Monday, August 27, 2007
Ken Jennings Tuesday Trivia - August 28th
THIS WEEK'S QUIZ
1. What magazine's name can be produced by combining the name of the computer and the cat from the movie Alien? A fun question but I don't remember the movie well enough to get any clues. So I am going through magazine titles in my head. Looking for those with compound names that might work. Only one close right now is Cosmopolitan. With a little help, I now know the answer. The cat was named Jones (which I never knew) and the computer was Mother (I vaguely recall this). The correct answer never would have come to me by perusing the magazines at the grocery store.
2. What Peanuts character's last name is Reichardt? Not Charlie or Sally Brown or Linus or Lucy or Rerun Van Pelt. Possibilities - Peppermint Patty, Schroeder, Pig Pen. A guess, but I think it is Peppermint Patty.
3. What landmark was originally painted Galaxy Gold, Orbital Olive, and Re-entry Red for its 1962 opening? Possibilities - Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, Cape Canaveral, NASA in Houston. The Air and Space Museum would have emphasized air travel in 1962 rather than space travel. It could have been the Astrodome except that I don't think it opened until 1965. And Houston was originally known at the Colt 45s, not the Astros. I'll go with Cape Canaveral.
4. What E.U. nation is led by a president and a prime minster who are identical twins? Any answer will be a total guess. This is a trivial item that I had not heard before. My guess - Denmark.
5. What kind of object is smaller than its own Schwarzschild radius? I believe this term is in reference to a black hole.
6. How many contributors did struggling Christian-themed TV station WYAH recruit in a 1962 telethon? From the pub quiz, I recall that WYAH (Yahweh) was the station that Pat Robertson created. I don't know how many contributors he recruited. I would guess that the telethon was very successful - let's say 10,000 contributors.
7. What distinction is shared by these letters of the alphabet and no others? C, D, O, P, S, and W.
LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. Who was arrested over thirty times during a famous campaign of "hatchetations"? Carry Nation, who use her hatchet on saloons.
2. What landlocked country has nevertheless won two America's Cups? Possibly inspired by those nutty Jamaican bobsledders, a Swiss team has won the last two America's Cup races.
3. In the book and movie, what is the actual nationality of the so-called "English" Patient? As Elaine Benes knows, he's Laszlo de Almasy, a Hungarian count.
4. The name of what Baptist missionary is only remembered today because he was shot by Chinese communists near Xi'an in 1945? John Birch--who, as the so-called "first casualty of the Cold War," had the honor of having a society of nutballs named for him.
5. What does the "J." in "Homer J. Simpson" stand for? Jay--so it almost doesn't need the period, like Harry Truman's S.
6. How old is ABBA's "Dancing Queen"? Young and sweet, only seventeen. We also accepted "30" or so, since that's how old the song is.
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these vegetables? Eggplants, scallions, rutabagas, snow peas, summer squash, and zucchini. All these vegetables are called something different in the UK (and other parts of the former British Commonwealth, for the most part): aubergines, spring onions, swedes, mangetout, vegetable marrows, and courgettes. Of course, in Britain, they cook all these vegetables so long they all just taste like identical mush, but it's cute that they still have separate names for all of them. Even if they stoles most of them from the French.
I got #2, 5 and 6. Probably got #7. So I'll say four out of seven last week.
1. What magazine's name can be produced by combining the name of the computer and the cat from the movie Alien? A fun question but I don't remember the movie well enough to get any clues. So I am going through magazine titles in my head. Looking for those with compound names that might work. Only one close right now is Cosmopolitan. With a little help, I now know the answer. The cat was named Jones (which I never knew) and the computer was Mother (I vaguely recall this). The correct answer never would have come to me by perusing the magazines at the grocery store.
2. What Peanuts character's last name is Reichardt? Not Charlie or Sally Brown or Linus or Lucy or Rerun Van Pelt. Possibilities - Peppermint Patty, Schroeder, Pig Pen. A guess, but I think it is Peppermint Patty.
3. What landmark was originally painted Galaxy Gold, Orbital Olive, and Re-entry Red for its 1962 opening? Possibilities - Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, Cape Canaveral, NASA in Houston. The Air and Space Museum would have emphasized air travel in 1962 rather than space travel. It could have been the Astrodome except that I don't think it opened until 1965. And Houston was originally known at the Colt 45s, not the Astros. I'll go with Cape Canaveral.
4. What E.U. nation is led by a president and a prime minster who are identical twins? Any answer will be a total guess. This is a trivial item that I had not heard before. My guess - Denmark.
5. What kind of object is smaller than its own Schwarzschild radius? I believe this term is in reference to a black hole.
6. How many contributors did struggling Christian-themed TV station WYAH recruit in a 1962 telethon? From the pub quiz, I recall that WYAH (Yahweh) was the station that Pat Robertson created. I don't know how many contributors he recruited. I would guess that the telethon was very successful - let's say 10,000 contributors.
7. What distinction is shared by these letters of the alphabet and no others? C, D, O, P, S, and W.
LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. Who was arrested over thirty times during a famous campaign of "hatchetations"? Carry Nation, who use her hatchet on saloons.
2. What landlocked country has nevertheless won two America's Cups? Possibly inspired by those nutty Jamaican bobsledders, a Swiss team has won the last two America's Cup races.
3. In the book and movie, what is the actual nationality of the so-called "English" Patient? As Elaine Benes knows, he's Laszlo de Almasy, a Hungarian count.
4. The name of what Baptist missionary is only remembered today because he was shot by Chinese communists near Xi'an in 1945? John Birch--who, as the so-called "first casualty of the Cold War," had the honor of having a society of nutballs named for him.
5. What does the "J." in "Homer J. Simpson" stand for? Jay--so it almost doesn't need the period, like Harry Truman's S.
6. How old is ABBA's "Dancing Queen"? Young and sweet, only seventeen. We also accepted "30" or so, since that's how old the song is.
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these vegetables? Eggplants, scallions, rutabagas, snow peas, summer squash, and zucchini. All these vegetables are called something different in the UK (and other parts of the former British Commonwealth, for the most part): aubergines, spring onions, swedes, mangetout, vegetable marrows, and courgettes. Of course, in Britain, they cook all these vegetables so long they all just taste like identical mush, but it's cute that they still have separate names for all of them. Even if they stoles most of them from the French.
I got #2, 5 and 6. Probably got #7. So I'll say four out of seven last week.
