Sometimes you just have to drown your failure-to-solve-a-meta-sorrows by creating your own meta! After struggling with a supposed "week 2" Gaffney today (11/11/2023), I decided to try out an idea that was loosely based on a failed solving attempt. This meta was the result. Before completing the cluing for this puzzle I did end up solving the Gaffney, so that helped lighten the mood a little! The answer to the meta is an appropriate verb. Nudges available here: https://www.xword-muggles.com/viewtopic.php?p=188665#p188665
Check out "The MOAT Mini Pack of Marching Bands" here: https://www.ephesusscroll.com/about/interest4.html. US$5 gets you 7 Marching Bands which, hard enough on their own, now contain metas too. And once again there's a mega-meta!
Of course, the biggest irony is it's well and truly summer here in Australia: yesterday, for example, the temperature in Melbourne exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (which is 104 degrees Fahrenheit). Not much shivering going on Down Under just at the moment!
hoover 7s · 2024-12-17T14:29:37.264Z
No shivering here either. I'm in the Northern Hemisphere and yesterday we had a high of 27 and a low of 19 ... Celsius.
I guessed the meta answer, but I have no idea how I was supposed to figure it out. Any help would be appreciated.
shalmanezer 🤓12:44 · 2024-12-17T15:37:29.037Z
Center clue - is same as puzzle title. Grid answer is SUBZERO. Zero looks like the letter "O". Find the letters in the grid that are "sub" (below) "zero" (the letter O)
Semester's over so once again I have time for mid-week metas. Pretty much the first idea I had, although the second way I thought to apply it. Good stuff, thanks. Now I need to get caught up on all the ones I missed.
Literally doing that right now (i need to crank up the heat or I’ll never leave this couch & blanket to work). Thanks for a simple one — it’s been a string of too-much-work or too-obscure metas for me lately!
Well if I had timbers they would have been treated appropriately for a pirate! Not a word pertinent to me right now, or you for that instance Ben. It was smooth skating, though without the central answer I would have been trying to append FR ( I was already looking for ANTIC, OWNED, AGILE) to everything. Thanks for a softball to keep my spirits up after a disastrous Saturday with the periodic table.
Tough grid but I understand when you have that many constraints.
Person who derives advantage from something, especially a trust, will, or life insurance policy
23A
"I get it!"
24A
Morgoth's lieutenant
25A
Serve drinks in an establishment
27A
Held by a clamp
30A
Wheel shaft
31A
Tower site of Genesis 11
34A
"Night at the Museum" actor ___ Malek
36A
"___, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." (Casablanca quote)
39A
Give ___ whirl
40A
Fr-r-reezing!
43A
Lake in Quebec?
44A
"The ___ is Rising" (novel by Susan Cooper and a call-back to an earlier MOAT)
46A
Run a spool of film backwards?
47A
Sweater type
49A
Opposite of "ja"
51A
Coffee with all the fun taken out of it
53A
"Gold" band ___ Ballet
56A
From dawn to dusk
60A
NYC congresswoman
61A
Movie about a group of young ballet dancers (and Zoe Saldana's debut film)
64A
Dame Nellie ___ (there's that sense of deja vu again!)
66A
Fedora fabric
67A
Cain and Abel's nephew
68A
Campaign tactic for those who go low
69A
Land in the sea
70A
4046.86 square metres
71A
"Levv" vocalist Audrey ___
72A
Romanov ruler
73A
"I refuse to join any club that would have ___ a member." (Groucho Marx)
Verticali
1D
Sebastian (from "The Little Mermaid") and the rest of his family
2D
Gomer's husband
3D
Channel for college sports
4D
Retain for future use
5D
8 down and oats, for two
6D
Drug agent (why do I suddenly have a weird sense of deja vu?)
7D
___ spumante
8D
Bread ingredient
9D
Furless cat breed
10D
Vehicle with an open-topped tray behind the passenger compartment, familiarly
11D
Plum known for being sweet and full of flavour
12D
Hawaiian greeting
13D
Tree associated with Lebanon
21D
Straight men
22D
Broadcast again
26D
551, to Caesar
28D
Shaken fermented hops beverage for actress Kathryn?
29D
"___ and Confused" (movie that was Matthew McConaughey's big break)
31D
Make an offer
32D
Dwayne Johnson's mother
33D
"Billions of bilious blue blistering ___!" (Captain Haddock outburst)
35D
"A ___ formality!"
37D
Bag in Paris?
38D
Bill the Cat exclamation
41D
Forearm bones
42D
Elliptical shapes
45D
Barbie's boyfriend
48D
Philadelphia Eagles, for example
50D
High-tech office necessity
52D
June ___ Cash
53D
Kafka character Gregor ___
54D
Limericks and sonnets, for example
55D
Not up to the job
57D
What "The body says what words cannot" is talking about