You can do better (Meta)

Woo Woo Woozy! May be the FIRST one of your metas I've ever been able to solve! Thanks!

Clever puzzle and twist at the end - tho I solved it without a lick of grid fill

Mistakenly submitted SECOND, then remembered the prompt. Very educational meta. I absoluytely needed Google for S, but then used it to confrim my guesses on the other five. Thanks for a puzzle that made me feel 5/6 smart.

Tricked me up until I saw the way to do better! Nice work, woozy -- Thanks!

Hah!! A fun and FIRST-rate MMM debut. Love the twist at the end - I'm glad I paid attention to the prompt for once.... just goes to show there's a FIRST time for everything! Thanks for the meta.

A Doozy, Woozy.

Very enjoyable meta. Thanks, Woozy!

Very fun, Woozy! Didn't read the clue at 23A closely enough and confidently wrote down ALASKA. Then tried to figure out what in the heck a SEAOND was. Whoops. Thanks for the puzzle!

Nice debut Woozy. I liked the ending where I thought I had it - but didn’t and had to keep thinking. We’ll done

Loved this! Keep 'em coming...

A first-rate puzzle! (I second that!)

oh man -- I had MKCOND forever. I was taking the one right above the one given... so Lake Michigan-Huron, and Kilimanjaro googled as one place above the ones given (all the others were pretty obvious. Figured out SEcond just by staring... and since the two wrong letters were easy to fix (Superior and Everest) and were the number ones, FIRST was easy. (Also, ONIONTART is two letters too many to make Ontario. That was a short rabbit trail.)

Excellent MMM debut, woozy!

Delightful puzzle! I did a SECOND take after finishing and getting 6 second places, and then it hit me, "I can do better"! Nice final twist and a great learning opportunity. I did not know of Moissanite until today, but with all the others, Diamond just had to be it. I also had a hole in the fill because I was so proud of myself for knowing SIA, who knew there was a SZA and ACTUALSIIE for photos seemed odd - though I figured it might be a California thing.

You have really sharpened your Meta skills, looking forward to the MEOW on the 27th

Top notch!

Very nice puzzle! Needed some nudges to get on the right track. Thanks!

Nice debut. :) Needed nudge 7 to make me realize that the PSI I had dismissed was important after all. Hit upon Superior/Everest/California/Armstrong/Diamond on Monday night, and even thought that it was close to SECOND (though it'd have been closer if I realized to use Neil instead of Armstrong lol). Once I realized I was supposed to use OMEGA it only took about a minute. Fun idea, thanks.

Shasta (Rainier) and Iceman (Maverick) tripped me up here, but I got it eventually!

Very cool.

Good puzzle, thanks. I liked 7A.