"Famous Last Words" by benchen71

[benchen71]

Nudges, in order of increasing blatancy:

1. There are no instructions in the grid, so you can assume that the puzzle title must provide all the help you need to get started.

2. The four long answers are all multi-word entries. That means they have a last word.

3. You can combine these last words with the word "famous".

4. Time to play alternate answers!

[ajk]

Needed the third nudge because I was being dumb and improperly applying the proper method. Feel like I've been doing that a lot recently.
Fun stuff, thanks.

[KayW]

Fun puzzle - thanks, Ben!!
My famous last words: Nudged across the moa...

[Cap'n Rick]

No nudges needed. Just finally found time to focus on Ben's excellent puzzle! MOAT is hereby crossed!

[jhseeman]

ugh...needed second hint.

Thanks Ben, great puzzle.

[rjy]

Had the gist, but totally stymied by careless errors in the grid… bummer! it was a great puzzle with clever aha there at the end… thanks, Ben!

[ReB]

Needed a cavalry escort to cross the MOAT, but I'm across.

[benchen71]

Here's another solver update for you:

Tyrpmom
SeamusOL
Katiedid
ajk
Carolyn
JM
KayW
Pair O Ducks
Spid4567
Capn Rick
DCBilly
JHSeeman
rjy
Darrell
Sharkicicles
MrTheHan
Cindy Heisler
CPJohnson
ReB
Dow Jones

That brings us up to 46. Next (and last) update will be Monday morning Australian time. And I just might be able to make the Last Call Zoom session, since I'm on school holidays at the moment - if I can work out the time difference!

[Darth]

DeMOATed. Well done, Ben. Fun Puzzle.

[Ergcat]

Moat crossed! Needed the third nudge…. Thanks, Ben!

[MikeyG]

Ah, totally could've gotten that sans nudges, but I was...distracted by a bright, shiny rabbit hole (wonder if anyone else was).

But made me chuckle, haha. Thanks, Ben!

[benchen71]

Here's the final solver update:

Jaclyn
rayyandroid
frostyjhammer
Darth
Ergcat
Danny K Bernstein
Mikey G

That's a grand total of 53.

And, as a surprise, the last shall be first! I'm awarding @MikeyG a MOAT Music Meta Pack for being the last solver on the board!

[benchen71]

Here's the solution to "Famous Last Words":

The inspiration for this meta, other than wanting to use OREO as part of the meta-mechanism, was the following scene from Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy":

Zaphod leapt out of his seat.
"Then what's happened to the missiles?" he said.
A new and astounding image appeared in the mirrors.
"They would appear," said Ford doubtfully, "to have turned into a bowl of petunias and a very surprised looking whale..."
"At an Improbability Factor," cut in Eddie, who hadn't changed a bit, "of eight million seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand one hundred and twenty-eight to one against."
...
Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was "Oh no, not again." Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.

[ReB]

The inspiration for this meta, other than wanting to use OREO as part of the meta-mechanism, was the following scene from Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy":

Zaphod leapt out of his seat.
"Then what's happened to the missiles?" he said.
A new and astounding image appeared in the mirrors.
"They would appear," said Ford doubtfully, "to have turned into a bowl of petunias and a very surprised looking whale..."
"At an Improbability Factor," cut in Eddie, who hadn't changed a bit, "of eight million seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand one hundred and twenty-eight to one against."
...
Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was "Oh no, not again." Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.

And for those curious as to the fate of the whale, here is the tale of its sad fate:

“Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.

And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more.

This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it.

Ah … ! What’s happening? it thought.

Er, excuse me, who am I?

Hello?

Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life?

What do I mean by who am I?

Calm down, get a grip now … oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? It’s a sort of … yawning, tingling sensation in my … my … well I suppose I’d better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let’s call it my stomach.

Good. Ooooh, it’s getting quite strong. And hey, what’s about this whistling roaring sound going past what I’m suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that … wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do … perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I’ve found out what it’s for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What’s this thing? This … let’s call it a tail – yeah, tail. Hey! I can can really thrash it about pretty good can’t I? Wow! Wow! That feels great! Doesn’t seem to achieve very much but I’ll probably find out what it’s for later on. Now – have I built up any coherent picture of things yet?

No.

Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I’m quite dizzy with anticipation …

Or is it the wind?

There really is a lot of that now isn’t it?

And wow! Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like … ow … ound … round … ground! That’s it! That’s a good name – ground!

I wonder if it will be friends with me?

And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.

I've always remembered the whale, but not the bowl of petunias. Unfortunately, the improbability Factor was not high enough to allow the two to survive impact...

[MikeyG]

And, as a surprise, the last shall be first! I'm awarding @MikeyG a MOAT Music Meta Pack for being the last solver on the board!

My habit of having so many deadlines to juggle has finally paid off!