A place to discuss the WSJ Weekly Crossword Contest and other "meta"-style crosswords
https://www.xword-muggles.com/
Congratulations, Tim! This is a truly a mug to be proud of!MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 1:54 pm Well, this was quite a tough one to reel in.
We had 551 entries, only about 56% correct. Lots of fishing expeditions in the world of seafood appetizers, including GULF SHRIMP (29, plus another 20 for SHRIMP COCKTAIL), CALAMARI (26), SUSHI (12), and CRAB CAKES (7). Plus some non-seafood ones including SALSA (13, counting different variants), WINGS (6, ditto), and BRUSCHETTA (6)
Congrats to this week's winner: Tim Murphy of Spring Valley, Ill.!
YES!!!MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 1:54 pm Well, this was quite a tough one to reel in.
We had 551 entries, only about 56% correct. Lots of fishing expeditions in the world of seafood appetizers, including GULF SHRIMP (29, plus another 20 for SHRIMP COCKTAIL), CALAMARI (26), SUSHI (12), and CRAB CAKES (7). Plus some non-seafood ones including SALSA (13, counting different variants), WINGS (6, ditto), and BRUSCHETTA (6)
Congrats to this week's winner: Tim Murphy of Spring Valley, Ill.!
Spring Valley ... it had to be. Congratulations!tim1217 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 1:57 pmYES!!!MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 1:54 pm Well, this was quite a tough one to reel in.
We had 551 entries, only about 56% correct. Lots of fishing expeditions in the world of seafood appetizers, including GULF SHRIMP (29, plus another 20 for SHRIMP COCKTAIL), CALAMARI (26), SUSHI (12), and CRAB CAKES (7). Plus some non-seafood ones including SALSA (13, counting different variants), WINGS (6, ditto), and BRUSCHETTA (6)
Congrats to this week's winner: Tim Murphy of Spring Valley, Ill.!
Chalk one up for the Muggles. This is especially sweet given I solved it so quickly (an unusual occurrence). I will cherish this award forever!
Congratulations tim1217tim1217 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 1:57 pmYES!!!MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 1:54 pm Well, this was quite a tough one to reel in.
We had 551 entries, only about 56% correct. Lots of fishing expeditions in the world of seafood appetizers, including GULF SHRIMP (29, plus another 20 for SHRIMP COCKTAIL), CALAMARI (26), SUSHI (12), and CRAB CAKES (7). Plus some non-seafood ones including SALSA (13, counting different variants), WINGS (6, ditto), and BRUSCHETTA (6)
Congrats to this week's winner: Tim Murphy of Spring Valley, Ill.!
Chalk one up for the Muggles. This is especially sweet given I solved it so quickly (an unusual occurrence). I will cherish this award forever!
Congratulations, Tim!! Hooray for a muggle win, and an Illinoisan to boot! Have a spring roll to celebrate.tim1217 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 1:57 pmYES!!!MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 1:54 pm Well, this was quite a tough one to reel in.
We had 551 entries, only about 56% correct. Lots of fishing expeditions in the world of seafood appetizers, including GULF SHRIMP (29, plus another 20 for SHRIMP COCKTAIL), CALAMARI (26), SUSHI (12), and CRAB CAKES (7). Plus some non-seafood ones including SALSA (13, counting different variants), WINGS (6, ditto), and BRUSCHETTA (6)
Congrats to this week's winner: Tim Murphy of Spring Valley, Ill.!
Chalk one up for the Muggles. This is especially sweet given I solved it so quickly (an unusual occurrence). I will cherish this award forever!
Impressive. The dude does abide.Abide wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2020 9:23 am #156Post by BrianMac » Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:19 pm
Abide wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:02 pm
Started this morning; after 30 minutes had a reasonable backsolve answer. Reading comments confirmed backsolve answer was right. Then spent two hours figuring out how to make it work!
Trying to wrap my head around this. I would love to hear a more detailed explanation after the deadline.
***
First assumption: the appetizer will have a body of water at the start. Wiki: Body of Water---Bayou, cove, channel, gulf, pond, stream, SPRING. SPRING ROLLS seemed right, but there are 10 numbers in parens. Singular SPRINGROLL sounds better than GULFOYSTER or GULFSHRIMP. Wendy's comment that it was on her menu confirmed SPRINGROLL for me. But how to make it fit? Eventually I made a hangman style grid next to the theme entries, inserting my proposed answer. So next to OCEANPERCH (2,5) I had _ R _ _ I _ ---. That seemed to fit ARCTIC. Ten minutes later I plugged in Chesapeake. Only 20 minutes later did I see CHESS and APEAK. It still took another 30 minutes to find the other three in the grid.
I put this puzzle in the "sounds like" group, and I don't think I have ever solved one. 7-22-16 - animal sounds, 7-29-16 - r-e-s-p-e-c-t, 7-28-17 - musical note homophones, 6-21-19 - (no short descriptor, see Joe Ross's list). (sigh)
Steve had sent all of the remaining copies not available on WSJ's website. Quite a few did not save when downloaded en masse due to a character in their names. All have been downloaded, now. August 2016 through December 2016 remain to be created & posted. These will be available by this Thursday's posting of the new Crossword Contest.steveb wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 6:08 pmLet me know if you're still missing any, because I have downloaded and saved the PDFs for *all* of them!Joe Ross wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 4:40 pm Muggles who have saved paper copies of past puzzles from 2016, please do not get rid of them, yet. steveb has generously provided nearly all PDFs of puzzles & solutions not in WSJ archives, but there may be a missing puzzle, or two.
In the next week, or so, the remaining puzzles and solutions from January & February 2017 and all of 2016 will be posted. I will post if certain puzzles are still needed.
Thank you, Steve, and thanks to all who may be able to help.