Thursday 26 November 2015

In Star Wars, the name AT-AT stands for All Terrain Armored Transport

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 14: Well done, you beat us!
4+ out of 14: We'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The metallurgist
4) The secret German
5) The rich-person otherkin

The ones that got away
1) To within 50 centimetres, how tall was the tallest ever sunflower?
2) In Casper the Friendly Ghost, what are the three main uncle ghosts called? (You need all three for the point.)
3) Which of these is not a real professional baseball team in the Philippines? Alpha Aces, Blackwater Elite, Manila OJ Drinkers, Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, Talk N' Text Tropang Texters.
4) Which WWE wrestler's gimmick is that they are followed around by a party, with supports called 'rosebuds'?
5) 3 point question: "Never send a human to do a machine's job" - for two points, name the movie this quote is from, for a third point, name the character who said it.
6) 3 point question: "Who's the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?" - for two points, name the movie this quote is from, for a third point, name the character who said it.
7) 2 point question: What is the most abundant element in pewter?
8) 2 point question: Which singer, born with the surname Sarkisian, is usually known simply by an abbreviation of her first name?

The answers


The doctor's excuses


How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more points)? Would you have helped us win (4 or more points)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


Our alternative questions
1) According to Guinness World Records, the longest-standing unsolved maths problem is Goldbach's Conjecture from 1742, which states that every positive even number (except for 2) can be written as the sum of two of what type of number?
2) Fatso is the 'proper' name of a cat who features in a viral Internet meme appearing to play what type of instrument, after which the cat is more commonly known?
3) Despite being the 12th most populous country in the world, the Philippines are yet to claim a gold medal at any Olympic Games. There is one country more populous who hasn't won any Olympic medal - which?
4) For 1 point each, name the two four-letter body parts that describe, respectively, a 'good guy' and a 'bad guy' in professional wrestling.
5) By a shocking coincidence, main character 'Neo' in the Matrix has a name which is an anagram of 'one', because he is 'the one', or something. Here are three anagrams from a famous (terrible) book by Dan Brown. For 1 point each, provide the intended solution to the (somewhat related) anagrams:
(a) O, Draconian devil!
(b) Oh, lame saint!
(c) So dark the con of Man
6) John Williams won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work ont he first Star Wars movie. For 1 point each, give the three other movies for which he won either a Best Original Score or Best Original Dramatic Score Oscar. (And just to avoid frustration, he won neither for Fiddler on the Roof.)
7) In the Harry Potter novels, first year students are instructed to bring what piece of equipment, specified as "pewter, standard size 2"?
8) Identifying celebrities from their real names is seldom fun, so I'm spicing it up with some Pokemon. For 1 point each:
Question 8: (a) on the left and (b) on the right
(a) Born Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel, how is this musician better known? His name sounds like that of the first Pokemon pictured.
(b) Born Thomas DeCarlo Callaway, how is this musician better known? To get his name combine the (slightly slurred) name of the second Pokemon with a colour.

The answers


How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

Thursday 19 November 2015

The Starbucks logo features (maybe) a melusine

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 6: Well done, you beat us and we'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The left-fielder
4) The rich-person otherkin


The ones that got away
1) Until recently, the Starbucks pumpkin spice latte didn't contain any pumpkin, but did contain what three autumn spices instead? You need all three for the point.
2) In A Song Of Ice And Fire (Game of Thrones), which vile family is in charge of The Twins, two castles that span a river crossing?
3) Which actor plays both Winklevoss twins in the movie The Social Network? (Surname suffices.)
4) The four primary ingredients of beer are water, hops, malt, and what?
5) Which actor plays the title character in The Man with the Golden Gun? (Again, surname suffices.)
6) The letters in SACRAMENTO can be rearranged to form two words which are synonyms of one another. what are the two words? (You have at most about 5 minutes for this question.)

The answers


The doctor's excuses


How did you do? Would you have beaten us and helped us win (1 or more correct)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


Our alternative questions
1) Equal to its size in (US) fluid ounces, the Starbucks coffee size 'venti' comes from the Italian for what number?
2) What word links the star sign bridging May and June, NASA's second human spaceflight program (between Mercury and Apollo) and, with one letter changed, the UK's 2003 Eurovision Song Contest entry?
3) Twitter recently caused a minor online furore by changing its star-shaped 'Favorite' button into a Facebook-like, er, 'Like'. Raising concerns about professionalism, sexual harassment, and even sexuality, what shape did they choose for the new button?
4) Which beer brand is marketed under a three-letter abbreviated name in most European Union countries owing to an ongoing trademark dispute with a Czech beer maker?
5) Christopher Lee played Frankenstein a lot, and before you get arsey about Frankenstein being the name of the scientist, Wikipedia says common use has made it ok. Anyway, what biblical name did Shelley use to refer to Dr Frankenstein's creation?
6) If you take California's 2-letter state abbreviation and follow it by its capital, you get CA Sacramento, which isn't really anything. However, with which state can you follow this process and end up with the title of an OutKast song? As a bonus hint, the city is also mentioned in the lyrics of Mark Ronson's Uptown Funk.

The answers


How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

Thursday 12 November 2015

No-one knows exactly why Babe Ruth is called Babe Ruth

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 6: Well done, you beat us!
3+ out of 6: We'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The rich-person otherkin
4) The secret German
5) The metallurgist

The ones that got away
1) How tall was Robert Wadlow, the world's tallest ever man? (Margin of error of +/-3in or +/-10cm)
2) How many walking legs does a lobster have?
3) Not counting movies explicitly about/focused around swearing, such as Swearnet (it's Canadian, don't worry about it, but you get the idea - The Editor), which Scorsese movie posesses the highest "fuck count", i.e. most uses of the word?
4) Spot the fake from this list of historic Major League Baseball teams: Brooklyn Bridegrooms, Chicago Orphans, Houston Colt 45s, NY Highlanders, Philadelphia Widowers
5) 2 point question! What does the ancient Greek letter "eta" look like in upper case?

The answers


The doctor's excuses


How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 point or more)? Would you have helped us win (3 points or more)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


My alternative questions
1) The tallest (note: not necessarily highest) statue in the world depicts which person or deity?
2) The oxygen-containing organic compound in lobster blood is haemocyanin rather than haemoglobin. Haemoglobin contains iron, making human blood red, haemocyanin contains what metallic element, giving lobster blood its distinctive blue colour?
3) Gadzooks is a somewhat archaic example of a "minced oath" (like saying "sugar" instead of "shit"... everyone knows what you meant and now everyone thinks you're a loser as well as short-tempered). The phrase it's trying to obscure is "God's Hooks". But to what biblical items did this refer?
4) Meaning "a convenient way of resolving a plot issue" (especially in a theatrical context) give an alternate translation of the phrase Apò mēkhanês Theós in either English or Latin.
5) The nicknames of two current Major League Baseball teams contain words from the NATO phonetic alphabet. For one point each, name the word (or the team).

The answers


How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

Thursday 5 November 2015

A sumo wrestler automatically loses if his belt becomes completely undone

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 10: Well done, you beat us!
4+ out of 10: We'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The metallurgist
4) The secret German
5) The rich-person otherkin

The ones that got away
1) Vodka, Galliano and orange juice are the ingredients of what classic cocktail?
2) In Japan it is supposedly good luck to have sumo wrestlers do what to your baby?
3) During the 1800s in Britain what drug, known as 'quietness', was given to children?
4) In days, how long does a cat usually stay in heat?
5) Who was the first non-human to testify before the US Congress, doing so in defence of music education programs?
6) What is the most shoplifted item in the United States?
7) 2 point question: What was bubble wrap's original intended purpose?
8) 2 point question: The designer of the current United States flag submitted it as an assignment at school. What letter grade did they receive for it?

The answers


The doctor's excuses


How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more points)? Would you have helped us win (4 or more points)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


Our alternative questions
Question 6
1) Clearly the only way to make cocktail questions even vaguely not terrible is to include a cryptic clue alongside the ingredients, so what cocktail of vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice might make you doubly happy?
2) The Street Fighter videogames feature a sumo wrestler with the first name Edomondo (Edmond) and a surname which is shared by a Japanese automobile company. Give that name.
3) "[blank] is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." - For one point, fill in the blank. For a second point, name the author of the original German.
4) Since 2006, Heat Magazine has run an annual poll to find the nation's 'oddest celebrity crush'. The first three winners of this dubious accolade were the hosts of what TV show?
Question 8
5) To within 4 inches or 10 centimetres, how big (tall) is Big Bird?
6) If the Ones That Got Away had a chocolate bar, and its logo was made entirely of other chocolate logos, it might look like this. For 1 point name 3 of the chocolate products whose letters I have 'borrowed', for 2 points, name all 4.
7) The Taiwanese drink bubble tea typically features chewy balls made of either jelly or what cassava root extract?
8) Getting the public to submit designs is a common strategy when a country wants a new flag. Which nation's competition saw these two entries alongisde more reasonable contenders?

The answers


How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!