9.29.2010

W E D N E S D A Y   September 29, 2010
Dan Naddor

Theme: An increase in the number of outstanding shares of a corporation without changing the shareholders' equity — Theme answers are two word phrases that split the word "stock", either as STO__ ___CK or as ST___ __OCK.


Theme answers:
  • 18A: Hurricane Zone (STORM TRACK).
  • 20A: Unflappable (STEADY AS A ROCK).
  • 33A: "Time out!" (STOP THE CLOCK).
  • 42A: Dismay at the dealer (STICKER SHOCK).
  • 56A: Sprinter's device (STARTING BLOCK).
  • 60A: Sign of corporate success, and a literal hint to the puzzle theme found in 18-, 20-, 33-, 42- and 56-Across (STOCK SPLIT).
PuzzleGirl has been called away again today. You remember that Women's Masters Wrestling Tournament all-star team she was on? Well, the tournament wasn't aired live. But the tape-delayed broadcast/highlights show will be on today, so she's got local news interviews all morning. (You might be able to find the tournament on cable, especially if you get a package with a lot of channels.) She asked me to fill in. I'm SethG.

We get Dan Naddor today, another of what must be a rapidly dwindling pile on Rich's desk. And it's typical Naddor with (mostly) solid fill and high theme density. Six entries is a lot, and not many constructors can get away with stacking them. Theme entries are all solid, though the STO---OCK form of STOP THE CLOCK is all that stands between me and a complaint that only one entry (STORM TRACK) did not end with OCK after the split...

Bullets:
  • 5A: Floater with a ladder (RAFT). Yes, this is accurate.
  • 17A: Ringing sound (DONG). DONG is a ringing sound when CHUB is a 44D: Thick-bodied fish.
  • 24A: ___ in November (NAS). If PuzzleGirl were here, this would be a video fer sher.
  • 40A: "M*A*S*H" role (RADAR). If PuzzleGirl were here, this would be a picture fer sher.
  • 3D: Some Musée d'Orsay works (MANETS). M_NETS, wait for the cross.
  • 11D: Writer Dinesen (ISAK). Of Out of Africa and Babette's Feast fame.
  • 30D: Mardi Gras city's Amtrak code (NOL). That's a long way to go to avoid the former President of the Khmer Republic, Lon Nol.
  • 33D: Wallop (SOCK). While the theme is STOCK SPLIT, it's also necessarily a SOCK split. Darn.
  • 35D: "That's a riot—not" (HA-HA).



  • 43D: Negotiated white water, perhaps (KAYAKED). Also [Negotiated calm waters, perhaps].
  • 47D: One vis-à-vis two (SOONER). On a number line, or a clock which is not stopped. Compare with 58D: Prime-time time (NINE).
  • 48D: Oregon State's conf. (PAC TEN) will become the PAC-12 when Utah and Colorado join soon. Constructors, start working it out of your systems now, because the cluing's generally awkward enough without a "Bygone" indicator.
  • 57D: Freq. test giver (TCHR). Where to begin? This is awful, maybe the worst abbreviation I've seen. It's in a dictionary, so it's accurate, but that just makes me question the dictionary. If you Google TCHR you don't get the NEA, you get the Tamil Centre for Human Rights. The second entry? Is in Polish (though I'm proud I picked that up by just looking at the language). Next up? Texas Commission on Human Rights.

    In college I used a kind of shorthand, generally taking notes with no vowels. I'm glad I wasn't an Education major, because I think I would not have been able to bring myself to write this.
Crosswordese 101: Did they not get to TKO yet? It's not on the list. A TKO is when the ref stops the fight because one of the fighters can't go on. The clue will reference boxing, either a fight, some specific boxers, a three-letter-acronym with a B in the middle, or today's 32D: Bout stopper, for short.

PuzzleGirl's back tomorrow.
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20 comments:

JOHNSNEVERHOME said...

Thanks Seth for sitting in for Puzzlegirl... nice job with the writeup.
Today we get another Naddor treat.
Nice theme puzzle, but with some caveats.
Worked it from the bottom up because I know Dan usually gives a theme reveal.
With the clue for 60A, and seeing all the ST’s, I quickly solved all the ST___OCK themes. That helped me get some of those obscure crosses, like: LIOTTA, ISAK, and FLAK.

IMO, the SW corner was just plain nasty… SLO, SOTO, and TCHR.
Have you ever seen a “Road warning” sign saying SLO?
Have you ever seen “teacher” abbreviated as TCHR?

And then there was 18A STORMTRACK which didn't quite fit the ST__OCK theme… STACK SPLIT ??? Confusing to me. Just a little inconsistency with the theme. No big deal.

Didn’t understand what “NAS in November” meant.

I’ve been to the Paris Musee d’Orsay and I believe there are more Édouard MANETS right here in our own Chicago Art Institute. A marvelous artist !

Gotta go FLOSS !

JOHNSNEVERHOME said...

@Seth
Your CW101 on TKO should include the words TECHNICAL KNOCK OUT.

burner10 said...

N as in November - googled around cuz I didn't get that either. Fun filling puzzle for me.

badrog said...

Thank you, Mr. Naddor! For 45A. Expo '70 in OSAKA is where I met my wife of 38+ years.

NAS in November puzzles me, too. Could it possibly be "None of the Above" on Election Day?

badrog said...

Thanks burner10. Hope the day will pass a little faster than my mind was working on that one!

Van55 said...

Totally failed to read the byline on this one. Thought it was a good puzzle and an enjoyable solve all around. Will greatly regret when the supply of posthumous Naddor gems has been exhausted.

Tinbeni said...

Seth G. Outstanding write-up.
lol at the "if PuzzleGirl were here, there would be a vid or pic" comments.

Being a Dan Naddor, I searched out the theme reveal and got by that pesky SW corner quickly, O'LORD!

Theme was anything but BLASE.
Since I solved from the bottom up, STORM TRACK was the last to fall.
Was watching the Weather to see if Nicole (#16) deserved a supply trip. Nope, looks to be just a few days of rain here in Tampa Bay.

Stared at NAS until I realized it was N,AS in November.

Thought it was funny that yesterday we had Chesty, today we have DONG and ABS. Makes me wonder what body part we get tomorrow.

@ddbmc well my #1A Yankees and #1B Rays won.
That RED SOX CAP from Sunday didn't help.

shrub5 said...

Liked the STOCK SPLIT theme. Think I'll try to come up with some banana split theme answers, though I bet it's been done before.

For garnish on a toothpick, could be OLIVE or onion. At least I can put the O and the I in place. I prefer olives in my diet coke. :-)

Going out today to look at new dishwashers. Hope I'm not in for STICKER SHOCK.

Eric said...

@SethG: Nice fill-in. "While the theme is STOCK SPLIT, it's also necessarily a SOCK split. Darn." *LOL*!

I got all the theme entries before the reveal, without attempting to suss out the pattern.

Nice WWII mini-theme: FLAK and UBOAT and RADAR. (And OSAKA, kind of; it doesn't seem to have been a major target, but it did get bombed a few times, like so many cities on all sides.) FLAK is a German acronym, for "Fliegerabwehrkanone, aircraft defence cannon; also cited as Flugzeug abwehr kanone)" [from Wikipedia]. Its use in English derives from the experience of Allied fliers who were (desperately trying not to be) on the receiving end.

OSLO, ISAK, and MILNE were gimmes.
NAS was ... not as such; got it from crosses, and I didn't understand it either till I saw @burner10's explanation. Totally cheesy -- even worse than a Sue Grafton clue.
Hand up -- with thumb down -- for TCHR. But once I took a leap on that, the rest of the SW fell into place.

I don't know sports, and especially don't know college sports, so for me PACTEN is purest crosswordese :-) Got it from a couple of crosses and a lucky guess.

Had ON POINT instead of ON TOPIC, for a while.

7D had to be either BRUSH or FLOSS. Why am I thinking of Frank Zappa right about now?

Captcha: SHELED. Sounds like it should be Hebrew (which would go nicely with TORAH). Is it?

John Wolfenden said...

Never met a Naddor puzzle I didn't like. "NAS in November" is a stretch, however. If you're spelling something for someone over the phone, would November really come to mind? Nancy, maybe...

SethG said...

November is the code word used in the NATO phonetic alphabet. So for lotsa people, yeah, it would come to mind.

I had no idea that would turn out to be today's sticking point for everyone. Sorry to not include it in the entry...

Pictures I thought about using but didn't include, among others, this, this, this, and this. I did not think about including the otter pictures I took from my kayak, because it turns out they were seal pictures. New Zealand has no otters.

Wanda Woman said...

I enjoyed the puzzle, but I agree with JNH. That SW corner was OLORD awful. SLO / TIL / TCHR?? Yeesh.

ddbmc said...

Thanks, @SethG, for filling in. Opened your first link and LOL'd at Otter, from "Animal House!" Borat (the movie) was somewhat watchable, but Bruno? NOT! Also, NOT a French horse racing afficionado, so LARC was, ahem, foreign to me.

I guess Kayaks negotiate white Water, but I guess I always think of RAFTS (without the ladders) doing this. (Meryl Streep/Kevin Bacon in "The River Wild.")

Ray of "GoodFellas," Jersey Boy! Union, to be exact.

@Eric, thanks for the explanation of FLAK.

@Tin, my white flag is officially waving! My REDSOX cap(s)have been mothballed until next season. TBR will now have to take over the nettlesome job of tweaking your Yankees for me!

Battening down the hatches for tomorrow's STORMTRACK on the RADAR! Hope we have power! IFNOT, it will STOPTHECLOCK. Maybe we'll get a pass, like Tampa Bay? Guess we can break out the OLIVE(s) and Martinis.

Nice to have another Naddor puzzle, warts and all.

Sfingi said...

@John - LIOTTA is obscure - o yeah, you're a guy.

The only thing my first dentist ever said was "Open." Nor did he use novocaine.

Funny, how I can get caught in a trap of my own invention when two wrong words cross. I had "half of" rather than SOONER for One vis-a-vis two, crossing STARTINGBells until I reread the clue for STOCKSPLIT.

Naturally, did not know 2 of 3 sports clues (PACTEN - WTH?) and Prix de LARC de Triomphe - also cuz it was French.

Got a flu shot today - free for Sr. Cit. at WalMart's.

Tom in the D said...

# Eric. ..I might be moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon.....just me and the Pygmy pony......LMAO love Zappa

Rube said...

I don't speak French and I'm not a horse person, but I do recognize L'Arc de Triomphe.

ddbmc said...

@Thanks, Rube. A "D'oh" moment for me! Eats shoots and leaves! Commas and apostrophes help! Viva la difference!

JOHNSNEVERHOME said...

@Shrub5
I've had two BOSCH stainless steel (inside and out) dishwashers over the past 15 years (both homes)... extremely pleased with it. It is so quiet that the only way I can tell if it's running is by the pilot light. Also it has a "top rack only" cycle for small loads. You might want to check it out.

@SethG, @burner10, @Eric
Thanks for all the info and for helping me out with my stumpers:
N AS in November and FLAK.

JOHNSNEVERHOME said...

BTW, this weekend is the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe
Here's last year's.
What an exciting race!

shrub5 said...

@John: Thanks for the dishwasher info. A neighbor also swears by Bosch. I didn't get to the appliance store today as I ran out of time but will definitely check it out. My old dishwasher lasted 31 years so it has set the bar pretty high. (GE)