XWord Muggles Forum

Fun Tuesday exercise, thanks Ben.

Fun trip across the moat.

Slightly late start, but speedy solve. Fun stuff, thanks.

The end of the first 24 hours has elapsed, so it's time for the first solver update:

woozy
Tom Wilson
SamKat9
edestlin
Pair O Ducks
Darth
JHSeeman
lbray53
Adam Doctoroff
JM
Alex Sisti
MatthewL
Schmeel
DCBilly
boharr
KayW
I K Snamhcok
Meg
whimsy
HeadinHome
Tim
Hector
Ergcat
BarbaraK
imontoo
Cindy Weatherman
DIS
Jaclyn
kurtalert
SJ
Mr Tex
hoover
Quiara
DrTom
Cindy Heisler
DrButtBeard
heidi
DebbieC
Dave C
CPJohnson
Flora Wynn
Larry Edelstein
ajk
Sendhil Revuluri
Laura M
dannyvee
Berto
LindaPRmaven

That's 48 to get us started.

I went on a walk this afternoon along a circuit at Cape Woolamai on Phillip Island, which is a tourist destination not far from Melbourne. We saw 5 snakes, which is a personal record! Here are photos of 4 of them. (The third one slithered away before I could get a photo.)


I'm pretty sure these are Lowland Copperheads, which are (of course!) venomous. Ah, welcome to Australia!

benchen71 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 1:16 am I'm pretty sure these are Lowland Copperheads, which are (of course!) venomous. Ah, welcome to Australia!

Great pictures! I love snakes, and there's plenty of them where I live! Aside from the rare Eastern copperhead and cottonmouth (both venomous), I usually see harmless racers, rat snakes, and goofy banded water snakes (they look google-eyed to me). Then of course there's those Burmese pythons in the Everglades that are feasting on everything they can find (including alligators), but thankfully Ive never seen one of those, and I hope I never get the opportunity.

Edit: Apparently we have rattlesnakes and coral snakes too (venomous), but I haven't seen any.

Fun puzzle, Ben! But perilous swim thru the moat, on account of these fellers:

Look up the Collection of Unorthodox Taxidermy for more of the author's sculpture art that you might not have known of before - we got a few twenty-some years ago that hang above our fireplace... they're very cool

rjy wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 8:27 am Fun puzzle, Ben! But perilous swim thru the moat, on account of these fellers:

Look up the Collection of Unorthodox Taxidermy for more of the author's sculpture art that you might not have known of before - we got a few twenty-some years ago that hang above our fireplace... they're very cool

Is it just me or does the Powerless Puffer remind me of someone....

Some more solvers to add to the list:

rjy
Tyrpmom
Bbaack
Danny K Bernstein
jbird
Carolyn

We're up to 54 now.

Early nudges! In order of increasing blatancy:

1. A number of clues provide *slightly* more detail than you strictly need to get the grid entry. (That said, there are quite a lot of lengthy/chatty clues, so this nudge might not help very much!)

2. Given the puzzle title it would *have* to be significant that six across clues refer to a country (if you will allow me to pretend that Scotland is a country!)

3. Those six grid entries can be extended to generate a name with a geographical association.

4. Once you have generated a six-letter word, your knowledge of 69 across's books will be needed.

Crossed the MOAT...no nudges needed...thanks for another fun meta, Ben!

Nudged across the Moat. Nice one, Ben!

Busy week traveling so I sped up my solve with the first two nudges. Fun! Thanks, Ben!

No copperheads here but we have pygmy and diamondback rattlesnakes, cottonmouth water moccasins, and coral snakes. The resident black racers here on the property make sightings of the venomous ones rare, thank goodness.

We have more solvers!

Qmark
Sharkicicles
AxelPlays
Jeremy Smith
Golem
Dow Jones
Steve M

That's 61. Next (and last) update before the answer reveal, Monday morning Australia time!

Just saw the great image in the OP. Nice!

Just 3 more solvers, but that gets us to 64!

Gutman
Philip Chow
ReB

Onwards, to the reveal!

Here's the solution to "Nominative Geography":


You'll get two puzzles from Down Under this week, MOAT and MEOW. Enjoy!

One of my med school classmates gave me this book when we graduated, and it was such a heartwarming gesture then. Now I read it to my daughter. Definitely my fav Dr. Seuss book.