IMPORTANT NOTE: As of February 2020 MGWCC is available only to subscribers at my Patreon page. A subscription costs $3/month.
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Decision Time”
Instructions: This week’s contest answer is a frequently faced decision.
Answer: AM OR PM?
Number of correct entries: 252
Three insights required: first one was easy-medium, second was tough, third was one last little thing that could’ve taken 2 seconds…or 2 days.
First insight: each theme entry ends with a word that can start a common “X or Y” phrase, playing into the “Decision Time” title:
18-A: [Prefers to, if forced to decide (4)] = WOULD SOONER, yielding “sooner or later”
24-A: [Disposal location (4)] = KITCHEN SINK, yielding “sink or swim”
35-A: [2010 comedy in which Catherine Keener assuages her guilt by making unusual donations to the homeless (4)] = PLEASE GIVE, yielding “give or take”
45-A: [Doing the floor (5)] = SWEEPING UP, yielding “up or down.” This was the weakest of the “X or Y” phrases. It’s legit (used in elevators, when voting, etc.) but not as clearly its own thing as the others. You’ll see in a minute while I needed it, though, and there isn’t really another good “up or ___” phrase, so I wasn’t worried that it would trip anyone up.
55-A: [Drew attention, as a celebrity might (3)] = TURNED HEADS, yielding “heads or tails”
65-A: [Awkwardly phrased prophecy from the Magic 8-Ball (3)] = AS I SEE IT, YES, yielding “yes or no”
Those parenthetical numbers must mean something; that they are all 3, 4, or 5 might have prompted you to match them with a word of those very common entry lengths in the grid. Second insight: Attach a word of that parenthetcial length to each of the second words in the “X or Y” formula to create a third word. Like so:
LATER + ALLY = laterally. Not “late rally” which is a baseball phrase but we’re looking for solid, single words here.
SWIM + MING = SWIMMING
TAKE + OVER = TAKEOVER. One-word noun, as in “corporate takeover”
DOWN + RIVER = DOWNRIVER. This is why I needed the weakish “up or down” entry; there are only about 25 usable “X or Y” phrases, and only this one yielded an “R” word, so I had to go with the flow there (har-har).
TAILS + PIN = TAILSPIN
NO + MAD = NOMAD
The first letters of those attached words yield AMORPM, which does require a third insight: these aren’t a random string of letters, they’re contest answer AM OR PM? “Decision Time” indeed, usually a question asked when setting your alarm on your phone. Not a trivial step! Anecdotally a number of solvers, including some very good solvers, kept looking for a fourth step from AMORPM before the penny finally dropped. I would pay $5 for 10 seconds of forehead-slap video from when this happened.
DIS says:
I’m really hit or miss on these things.
Golem writes:
I feel like I should wait 12 hours to submit, just to be on the safe side.
A milestone for jskalitz:
I think this might be the first week 4 I’ve gotten in ~2 years as a subscriber! (fingers crossed I actually got the right answer)
(He did!)
ARudolph stumbled across the finish line, but success is success:
I had the in-grid suffixes, in the right order, had looked at the acrostic, and was like “AMORP…damn” and then chased phantoms for way too long (my fault! the OR is right there!)
Same with Tyler Hinman:
I don’t even want to tell you how long I had everything before seeing the answer. “Hmm, ‘amorpm’ isn’t a word…” Idiot.
lisepac asks:
Fact or fiction: My meta-skills are improving?
Magic 8-Ball responds: AS I SEE IT, YES!
And finally, TMart drops the mic with this summary:
First step, easy to find. Second step felt like I was a nomad swimming laterally downriver in a tailspin. Then I did a take-over and saw the answer.
Long-distance high-five to TMart for that one. Congrats to everyone for a fun month. Let’s do another, shall we?
PATREON SWITCHOVER UPDATE:
1) We’re up to 822 solvers who’ve made the switch over to Patreon! Join them at the link. Thanks to everyone who’s made the jump so far; If you have any trouble with it, please e-mail me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com or via Patreon messaging.
2) All subscription-updating e-mails have been sent out. If you have months left over on your MGWCC subscription from the pre-Patreon days and have NOT gotten an e-mail from me verifying the # of months left on said subscription, please let me know ASAP and I’ll get it straightened out. (crosswordcontest@gmail.com or Patreon messaging).
3) All payments have been turned off for March, so nobody should be charged anything this month. If for some reason you see a charge for March on your statement, please get in touch with me and I’ll refund it.
3) I’m about 1/3 of the way through refunding payments for February for those who have months left on their pre-Patreon subscriptions. It’s a laborious process and is taking some time, so please bear with me. Aiming to have them all done by next week’s post.
4) I will finally be in touch next week with all supporters at the $5/$10/$20 levels to start sending out your MGWCC swag. That shouldn’t take too long, and then I’ll start on sending out the 2019 yearly prizes. You have not been forgotten, 2019 winners! And you shall receive your prizes as soon as I can logistically manage.
As a special bonus for everyone’s patience: my wife is getting us MGWCC bumper stickers made, so everyone in these groups will receive one of those (plus I’ll probably send them out randomly to other solvers). It will look so good on my Pavilion laptop AND my car (I’m guessing).
5) If you would like to keep solving but truly do not want to have a Patreon account, please e-mail me (crosswordcontest@gmail.com) and we can work out alternate payment. I have a list of about 25 solvers who can’t or don’t want to go the Patreon route, and I have a separate mailing list to get the puzzle to them each week. I’m trying to keep this list very small for logistical reasons, though, so please do sign up at Patreon unless you really have strong feelings against it.
That’s it for now. E-mail me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com or via Patreon messaging if you have any questions.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is one of 50.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.