After a week off with a gimme puzzle, Matt stumped me with a tough one (I think… I still don’t know the answer).

The grid was a quick fill (12 minutes, and blogging definitely slows me down when it’s that fast) but the meta… I just had no real clue.

The puzzle can be found here and my (not-)solving log is after the cut

0:00:00

solving on paper… reading blog first.

0:00:25

major US city. got it. my early guess is CHICAGO.

0:00:58

GILD/GONNA/DEADMAN

0:01:20

OWIE/SNL

0:01:47

SALAMI/III/DISSES/BRAIN/ARABS

0:02:18

PAEAN/ALEE/BLAB/PBJS

0:02:56

SEA/IWILLBEATA/JETSTREAM easy fill so far.

0:03:38

TWA/WET/ARETHA

0:04:24

SW done no problem

0:04:41

NICETHINGS get me into S…

0:05:08

S no problem

0:05:56

SE tougher. got IAN…

0:06:20

is 50A KAYPEE? oh KPDUTY, probably

0:07:30

SE is done… but 30 looks like CONFERENCE which means KP DUTY is wrong even though KP??TY is right

0:07:59

or it’s CONFLUENCE

0:08:48

E is done.

0:09:18

back to middle, 39A ACRID, 7D CAMEONTIME?

0:09:56

FCC/CHEST/FADS

0:10:35

SSR ISSUED

0:11:16

9D AVOID/IDES

0:11:46

ALES, LAND, SALSA

0:12:08

SAM/SIDE (huh, SAM answer near SAM clue)

0:12:43

16A, last answer… going with ANITA

0:12:53

ok, instructions answers: I WILL BE AT A CONFLUENCE

0:13:20

That’s it? hmm. ok. nothing comes to mind. Simplest is to google for “confluence” and “crossword confluence” (given the medium and audience)

0:14:47

Nothing… let’s see what the other long answers are…

0:14:58

PYROMANIA (has ROMAN and ROMANIA…) DEMIMONDE, NICETHINGS, CAMEONTIME… there’s ONT and MI… could be DETROIT…

0:16:34

oh, yeah, JETSTREAM and INTERIORS are longish too.

0:19:28

I’d like “ERIE or “HURON”… closest is INTERIORS, I think.

0:19:51

DEMIMONDE is a lot like DEMI MOORE… which is meaningless, probably.

0:25:01

wikipedia says lots of US cities are at confluences.

0:30:34

DETROIT’s a bad guess and I feel a migraine coming on. It’s Sunday afternoon. hopefully I’ll get the answer tonight or tomorrow.

0:30:34

Back late monday night… I’m pessimistic

0:30:44

TUSINIA on the main diagonal… probably nothing.

0:31:41

I really want the confluence to be of rivers identified in the puzzle… what are the rivers in the US that could be used?

0:38:59

Ok, googling for confluences and cities, found confluence.org about integral-lat-lons… including one in Memphis (35N 90W) huh, neat. any lat-lons in the puzzle?

0:44:09

I give up. sticking with my DETROIT guess, sad that this is my first failed meta.