Question you've posted that you were most surprised/impressed to have answered.

Lamia · February 8, 2003, 4:48pm

To continue my series of threads about the SDMB itself, what is the question you’ve posted here that you were most surprised or impressed to have answered? The one that really made you think, “Wow, only on the SDMB!”

The one that sticks out in my mind is, funnily enough, probably one of the most lightweight question I ever posted. I’d recently finished playing a secondhand copy of an old horror game called Phantasmagoria (Sierra, 1995), and the only thing about the game I thought was at all interesting or creepy was the ominous Latin choral piece that was its theme. I’d hated the game so much that I quickly sold it back to the secondhand store, but I posted asking if anyone knew the title/composer of the song because I wanted to hunt down a copy of the song for myself. Barely more than an hour later Saitou replied with the title and composer, and a link to a page with a sound file of the piece, and a link to the full lyrics in both Latin and English! I was amazed! If I’d looked long and hard enough I probably could have found the info myself somewhere else online, but here I got a more complete answer than I’d even asked for in hardly any time at all. Wow!

LifeOnWry · February 8, 2003, 4:54pm

I posted to a “identify this book by this very vague description” thread and was shocked to get not only an accurate answer, almost immediately, but that the person who answered was PART of the book! That was pretty cool.

AncientHumanoid · February 8, 2003, 5:24pm

I post more than I start. Most of the threads I start are entertainment related.

Ton of replies for a frivolous question.

Extremely fun!

Learned things.

Very enlightening.

Ringo · February 8, 2003, 5:46pm

Counterfeit 1957 Chevys

Payne_N.Diaz · February 8, 2003, 9:40pm

I’m amazed when ANY of my questions get answered (I usually stop the thread dead in its tracks). This board is the greatest for that kind of stuff!

AHunter3 · February 9, 2003, 1:15am

I was absolutely astonished when my long-shot inquiry about the monkey puzzle yielded the answer, and on short order at that.

Hmm, on peeking at the thread in question and poking the link, I see that the answer to my question is given in the form of a link to a page that no longer exists. Here’s what I was actually looking for, IIOC –

A rope over the top of a fence has the same length on each side and weighs one-third of a pound per foot. On one end of the rope hangs a monkey holding a banana, and on the other end a weight equal to the weight of the monkey. The banana weighs 2 ounces per inch. The length of the rope in feet is the same as the age of the monkey, and the weight of the monkey in ounces is as much as the age of the monkey’s mother. The combined ages of the monkey and its mother is 30 years. One-half the weight of the monkey plus the weight of the banana is one-fourth the sum of the weights of the rope and the weight. The monkey’s mother is one-half as old as the monkey will be when it is three times as old as its mother was when she was one-half as old as the monkey will be when it is as old as its mother will be when she is four times as old as the monkey was when it was twice as old as its mother was when she was one-third as old as the monkey was when it was as old as its mother was when she was three times as old as the monkey was when it was one-fourth as old as its is now. How long is the banana?

Scotticher · February 9, 2003, 1:29am

I spent two evenings trying to find a song by Joe Cocker one time…it wasn’t on any of his albums that I could see…I googled until my eyes crossed.

Finally, I posted to the UnaBoard asking if anyone knew where I could find it. Within half an hour, someone found it for me.

I know the UnaBoard isn’t the SDMB, but I was impressed all to bits by someone’s ability to find it so quickly when I couldn’t. Just one more piece of evidence that there IS an art to “googling”…and also, that I don’t have the talent.

I thanked you THEN, but more thanks are in order.

THANK YOU Crusoe!!!

Soul_Brother_Number_Two · February 9, 2003, 4:22am

I saw a bit of a Brit horror movie about 20 years ago. I posted a brief description of what I remembered and TPWombat replied shortly thereafter, giving me the name of the movie: Psychomania.

It blew me away.

fusoya · February 9, 2003, 9:07am

Well, so far I haven’t posted anything too impossible…I guess my question about the song American Patrol (too lazy to link) which I asked to be identified by a 5 second sound clip, was my most surprising, especially since it was answered at 4AM on Sunday, an hour after I posted it. I am pretty amazed that some of the other questions people ask can be answered…hell, I’m pretty grateful that somebody out there always knows the things that I want to know.

Of course, I still haven’t figured out what the right forum to post the “what does Tina Fey look like naked” question to…

Biggirl · February 9, 2003, 1:24pm

Mine was also a “find this book by it’s vague discription”. I posted a hazy memory of a book about time travel, werewolves, eating charcoal and the dogs at the gates of hell. The second post was someone who named Anibus Gates (and told me the page number in which the protagonist actually eats the charcoal!). The thread seems to be gone now though.
I’ve had 2 questions that have never been answered. I ask once a year for early Willie Colon CDs (no one even knows who he is, plus I don’t think he released his early stuff on CD). And I ask every spring for a recording of the Mr Softee Ice Cream song. Satan once linked to a wav file of a heavy metal band playing the song(!), but I still search for the original to put on my answering machine in the summer.