Musings of a Dead Parrot

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1. Orchestras tune up to the sound of an oboe playing what note? not knowing any better, I will guess C
2. What remarkable win-loss record was shared by both Twins pitcher Terry Felton and the 2008 Detroit Lions? 0-16. Sort of like my dating record.
3. What word appears in the titles of *both* the Pulitzer-winning plays of author Thornton Wilder? Let's see - Thornton Wilder plays - Our Town, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Skin of Our Teeth. I will say "Our."
4. What scientist's 1859 work most famously supplanted the popular 19th-century theory of Lamarckism? 1859 scientist? is that about the time of Darwin's Origin of Species? I cannot think of another scientific work from that period.
5. What TV network uses the new slogan "Chime In"? I certainly have not heard this slogan before. NBC has a famous three-tone sound. Is Chime In a play on that?
6. Hundreds of thousands of orders have poured in for the Ducati Model 271, a model of what made famous last month by Muntader al-Zaidi? a pair of shoes
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these films? Face/Off, Mary Poppins, La Ronde, Ronin, Ruggles of Red Gap, The Spanish Prisoner, The Sting, and Strangers on the Train. Something in the plot of each movie? The Spanish Prisoner and Strangers on A Train (correct title) both have tennis involved in the plot. In The Sting, they pull a scam with horse racing. When I think of Mary Poppins, I think of dancing penguins.

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. What career does Hermey the Misfit Elf think he'd prefer to toymaking? Dentristry! Oddly, misfit dentists often wish they were making toys for Santa. correct
2. What movie was adapted from the book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash? That Jean Shepherd book inspired many of the anecdotes in A Christmas Story. I thought of most of the famous Xmas time movies except for A Christmas Story.
3. What botanist sent a namesake Christmas symbol back to the U.S. in 1828 while serving as the first U.S. minister to Mexico? Joel Roberts Poinsett first introduced North America to the flower the Aztecs called "cuetlaxochitl." correct
4. What two animals "kept time" for "The Little Drummer Boy"? The ox and lamb kept time. But the lamb, being white, kept clapping on the one and three. correct
5. What's the name of the Wookiee holiday analogous to Christmas in the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special? Life Day! The other day my six-year-old son asked me whose birth we celebrate on Life Day--Darth Vader's? Thank you, Star Wars, for this early theological confusion. 6. What was George Washington famously doing on Christmas Day, 1776? Crossing the Delaware. (Ironically, he was Benedict Arnold's "secret Santa"!) correct
7. What unusual distinction (at least in their respective fields) did these famous people share with the historical St. Nicholas? Ansel Adams, Marlon Brando, Copernicus, Albus Dumbledore, Stephen Fry, Charlton Heston, Michelangelo, Robert Mitchum, Thackeray, Owen Wilson. All sport (or sported) visibly broken noses. In St. Nicholas's case, we know this from modern analysis of Santa's skull. "His ears were like cauliflowers, his nose like a cherry..." Why would the question include the qualifier "in their respective fields"? Isn't a broken nose a broken nose in any field? I am not sure we should trust or use as a role model a saint with a broken nose. How did it happen? Was St. Nick a loan shark? A football player? A very clumsy person?

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1. What career does Hermey the Misfit Elf think he'd prefer to toymaking? dentist
2. What movie was adapted from the book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash? This must be a Xmas movie. Die Hard? Home Alone? Miracle on 34th Street? My first instinct says It's A Wonderful Life.
3. What botanist sent a namesake Christmas symbol back to the U.S. in 1828 while serving as the first U.S. minister to Mexico? Poinsette or some similar spelling
4. What two animals "kept time" for "The Little Drummer Boy"? the ox and lamb
5. What's the name of the Wookiee holiday analogous to Christmas in the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special? no idea
6. What was George Washington famously doing on Christmas Day, 1776? isn't this when he crossed the Delaware?
7. What unusual distinction (at least in their respective fields) did these famous people share with the historical St. Nicholas? Ansel Adams, Marlon Brando, Copernicus, Albus Dumbledore, Stephen Fry, Charlton Heston, Michelangelo, Robert Mitchum, Thackeray, Owen Wilson. I read about the historical St. Nicholas. Nothing is clicking.

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. Which moon of Uranus shares its name with one of the Sex and the City women? Miranda--though it's named for a character in Shakespeare's The Tempest, not for Cynthia Nixon. correct
2. What kind of animal is examining the title character in Henri Rousseau's famous painting The Sleeping Gypsy? She's being inspected by a lion. I guessed the wrong feline
3. Which African country name contains within it (not at the beginning or the end, but embedded in consecutive letters in the middle of the word) the name of another African country? "Somalia" contains "Mali." correct
4. What common item is manufactured by compressing powdered gypsum rock into 10-centimeter cylinders? Turns out chalk is made from gypsum, not from chalk rock at all. well now I know
5. "Miss Fannie Bright was seated by my side" in the little-sung second verse to what song? "Miss Fannie Bright" isn't a drag-queen name...she's the narrator's sleigh-riding companion in "Jingle Bells." I wonder if she knows "Miss Katie Casey," who appears in the little-sung verse to "Take Me Out the the Ball Game."
6. Due to an inscription error on the statuette, what comic strip hero accidentally won the 1938 Best Actor Oscar? Spencer Tracy won the Oscar that year for Boys Town...but his statuette was inscribed to "Dick Tracy"! Tracy sent it back and asked it to be fixed, possibly on his two-way wrist TV radio. I tried until the very end to get an actor's name out of Lil' Abner or Snuffy Smith.
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these U.S. states, and no others? Arizona, California, Maryland, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia. There were ships named for all these states docked at Pearl Harbor at the time of the 1941 Japanese attack. The Utah and Arizona, in fact, are still there today. correct!

An unusual storm hit SoCal this week. Usually rain is carried in from the Pacific. This time the jet stream dropped way down and brought a lot of cold rain with it. The snow level was about 2500 feet, low enough to dust the San Gabriels. When the storm cleared out, the views were spectacular. See this photo looking northeast towards downtown and this one looking north to the Hollywood sign and beyond by photographer Jonathan Alcorn. It appears he was shooting from somewhere near Ladera Heights.

I can't say that I am a fan of comics anymore , but I just might want to find the March issue of Savage Dragon. Check out the cover. This is very cool.

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1. Which moon of Uranus shares its name with one of the Sex and the City women? Pretty sure it is not Charlotte, Carrie. Must be Miranda.
2. What kind of animal is examining the title character in Henri Rousseau's famous painting The Sleeping Gypsy? I guess a tiger. When I think of animals and Rousseau, I think of tigers.
3. Which African country name contains within it (not at the beginning or the end, but embedded in consecutive letters in the middle of the word) the name of another African country? I guess that does not mean Niger and Nigeria. The other country probably has a short name like Togo or Mali. Now I have it - Somalia has Mali within it.
4. What common item is manufactured by compressing powdered gypsum rock into 10-centimeter cylinders? 10 cm is about 4 inches. What comes in a 4 inch cylinder? Is that about the size of a woman's cosmetic? Lipstick, blush, mascara?
5. "Miss Fannie Bright was seated by my side" is the little-sung second verse to what song? no idea but it sounds like a drinking song or something by Stephen Foster.
6. Due to an inscription error on the statuette, what comic strip hero accidentally won the 1938 Best Actor Oscar? the Oscar trivia quiz would love this one. What were the main comics in 1938 - Pogo, Gasoline Alley, Lil Abner? Did Jimmy Stewart win? Clark Gable? Ok, I looked up the nominees and can now clearly see the winner. I don't think I would have come up with Dick Tracy for Spencer Tracy on my own.
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these U.S. states, and no others? Arizona, California, Maryland, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia. Ha!! I know this because I asked the question two weeks ago at the quiz. These are the battleships docked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. What did the 'O' originally stand for in the breakfast cereal Cheerios? In 1941, they were originally "Cheeri Oats." "Cheerier than oatmeal" was the implication, I guess. correct
2. Of the U.S. presidents who wear glasses in their White House portraits, which is the only one who never won a Nobel Prize? Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, and Truman are all wearing glasses in their portraits, and of those three, Truman didn't win a Nobel Prize. So much for glasses making you smarter! the other presidents one might think of with glasses did not wear them for their portraits
3. "If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire" whom? The A-Team! Stupid military court, sending them to prison for a crime THEY DIDN'T EVEN COMMIT! Come on! I was in college when the show was on and did not watch much tv.
4. What liquid flows through the lacrimal canaliculi? Those are your tear ducts. I just think it's more fun to say "lacrimal canaliculi." correct
5. What late science-fiction author was known by the honorary title "Sri Lankabhimanya"? Arthur C. Clarke received this highest honor of the nation of Sri Lanka, where he lived the last fifty-plus years of his life. correct
6. What did Milorad Cavic do in 2008 that was repeatedly scrutinized in 1/10,000-of-a-second detail by the world media? He was the Serbian swimmer somehow out-touched by Michael Phelps at the end of the 100-meter butterfly race in Beijing. correct
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these famous people? Taylor Dayne, Gerald Ford, Bob Hope, Billy Ocean, and Twiggy. They were all born with the first name Leslie...or "Lesley," as some sources have it in Twiggy's case. Errol Flynn and Adam Ant are among the celebrities who quite understandably dropped Leslie as a middle name. correct

Last night I watched once more Jim Valvano's speech at the ESPYs in 1993 when he was dying of cancer. It continues to make an impression. He said that each day you should laugh, think and get your emotions going.

This is what made me laugh today. From a 2002 episode of the Nickelodeon show Invader ZIM.

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1. What did the 'O' originally stand for in the breakfast cereal Cheerios? either oats or the "o" shape of the cereal
2. Of the U.S. presidents who wear glasses in their White House portraits, which is the only one who never won a Nobel Prize? I can only think of three presidents who won a Nobel prize (Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter). But a lot of presidents may have worn glasses - Taft, FDR, DDE, LBJ, Truman. Which one wore glasses for his portrait? I can picture Taft, DDE and LBJ without their glasses. That gets me down to FDR and Truman.
3. "If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire" whom? this sounds like a jingle but I don't get a tune in my head.
4. What liquid flows through the lacrimal canaliculi? lacrimal makes me think of lacrimose or weepy. Tears.
5. What late science-fiction author was known by the honorary title "Sri Lankabhimanya"? sounds like someone who may have wished that Sri Lankan medicine was a cut above magic. Arthur C. Clarke.
6. What did Milorad Cavic do in 2008 that was repeatedly scrutinized in 1/10,000-of-a-second detail by the world media? I was looking at that picture this weekend. He is the swimmer who was out-touched at the wall by Michael Phelps at the Olympics in the 100 meter fly.
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these famous people? Taylor Dayne, Gerald Ford, Bob Hope, Billy Ocean, and Twiggy. I had to look up Taylor Danye and noted that her original name was Leslie Wunderman. Gerald Ford's and Bob Hope's original first names were also Leslie. I think they were all Leslies of one spelling or another.

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. Gumby is green, of course. But what color are his facial features (eyebrows, nose, and mouth)? Eddie Murphy voice: "They're yellow, dammit!" This question brought to you by the Gumby toy on my desk, which I sometimes find myself staring dumbly at whenever I can't come up with a Tuesday Trivia question. I really would not elevate this question to trivial status.
2. What country's prime minister is called the Taoiseach? Ireland...and if you ever meet more than one Taoiseach, the correct plural is "Taoisigh." See all the awkardness I just saved you? I guess I am not as good as I thought as recognizing Gaelic words
3. What 1859 historical novel includes chapters called "Knitting," "Still Knitting," and "The Knitting Done"? Those are references to Madame Defarge's guillotine knitting in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. correct
4. What gas are the bubbles in soda pop filled with? Carbon dioxide--which is why it's called "carbonation." correct
5. The mayor of what city in southeastern Turkey has announced plans to sue Warner Bros. and Christopher Nolan for name infringement and contributing to the city's high crime rate? The city of Batman, Turkey is attempting this shakedown. The last time Mayor Huseyin Kalkan tried this, with DC Comics, he actually got a nice settlement...which, it turns out, he might have used to fund terrorism! Well done, Mr. Mayor. I was all around it but did not think of the obvious. Batman just does not sound like a Turkish word.
6. In what kind of retail outlet might you sit down at the "Genius Bar"? At an Apple store. (Or so I hear, anyway...I'm a PC.) correct
7. Based on the unusual distinction they all share, name a Beatles song that could be added to this list of pop songs. "Alive" by Pearl Jam, "Captain Jack" by Billy Joel, "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, "Half a Person" by the Smiths, "Jack and Diane" by John Cougar Mellencamp, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by the Band, "Stray Cat Blues" by the Rolling Stones, "Who Do You Love?" by Bo Diddley. All these songs specify the age of someone in the song (either the singer or another character), so the qualifying Beatles songs are "I Saw Her Standing There" ("she was just seventeen") and, of course, "When I'm Sixty-Four." Are there any others? correct

These type of stunning game-winning shots are probably not that uncommon since there are thousands and thousands of games played each year. But with video so easy to make public, we are treated to shows like the end of SUNY Geneseo's 85-84 win over SUNY Oswego.

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1. Gumby is green, of course. But what color are his facial features (eyebrows, nose, and mouth)? Aren't they kind of reddish/orange? Maybe I am thinking of his eyes. I cannot picture the other facial features.
2. What country's prime minister is called the Taoiseach? Tao makes me think of a country bordering China. Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan.
3. What 1859 historical novel includes chapters called "Knitting," "Still Knitting," and "The Knitting Done"? Knitting - I think of Madame Defarge. My guess is A Tale of Two Cities. That is an historical novel, isn't it?
4. What gas are the bubbles in soda pop filled with? I think it is just carbon dioxide
5. The mayor of what city in southeastern Turkey has announced plans to sue Warner Bros. and Christopher Nolan for name infringement and contributing to the city's high crime rate? Christopher Nolan made the Batman movies Batman Begins and Dark Knight. Is there a scene or character connection to a Turkish city? Is the crime related to sign stealing? I have not seen Dark Knight so I may be out of the loop on this question.
6. In what kind of retail outlet might you sit down at the "Genius Bar"? Apple Store
7. Based on the unusual distinction they all share, name a Beatles song that could be added to this list of pop songs. "Alive" by Pearl Jam, "Captain Jack" by Billy Joel, "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, "Half a Person" by the Smiths, "Jack and Diane" by John Cougar Mellencamp, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by the Band, "Stray Cat Blues" by the Rolling Stones, "Who Do You Love?" by Bo Diddley. I believe these all have lyrics that cite a character's age. Dancing Queen - 17. Jack and Diane - hold onto 16 as long as you can. Who Do You Love - I'm 22 and don't mind dying. So my answer would be I Saw Her Standing There - she was just 17, you know what I mean.

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. What common household item typically contains 138 cubic centimeters of an argon-nitrogen gas mixture? Argon, an inert gas, doesn't play well with other elements. Which makes it the perfect atmosphere for the inside of a regular old lightbulb; it won't combust. I knew it wasn't my fire extinguisher once I looked at the tag and saw that it did not contain any gas.
2. One of the "Bond girls" in the new 007 film is named in honor of which Beatles song? Gemma Arterton plays the improbably named "Strawberry Fields"...but not forever. Spoilers! no way to know this without seeing the movie. I dare KJ to ask a Slumdog Millionaire or Role Models question. I saw those this past weekend.
3. What did Ramon Mercader do with an ice axe in Mexico City on August 20, 1940? He put it in Leon Trotsky's skull, earning the Order of Lenin on the spot. correct
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? The Florida State Seminoles have been to a bowl game every season since 1982. (And Michigan's total is 33, I think, not 31. My bad.) correct
5. What is the both the oldest and the largest single-stone statue in the world? The Sphinx at Giza. It would be even bigger if its head weren't creepily small for its size. What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and has an INCREDIBLY SMALL HEAD at night? I give up. they carved that from a single stone? impressive! much bigger than a buddha or a pieta
6. What author wrote four of the top five books on the USA Today best-selling fiction chart last week? Stephenie Meyer. Not knowing how many of my subscribers are young-to-middle-aged women, you won't catch me making any jokes here about the quality of her best-selling Twilight vampire books! No sir! I think they're classics! mostly correct (though not Jeopardy correct)
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? They all have an eagle in their logos. I should have done more research on this. It was very gettable.