots to see that I wanted a seven-word phrase talking about dollars and days, but such a phrase would not come to mind. Then tonight at dinner, in an unrelated conversation, my wife said "a day late and a dollar short" and it rang a bell. I quickly counted off that it contains seven words, and I knew that was the answer, and it was still half an hour before the deadline! I got all excited and turned my phone to roaming so I could submit at the last minute, and then I remembered that this is the WSJ contest, and I'm Canadian, and so I can't submit, so there is no point. So I had to just be happy in knowing that I did get the answer before the deadline (with an assist from my wife). It's nice to know that I was on the right track all along.

[hoover]

As soon as I saw the missing four quarters and realized they needed to combine to make A DOLLAR SHORT, I imagined how challenging this was going to be for people from places that don't have dollars or quarters of them. Do we have any of those?

[LivinaDogsLife]

I have failed on so many of these metas that I was beginning to think it just wasn’t going to happen again. And then this puzzle appears and I get it with just a hint from the mechanism.

I used to really be frustrated by crossword clues that only marginally matched the answer and totally irritated when the grid answer was outright wrong (as is the case with this week in which 8 are wrong or at least incomplete). So ‘wrong’ is the clue and any other meta might have made this puzzle extremely hard. As it is, it was surprisingly easy.

When I hear that others haven’t heard this phrase it wakes me up to the fact we are all the products of unique environments. I had never heard of “MWAHAHA” before the puzzle several weeks ago but now that I know it I’m looking for an excuse to use it.

I can’t help but smile when calling someone out as a day late and a dollar short even when it’s me! I probably use ADLAADS more often than LOL, BFF, IMHO, and every other twitter acronym combined. Actually, I’ve never written ADLAADS before but I hope you get my meaning!

Enjoy!

[Jace54]

This meta reminded me of one of my favorite WSJ cryptic crosswords with the same 7-word title. In that puzzle, “buck” was removed from many grid entries and day abbreviations were changed to the later day (e.g, “fri” became “sat”) in the grid. This puzzle was well done by Matt!

[woozy]

So I got that 8 hour shift but I didn't get the missing quarters right away. Some question about people I never heard of but whose names just sound like football players? Sure if the letters say "BACK" that's a title in sports isn't it? And Wimbeldon round, well the letters say FINAL and that's utterly reasonable. The Touristy think of New Orleans "FRENCH"? That doesn't make any sense but this isn't the first time I've had a crossword clue make no sense. And coins that are STATE??? Well, that makes no sense but clearly the mechanic is those 8 hour shifts.

So 8 hour shift? Double Time? Weird. But that STATE for coin is weird. I imagine they are STATE QUARTERS. So maybe the last clue is missing a word so by symmetry maybe the first clue is too. ANd aren't football players RUNNING BACKS? So something about running double shifts before a quarter. Maybe I should google those names.... Oh! They are quarterbacks! So three 8 hour shifts between quarters? Two quarters. 50 cents.... A dollar short and a day late? But there are only two quarters. Well, If I can find two more quarters that's make sense.... hmm-tee-tum.... Oh. QUARTER-finals and ... by symmetry.... Well, geez, that stupid New Orleans question never did make any sense but I had completely forgotten about it.

[BEACHEDWHALE]

Oh great... I said "A DOLLAR SHORT AND A DAY LATE" ... Since the quarter clues started at the top of the puzzle I thought that was the start of the answer... Oh well, next time maybe...

[Limerick Savant]

Tangent:

So I'm curious about where most people learn of Burma Shave signs. What percentage was Mad Magazine and what percent was Warner Brothers cartoons? And given that no-one could possibly of learned of them from actual Burma Shave signs, what other sources are there.

I was a fan of both Mad and the Looney Tunes fare but my first exposure to Burma Shave signs was actually on the road to my great uncle’s farm in rural Ohio. There was a curvy stretch on the two lane blacktop near the farm that was perfect for those spaced signs with the clever reveal. Brings back some fond memories like the rolling hilly road home where my dad picked just the right speed to get us weightless at the top of each hill. Take that Bezos and Branson. Who needs your million dollar thrill trip?

[Bill Bovard]

I got it with some help from the Muggles comments things like:
- My dad used to always say this about me
- I figured it out while driving home, etc.
To me these border on spoilers because they helped me immensely.

[LivinaDogsLife]

I have failed on so many of these metas that I was beginning to think it just wasn’t going to happen again. And then this puzzle appears and I get it with just a hint from the mechanism.

I used to really be frustrated by crossword clues that only marginally matched the answer and totally irritated when the grid answer was outright wrong (as is the case with this week in which 7 are wrong or at least incomplete). So ‘wrong’ is the clue and any other meta might have made this puzzle extremely hard. As it is, it was surprisingly easy given I knew the phrase before I figured out all the ‘wrong’ clues.

When I hear that others haven’t heard this phrase it wakes me up to the fact we are all the products of unique environments. I had never heard of “MWAHAHA” before the puzzle several weeks ago and could not get it even with help. But now that I know it I’m looking for an excuse to use it.

I can’t help but smile when calling someone out as a day late and a dollar short even when it’s me! I probably use ADLAADS more often than LOL, BFF, IMHO, and every other twitter acronym combined. Actually, I’ve never written ADLAADS before but I hope you get my meaning!

Enjoy!

[Streroto]

I had the timing wrong and thought the time gaps were 16 hours not 8. I took this along with title to mean double shifts or overtime. So I had triple overtime. The 4 quarters I took to be game segments. I almost submitted four quarters of regulation and triple overtime (there was even a recent NBA game where this happened apparently). But I thought this did not have enough of a click. Finally late Sunday afternoon it revealed itself and I don’t really know why. Maybe some post enlightenment but I didn’t see any spoilers that for sure.

I also sullied page one with a retraction-again my apologies. My very first impression was 4 quarters and MORNING NOON and FIVE and thought AHA it’s Monday Night Football!!! I posted on the beach and was submitting “are you ready for some football?” To WSJ. Right before I hit send I realized it was only 6 words! Then edited post end went back to the drawing board for the entire weekend which I deserved I guess.

An amazingly clever puzzle and meta. How does he do it?!?!?

Stay well all!

[mntlblok]

Tangent:

So I'm curious about where most people learn of Burma Shave signs. What percentage was Mad Magazine and what percent was Warner Brothers cartoons? And given that no-one could possibly of learned of them from actual Burma Shave signs, what other sources are there.

I was a fan of both Mad and the Looney Tunes fare but my first exposure to Burma Shave signs was actually on the road to my great uncle’s farm in rural Ohio. There was a curvy stretch on the two lane blacktop near the farm that was perfect for those spaced signs with the clever reveal. Brings back some fond memories like the rolling hilly road home where my dad picked just the right speed to get us weightless at the top of each hill. Take that Bezos and Branson. Who needs your million dollar thrill trip?

Ahhh, the old "tickle bump". . .

[mntlblok]

I tried Googling it "after the fact" with what I had decided were the "generalizations" from which I had earlier decided I wanted it boiled down from. Turns out that it made a huge difference whether I used "phrase", "quote", "idiom", or "aphorism" with my other terms. Three were useless. One brought up the meta answer as the first option.

But with what keywords? That's what would have gotten me.

Well, dang! I'm trying to stay out of spoiler jail!

"Time and money" Googled with any but "idioms" (but not "idiom", it turns out) yields a bunch of "time is money" stuff, but no ADLAADS.

[mntlblok]

I'll never get this image stuff figgered out.

https://www.google.com/search?q=time+an ... nt=gws-wiz

[benchen71]

Oh great... I said "A DOLLAR SHORT AND A DAY LATE" ... Since the quarter clues started at the top of the puzzle I thought that was the start of the answer... Oh well, next time maybe...

If your name gets pulled from the hat, I think they will accept your answer.