What a playfully wondrous way to start the week, a welcome antidote to this soggy start in the Northeast. Thanks for the chuckles, Clark, both in the puzzle and in your prelude. There's a whole lot of wit and wisdom afoot.
Thanks, Tom. The weather here in Linux Habitation hasn't been great either. Temps got down into the low 70s last night, and I had to ask Mom to turn up the heat.
Ergcat 19:39 · 2023-10-30T15:20:21.604Z
Fun meta! Liked the visual component! Got the “C and Y” themers fast but then what? Well, just look at the grid! Ha!
Thanks, Clark! Loved 1A - TACTIC is one hella reverse-candy strategic maneuver. P.S. We have a beanbag chair and a 9" B&W TV waiting for you down in our basement if you ever need a place to stay on the east coast. Happy Halloween!
Figured it our before I figured it out. Kept finding the obvious Candy Bars (even perhaps the unintended Clark?) and tried CHOCOLATE (a natural try I thought) but it was wrong. I did not tumble to the C and Y thing until later but still did not get the last part until I started saying WET BAR, OPEN BAR, etc. VERY NICE. I'm actually sitting here munching Haribo Gold Bears while I try to construct a puzzle or two. Not as umami-like as a good Clark Bar or Butterfingers, but also not a s fattening. So, I am going to get some more adhesive tape to repair my glasses, wash the excess ink off of my pocket protector, tap my Farah Fawcett poster for luck and get back to it. Thanks for the fun puzzle Clark
No, at that point I was probably trying to compile pharmacokinetic and dosing simulation programs written in Lotus 1-2-3 macros into stand-alone programs for distribution and trying to learn to program DBase (eventually switched to Quatro) but once WYSIWYG took over it was too much for this spaghetti coder.... I tried to learn Linux and bought into LFS, but all I managed to do is program a Charlie Brown character...might have been a spelling error.
merlinnimue 🤓7:17 · 2023-10-30T17:40:20.636Z
Wonderful puzzle... as ever I bow to all you genius setters and solvers... congrats, you sports!... I'll see myself out
Took me way too long! Fun and simple. (Never heard of Black Cows and the addition of black in the clue kept bugging me. Amazingly I took forever to notice the other three more hidden candies [I love Aero which I imagine most usaians have never heard of])
But ... the the top four entries all spell C and Y; is there any significance to bottom four entries?
Would you believe I missed the C/Y on the first pass!? (Somehow though, the bars jumped out at me immediately -- what does that say? ) The beginning letters of the first 3 C clues happen to be C, L, A. Thought the answer might be Clark Bars and that you were deviously hiding it in plain sight!
Ah, another another good hindsight re: hiding "Clark Bar" in the clues. Where were you when we, er, I needed you for pretesting, Claudia?
whimsy 🤓14:43 · 2023-10-30T18:43:53.544Z
Oh, and I bet it'd be a scary trip down to your cellar, but I imagine any brave trick or treater will be rewarded with one of your famous home-made, cellophane-wrapped, sticky popcorn balls!
Skor! That had me snickering… mounds of fun to take five and solve this during breaks ‘twix long stretches of work. I missed the significance of the short bottom words completely… just guessed “bars” because of the visual (puzzle looks like a jack-o-lantern behind bars!). Also tried to work your name into the solution, Mr. “Bob Cratchit, to Scrooge, (old spelling)” and “Offal entree.” (I feel pretty sure it’s an alias and anagrams to something obvious I should know, but as ever I’m not in the know with the cool kids). Great puzzle - give us s’mor!!
Late getting to the puzzle...but enjoyed it...thanks for another great construction. Definitely saw the "Aero" reference (I live in Ottawa, so we gave out some of those mini-size bars for Halloween)...and knew Heath and Milky Way, but had to use Google images for Black Cow. Nice!