There And Back Again

Well, it’s that time of year again - YEGPIN is upon us, and hundreds of pinball machines and arcade games have taken over two arenas in Sherwood Park’s Millennium Place. This year I’m volunteering as a tech, wandering around the arena, trying to fix these ever-breaking electromechanical beasts. It’s a job filled with lots of small wins and big annoying losses, but it’s been a satisfying experience so far - I love fixing things, and seeing someone playing a game I just fixed gives me enough dopamine to get excited about the next machine. If you decide to pop by and see me wandering around in an incredibly yellow t-shirt, feel free to say hi!

This week’s post will be a hastier one - it’s been a busy week because of that (amongst other things) so I’m slamming this newsletter together Friday morning. Your crossword this week was not so hastily made, however! It was forged with loving construction, testing, and reviewing, and somehow probably still has a spelling or factual error lol.

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

Play

There And Back Again by Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

Not much to discuss today, I have to get this email done before 9:00am and pretend I didn’t shoot out of bed this morning and think “Oh god, is it Friday already? I didn’t write my newsletter!!!!!!” But we’re making good time tbh.

In lieu of a musical moment, I’d like to highlight the “Penn and Teller: Fool Us” show. As someone who was into magic for several of my junior high years (is anyone surprised?), this show has a great premise and it consistently delivered. A+. Plus this guy looks like Charles from Brooklyn Nine-Nine if he was a spiritual leader lol.

Today’s Theme

Today’s theme gives you only the title as a hint - “There And Back Again.” The three italicized clues are our theme clues/answers. They are all odd phrases with a question mark at the end.

After either getting some other letters or scrutinizing the clues, you may put together that each clue describes a phrase that has two parts: a first, two-word phrase (or compound word), and a second phrase that is a reversal of the first. so,

[A certain insect whizzing across your ear?] is a FLYBY BY FLY.

["Your email client's days are numbered, Microsoft!"?] is LOOK OUT, OUTLOOK!

[Wood scrap limit?] is OFFCUT CUT-OFF.

Behind the Clues

15A. [Singer Grande who did "The Way" with Mac Miller] is ARIANA, which should be a pretty gimme clue. The fun story here is that I’ve danced to this song a lot in the Just Dance video game lol.

19A. I guess you can control any game with your feet, technically. But [Game you control with your feet, briefly] refers to DDR, or Dance Dance Revolution, a game you are meant to use your feet to play. I guess we’re kind of on a dancing theme here, huh.

49A. I like to make these puzzles feel more Canadian (there are enough American puzzles out there). So I love getting to flex that [Trebek who began his career working at CBC (and later hosted a show called "Jeopardy" or something)] is the lovable ALEX Trebek, born and presumably raised in Ontario.

4D. I love finding interesting little connections. [First name shared by one who walked on the moon and one who talks about the moon] was one of those, when I was scheming up how to clue NEIL. Do I go with Neil Armstrong or Neil deGrasse Tyson… Why not both?

34D. Uh oh, my millennial is showing. ["___ rizz" (socially awkward, according to Gen Alpha slang that's probably outdated now)] is OHIO, which seemed to have 0% of the staying power of “rizz.” I don’t know why, maybe calling something ohio was kind of ohio?

39D. I couldn’t resist a dumb dad joke as I neared the end of the puzzle. [What golfers yell, even if they're on hole 1, 2, or 3] is FORE, which is an applicable warning no matter what number it sounds like.

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Until next week,

Brandon