MEOW #131 The Optimist

[DrTom]

THE REVEAL!!

Thanks to all the solvers who helped to make this Meta a success. I know it was a bit different because it insisted you extrapolate the answer from the pertinent clues and prompts which is always more difficult because we tend to second guess ourselves.

Thanks for sticking with it and you’ll be glad to know that in the coming weeks you will get relief from all the DrTom stuff as guest constructors have leaped to the assistance of Madhatter. As Josh tries to become Dr. Rubin his constructor friends are rushing to fill his prescriptions. You’ll see Benchen, Cap’n Rick (in one I am sure people will LOVE!), Wendy, and even a collaborative work by MikeyG and I (I can hear the groans from here people, now just STOP!).

If you struggled with this one, please see the reveal above and I hope that you all are looking forward to this coming week’s which, again, requires some deductive reasoning, but not near as much as “The Optimist”

A lot of the “mechanism” for the puzzle entailed you seeing the 8 cars that are almost universally on the “Lemon List” of worst cars ever made. Some of that is deserved (I had a Vega so I know of what I speak). Some is not – the Edsel might just have been before it’s time and a victim of people with an axe to grind.

There were nudge hints, for example about ONSTAR or the Fix Or Repair Daily moniker for FORD, and in general I clued the cars like the clunkers they were. Some faux pas crept in, I inadvertently clued the decidedly non-lemon REO as Speedwagon, meaning the band, but the car is the same reference and I had MARLINS in the grid. As it turns out there was an AMC car the MARLIN. Yes I know, we tend to want to brand all AMC cars “lemons” but the Marlin certainly was not. Additionally I did not think how USA centric this was going to be. There may be lots of solvers from different countries or backgrounds who did not recognize these cars as the lemons they were, or perhaps call their problem cars something else. TO those people I am truly sorry

Still, with 46 solvers I certainly can’t complain and I thank all of you for solving my puzzles and being my friends. My bit of optimistic advice...if life (or DrTom) gives you lemons, make lemonade.

[sharkicicles]

The Edsel did have build issues, but that was largely a result of sharing the same assembly line with other various Ford products- basically every, say, 8th car coming down the line was an Edsel, so the workers would have to adjust to the different vehicle coming down, with various rates of success.

If you’re interested in the history of vehicles like these, I recommend curbsideclassic.com. There are thousands of articles about cars like this- not the flashy powerful Bugattis and Ferraris, but the everyday cars (and lemons) that many of us grew up with. It’s a very organic community of car folks that reminds me of the people here, in that there’s a comments section you can actually read without throwing your laptop across the room.

[ChrisKochmanski]

Bag sans cat.

Got to this one late. Cute. Thanks, Dr. Tom!