"Now That's a Gift!" - December 24, 2021
- Annabelle
- Posts: 214
- Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2020 4:26 pm
Still afloat. Did get the past tenses of the key answers, but was looking for whole words in the grid for the present tenses. Sneaky, that Mike!
- MikeM000
- Posts: 579
- Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2020 11:31 am
- Location: Metro Detroit
The one rabbit hole I hit that I dug out of relatively quickly as there wasn't much rhyme or reason to it, was that the meta was tied into "Twas The Night Before Christmas" as some of the words in the asterisked grid entries are in the poem. Obviously I was thinking about an MGW from about a year ago when that idea crossed my mind.
- JAQT
- Posts: 139
- Joined: Mon Aug 10, 2020 4:55 pm
- Location: California
When I posted my "ashore" comment, I was watching the Alistair Sim version of "A Christmas Carol". For a moment I considered starting a debate on which version people here liked the most. But then I realized "Wow, what a spoiler!" I would have been banned from the site.
JustAQuickThought
- Kas
- Posts: 268
- Joined: Thu Jul 11, 2019 9:23 pm
- Location: Usually in a rabbit hole.
Yep, 42D sent me down a "12 nights of Christmas" rabbit hole, too. For which I suppose I should be grateful, because I've always felt I should be able to sing the whole thing (Partridge, Turtledoves, French Hens, Calling Birds, Gold Rings, Geese, Swans, Maids, Ladies, Lords, Pipers, Drummers...and I now know without question that none of them "were, spun, saw, went, drew, or laid." (Side note...what's with all the birds in that song?! If I had gotten a bird for christmas, I'd regift it...except the turkey--which I did get, and happily ate, but which bird is not in the song, oddly. But I digress...)MikeM000 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 11:38 am The one rabbit hole I hit that I dug out of relatively quickly as there wasn't much rhyme or reason to it, was that the meta was tied into "Twas The Night Before Christmas" as some of the words in the asterisked grid entries are in the poem. Obviously I was thinking about an MGW from about a year ago when that idea crossed my mind.
My other hiccup is that another present tense of "Saw" is "Spy," per *E*spy at 42D, which had me anagramming the wrong six letters for...a long time. But perhaps I was extra distracted with all the birds.
-
- Posts: 143
- Joined: Sat Jun 06, 2020 4:17 pm
Did anybody go down the Gift of Gab (WENTON) rabbit hole?
-
- Posts: 311
- Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:16 pm
- Location: New Richmond ohio
Thanks for the heads up!BarbaraK wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 10:48 amThere was a comment on fiend about a website outage and temporary replacement
https://crosswordfiend.com/2021/12/26/m ... /#comments
-
- Posts: 908
- Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2020 4:12 pm
Has a grid entry EVER been the meta answer?Richard wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 11:06 amI too first thought "Present" but then why the asterisks. Without the asterisks I might have submitted "Present."
I thought this was an excellent meta. For me a nice aha moments when I saw the present past tense deal and then the missing letters. And not so difficult that it affected my holiday.
-
- Posts: 1366
- Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2021 7:26 pm
Yes! And how it intersected beautifully with its mirror image NOT NEW.
- Janet
- Posts: 389
- Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2019 5:22 pm
What took me a while on this puzzle was that there was more than one possibility for the present tense. I had a couple wrong at first, then kept looking at the grid again to find the right ones.
- Janet
- Posts: 389
- Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2019 5:22 pm
That was an early rabbit hole for me.
- BarbaraK
- Posts: 2615
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 2:37 pm
- Location: Virginia
February 3, 2017. But the prompt that week was, "the two grid entries that, when combined, would make a good sixth theme entry," so it wasn't just something in the grid that turned out to be the answer.
viewtopic.php?t=277#p12578
-
- Posts: 1622
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 9:57 pm
This puzzle was calling out for this photo- a mall Santa, a Maine setting , and a cat named Alice -and a Maine coon cat no less
Alice comes with a great backstory. A sweet little old lady brought him (yes, HIM) to us as a starving stray in her neighborhood since she couldn’t afford to buy cat food for him. Best cat we’ve ever had among the 30+over the years. (May have you beat there, @DrTom ). He always ate at Alice’s Restaurant. That sweet old lady was named Alice.
No WONder there’s a tWINkle in Santa’s eye as he holds this gentle giant.
How well we remember those WONder tWINs!
Alice comes with a great backstory. A sweet little old lady brought him (yes, HIM) to us as a starving stray in her neighborhood since she couldn’t afford to buy cat food for him. Best cat we’ve ever had among the 30+over the years. (May have you beat there, @DrTom ). He always ate at Alice’s Restaurant. That sweet old lady was named Alice.
No WONder there’s a tWINkle in Santa’s eye as he holds this gentle giant.
How well we remember those WONder tWINs!
- woozy
- Posts: 2214
- Joined: Mon Aug 10, 2020 12:40 am
I'm always intrigues when I find germs for palindromes I have never though of and WENT ON- NOT NEW is a very clever one I had never seen.
I didn't really persue it as a rabbit hole (a rabbit hole implies there is a direction to go down) but oddly it did make me think a heck of a lot of clues were in the past tense and it got me to the right place.
Funny story. I was all set to enter Par for the course for the CrossHare midi contest for April but I mistakenly thought midi meant 7x 7 and not 11 x 11. Oops. Well.... Here's a complex but **small** meta on the subject of golf.
- OGuyDave
- Posts: 170
- Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:03 am
- Location: Naples
Know how close I was to this one? Think about the pictures that the new Webb telescope is going to capture. I was out there someplace.
Moon. Yeah, it's one. I like 'em.
TFTXWD anyway
Moon. Yeah, it's one. I like 'em.
TFTXWD anyway
- KayW
- Moderator
- Posts: 3276
- Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:10 am
- Location: Chicago
All too well. I think THAT traumatic DNF (for me) is the reason I solved this one so quickly. Seriously.
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
- RussHiggins
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:54 am
I was right there with you. I had ARE, SPIN(S), SEE(S), GO(ES), DRAW(S), and LAY(S), for 32 combinations of final letters. One of these combinations anagrams to SENSES, which I thought wasn't very good. I never went back to the grid to look for the present tenses.
-
- Posts: 785
- Joined: Mon Jun 22, 2020 8:12 pm
- Location: Seneca SC
No debate….The 1951 Alistair Sim version is THE BEST! We watch it every Christmas Eve!JAQT wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 12:07 pm When I posted my "ashore" comment, I was watching the Alistair Sim version of "A Christmas Carol". For a moment I considered starting a debate on which version people here liked the most. But then I realized "Wow, what a spoiler!" I would have been banned from the site.
- JAQT
- Posts: 139
- Joined: Mon Aug 10, 2020 4:55 pm
- Location: California
Totally agree! Although the "Thank you very much" song from the Albert Finney musical version is an absolute kick!Ergcat wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 8:28 pmNo debate….The 1951 Alistair Sim version is THE BEST! We watch it every Christmas Eve!JAQT wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 12:07 pm When I posted my "ashore" comment, I was watching the Alistair Sim version of "A Christmas Carol". For a moment I considered starting a debate on which version people here liked the most. But then I realized "Wow, what a spoiler!" I would have been banned from the site.
JustAQuickThought
- DBMiller
- Posts: 546
- Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 8:59 pm
- Location: New Hampshire
I had so much wanted to use Do/Did in my initial response instead of my usual Done and Done. Fortunately, I know/knew better.
If I'm around, I am willing to join the Muggle Zoom room at other times to lend a hand to those in need.
- vandono
- Posts: 245
- Joined: Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:15 pm
- Location: Texas
i was all like "sheesh, who's been an idiot on this meta" and Isaac was like