Interesting, in this week's WSJ puzzle, we had the quasi-synonymous anagramattic pair of TV AD and ADVT.
Stephen | 12.30.06 - 12:31 am | #

A tough one, and a good one.

I made slow progress until hitting the NW, where I was just stopped for a looong time. CHER and APP were a fair start, but I didn't make any more progress until much later, when I got ONESOCK (yeah, very funny), and RERUN. Also, the LENA/LINA problem didn't help, since it led me to ATSPEED rather than INBRIEF. Lots of other minor stuff-- ENNIS/INNIS, NUTTY/NUTSY/NUTSO, DOC/HEC,... but it all fell into place, eventually.
Matt | 12.30.06 - 8:07 am | #

Speaking of FLOE, I don't remember seeing it clued "Weddell Sea phenomenon" before, and now twice in one day. Usually this kind of "conspiracy" can be written off as coincidence, but this time I think it may be a real conspiracy...and his name is Rich Norris.

I don't recall seeing GOOGLE HITS before either, but Google shows it gets 326,000 hits, so I think it's legit. ;-)
JJF | 12.30.06 - 12:07 pm | #

For the longest time, the upper portion of the NE was a total blank. I kept trying to think of a real surfing mecca until INTERNET finally dawned on me only after thinking of SAHIB as a possibility for 10A. Then it all fell into place. Just a complete mental block. Really good puzzle.
Gary (garymac9) | 12.30.06 - 12:26 pm | #

ONE SOCK was one of just a handful of gimmes for me - OK, maybe not Exactly a gimme, but it was my first guess, and correct. Never ever heard of "Killer APP" - or, rather, I'd *heard* it, as the phrase floated to the top of my brain and insisted on its correctness, but I had no idea what it meant til I looked it up.

I just wrote about how no one is falling for the misdirective "surfing" clues any more, but apparently Gary did, so maybe I'm wrong. "Mecca" is a weird way to describe so general and non-spatial a "place" as the INTERNET, which made me doubt the rightness of my answer there for a good long while. Strangely, of all the things to get thrown by in the NE, I got thrown by BOYCOTTS, which I couldn't see for the life of me.

Michael
Michael | Homepage | 12.30.06 - 12:48 pm | #

A tabset is, I guess, a set of tabs. So, how does a set of tabs, in and of itself, make stops along a line.

It determines where stops are made when the tab key is hit, but, or it seems to me, it doesn't make those stops by itself.

Oh, well, a very minor point.
dan | 12.30.06 - 1:17 pm | #

The TABSET clue didn't bother me... I interpreted 'makes stops' as 'creates stops' (e.g., 'I made that house with my bare hands...').
Matt | 12.30.06 - 1:46 pm | #

A TABSET isn't a set of tabs. Back in the days of old typewriters, this was an actual key.

http://www.agrainofsand.com/ecom...v/prod/ 6225.jpg

The key ("it") was used to make "stops".

Peter
abide | 12.30.06 - 2:03 pm | #

Is ECONO-car a common usage around anyone's area? I see it's a car rental company on Aruba, is Norris from the islands?
JBo | 12.30.06 - 2:30 pm | #

Ah, typewriters. I still haven't recovered from the trauma of high-school typing class, where the teacher assigned me a seat in the last row, where they'd run out of IBM Selectrics and foisted an old manual typewriter on me. Dang, that antique TAB SET key takes me back.

There's the ECONO-Car company "catering exclusively to northern New Jersey," but that seems a little too regional for a crossword clue, doesn't it?
Orange | Homepage | 12.30.06 - 3:11 pm | #

Seems to be a fairly common name for rental car companies. One in Toronto, another in Pittsburgh, etc. Also appears to be a generic name for any weak-ass, high-mileage car (e.g. Geo Metro) - short for "economy car." See this, I guess. And this too, I suppose.
Michael | Homepage | 12.30.06 - 4:55 pm | #

I was certainly imagining shaking with fright...which is why, with I?S?DEA?, I put in IMSODEAD, which I thought was a great, lively entry. Yeah, too bad it was wrong. Can't believe I managed to stay under ten minutes with this killer mistake in there for so long.
Tyler | 12.30.06 - 5:13 pm | #

Good one, Tyler.

But Michael, the clue had a capital C in ___-Car, so Rich Norris or Will Shortz must've had some sort of trade name in mind. But what??
Orange | Homepage | 12.30.06 - 6:24 pm | #