# Trivia Dominoes: Play Off the Last Bit of Trivia **URL:** \ **Category:** Thread Games\ **Created:** [February 4, 2010, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657 "2010-02-04T08:12:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2003
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40049 "2018-09-11T00:05:58Z")
In the early 21st century, the Suez Canal, passing through Egypt from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, has suffered from diminished traffic due to piracy in Somalia, with many shipping companies choosing to take the long route around the Cape of Good Hope instead. Between 2008 and 2010, it is estimated that the canal lost 10% of traffic due to the threat of piracy, and another 10% due to the 2007 financial crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40050 "2018-09-11T00:29:56Z")
The Suez Canal is a sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez. Construction began in 1859 and the canal opened in November of 1869. The canal reduces the journey between the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean by 4300 miles. The Suez Canal contains no locks. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40051 "2018-09-11T01:14:34Z")
The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran 96 miles (154 km) from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. Historic US ZRoute 66, Illinois Route 53, and Illinois and Michigan Canal overlap in Joliet IL. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40052 "2018-09-11T04:36:45Z")
Queen Elizabeth II sailed on Her Majesty’s Yacht _Britannia_ through the Welland Canal during a 1959 visit to Chicago, Illinois. [![](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Britannia#/media/File:HMY_Britannia_Welland_Canal_1959_MIKAN_4821456.jpg) ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Britannia#/media/File:HMY_Britannia_Welland_Canal_1959_MIKAN_4821456.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40053 "2018-09-11T05:38:16Z")
In 1959 Perry Como sang Route 66, the song by US Marine Bobby Troup: [Perry Como - Route 66 (1959) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oQv54xg57Y) ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40054 "2018-09-11T13:18:07Z")
“Christmas Dream” is a song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, with German lyrics by Andre Heller, for the 1974 Columbia film The Odessa File. It is sung by Perry Como and the London Boy Singers and is included on the album A Perry Como Christmas. Como and the choir performed the song, a few weeks after the film’s October 1974 release, on Perry Como’s Christmas Show ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40055 "2018-09-11T13:35:45Z")
Odessa is the county seat of Ector County, Texas, United States. In 2013, Odessa had the highest rate of violent crime in Texas, with 806.4 crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40056 "2018-09-11T13:38:57Z")
Odessa, Texas is not on US Route 66 (it is about 250 miles south of Amarillo, which is). Odessa was founded in 1881 as a water stop and cattle-shipping point on the Texas and Pacific Railway. Odessa is said to have been named after Odessa, Russian Empire, because of the local shortgrass prairie’s resemblance to Ukraine’s landscape. Odessa is home to one of the youngest meteor craters in the nation. The Odessa Meteor Crater is estimated to be around 63,500 years old, while most are millions of years old. It is 550 ft in diameter and was originally about 100 ft deep. Because of subsequent infilling by soil and debris, the crater is currently 15 ft (5 m) deep at its lowest point, which provides enough relief to be visible over the surrounding plains, but does not offer the dramatic relief found at the more famous Meteor Crater in Arizona. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40057 "2018-09-11T15:32:05Z")
The fiction film and TV series _Friday Night Lights_ was based on the nonfiction book of the same name by H.G. Bissinger, about the football culture at Odessa’s Permian High School. The school is named for the Permian Basin, the geological formation which underlies Midland and Odessa. The name stems from the age of the rocks in the basin where the school is located, which are from the geological period that preceded the largest mass extinction in the history of life. The Permian Basin is the source of the large oil and natural gas deposits that drive the region’s economy. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40058 "2018-09-11T15:48:14Z")
In Wikipedia’s list of impact craters in North America, the one in Odessa TX is listed among 28 in the United States. On that list the Odessa Crater is the second smallest. Only one in Kansas is smaller. Of the 50 US states there aren’t any impact craters in 29 states: AR CA CO CT DE FL GA HI LA ME MD MA MN MS NE NV NH NJ NY NC OK OR PA RI SC SD VT WA and WV. There are impact craters in 21 states: AL AK AZ ID IL IN IA KS KY MI MO MT NM ND OH TN TX UT VA WI and WY. > **[List of impact craters in North America | United States](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_craters_in_North_America#United_States)** > > The following craters are officially considered "unconfirmed" because they are not listed in the Earth Impact Database. Due to stringent requirements regarding evidence and peer-reviewed publication, newly discovered craters or those with difficulty collecting evidence generally are known for some time before becoming listed. However, entries on the unconfirmed list could still have an impact origin disproven. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40059 "2018-09-11T15:53:17Z")
New York state Supreme Court [Justice Joseph Crater disappeared](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Force_Crater#Disappearance)after returning from vacation to New York City after telling his wife the purpose of the trip was “to straighten those fellows out” but really to visit Atlantic City with his mistress, Sally Lou Ritzi. On the morning of Wednesday, August 6, Crater spent two hours going through his files in his courthouse chambers, reportedly destroying several documents. He then had his law clerk Joseph Mara cash two checks for him that amounted to $5,150 (equivalent to about $75,444 in 2017 dollars). At noon, he and Mara carried two locked briefcases to his apartment and he let Mara take the rest of the day off. Later that evening, Crater went to a Broadway ticket agency (Supreme Tickets) and bought one seat from William Deutsch (proprietor of Supreme) for a comedy called Dancing Partner[11] at the Belasco Theatre. He then went to Billy Haas’s Chophouse at 332 West 45th Street, where he ate dinner with Ritzi and William Klein, a lawyer friend. Klein later told investigators that Crater was in a good mood that evening and gave no indication that anything was bothering him. The dinner ended a little after 9 p.m., shortly after the curtain rose on the show for which Crater had bought a ticket, and the small group went outside. Judge Crater was never seen again. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40060 "2018-09-11T16:24:17Z")
6 Craters, or crater remnants are on or near US Route 66: **Des Plaines crater in Illinois** is 20 miles northwest of Chicago IL, which is on US Route 66. **Glasford crater in Illinois** is 40 miles northwest of Normal IL, which is on US Route 66. **Crooked Creek crater in Missouri** is 25 miles southeast St. James MO, which is on US Route 66. **Decaturville crater in Missouri** is 15 miles northeast of Sleeper MO, which is on US Route 66. **Santa Fe impact structure in New Mexico** is 4 miles northeast of Santa Fe NM, which is on US Route 66. **Meteor Crater in Arizona** is 5 miles south of the Mobil Gas Station at exit 233 on I-40, which is on US Route 66. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40061 "2018-09-11T16:38:42Z")
Normal, Illinois is the site of Illinois State University, formerly Illinois State Normal University, a normal school (teacher-training institution) located there. The term “normal school” originated in the early 16th century from the French _école normale._ ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40062 "2018-09-11T16:55:31Z")
&_%&\*\*()_() ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40063 "2018-09-11T17:00:09Z")
In his book [_The Lexicon of Comicana_,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lexicon_of_Comicana)Mort Walker, creator of Beetle Bailey, introduced the term “Grawlix” for typographical symbols standing in for profanities, appearing in dialogue balloons in place of actual dialogue, and “Quimps”, planets resembling Saturn, used to replace obscenities (but possibly also to represent meteors). ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40064 "2018-09-11T18:12:51Z")
The term “profane” originates from classical Latin “profanus”, literally “before (outside) the temple”. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40065 "2018-09-11T19:32:06Z")
Latin words that have survived virtually or entirely unchanged in Modern English and are still commonly used include: abacus abdomen aborigine actor acumen addendum administrator agenda aggressor agitator album ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40066 "2018-09-11T19:37:38Z")
About young players, longtime Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach would say “\*Potential \*is a Latin word that means you ain’t worth a damn yet.” ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40067 "2018-09-11T21:54:49Z")
Welsh is currently the most widely spoken Celtic language, with over half a million native speakers, more than all the native speakers of the other Celtic languages combined–Breton, Irish, Scots Gaelic, Manx and Cornish. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/40068 "2018-09-11T22:20:40Z")
The Cornish is a breed of chicken from the county of Cornwall in England. Cornish chickens, as well as crosses of Cornishes, are the most-used breed in the chicken meat industry. They are heavy, muscular birds that lay brown eggs. The breed is also known as the Indian Game chicken. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657.md?page=2002) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657.md?page=2004)