Musings of a Dead Parrot

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1. In what field of the entertainment industry does a "roustabout" work? I know roustabout as someone who does the dirty work in an oil field. In the context of the entertainment industry, it sounds like something a stuntperson might do.
2. What piece of fruit did Andy Warhol put on the cover of the rock album The Velvet Underground & Nico? no idea, so I will guess something simple. An apple.
3. Who was the only U.S. president to appoint more than one Chief Justice to the Supreme Court? You might think an early president would have done so. But John Marshall was Chief Justice from 1801 to 1835. It probably was a president who served for a long time like FDR.
4. By what nickname is TV's Mike Sorrentino now better known? I don't know this person. Is he on one of those reality shows on basic cable - Dirty Jobs or Shark Week or something.
5. What do you call an ellipse whose eccentricity is zero? a circle
6. What two rivers join forty miles northwest of Basra to form the Shatt-al-Arab? Tigris and Euphrates
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these movie directors? Bernardo Bertolucci, Roland Emmerich, Stanley Kubrick, Harold Ramis, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Wong Kar-Wai. They each directed a movie that contained a year in the title - 1900, 2012 (or 10,000 BC), 2001, Year One, 1492, 1941, 2046

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. Only twice in Oscar history have two performers both been Oscar-nominated for playing the same character in the same movie. Name the actress who was part of the pair in *both* films. Everyone love questions that are just as hard to parse as they are to answer! Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart were both Oscar-nominated for playing Rose in Titanic, and Winslet and Judi Dench were later both nominated for playing author Iris Murdoch in the biopic Iris. Speaking of which, my brother swears that TCM's Robert Osborne sometimes pronounces the word "biopic" to rhyme with "myopic." Just thought you would like to know. correct
2. The U.S. presidential briefcase containing nuclear launch code is nicknamed for what piece of sports equipment? This is the president's "nuclear football." Which doesn't necessarily mean you want an ex-football player to have the launch codes--yes, I'm looking at you, Gerald Ford! correct
3. What profession is shared by "Escamillo" in the opera Carmen and "Pedro Romero" in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises? Escamillo is the guy who sings the famous "Toreador" song from Carmen, and of course Hemingway was a big bullfighting nut. Both Escamillo and Romero were bullfighters--matadors, in fact. correct
4. What company recently put out a press release entitled "Floor Mat Entrapment"? Toyota. Turns out floor mats that can jam your accelerator AREN'T a good idea. Who knew? correct (but KJ it also is not a good idea to provide solutions like fix the floor mats when other factors are causing the problem)
5. The Luzon Strait separates Taiwan from what nearby nation? This one was a little tricky, since Taiwan's nearest neighbor is the People's Republic of China. But that's the Taiwan Strait that separates the two rival Chinas: Luzon is the largest island in the Philippines, Taiwan's nearest neighbor to the south. correct
6. A year ago this week, who become the only American Idol winner ever to top the UK pop charts? Britain's life would suck without Kelly Clarkson. ok, I have heard of her. But I still don't care about this factoid. Yawn.
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these TV series? Girlfriends, Heroes, The Jeffersons, Lost, My Name Is Earl, The Office, Six Feet Under, Thief. Each features an interracial marriage--a black-white one, in fact, but we accepted any answer revolving around multiracial romance. Including Six Feet Under was a little tricky, but fans might recall that Keith and David were legally and lawfully wed in the futuristic montage that ended the series. Then they zoomed off in a little flying car to honeymoon on Mars. Ah, yes. Bernard and Rose on Lost. I don't think that they came up in any of the potential answers that I brainstormed.