Musings of a Dead Parrot

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1. What common household item typically contains 138 cubic centimeters of an argon-nitrogen gas mixture? sounds like an aerosol can, but I just looked in my kitchen and noticed something else. A home fire extinguisher. Argon-nitrogen sounds like a good fire retardant.
2. One of the "Bond girls" in the new 007 film is named in honor of which Beatles song? I can barely name the new movie much less answer a question about who is in it. But let's try to guess. I can think of Julia, Rita, Eleanor. With help, I add Prudence, Martha and Sadie. Of those six, I will guess Prudence. Even though Eleanor is a lovely name, what parent would name a child in honor of someone who is so forlorn?
3. What did Ramon Mercader do with an ice axe in Mexico City on August 20, 1940? sounds like someone he might do to kill Leon Trotsky
4. With a 3-9 season ending Michigan's 31-year streak, what's now the only school to have appeared in a college football bowl game every year for the last two decades, with a 26-year streak running? excellent question and I admit that I have not read the answer anywhere yet. I will have to guess - Florida State. I know it is not Miami, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Penn State, USC. All had lean years over the last three decades. I don't think Bowden has been below .500 in many years.
5. What is the both the oldest and the largest single-stone statue in the world? I am guessing that Mount Rushmore or Stone Mountain or the Crazy Horse monument don't count. In Kamakura, Japan, I saw a giant daibatsu - image of Buddha. It seemed to be sculpted from a single stone. Maybe that? Or another Buddha in Japan?
6. What author wrote four of the top five books on the USA Today best-selling fiction chart last week? I am guessing the author who wrote Twilight though I don't know her name. It's part of a series.
7. What unusual distinction is shared by each of these organizations? American Airlines, Anheuser-Busch, Barclays, D.C. United, Emporio Armani, Flexible Flyer, the National Rifle Association, and the U.S. Post Office? Nothing coming to me yet. All I can get is - the next organizations in line for a federal bailout. Maybe something to do with advertising characters?

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. How many film frames per second are captured by a typical movie camera? As Jean-Luc Godard once said, "Cinema is truth twenty-four times per second." As you can see, it's impossible to begin a sentence with "As Jean-Luc Godard once said..." without sounding like a pretentious tool. correct
2. Which two of the three so-called "Low Countries" don't border each other? The Netherlands doesn't touch Luxembourg--Belgium's in the way. C'mon Belgium. Don't be such a c-blocker. correct
3. What 1974 weapon did inventor Jack Cover acronymically name after an electric rifle invented by his boyhood hero, Tom Swift? Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle is now just called a TASER. Don't Tom Swift me, bro! correct
4. What historic class (not nationality) of people observed a moral code called "bushido"? The Japanese samurai were followers of bushido--for two more months. Then it's Obama-ido all the time, baby. not correct
5. What two pop megastars, with rhyming names but born on different European islands, collaborated on the songs "I've Seen It All" and "Nattura"? Bjork and Radiohead's Thom Yorke collaborated on both singles. And yes, the umlaut over Bjork means it actually rhymes with "jerk" in Icelandic, but I'm pretty sure English-speakers almost universally use the Yorke-rhyming pronunciation. ha! No way I was ever getting this.
6. What food product does the U.S. government classify as Grade A Light Amber (or "Fancy"), Medium Amber, and Dark Amber? That's maple syrup, though when I was a kid we couldn't afford the good stuff and had to use Grade D ("Bits of Maple Bark and Termite") on our waffles. correct
7. What unusual distinction is shared by all these actresses? Julie Andrews, Cate Blanchett, Joan Crawford, Pam Grier, Katharine Hepburn, Diane Keaton, Julia Roberts, and Ginger Rogers. They all played a first-and-last-name title character of a film: Mary Poppins, Veronica Guerin, Mildred Pierce, Jackie Brown, Alice Adams or Sylvia Scarlett, Annie Hall, Mary Reilly or Erin Brockovich, and Kitty Foyle. This is a lot less common for female title characters than it is for males...I had a hard time coming up with eight. Can you suggest others? this seemed too easy but there it was for the taking. I could not get it.