MGWCC #773 — “Pretty Cool”

[Streroto]

I’m with some others. I have answer that seems too easy for a week 4 and does not really go with the prompt. Seems maybe this one is not a 100%er as some have suggested.

I’ll think on it for a bit.

Submitted with a long comment to Matt. We shall see.


Update: swing and a miss. I’ll be interested to see the correct answer.

[Jeremy Smith]

I've beamed up at #229. I can't claim a solo solve because I had to confirm with another muggle that I was, in fact, done! Overthinking as usual!

[woozy]

I've beamed up at #229. I can't claim a solo solve because I had to confirm with another muggle that I was, in fact, done! Overthinking as usual!

There's a lot to overthink on this one. I thought.

[Streroto]

Lying in bed last night it came to me. I made a dumb mistake and fell for confirmation bias. Looked at the grid this am and there it was. It’s especially painful because that would have been two week 4 successes in a row, something I have never achieved.

Bottom line is that Matt’s work is super tight so if it seems off it probably is. Lesson learned (or relearned).

Stay well all

[minimuggle]

Agree with what many of you have said. I submitted my wrong answer too quickly but when I realized my mistake it was still a fun solve. Really ingenious puzzle.

[Bird Lives]

Matt hasn't updated since eight o'clock last night, but I'm going to declare myself beamed up even though there seems to be some dispute over the answer. I submitted the longer one. I needed a nudge or two, but boy did I find something interesting in a rabbit hole. Details and picture after the deadline.

Update, 4:45. Confirmed at #236, which I didn't think was impressive till I saw that I'd come in ahead of docison, who must have slipped through a hole in the space-time continuum.

[burak]

This is a stressful meta since I know I got the mechanism down, like, 100% sure, and but I can also get three answers out of that mechanism depending how many additional steps I take. If this weren't Week 4 I would've submitted my answer already, yet I don't think any of the additional steps raise this puzzle's difficulty to Week 4 either. I only hope Matt will be tolerant enough.

[edestlin]

Ok I'm fairly certain I have it...submitted!

As so often happens, I stalled out after step 1 and just as I composed a message to a fellow muggle to ask for a nudge, I figured out what I needed. I should start writing those messages on Friday morning so by the time the puzzle comes out I won't struggle so much!

[Joe]

Answer is posted on Fiend. It's WIND. Here's why I got it wrong.

I found all the "cold" idioms sandwiched between two cold things and went with "Cold Sandwich" which is absolutely a thing. I get that WIND is more elegant, but I really thought I was done when I found the sandwiches. I didn't feel the need to try to find another step. Ah, well. Wasn't defending any streak of any kind so no big deal. But I still think my answer works!

[Bird Lives]

1. I entered COLD WIND, and it was accepted. It's consistent with adding COLD to a word that might otherwise not be related to cold things -- CALLS, SHOULDER, etc.

2. I sympathize with @Joe and "cold sandwich." I still wonder why Matt created those outer layers of the sandwich. Maybe it was merely to indicate that COLD would have to be added to the middle slice. He could have done that with an asterisk at the clue -- that and the title of the puzzle would have combined to tip the idea.

3. Speaking of SHOULDER, I looked at the clue for CAMISOLE. Hmm, that might be it. Just to be sure, I googled "cold shoulder sleeveless garment." The first links were to camisoles, specifically this camisole:
.

.
That left me with WICN, which unfortunately is not a word. Nevertheless, I'm still recommending this cold shoulder to all Muggles. You can't beat the price.

[BrennerTJ]

I got to WIND with just the below (without sandwiches)...

[dlonoff]

Who else found IM AGASSI? (Initials of the outer parts of the cold sandwich). That and cold sandwich were my backup guesses if I couldn't find the real clicky answer, which I eventually did with collaboration with my solving friend.

Not sure if I ever got chills from watching Agassi play, but he was definitely a cool guy.

[Dannyvee]

I got to WIND with just the below (without sandwiches)...
PrettyCoolGrid.png
PrettyCoolTable.png

Wow, got it without the sandwiches as well and I'm glad I didn't see them. I surely would have looked for something else.

[mkmf]

Pageanted. Saw the sandwiches and stopped too soon. Took COld as being Pretty (much of the word) COol so stopped there. But didn’t feel good about it

[Streroto]

I'm almost embarrassed to tell this tale but you can all have a good laugh at my expense. I figured out the COLD metanism without the help of the sandwiches (I saw these cold items however did not recognize the connection-which BTW is super elegant of Matt). I wrote "cold ___" next to each of the four related clues and circled the first letters...but my mind saw 82D as "last clue" and I circled the E in 88A. Had this resulted in gibberish I might have detected my head-slap error, but it did not-it spelled WINE and thus I set about convincing myself it had to be ICE WINE or COLD WINE or WINE COOLER (yes I am a wine guy...that did not help!). This confirmation bias is something that pervades the medical literature by the way, and you'd think I'd be savvy enough to avoid it, BUT NOOOOOOOOOO. Rabbit hole indeed.

There you have it. On the upside, and I posted this a while back, reading how you all figure these out has I believe upped my game. I mean, I almost had it and as soon as I found out I did not, it clicked. So, as someone else posted, a small victory. Thanks as always.

Stay well

Scott

[EmilyW]

When I got to the point of finding the alternate clues, for COLD SHOULDER I selected the clue for CAMISOLE "sleeveless garment" because I was thinking of a cold shoulder top. Then, I took the first letter of each entry, including the alternate, so for ICESTORM, SHOULDER, MONGOLIA, CAMISOLE, that gave me ISMC. Anagram that and add another letter, and you get another grid entry: SCRIM. This worked for my second group of words too: ALASKA, TURKEY, GELATO, INAHUFF: ATGI anagram and add another letter and you get IGOTA. Unfortunately this did not work for the other two groups of words, but I was convinced this had to be the path to the meta and spent a long time trying to figure out what I screwed up. Then I woke up the next day and realized a cold shoulder top actually has sleeves, and started over.

[Bird Lives]

The other thing that distracted me were the two COOL anagrams. At 29D, LOCO is a stand-alone. At 9D, it's the first four letters, and I figured why would anyone put COLON CLEANSE into a puzzle if it were irrelevant to the meta. One wonders if other solvers who were similarly led astray suggested to the constructor what he might do with this entry.

[woozy]

I had a brief struggle when I was convinced COLD CALLS was a dramatic introduction. It made assume I was missing a few (they were hard to find and somehow I got cold feet very late in the game) so I figure I had to add COLD IRON as EPEE which I *really* didn't like.

Did see the light eventually though.

[woozy]

Any reason the grid was assymetrical?

[Abide]

Who else found IM AGASSI?

I did, which had me thinking about chilled Andre champagne.