Downtimes

[BrianMac]

For those of you, like me, who have more downtime than usual on their hands these days, here is a new puzzle to help spend the time and tide you over until the WSJ tomorrow and Week 4 MGWCC on Friday.

This puzzle is called Downtimes and the solution is a question you might ask during downtime.

I will post the solution Sunday sometime Sunday evening. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks!

Downtimes.puz
Downtimes.pdf

[Hector]

Fun & very clever, thank you!

[BarbaraK]

For those of us who like you? That's me! In fact, I expect that's all of us. Oh, I should read more carefully?

Looking forward to this! And good timing as I just finished Burak's Slurred Lines meta.

[Al Sisti]

Very clever.

[MajordomoTom]

29A - never heard of those until I googled it. Still working on meta, nice grid.

took a while to finish the SE corner. Once I got the correct 60D and 69A, the rest came together.

EDIT: printed w/ my solution so I can stare at it a bit.

[MajordomoTom]

For those of us who like you? That's me! In fact, I expect that's all of us. Oh, I should read more carefully?

Looking forward to this! And good timing as I just finished Burak's Slurred Lines meta.

drink up!

[Laura M]

I mean, I'm pretty sure I have the first step, but no idea what to do with it...

[ChrisKochmanski]

I too flailed some after getting the first step. Then woke up from a nap thinking, “Hey, maybe it’s ...” — and came very satisfyingly to the solution. Loved it. Good one, Brian!

[MajordomoTom]

I'm still flailing. No nudges, I'm enjoying the flailing.

[CPKdad]

I also have (I think) the first step. Maybe the second step will come to me after another night's sleep. Hmmm

[BarbaraK]

Got it! And love it! Great one, Brian!

And that cleared my meta queue. Ready for MGWCC.

[Meg]

Finally!! And not easy!

[Beth Tyrpin]

That was clever and challenging.

[Cindy]

Finally!

[Abide]

very nice Bmac!

[FrankieHeck]

Ok, I got it. Very nice!

[Joe Ross]

Link to 20200422 BrianMac Downtimes Excel blank.

(Apologies for this being posted late — again!)

[BrianDavidson]

Maybe a Mac-Meta “winner” can have their avatar posted in the site header for a week (opposite Isaac).

[BrianMac]

Thanks everyone for solving and providing feedback. The solution to the meta, a question you might ask during downtime, is NOW WHAT? The solution is derived as follows:

1. Notice that there are seven "down" entries that are homophones of numbers:

1-Down: NEIN - 9
4-Down: ATE - 8
5-Down: TENN - 10
10-Down: SICS - 6
13-Down: FOR - 4
27-Down: TOO - 2
41-Down: WON - 1

2. Apply the title "Downtimes" to these numbers by multiplying them by the numbers of the squares they appear in:

9 x 1 = 9
8 x 4 = 32
10 x 5 = 50
6 x 10 = 60
4 x 13 = 52
2 x 27 = 54
1 x 41 = 41

3. Looking at the letters in the grid appearing in the resulting numbers, in grid order, yields NOW WHAT.

This one came about by wanting to create a meta (a) where the answer points to certain letters in the grid, and (b) which incorporates the numbers of the grid entries. I've seen both of those techniques used before by Mike Shenk, Matt Gaffney and PGW, and I always enjoy those metas, so I wanted to give it a try. I have to give a HUGE thanks to Al Sisti, who solved an early version of the puzzle and really saved by skin by pointing out that 8 x 4 = 32, and not 24, thus saving me the embarrassment of the meta answer NLW WHAT? Also, apologies for the SOLO / SOLI dupe entries. I noticed that at the time, and didn't it love it, but I have to thank Abide for pointing out that it could (and should) have been easily fixed by replacing SOLO / OTS with SILO / ITS.

Thanks again for solving. I hope to have another puzzle for you later in the week.

[LesY]

Great puzzle, Brian! I had the mechanism and NOWAWTH written on the page, but in a personal first I “had” the meta but didn’t “get” the meta. When I started counting letter frequency in the grid I should have known to quit.

Agree with the homages - it felt like a mashup of Gaffney and pgw. Please keep ‘em coming!