Hi, I’m back. I’ve been solving some puzzles in the meantime, most notably the 2011 CiSRA puzzles which were quite good: http://puzzle.cisra.com.au/puzzles.php.  Sadly (for me and for you) I didn’t blog them. I got the first solve in a puzzle for what may have been the first time, which was cool.  We wound up in 5th place, 30 minutes out of third place, where we would have wound up behind only our MIT Mystery Hunt teammates on Xyzzy and Plugh. Oh well. 

Anyway, MGWCC… I solved 166 and 167 too but they were both really easy (record numbers of successes) so they’re not here.   168, however, I was worried about. It took a sleep and a fresh look. So, even though my total time is about 70 minutes, I’m not sure it would have been nearly that fast without the mind-clearing in there.

The puzzle is here and my solving log is after the cut.

Log:

0:00:00

Printing…

0:00:54

That took a while. solving…

0:01:21

42A NUT, no 37D WHITEBOY [First answer wrong, not generally a good sign]

0:01:52

heh, 58A ASPS, 63A KOFI

0:02:33

40d COWPOKE, 65a EYES, 49a WTF, 42a OIL 38D HALFLIFE… 55D … I don’t know the cat’s name! PELOTA and OBIT make OTIS

0:04:08

44D is CLANGS if I know my lyrics. SLED&ICE crossing, then APOGEE and IRONFIST across those.

0:05:29

51D DINAH

0:06:22

stuck a bit down low, LETSIN at 23A gets me into NW where I haven’t looked.

0:06:54

4d TINES? 15a ACTIONHERO 6d INFINITY

0:07:55

7d SHIV (confirmed with IVE)

0:08:30

9D ends S, so 17d looks like -FIRST, so 8d with ERE in the middle is HERES… and 1a is BESTWISHES

0:09:19

10d SOTHAT 25a STAR 5d WOK, 3d STINTS, 2d ECHOED, 1d BATTLE and we have our first theme part “THINK FIRST”

0:10:17

33d HEF 33a HOTPOT 26d TITLES?

0:11:11

31a ITO, can’t get 21a H- or 41a GRE- so my move eastward is momentarily halted.

0:11:37

45a SNL… aha 22d BROCCOLI , so HBOMBS at 21a

0:12:37

now I see GREWON 41a and 39d OWNSUPTO. 36d HAN 35a CHUGS… 37a ends LOCATE?

0:13:31

LETMEOUT and ONABARGE crose those last assumed -TE.

0:13:56

11a ALOT, 16a LENI, 18a PTAS, 14d TISSUES

0:14:21

52a SIMILE 53d MAURY oddd clue for 47d, and I don’t know 48d (not a dr who watcher) have to get the crosses… oh no 46a looks french. counting on 60/64/66a

0:15:55

66a SCHOOLYEAR… 60a may start NINE…62d is AOL is 61d IRC?… I have to get 64a, wtf.

0:17:27

pretty sure 56a is IOU, but I still don’t know 57 across. maybe OENO? (that’s wine, right?)

0:18:06

Ooooooh. GRANTORINO. duh.

0:18:36

MISSIE ALPENA LESSOR (heh, not dr who) and MAL…

0:18:53

so our meta is “THINK FIRST WHEN YOU LOCATE NINE PAUSES”… hmm, is that referring to two word answers?

0:19:34

BEST WISHES, A LOT (probably not), ACTION HERO, THINK FIRST, H BOMBS, LETS IN, HOT POT, WHEN YOU LOCATE, GREW ON, NINE PAUSES, GRAN TORINO, SCHOOL YEAR.

0:20:51

That’s twelve… let’s see if we can pick out a subset of 9 that spell something… somehow.

0:21:46

BATHLGNGS… or maybe it’s the first letter after the pause? WHIPLOPTY… BATH AND SHIP are nice starts, but I’m clearly getting something wrong. (maybe everything)

0:24:05

I should see what type of answer I’m looking for. it may just be BATHWINGS. (that was a joke)

0:24:36

A common kind of summer break… hmmm not BATHWINGS.

0:25:41

maybe we want the clues with single letter starts? how many are there?

0:25:53

ERS, A LOT, PTAS, HBOMBS, SNL, WTF, IOU,

0:27:02

oops, I forgot IRON FIST and OWNS UPTO earlier. hmmm

0:28:19

hmmm. 9 pauses. there are more than 9 two-word answers… let’s see if a subset feel like “pauses” or any other answer or clue for that matter.

0:32:53

there are multi-word answers I missed earlier. but they don’t really help… I didn’t have too few as it was.

0:41:49

Well, the first letter in each row in the bottom half that has a two word answer spells COKE…

0:47:38

Maybe I just want the multi-word answers where you have to stop, like a glottal stop. Let’s see…

0:47:57

LET ME OUT, ACTION HERO (maybe), THINK FIRST. H BOMBS (maybe), IRON FIST, HOT POT, WHITE BOY, OWNS UP TO, NINE PAUSES, … or LATHIHWON

0:52:08

let’s go back to those leading letters… A LOT, PTAS, IVE (kind of), HBOMBS, SNL, WTF, IOU, IRC, AOL That’s 9, at least.

0:54:02

anagrams to HAWAII SIP. that’s almost a kind of break. maybe ERS instead of IVE… no that’s worse.

0:56:23

tired, going to bed. I’m sure I’ll solve this tomorrow.

0:56:26

Ok, I’m back. Let’s take a fresh look at the grid.

1:01:57

I don’t see anything weird, looking for pauses. Just going to browse in general.

1:06:59

Sigh, nothing. Looking at the clues now. Ones with commas? Are there 9?

1:08:24

the 4 acrosses spell RAIN from the first letters of the clues and BLOS from the first letters of the answers, I think. That’s good.

1:08:57

I get RAINELAY and BLOSAHOA…. I bet I missed a D. yep, 52A

1:10:13

RAINDELAY and BLOSSAHOA… I’m going with RAIN DELAY. Though that ASPS clue has pauses…. no, RAIN DELAY is probably it.