Eureka!
Most of my changes are in bold, but I probably missed some.
- The ‘Ghost in the Garrett’ lived in his lover’s attic for years before killing her husband, didn’t he?
Otto Sanhuber, also referred to as “Bat Man”.
2. Where did Hoss, Adam, and Little Joe hang out?
The Ponderosa.
3. On what date was the actor that played the two thousand year old man twenty thousand days old?
March 31, 1981.
4. How do you solve a problem like Maria?
Marry her off to some widower with a pack of kids and let her scamper over the mountains to Switzerland, singing the whole time.
5. The MTA rides Charlie around Boston, but the MTU refers to how big Ethernet transmission packets can be.
The MTA…better known as the Metropolitan Transit Authority, raised the fare in the middle of Charlie’s ride. When he got there the conductor told him one more nickel, Charlie couldn’t get off that train. He never returned. MTU is a maximum transmission unit.
6. Someone told me that people speak Spanish and Portuguese in the Siberian Peninsula! I thought it would be Russian!
Tsk, tsk, that person had a bit of a lisp when he said Iberian peninsula.
7. If one and a half chickens can lay one and a half eggs in one and a half days, how many eggs could twelve chickens lay in six days?
48
8. I grok that sharing water is good.
But you’re still a stranger in a strange land.
9. Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
Yeah, maybe your parents love you, Robert Frost.
10. I defied authority to give my brother a proper burial, even though my sister refused to help and my uncle mandated the death penalty for my actions. Although I died, at least it wasn’t from my uncle’s plan of burying me alive; I hung myself. Who am I?
Antigone.
11. Did Billy really get the Libyans any influence?
If only Jeb Bush could embarrass his brother as much as Billy Carter did. His only influence was creating his novelty brand of beer.
12. What bird did Lacey Davenport’s husband finally get to see before his heart attack?
Bachman’s Warbler.
13. In the first phase, one player chooses Physical, Mental, Chance, or Art; the other selects Naked, Tool, Machine, or Animal.
That’s the most common pastime on Piers Anthony’s Photon.
14. Consider a cube three feet on each side. How many straight cuts are necessary to apply to it in order to create nine one-foot cubes?
Five.
- Who pitched the next perfect game after the only perfect game in a World Series?
Don Cardwell 5/15/1960 Chicago 4 vs. St. Louis 0.
16. Smash a Lifesaver with a hammer and get a flash of light. What’s that called if you’re a scientist?
Triboluminescense.
17. What color cape is worn in full regalia by a Master of the Fourth Degree of the Knights of Columbus?
Gold.
18. Yum! Mom says she’s making sweetbreads tonight. I like bread.
But do you like thymus glands and pancreas?
19. Finish the SAT analogy question: Dan White is to Harvey Milk as …
John Wilkes Booth is to Abraham Lincoln
20. What is the next closest Holy Day of Obligation for Roman Catholics?
Since the challenge was posed on the 14th, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Friday Aug 15.
21. My mid-term at cooking school wants me to discuss the differences between sherbert, sorbet, ice cream, and iced milk. Help me cheat!
Sherbert has a small amount of milk solids along with sugar/flavorings/etc. Sorbet is similar, but without milk solids. Ice cream is a pasteurized mix frozen by agitation, and ice milk is ‘light’ or ‘reduced fat’ ice cream.
22. “Friendly angel, come to me” - heard during a Star Trek episode?
And the Children Shall Lead.
- I only know that I exist; there’s no proof that anyone or anything else is out there. What’s this school of thought?
The answer you’re looking for appears to be solipsism, and I agree that the term is sometimes used in this way. However, that’s an imprecise usage; solipsism more properly refers to the belief that your experiences are the whole of the universe and that others simply do not exist; it is a positive statement. (“I exist; no one else does.”) The actual answer should be skepticism, which is a recognition that knowledge of the outside world is impossible. (“Other people may exist; I just don’t know and have no way of finding out.”) This is an issue dear to my heart because I am a skeptic, but by no means am I a solipsist.
- Mrs. Malaprop was a fictional character, for all intensive purposes.
A fictional character who made her debutante in “The Rivals,” but whose nom depilatory will live on in perspicacity.
- Maggie claims Brick got her pregnant, even though he didn’t - or, more accurately, hadn’t yet.
From “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”.
26. He ended up finding Rachel Wallace kept captive, naked, at the English estate.
Spenser.
27. Veronica Lake was in The Blue Dahlia, but who was the Black Dahlia?
Aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, nicknamed the “Black Dahlia,” was the victim in a notorious 1947 murder case.
28. Nobody’s perfect - but what about integers that are the sum of their positive proper divisors?
That’d be a perfect number.
29. You could enter their secret hideaway in the junkyard through Red Gate Rover or Green Gate One.
Alfred Hitchcock’s “Three Investigators” hideout at the Jones Salvage Yard.
30. My father was the Eddystone Lighthouse keeper - and he had an unusual marriage.
With a porpoise and a porgy as my siblings, growing up was pretty rough.
31. Guilder And Florin Narrowly Avert War - possible headline?
And he would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for that darn meddling Wesley.
32. Should I trust a film review by noted critics Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather?
The characters Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather are portrayed by Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier. Only trust their review if you are interested in getting the male point of view.
33. Who directed the musical about a town in Missouri that contains the show-stopper, ‘A Penny for Your Thoughts?’
Corky St Claire.
34. Sure, the Harlem Globetrotter always won - but who did they always beat?
The Washington Generals, and Krusty should never have bet on them. They weren’t due.
35. Tony and Tia are twins with telepathic and telekinetic power.
Okay, they escaped to Witch Mountain. But where’s the ten sequels?
36. I know men are horn dogs, but what’s a horn high bet in craps?
**One of the proposition bets. A horn bet wagers that either 2, 3, 11, or 12 will come up; a horn high bet covers those same numbers but puts extra money on one of them. ** $5 horn high twelve means a dollar upon three of the numbers and $2 on 12.
37. So I set up a stand with the top ends about one meter apart and one meter tall. To each I connect a thin wire about 750 cm long. I join the two wires at the bottom, and add an additional 150 cm wire length straight down - so the wire forms a ‘Y’ shape. I add a small weight to the bottom of the wire and set it swinging. Describe the shape it will trace in the air. (Extra points for using the ‘L’ word!)
Lissajou. (Thanks, Finagle!)
38. Should I have planned a trip from Tacoma to Gig Harbor on November 7th, 1940?
No, the bridge collapsed.
- What gold medal high-jump winner did Hitler probably refuse to congratulate, choosing instead to leave the stadium? (Being mindful here of urban legends and truth!)
Cornelius Johnson.
40. What was the mouse that roared?
The Duchy of Grand Fenwick, which decided to declare war on the US, lose, and then get cash for reconstruction.
41. I first saw her as a chorus girl in ‘Floradora,’ and was enthralled. I might have gone a bit far when I drugged her champagne and took her virginity, since she was only sixteen and I was a married middle-aged man. But, hey, I was rich. And I didn’t mind that she ended up marrying another guy, but I did sort of object when he ended up killing me and got off on an insanity plea.
Your own damn fault, Stanford White. (Evelyn Nesbit was the girl.)
42. In the spirit of question 24, my boss is a real meanie - a regular Simon Filigree.
Or Simon Legree, the sadistic overseer from Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
43. Suicide is painless?
And I can take or leave it if I please. (A song in the film MAS*H and the theme of the TV series.)
- According to J. K. Rowling, what’s an example of an unforgiveable curse?
The Cruciatis Curse. Use one and it’s off to Azkaban.
45. Consider a square formed by the lines y=1, y=2, x=1, and x=2. Rotate that square about the y-axis and find the volume of the resulting solid.
Assuming you meant x=1 for one of those, the volume is 3pi cubic units.
46. What musical theater character embarrasses her companions at the Ascot races by announcing that gin was mother’s milk to one of her relatives?
Eliza Doolittle.
47. Good thing Crazy Tom got kicked off the ticket, eh?
Only if you think Nixon was a better president than McGovern would have been. Sen. Thomas Eagleton was McGovern’s original running mate, but was asked to step aside after Eagleton’s history of hospitalizations for nervous exhaustion became public. He was replaced by Sargent Shriver, but the move caused a backlash against McGovern.
48. Tara Hartwick, Lon Oliver, Carrie Seaver - where did they live?
The Spot.
49. Constantine, Mithraism, Christianity. Discuss.
Mithraism was a religion of the late roman empire, with many similiarities to christianity:
A divine lord by whose deeds, performed once, man was assured of salvation,
A sacramental meal,
A ritual of baptism, etc. etc.
Constantine chose Christianity over Mithraism, and so we have ceremonial drinking of wine and eating of bread, rather than bathing in bull’s blood.
50. Skyrockets in flight, Starland vocals, what do you end up with?
An afternoon delight.
–Cliffy
