Yet Another Imitation Bricker Challenge #SD-1

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I wasn’t able to get in earlier… family stuff, sorry. In the interests of fairness, I’m going to post updated scores on Sat 12 noon MDT.

No player yet has a perfect score though.

There is one apparently ambiguous question. The answer I was looking for for #7 was Pikachu; I had no idea there were pre-evolved pokemon. I should have paid closer attention to my 12 year-old son. I’m allowing Shayna/Chocolate/Grace to keep their original answer.

Some of the questions have more than one correct answer. I am accepting any of the alternatives for full points.

Please forgive my difficulties: this is my first time, please be gentle! :wink:

42

One final change, since I can’t see anything else that might be wrong.

#19 - we’ll be less specific and say Kentucky bourbon/whiskey

#49 - change from Emmy nominations to Emmy awards (although I’m pretty sure they’d qualify for having more noms as well). But perhaps that’s not even what you were going for in the first place. Guess we’ll see when the new scores come out. :slight_smile:

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

“Mom, he’s a neo Nazi! He’s a doctor also? Well…” - WallyM7

43

Arnold: 49 1/2
Shayna/Grace/Chocolate: 49 (no halves)
Iolanthe: 48 1/2
waterj2: 45 1/2
Fretful Porpentine: 37 1/2

Hints:
Smart as you are, I guess one of you has never tried to get in to this American organization.

His boss at the time is relevant and required.

It’s important where you’re drinking.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

44

I have to go do some stuff. I’ll try to be back around 1:30 PM MDT

45

Change our answer to #42 to Mensa.

Are we done? :smiley:

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

“Mom, he’s a neo Nazi! He’s a doctor also? Well…” - WallyM7

46

Through careful analysis, I have collated what I believe are the correct answers to each question. This should be all of them:

  1. 30,000 bananas
  2. 86.6 meters
  3. Eris, Goddess of Discord
  4. Charlie Brown
  5. Rick’s Cafe Americain
  6. Nineveh
  7. Pikachu
  8. Einstein
  9. the igNobel Prize from the Annals of Improbable Research
  10. Beowulf and Grendel
  11. Silverlock
  12. Larry
  13. Richard Feynman
  14. W.E.B. DuBois
  15. Ella Fitzgerald (among others) “I wish I were still in live” Lorenz Hart, Lyrics Richard Rodgers, Music.
  16. Grace Murray Hopper
  17. Mandrake in La Mandagolo by Machiavelli
  18. Triskaidekaphobia
  19. Kentucky Bourbon
  20. The curl in Dilbert’s tie
  21. Frank Lloyd Wright
  22. Ode to a Grecian Urn
  23. The dodo
  24. Steve Young
  25. The Netherlands, Amsterdam, The Hague
  26. Ways to get a flush
  27. The Higgs Boson
  28. Janis Joplin
  29. Andrew Johnson’s Secretary of State, for purchasing Alaska from Russia
  30. Richard Brautigan
  31. Kansas University in Lawrence, Kansas (Lawrence = Larry)
  32. Macbeth
  33. Abbott & Costello’s classic comedy routine Who’s on First
  34. Automobile accident
  35. Quasars
  36. GE and Cisco
  37. Billboard’s
  38. Car 54 Where Are You
  39. Hedy Lamarr (partner was George Antheil)
  40. retaking a stroke in golf
  41. One
  42. Mensa
  43. the '69 Mets
  44. Large Magellanic Cloud & SagDEG
  45. Scalia, Thomas, Souter, Stevens, Bader-Ginsberg, O’Connor, Breyer, Rehnquist (i.e. the Supreme Court, except Anthony Kennedy)
  46. “I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
  47. Small Computer System Interface
  48. Herman Hollerith
  49. Emmy awards
  50. Blopue
47

Damn you Shayna! Seven minutes!
Crap, crap, and crap!
Well, we have certainly seen some fierce competition here, and I am humbled by it.

48

And the winner is… <drum roll>

Shayna/Grace/Chocolate!

Congratulations! Please e-mail me at lhamelin@iname.com with your brand preferences and shipping address.

The runner up is waterj2 in a photo finish, a few minutes late with all 50 correct.

The bronze goes to Arnold… A half point short of the prize… Waaaaa! :smiley:

Thanks

Notes on the answers:

I already apologized for #7… Sigh…

Silverlock from #11 is a wonderful book. It’s out of print, but if you ever see it at a used book store, buy it!

And who would have thought that anyone but Ol’ Blue Eyes would have sang such a line as in #15. :rolleyes: I accepted all answers specifying reasonable artists.

In high school, I saw a wonderful performance of #17 “Mandragola” (or The Root of the Mandrake) at the Ashland Oregon Shakespeare festival.

My g-g-…-g-grandfather’s son, Elijah Craig, invented Kentucky Bourbon whisky (#19) See: The Spirits of Kentucky by Mark Vaughan.

#22 is Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”. But I decided to give full points anyway.

Either Bolivia or The Netherlands was an acceptable answer for #25. I never would have thought that two countries had this unusual arrangement!

Yes, he was Lincoln’s secretary of State, but it was under Andrew Johnson that Seward purchased Alaska for #29.

I learned programming at KU in 1976-1977 when I was in Jr. High… I didn’t know very many students, and I’ve forgotten them all today.

For #41 I should have read my Tolkien a little more carefully. I was going from memory. I accepted either 1 or 20.

I had never heard of SagDEG for #44 until I got the answers. I could have handwaved and claimed I knew all along, but I had already scored someone correct for the Large and Small Magellenic clouds.

Question #50 was expressed in “opish” (otnay ipay atinlay), where the “op” precedes the vowel sound in each syllable. I gave half points for understanding the question, full points for answering it by specifying your favorite color in correct opish. See: http://www.emich.edu/~linguist/issues/8/8-1570.html

What a game! Thank you all, this has been entirely too much fun! A lot of work as well… I’ll be more careful in my next effort.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

49

I just c&p’d my answer for #7 from above. I wasn’t trying to pick on you any more.

As for #25, last I heard South Africa had it’s seat of government split up among three different cities.

Thanks for the excellent challenge, SingleDad. But how many of these damn things are we going to let the indomitable trio win? Someone needs to put an end to the madness!

50

Great Game SingleDad! Just out of curiosity, where did I lose a half-point? Is it because I didn’t specify under which administration Seward was USA Secretary of State?

I would congratulate the Shayna/Grace/Chocolate team, if not for the fact that I am currently filled with bitterness and bile. :stuck_out_tongue:

51

Scratch that last question, I see you had given the hint “His boss at the time is relevant and required.” I would respectfully suggest that this detail should have been phrased in the question. I personally learned from my imitation Bricker Challenge #1, and now I try to mention exactly which answer I am expecting in case it’s not perfectly clear.

52

Arnold: Noted, and I do apologize. I will do better next time.

In my defense, I did hint you on 04-07-2000 04:35 PM CDT that “Several people have foolishly identified a different president than what I’m looking for.”

And Seward did purchase Alaska as Johnson’s Secretary of State, not as Lincoln’s; I didn’t consider his previous position relevant.

53

Yee Haa!!

[bowing]Thank you. Thank you[/bowing]

Arnold, I don’t feel the least bit bad about beating you, seeing as how we had so many more correct than you did on our first go-around and most of your changes you stole from us! Neener, neener :smiley:

And waterj2, you did an awesome job and were a formidable opponent. Especially given that you were playing 3 against 1!

SingleDad, thank you for providing yet another great challenge. I always learn SO much when I do these and am in awe of the people who seem to know so many of them off the top of their heads with no research. Were it not for being allowed to search the internet for answers, I assure you I’d lose to this brilliant bunch every single time.

My other sister, Banana (real name Anne) went to KU from '86 to '90, so you wouldn’t have ever met her.

As for the Ode on a Grecian Urn one – I knew that (and it even bugs me when people get it wrong). I don’t know what I was thinking, except that my head was spinning from all the other tough ones you threw at us and I choked.

I won’t make you send me a prize for winning, but when chocolate saw that you were offering up genuine Denver Jolly Ranchers she got so excited I think she fell off her chair. She loves those. So perhaps she’ll accept. I’ll let her answer for herself.

Thanks again for all the work you put into this for us. It was great fun!

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

“Mom, he’s a neo Nazi! He’s a doctor also? Well…” - WallyM7

54

I cannot leave this remark unchallenged. On your first go-around, you were 1.5 points ahead of me (46 to 47 1/2), and as far as I can tell, the only reason you were ahead of me by even that much is because originally SingleDad counted Bolivia as a wrong answer, so really you were only ahead by 1/2 point. And you stole the winning answer (“Mensa”) from me!

I’m sure that any impartial observer will agree that I have the moral high ground here, and that the victory should by right be awarded to me.

I now retreat with the happy conviction that history will vindicate me.

55

I had Mensa in the second response in this thread. Methinks I was the one robbed.

56

Happy to send them! I’ll even send you a bag, Arnold, if it makes you feel better! :slight_smile:

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

57

So you did, waterj2, so you did. Let me point out however that your answer “Mensa?” was followed by a question mark, and thus lacked the authoritative weight of my answer, “Mensa.”, which was ended by a bold period.

However, I am magnanimously willing to include you in my lamentation. “We wuz robbed!”

SingleDad, instead of sending me chocolates, I would be satisfied if you would declare the previous results null and void, and officially name me as the winner of SD-1. :cool:

58

Well, can you can assert that George Bush, Vice President to Ronald Reagan, successfully prosecuted the Gulf War?

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

59

Not sure if you’re just being silly or you really have a gripe. Let me say right off, I think you’re a cool guy, Arnold, and I’m honored you participated. :slight_smile:

On the off chance that you’re really griping, let me offer the following defense:

Since I had already deducted a half point for someone specifying “Lincoln’s Secretary of State”, I felt it necessary for consistency that I require the particular administration for the full point. And I hinted everyone twice for the correct answer. Not to mention that I cut you a little slack on #50, which technically required the name of a specific color, expressed in opish.

Kwitcherbitchin! :stuck_out_tongue:

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

60

SingleDad, I was just kidding around.

I figure if I can’t win a contest fair and square, I’ll try complaining, grouching, grumbling, lamenting, protesting, remonstrating, repining and whining. (My thesaurus just happened to be handy.)