Fireball Grid: untimed; Meta: 5 minutes 
[4.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Fireball Contest: “Category Four” by Mike Graczyk – Jeffmiz’s write-up
Hello Crossworld! My name is Jeff and I am taking over the Fireball contest write-ups from Conrad. I live in NYC and work in finance…but don’t worry, this takeover wasn’t hostile.
Today’s contest asks us to find a five-letter word hinted at by this puzzle. I tend to think about the title and potential answers even before diving into the grid itself. Given this title, “Category Four,” I immediately thought of (in)famous groups of four, such as the seasons, cardinal directions, and the Fab Four (Beatles). I also considered that maybe “category” referred to hurricane or tornado strength – with all of this in mind, let’s get to the puzzle.
Staying on theme, I would place this grid in the “pretty darn sticky” category. Had to stop a few times and mull over the wordplay in the clues. Took me the better part of a day to suss out “Bird stuffing in decades past” LARRY (as in the Boston Celtic, not the fowl). And what the heck is a HOBNAIL? Now we know. Also noticed that “triple-play” was used twice in the cluing, which put my meta-paranoia on high alert.
About halfway through filling out the grid, it became apparent that there were going to be four repeated letters in each of the longest answers:
- BUBBLE BATH has 4 Bs
- CIRCUS CATCH has 4 Cs
- DUBUQUE COUNTY has 4 Us
- NEW YEARS EVE has 4 Es
- VISIBILITY has 4 Is
Great, so that gives us BCUEI, anagrammable to:
- I CEBU, what I imagine a patriotic Filipino would say, or
- BI CUE, a subtle sign someone is playing for both teams
Realizing the error of my ways, I phoneticized the five plural letters:
- Bs–> BEES
- Cs–> SEES/SEAS
- Us–> USE
- Es –> EASE
- Is–> EYES
and in meta style, went hunting for other clues that might fit these words.
- Bs–> BEES –>Apiary denizens –> QUEENS
- Cs–> SEES –>Ogles –> STARES
- Us–> USE –>Put into practice –> APPLY
- Es–> EASE –>Abate –> DIMINISH
- Is–> EYES –> ? –> ?
Saw the first letters Q / A / D and figured I had the second and fifth associations incorrect, so thought about other pronunciations of the plural letters and potentially other matching clues. After a little bit of rearranging, I found the errata of my ways:
- Cs–> SEIZE –>Take by Force –> USURP
- Is–> EYES –> Ogles ? –> STARES
Giving us our apt contest answer of, “QUADS.” While the meta mechanism was fairly simple, the grid itself presented more than enough challenge to feel satisfied after solving.
Other observations/learnings:
Noticed two NES references in LUIGI (our plumber with the inferiority complex) and YOSHI (friendly Ninten-dino). And always fun to have a MACARENA callback in my puzzle.
Will give this 4.25 stars. What did you think? Here’s a link to some music by the not UNHIP:
Seemed a bit mean cluing uEys against Ean Evans… never heard of an Ean in my life, so I was stuck with uies for ages.