a Random Challenge?

With abject apologies to Bricker (to whom I would have sent an e-mail asking for permission to shamelessly plagiarize his idea, if I knew his address),
here’s my poor effort at something along the lines of the Bricker Challenge.

Same prize (a $25 Amazon gift certificate), and similar rules (see [thread=340623]here[/thread]) for those. As said, you want to fully explain all references in the question, although I encourage answers that are just as obscure as the questions, in order to make it harder for your competition. (It can’t be so obscure that I miss the point, though.)

The questions is this quiz are normally worth a possible 3 points (where that differs, I’ll say so), but I reserve the right to add a bonus point for a response that goes beyond what I expect, or that is particularly clever, especially if it is the first correct answer. For a few questions, where I think I am being unfairly obscure with one or more references, full credit is possible for a less-than-perfect answer. Partial credit is also available.

Deadline is midnight on March 14, 2007. From time to time, I may post totals from leading scorers. If someone gets all of the questions right before then (bonus points don’t count for this), I’ll call the game early. All scoring decisions are final. One winner only. (And yes, the bonus point system might mean that the first person to get all of the questions correct is not the overall winner.)

Here goes:

I’m sorry, I read “a Random Cleavage”.

Kinda waiting for the questions here…

Maybe that’s the challenge. We provide the questions this time…

Ah yes, typed in invisible font. That trick fooled me last time, but this time I have lemon juice!

OK, fine. How old will Frederick be when he is out of his indentures?

42

Someone check his pulse.

blue
Franklin Roosevelt
sodium chloride
War and Peace
smallpox
Buenos Aires
pork
October 1
Peromyscus maniculatus
The Battle of Little Big Horn

Was I close?

Barack Obama
An Emu Farm
“Kneel before Zod!”
The second season of American Idol
A fat pretty kitty-cat
The complex plane
Drunken noodles
The larch
A vague feeling of ennui
The Delaware Destroyers
The larch
Joss Whedon
The larch

October 1? I think you mean November 1. Come on, it’s pretty basic biology!

**ABBA

Manganese

Sam’s Club

Minooka, IL

“Madam, those aren’t deviled eggs.”

Eric Lindros

Enterprising Slaves and Master Pirates: Understanding Economic Life in the Bahamaz

The Watch Tower Society

501©

Crissy Moran

Under the bleachers

Root server.**

Shut this baby down; I’ve won. Victory is mine.

Jesus
King David
Michelangelo
Mona Lisa
Chignon
Ventouse
Episiotomy
Morbidity
Accident
Root cause analysis
Safety engineering

33 points, baby!

The Pyramid of Nosferatu

Into the wastes, ye wanky swarths

Blaarg, Blaarg; Honk, Honk

George McGovern’s wedding bed

**Smite, Smited, Smite-o-rama

“A well hoed gardener!”
**
**True

False

Dry vermouth, paint thinner, Diet Snapple Lemonade, flour

The Suppers of Yesteryear

moist panties **(although there are other words than annoy female SDMBers almost as much)

Ditka

Ditka again

Look, the answer to any question like this is always Ditka, OK?

"newly festered"

  1. An early danger signal was waters that suddenly receded from shore, exposing underwater objects long hidden from sight. These can attract the unaware, who are swept away when the waters race back, too fast to escape. People in this U.S. state have been well-prepared for this kind of disaster, at least since 1948. But nothing like that has ever happened in the Midwest, right?

  2. Tinker with the odds? Ever happen? Chances are, many casinos have. By the way, who’s on first, and when Rick wasn’t honest, who never got past second with the Bulgarian?

  3. Jennie was one randy lady, and had several men as lovers. It’s not true that after a few Flor de Cana shots, she used a strap-on and a whip, though. Her son never said anything about it, according to most people, even after he got that important job with the Navy. No one’s ever seen him listening to that Irish band, of course.

  4. Do I remember this from a Marx brothers movie or somewhere else? A wacky railway worker tries to help a passenger board a train, but somehow knocks his package loose. The package hits the rails, but it explodes, because (surprise!) it’s full of fireworks! Everyone flees, and someone knocks over a baggage scale, which lands on a New York dowager, to her great dismay. Who writes this stuff?

  5. New York Senator Hillary Clinton, that guy Ray who is credited for Lotus Notes and hangs out at Microsoft these days, and actor John Pankow (cousin Ira from Mad About You) have something in common. But it’s not the characteristic that they share with either Harrison Ford or Steve Goodman. What am I talking about?

  6. Look at the ass on that Bottom! (No Titiania jokes, please. That’s a third rail here – and I’d foresee fireworks if that happens.)

  7. This SF author has probably has had more movies based on his writing than any in the genre, counting remakes and series (like Tarzan) as one credit. But I don’t get the unicorn thing.

  8. Boothroyd was a resourceful guy, but did he ever create a flying car? Before 1964, I mean. Things got screwed up after that.

  9. TV shows Good Times, E/R, St. Elsewhere, Newhart (the more recent one - the one with the guy who acted in Deadwood and the movie referenced in question 7), and Married with Children. One of these things is not like the others. One (or possibly 2) of these does not belong.

  10. This U.S. state had a capital that can’t be found anywhere in the state, no matter how hard you look these days.

  11. One day, early in the 1800s, churchbells in Boston, Massachusets rang, comemmorating an event that took place less than 12 hours earlier, a thousand miles away. But this was two decades before the invention of the telegraph. How could this be?

  12. This pioneering 1977 MUD was the first of its kind to feature graphics beyond simple line drawings, with multiuser parties who could interact with each other and monsters that appeared onscreen in real time. Color? Of course. Any color you want, at longs as it’s _________.

  13. Maria, Marie and Barbara (or was it Maria, Barbara, Marie, Barbara again, and then Marie again?) Does this sailor have a woman in every port? And what’s Lydia’s position during all of this? (Don’t talk to me about the missionary’s daughter, she preferred the captain of another boat.)

  14. Dick, Anne, Dick’s older brother (what’s his name?), and George are all famous names. But that’s only four people, not five. (and seven is something entirely different) What’s going on here? And what’s George’s real, full name?

  15. Cats, Rats, Dogs and Hogs? We don’t need none of these. They stink!

  16. “Age before beauty” “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” and “Pearls before swine” are examples of what? Who said things like this?

  17. Is this another bad movie script? Ne’er do well failure as a shopkeeper and farmer, working as a clerk in a mining town in a western state. Scruffy beard. Folks in town say he likes his whiskey. But then danger threatens! News comes to town of men with guns (dangerous Jesse James type characters) shooting people and generally causing trouble. Our hero leads the effort to stop them and saves the day. A grateful public elects him sheriff, or mayor or something.

  18. If I’m given credit for having a little brain for writing this (although not as great as Bricker’s, what’s our older brother’s name? And I’m confused. What religion did Mom practice?

  19. One way to make this product out of lead is to get high.

  20. I worry about safety, so I measured the radiation in my backyard seven or eight months ago. Levels were high, so I limited my exposure. I checked again this afternoon, and I found much lower readings. Just now, I found the lowest levels yet! Are my worries over?

  21. Religion and war, part 1. It’s the 1400’s. A once great empire has been reduced to a tiny foothold, near an important waterway that divides two continents. Enemy attacks, fueled in part by an expansionist religious fanatics, have been near-continuous, for longer than anyone can remember. The enemy has conquered city after city, killing many, and seizing sacred places for use by the enemy. Now only the capital is left, which contains a building, used for worship, that’s considered one of the most beautiful structures of its time. Desperate, the defenders fight to the last. But they fail. And the spectacular places-of-worship are converted to strange, sacrilegeous rites. Adherents of the foreign religion control them, even today. Did this really happen?

  22. Religion and war, part II. It’s the 1600’s. German-speaking areas are being invaded by an enemy empire, motivated by religious expansionism. Things are not going well for the defenders. Help is sought from France, but that nation looks to its own advantage. But then a foreign king appears, arriving from the north with his innovative and brilliantly led modern army. The enemy is checked, and the defender’s religion predominates in the area today. Did this really happen? Or am I experiencing some weird deja vu?

  23. If your ancestors came from northern Europe, northern India, or were members of the African Tutsi tribe, you are more likely to have this genetic trait that would be an advantage to you if you live in Wisconsin. Curiously, American Indians, even those with Wisconsin heritage, are very unlikely to have this trait.

Hey, I got distracted! Sorry about the delay.

Well, your psi powers are impressive, but no points. Sorry.

Now, here is where an appropriate picture would have **guaranteed **you a bonus point.

Okay, the product mentioned in an earlier question hasn’t yet made me sleepy, here’s a few more that didn’t make the first cut, mainly because they’re in categories that are already represented.

  1. She’s a goddess, not a witch! I turn into an animal whenever I’m with her. I don’t care what people say. I know she might drug me, or otherwise abuse me. I’m still going to the island. It’ll all work out fine if she loves me.

  2. In an homage to all those who fought the good fight on legal questions in GQ, a T/F three parter: (a) They can’t stop me as I’m leaving my local big box store, even if the alarm sounds. (b) I’m in a right to work state, so I can’t be fired without cause. © That waiver of liability on the form I just signed? Those things never hold up in court.

(I reserve the to award negative points on this one. If the answers to these havn’t sunk in yet, your membership should be revoked.)

  1. The most recent episode on HBO featured several relatives of this sucessful invader of Britain (an invasion that had some small religious aspects, as well).
    Let’s see, it had one of his grandmothers, a grandfather, his other grandmother’s second husband, his brother’s wife’s father and a great-grandmother, among others. Too bad we’re never going to see his other grandmother in the current series. That’d be worth sian!

Oh, I forgot one… add this as (d) to 25: My state has a Good Samaritan law, so I’m required to stop and save this person in peril.