MEOW #167 It's a Disaster

[DrTom]

Nice one, Tom. Thanks! Cats are freed.

No disasters here - just art!

Is that an original Jackson Polecat! I have seen similar art in our kitchen as well.

PURR-haps you're right! At FURst I thought it was a MEOW-net or a PURR-CAT-so.

So not by some Persian artist?

[DrTom]

Well that's a good day!

1 benchen71
2 Hector
3 markhr
4 SamKat9
5 Cindy Heisler
6 Meg
7 Pair O Ducks
8 Cindy Weatherman
9 ChrisKochmanski
10 AxelPlays
11 DCBilly
12 boharr
13 Carolyn
14 mwoychick
15 MatthewL
16 JM
17 Sharkicicles
18 whimsy
19 KayW
20 Heidi
21 ajk
22 Darth
23 Laura M
24 Ergcat
25 woozy
26 DebbieC
27 DIS
28 LB800
29 Tom Wilson
30 Mr Tex
31 CPJohnson
32 Sendhil Revuluri
33 rvkal
34 andeux

I am delighted that so many of you have solved, and found the puzzle entertaining. Thanks to all the early adopters!

[SamKat9]

Is that an original Jackson Polecat! I have seen similar art in our kitchen as well.

PURR-haps you're right! At FURst I thought it was a MEOW-net or a PURR-CAT-so.

So not by some Persian artist?

Good point. I was thinking ancient Mesopawtamian myself.

[Qmark]

Cat's out...thanks DrTom!

[DrTom]

Good point. I was thinking ancient Mesopawtamian myself.

and yet another punster joins the crowd!!

[lbray53]

I had a wild guess and THEN! There it is!

Cat is out of the bag!

[Dave C]

It took longer than it should have, but the cat finally escaped.

[rjy]

My cat is still fully bagged - got the grid fill just after midnight Wednesday morning but immediately hit a brick wall (or blind spot) and haven't budged since... 6 hours til Nudge Friday!

[HeadinHome]

same.

[DrTom]

NUDGES!!!

The 6 theme answers are very obvious because they are environmentally associated (particularly after I changed one to include the word environment)

Symmetry is your friend...

Do you think there is a reason I clued 27A to be so "Boston"? I mean there are a lot of clues for that word that don't include bean town.

Say all 6 theme answers aloud, what do they have in common?

This mechanism usually comes up around Christmas, albeit with a different word, but the Mx is the same

[DrTom]

Well that slowed down quickly...

35 Qmark
36 Darrell
37 lbray53
38 DaveC

Still, a respectable number of people doing disaster preparedness. Let's see if the nudges helped.

[hoover]

NUDGES!!!

Um what? Either I can't read or I can't count.

I'm not seeing this feature.

I'm slow.

Nothing?

I think I understand this nudge, but I'm not seeing it in action in the themers.

I must have chosen the wrong themers.

[HeadinHome]

Let's see if the nudges helped.

Yeah… not so much. Had those (though I questioned one), and nudge #2 is problematic (?).

UPDATE; Oh nevermind… got it right after I posted that. You shoulda heard me interpreting nudge 1 the wrong way.

So odd… I had tried something like the correct method way back at the beginning, but it didn’t seem to give me anything useful before.

Also, there’s a major rabbit trail that seems too fruitful to be coincidental, so that’s where I’ve been stuck the last several days. Also, I really suck at remembering metanisms of past puzzles!!

[rjy]

Similar to Wendy… I had Nudges 1 thru 3 (same q about 2 too), but needed 4 to get me headin’ home myself. Had an interesting rabbit hole as well… but hey! nice to get to the finish line. Thanks Dr Tom - and BTW, cluing was pretty great, even relative to your standards!

[HeadinHome]

Thanks Dr Tom - and BTW, cluing was pretty great, even relative to your standards!

Ditto! Fun cluing.

[DrTom]

Well an easier WSJ has contributed to my number of solvers:

39 hoover
40 Berto
41 Gutman
42 Philip Chow
43 Johnny Luau
44 Steve M
45 Danny K Bernstein
46 rjy

Thanks to all who tried this disastrous Meta.

[DrTom]

DANG IT!!! I know I asked the program for symmetry, and during the editing process (trying to find a fill that did not include the name of dogs of 13th century pamphlet authors) I must have moved a themer and messed it up. Thanks to @HeadinHome for pointing out this glaring mistake in my nudges.

The theme answers are "almost" symmetric, but they DO have the same qualifier that should let you know who they are.

[hoover]

DANG IT!!! I know I asked the program for symmetry, and during the editing process (trying to find a fill that did not include the name of dogs of 13th century pamphlet authors) I must have moved a themer and messed it up. Thanks to @HeadinHome for pointing out this glaring mistake in my nudges.

The theme answers are "almost" symmetric, but they DO have the same qualifier that should let you know who they are.

I tried to convey that in my spoiler-protected "I'm not seeing this feature."

[DrTom]

DANG IT!!! I know I asked the program for symmetry, and during the editing process (trying to find a fill that did not include the name of dogs of 13th century pamphlet authors) I must have moved a themer and messed it up. Thanks to @HeadinHome for pointing out this glaring mistake in my nudges.

The theme answers are "almost" symmetric, but they DO have the same qualifier that should let you know who they are.

I tried to convey that in my spoiler-protected "I'm not seeing this feature."

I saw that and, sorry to admit, until someone else mentioned it and I corrected them, and then they corrected ME I did not fully realize.

T

[DrTom]

One additional solver today:

47 HeadinHome

All of the theme clues have the word environment (in some form) in them

If I said "You knew what the dumb answer could be" I've used the mechanism five times.