"Countdown" - July 8, 2022

[Onaquest]

We had nothing despite going round and round. Very nice meta, even though we were nowhere near. We will be travelling to Ireland tomorrow for a month and soothing ourselves with Guinness. Also revving back up for this week’s puzzle. Have a good week everyone.

[haydendog]

Many times I look for answers that are not quite what they should be which is why I considered the center grid entry of “liftoff.” I initially thought “”blastoff” would be the more common answer. So I thought about lifting off letters from the grid and tried that with the words of the theme answers using 3-2-1.
Our minds work in all different kinds of ways!

[Joe Ross]

We will be travelling to Ireland for a month and soothing ourselves with Guinness.

To hell with the mug...

Slainté!

[clonefitz]

"Hi Isaac, allow me to introduce myself..."

Great construction! It always seems so obvious in retrospect. My rabbit holes:
1. COUNTing the DOWN clues
2. Trying to align all the letters needed to spell ASTEROID (so many places they seem to potentially line up)
3. The O/OOO above LIFTOFF looks like nose of rocket

Ten week streak is over, time to start a new one!

[pjc]

I spent too much time trying to do a 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 countdown through the long answers. If you take the first B as a starting point, then count 10 letters to the next letter, then 9, then 8, you end up at 1 at the very last letter of the final long answer. How could that be a coincidence? Sigh.

And I played with LIFTOFF, assuming that something had to be removed somewhere. That got nowhere, too.

I did notice very early on that the four long answers had three words each, but it wasn't until Friday night that I made the '3, 2, 1' connection with the three words per answer structure.

On to Thursday!

[femullen]

Fairly simple once you see it

Cannot agree more with @ZooAnimalsOnWheels

I find most of them fairly simple once I see it. If only I could see it! This one, nada. Noticed right away that each theme answer had three words and that 36A's 3...2...1 must play on that somehow. Never guessed how.

Deepest rabbit hole I dug was finding an alternate "word following 3...2...1," which is, of course, "zero." But there are no Zs in the grid. But in the lower right we have "EASY," which sounds like "EZ," so can anything be made by changes Es to Zs? Nope. Can I do anything with the letters O, which look like zeroes? Nope. That diagonal line of Os in the middle of the grid pointing at anything? Nope.

Nope, nope, and nope.

[Prozach]

A fun informative last-call session that was actively taking out all the rabbit halls and preserving the aha moment for all of us whose wavelengths were not concordant with Mike's this week. I didn't have much time this weekend to delve into the puzzle, but i doubt that i would have cracked it. I was paying too much attention to the LIFTOFF (as per Mike's fondness for middle entries) and not to its cluing.

[Joe Ross]

Brian Barnhart's comment on WSJ recommending XWord Muggles needs a lot of





Give a to Terence's comment, too, to call attention to Brian's recommendation.

(You'll need to be logged onto WSJ site to read & recommend.)

Brian, you're here, somewhere! Take a bow, please.

[Georgeall]

BLOOD: Red
FROG: Green
YALE: Blue
Three primary colors of LIGHT.
Word after 3..2..1: "Happy New YEAR"
Obviously; LIGHT YEAR

[ship4u]

As far as rabbit holes go, what I immediately saw was:
3 down LION = Leo constellation
2 down WALE = Whale constellation( Cetus)
1 down ORBS = Stars
Answer: Constellations
But I just as quickly discarded that idea since 9 times out of 10 the Answer is spelled out with actual letters from the Grid...

And, 48A = A RAM. We went down that rabbit hole for a while also.

[ship4u]

I don’t know if I’m going to bother with these anymore; unless they come easily, I stew over them and I have better things to do. I don’t expect them all to be like last week’s, and maybe this week’s is just as easy for some, but not for me.

I can certainly relate to your frustration, as we have been there many times (as have most of us from time to time). However, each time we have been saved by the help and encouragement of this wonderful group! We try to take each week as a learning experience of new ways to look at the meta. Don't hesitate to communicate with other muggles. And, most of all, DON'T GIVE UP!

[Cruciverbalisticexpi]

To add to this, there was four different ONE's in L's shapes in the grid(top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right-ish). These four ONE's encompassed the letters L H T Y as part of a cube. Thought for sure it was going to be light year as well! Until I saw the actual answer that is, lol.

BLOOD: Red
FROG: Green
YALE: Blue
Three primary colors of LIGHT.
Word after 3..2..1: "Happy New YEAR"
Obviously; LIGHT YEAR

[Bonnibel]

This meta should have been easy as 1-2-3 (or 3-2-1) for me!

Sadly, my head was stuck in space. I thought I would share how I got to my (hail Mary) submission: VIRGO. Counting down from 10 t0 4 (leaving the 3-2-1 as given in 36A), and using the longest grid answers, I got "SEP STAR," which in my head translated to VIRGO. And then I had the even crazier thought that all those Os in the grid would somehow make the constellation pattern. Never mind that I could not really see that.

I knew I was off base but that's the best I could come up with.

Next time hopefully I will look at the clues in every possible way and avoid getting stuck.

Congrats to all who saw the OUTER PLANETS.

[lacangah]

This meta should have been easy as 1-2-3 (or 3-2-1) for me!

Sadly, my head was stuck in space. I thought I would share how I got to my (hail Mary) submission: VIRGO. Counting down from 10 t0 4 (leaving the 3-2-1 as given in 36A), and using the longest grid answers, I got "SEP STAR," which in my head translated to VIRGO. And then I had the even crazier thought that all those Os in the grid would somehow make the constellation pattern. Never mind that I could not really see that.

I knew I was off base but that's the best I could come up with.

Next time hopefully I will look at the clues in every possible way and avoid getting stuck.

Congrats to all who saw the OUTER PLANETS.


Image 7-7-22 at 7.08 PM.jpeg

As a Virgo I felt compelled to respond

I really liked the 'constellation' pattern rabbit hole (if that is possible); I imagine it's been used elsewhere and may show up here in the future, if it hasn't already. My stand-by Hail Mary was 'retrograde,' thinking that counting down and lifting off would imply some interesting 'right-to-left' motion.

Have a great week,

[iggystan]

I don’t know if I’m going to bother with these anymore; unless they come easily, I stew over them and I have better things to do. I don’t expect them all to be like last week’s, and maybe this week’s is just as easy for some, but not for me.

I can certainly relate to your frustration, as we have been there many times (as have most of us from time to time). However, each time we have been saved by the help and encouragement of this wonderful group! We try to take each week as a learning experience of new ways to look at the meta. Don't hesitate to communicate with other muggles. And, most of all, DON'T GIVE UP!

I originally asked for nudges a few times when I first started working these, but I felt that was less than satisfying than solving myself. So, I may or may not work them in the future, but I’m not wasting time on them.

[JetStream]

Nice meta. I had the triple words and the countdown part, but kept trying to start at 10, as in 10..9..8...etc. Obviously that went nowhere although a few times I got excited when the first few letters looked reasonable. Congrats to the solvers.

[mlvilv]

well that was a fat head slap. I was looking for the 3, 2, 1 in the long answers but taking the 3rd letter, then counting 2 to the next one, then taking the next letter. I don't know how it didn't occur to me to go to the second and third word. Oh well, the streak resets...

[Annabelle]

It's so simple when you see the explanation! Trivia: the central east coast of Florida, where Cape Canaveral is, is known as the Space Coast, and the telephone area code there is 321! Had a nice visit there last year when my husband ran the Space Coast Marathon!

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is OUTER PLANETS. In each of the four three-word Across answers, if you take the third letter of the first word, the second letter of the second word and the first letter of the third word (as suggested by the “3...2...1...” in the clue for LIFTOFF), you’ll spell the contest answer.

This was a tough one! It stumped us here at contest HQ, but we had 924 entries and fully 75% were correct, further proof that our solvers are better at this than contest HQ. Other stabs included LIGHT YEAR (9), ECLIPSE (8), BLACK HOLE (7, maybe just a cry for help?), MOON (5), and ABSOLUTE ZERO (4).

Congrats on this week's winner: David Kaimrajh of Downington, Penn.!

[Wendy Walker]

If that is "Downingtown," the Mug winner is about half-an-hour away from me! Chester County Rules OK!