Near-Perfect Pitch

Gee, I "almost" forgot to wish you Muggles a Happy 6th Anniversary! According to the World Wide Web, "iron" is the traditional gift, so I thought I'd "pitch" some "horseshoes" your way. Hope you had fun solving the meta!

Happy 6th Anniversary! Iron seems so appropriate... maybe iron pills as you're looking a little anemic there, Clark. But don't worry, you've still got "it" (and I mean, that natural iron magnetism!)...or at least, you come very close! And that always counts for something like horseshoes or hand grenades! Good luck with your wired explosions...uh, I mean, world explorations. Isn't that hard to do when your hanging in the cellar? Or, maybe your rabbit ears can pick up NatGeo so you can still explore the world from down there. Thanks for the puz, and all the best!

Hilarious write up! It’s so good to catch up with Clark again.Happy 6th anniversary Muggles!

I thought this sounded familiar. Thanks Clark et al.

brilliant

Fun one! Thanks!

Took a bit. Might never have found it without the Easter Egg.

Pretty sure I test solved this, although I can't seem to find it in my emails. Partly I'm sure of this because I had the mechanism as soon as I entered PINT BALL (lol), and partly because I seem to remember doing the ALMOST to horseshoes jump before. Regardless, very fun effort as always, thanks. :)

Almost bought that space app. Happy 6th, Clark and thanks for the ironically fun activity!

Fun one Clark. And Happy 6th Anniversary to all!

Welcome back Clark it's so good to see you - this puzzle's a real RINGER for sure! (and it rings a few bells as well - this time I found that super sneaky easter egg :D) Well done!

Well done, just couldn't make that last connection without nudge 5, even after finding ALMOST and HOOVES. I just couldn't get zebras out of my mind after finding HOOVES. despite the old saying regarding differential diagnosis. By the way, I remember the adage as being "Almost counts only in horseshoes and tactical nukes".

Yes, this one seemed to ringer a bell for me too. Thanks, Clark! Good to hear from you again!

Fun, thank you! Happy anniversary!

The prompt completely baffled me. Oh well, chacun a son gout.

Thanks Clark! for something written in Lisp, there’s a distinct lack of parentheses…

I got to the answer sans nudges thankfully, but my path might have been different. I got the ALMOST of course, but then saw all of the "missing letter" words were games, saw RINGER and then Near Perfect Pitch and ALMOST evoked the "only in horseshoes and hand grenades" saying and then I remembered GRENADES was in there.

I will also say that the RINGER evoked the bad "Quasimodo falling from Notre Dame" joke, I mean who else might be a dead ringer.

Love the Clarkentary, as much fun (almost) as the puzzle.

I did not realize this was a very Muggle birthday, nor did I realize I had joined only about two weeks after it started - it has indeed been a fun way for us shy retiring types to blossom...

Happy 6th, belatedly! I saw GRENADES but totally missed RINGER, LEANER, and HOOVES. I just went directly from ALMOST to the answer.

Very cool. Thank you!

Got to this one super late, but solved it with no hints. Thanks for another great meta...and hilarious intro.