Oraclique

IIM-B Vista Open

2007-10-24T20:45:00.000+05:30

20071014@IIM-Bangalore

Clipped and Collected from Kerala Quizzers orkut community.

Lloyd

Harsha Bhogle @IIM-B

Last Sunday Me,Thomas (Ex TKM) & Prashanth (Ex CET) gatecrashed into IIM-B for 'Quizzard' which was part of 'Vista' the annual IIM-B business fest. The Quiz as always started late, Written prelims of 35 qns after which 6 teams made it through to the finals... As always we 3 were left high & dry thinking about the near misses we had or what could have happened if we had written the first guess kinda thing... This normally happens when u don't qualify and mind u its a tough field out here.. KQA veterans were all there plus some QFI imports from Chennai made it even more tougher. The QM was Harsha Bhogle,Questions were set by Anustup of KQA, Harsha was at his best in enthralling the audience with his quick wit and one liners, but at times he failed to impress. The setting for the Quiz was superb except the Buzzer - as always it malfunctioned a la Wardrobe malfunctioning which has become too common nowadays the latest star being Potter aunt JK Rowling....

The saddest thing about the Quiz is only 2 Mallus were on stage, One being our evergreen Anil Sir and his partner Jayadev who is a NRK, their team performed creditably and won the 3rd spot (Anil Sir had to leave after 2 rounds to catch the 9.45pm train to Cochin) Seeing people like Anil Sir & Arul Mani I always feel that most of us should be ashamed at the fact that we don't even have 10% of the enthusiasm that they have, For every KQA quiz Arul would be the first one to arrive on his Activa and from organizing to conducting to participating he is always there, Muslims go to Mecca for Hajj once a year but for Anil Sir Bangalore is Mecca and participating in Quizzes is a Hajj that he performs once a month, that's the spirit...

The Quiz was a memorable event and as expected was won by Arul,Uduppa combo, Infosys was 2nd Anil Sir's team led by Jayadev came third and Swami's QFI team came fourth - seeing Swami coming fourth was like watching the Aussies losing a Cricket match. For questions & a review keep checking Thomas's blog - http:oraclique.blogspot.com.

Anil

Part of the questions were set by Gopal kidao another mallu who is a mainstay of QED.Questions,presentation,ambience,audience&everything was right.I still feel kicking myself for leaving early which contributed to my team ICNH finishing third.the first two teams had cash 30000inr&20000inr.we got 3k worth vanheusen vouchers.5pts&a middle aged guy who booked a ticketback robbed the team of 20k but we have the honour of surpassing QED with swami,jayakantan&sumo one of the veryfew todo this in the past 5years.
Let me also mention that Thomas won an audience prize for cracking the dream scene from wildstrawberries(bergman).And gracias,lloyd for bringing the news across

Thomas

review

it was a fantastic quiz. the quality of the questions, the entertainment factor, everything was superb. one of the highlight was harsha bhogle telling anil's team that they needed to "insert" it better, when testing out the buzzers! ... for those not in the know anil's team in bangalore is called insert cool name here)... harsha said he would add it to the list of worst things he has ever said onstage in his life...

anil had to catch a train and hence left after the first onstage round... too bad they were not allowed a substitute! they lost out only in the final round... called derailer... interesting because of the "rail" angle ;-) the team had already been derailed once!

sorry that i have not yet updated my blog with the questions (hope prasanth can send them across, i didn't note anything) and opinions... was busy at work this week... there were quite a few trivia gems.. the quizicians didn't disappoint!

yeah i got an audience prize and also made some cool cracks in the prelims... it was an enjoyable and memorable outing despite the fact that we didn't qualify... i also made what qualifies as my super blooper... wrote "lighthouse of alexandria" instead of "library of alexandria"! :-)

TRIVIA BITES
(Waiting for inputs from Prashanth)

Queuriestu - III

2007-09-15T11:55:00.000+05:30

Here's the third instalment of Queuriestu. Questions are simpler (I hope) this time around.

Read between the lines and think out of the box. Hope you enjoy cracking this set.

Cover me in replies, drown me slowly!

Answers next Friday.

luv

sonofdelphi

http://oraclique.blogspot.com

----------------------------------------

QUEURIESTU - III

We Can Work It Out

----------------------------------------

1. Won't blame you if you can't understand this. What word is derived from French for the twittering

noises made by birds?

2. Anyone can answer this one. What were the names of the tunnels built for/in The Great Escape?

3. A heady mix of current affairs and trivia. This chimpanzee was taught sign language and was named

after the person recently voted the world's top living intellectual. Give me the name...of the chimpanzee.

4. A typical, 'character'istic connection question. Connect Orson Welles, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

and Lee Falk.

5. The logo of which company, a major star of the day, is formed by its name being interleaved four

times in a circular fashion?

6. What was Linus Torvald's planned name for Linux? Free something, you say, cryptically.

7.If an aye-aye is a kind of monkey and beri-beri is a vitamin deficiency disease...,

who or what is an atlatl?

8. What did Hermann Rorschach, the Swiss psychiatrist, invent/create? What did you say that was?

9. Ozzy, anyone? What is the Osborne effect?

X. As far as currencies go, what is peculiar about the Mauritanian Ouguiya and Madagascar's

Ariary? The clue is that this question is inappropriately numbered!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shamelessly Me

-----------------------------

Getting lonely in blogosphere...

No one visits, my worst fear

Do you my desperate plea hear?

Won't you,my dear, please come here?

Please do visit my blogs and comment.

Choose your poison(s)!

:-)

Musings - http://incubbator.blogspot.com - Hatching Zone For Ideas

Literary - http://cubbspace.blogspot.com - The Last Resort Of An Unpublished Author

Quizzing - http://oraclique.blogspot.com

Programming - http://oozone.blogspot.com

Publishing's gone to the dogs
Nowadays everybody just blogs.
Words and ideas the blogger bleeds
Nonsense spewing out at insane speeds
Who cares? Anyway, nobody reads!

- Thomas Jay Cubb

Here are the answers to Queuriestu - III.

Not too many responses :-(

Perhaps I should not have opined that this was an easy set...it seemed it was not!

>> Questions are simpler (I hope) this time around.

Hope for a better response next time around.

luv

sonofdelphi

http://oraclique.blogspot.com

----------------------------------------

QUEURIESTU - III

We Can Work It Out

----------------------------------------

1. Won't blame you if you can't understand this. What word is derived from French for the twittering

noises made by birds?

* Jargon

Very few people got this one. Gibberish was a very appropriate guess, though incorrect.

2. Anyone can answer this one. What were the names of the tunnels built for/in The Great Escape?

* Tom, Dick and Harry

Anyone. Get it?

3. A heady mix of current affairs and trivia. This chimpanzee was taught sign language and was named

after the person recently voted the world's top living intellectual. Give me the name...of the chimpanzee.

* Nim Chimpsky was the name of the chimpanzee

Many of you worked it out to Noam Chomsky, but I'd specifically asked for the name of the chimp.

+I - Wikipedia has an article about Nim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky

4. A typical, 'character'istic connection question. Connect Orson Welles, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

and Lee Falk.

* The connection is Xanadu. Have given points to all answers with this word.

They all created characters (so it was a character-istic connect) who lived in Xanadu. Coleridge

wrote Kubla Khan, an epic ode to the real-life Mongol conqueror, who lived in Xanadu. Lee Falk

created Mandrake (he created Phantom too), who lived in Xanadu. Charles Foster Kane, the hero

of Orson Welles's classic Citizen Kane, also gave his residence the same name.

5. The logo of which company, a major star of the day, is formed by its name being interleaved four

times in a circular fashion?

* Sun, the only star of the day :-), Microsystems

+I - SUN - stands for Stanford University Networks

+I - Such symbols are called ambigrams

6. What was Linus Torvald's planned name for Linux? Free something, you say, cryptically.

* Linus wanted to name his Freax !

Working the clue out: Free X (Something) and reading it aloud. Juvenile.

+I - He chose this after his friend Ari Lemmke gave him a directory called Linux because he didn't like

the name Freax. Who would have!

+I - He wanted to modify Andrew Tanebaum's Minix initially but was not allowed to. Check out my short

poem about it from http://oozone.blogspot.com/2005/11/heart-for-gnu.html

7.If an aye-aye is a kind of monkey and beri-beri is a vitamin deficiency disease...,

who or what is an atlatl?

* An atlatl is a type of primitive weapon - a kind of spear-thrower

Precursor to the bow and arrow?

8. What did Hermann Rorschach, the Swiss psychiatrist, invent/create? What did you say that was?

* Inkblot test

Where they show you weird pictures and ask "What do you think that is?". Have seen this only in

movies.

+I - Also known as TAT - Thematic Apperception Test

9. Ozzy, anyone? What is the Osborne effect?

* Loss of sales for a company's current product because of the company's yet-to-be-launched

new product.

Apple might just have done it - with their announcement of Intel Apple PCs...Microsoft keeps doing

it, but is lucky, every time!

+I - It is named for Adam Osborne; his company which went bankrupt after he announced the

Osborne-II computer.

+I - Adam Osborne died in Kodaikanal in 2003, which is when I first heard about him

QM: Apologies for the misleading Ozzy allusion! ;-) Oh pedantic me, but it is Ozzy Osbourne,

not Osborne.

X. As far as currencies go, what is peculiar about the Mauritanian Ouguiya and Madagascar's

Ariary? The clue is that this question is inappropriately numbered!

* These don't follow the decimal system.

+I - 1 Ouguiya = 5 Khoums

+I - 1 Ariary = 5 iraimbilanja.

(I've already forgotten!)

+I - Madagascar only recently changed its currency from the Malagasy Franc.

+I - Iraimbilanja means "one iron weight"

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CURIOUSEST! - Enjoyable attempts

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. On Jargon

Gibberish (Was very popular)

2. On Tom, Dick and Harry

Jane Doe and John Doe.

X and Y

Any And One

3. On Nim Chimpsky

Noam Chimpsky

7. On Atlatl

Albino monkey with vitamin-deficiency

Inca headgear

9. On Osborne effect

An irresistible urge to eat live bats!

X. On Ouguiya/Ariary

Have odd numbered notes, like a 9 ouguiya note

The coins are all crosses (Xs)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SCORES (chronological, quiznetimal numbering)

----------------

1. Dinesh Krithivasan - 4 (Fantabulous tries, early bird!)

2. Vivek Krishnan - 3 (Thanx for the extra info)

3. My Quizbox - 3 (No clue as to ur name!)

4. Srikanth Madani - 4.5 (Missed out on number-base)

5. Dijo - 1 (Minix was Tanenbaum's OS)

6. Kamal Rathi - 3 (Not B&A exactly, but OK)

7. Nishanth - 2 (Cool tries)

8. Vaibhav Devanathan - 2 (First to jargon)

9. Balasubramanian K.A - 9 (Fantastic)

X. Abid EH - 2.5 (Half for mandrake and chomsky together)

Y. Ranjith Kumar - 3.5 (Imaginative work on the connect and chimp)

Z. Rachana Parmar - 5 (Good effort)

A. Venkateshwar KR - 1 ( Entertaining as always)

B. Shashwat Quiz - 8 (Solid)

C. Anish Babu - 1 (Good attempts)

Landmark Open Chennai 2007

2007-08-15T00:15:00.001+05:30

The Chennai leg of the Landmark 2007 was conducted by Dr. Naveen Jayakumar at the Music Academy on 15Aug07. The turnout was huge and the auditorium was jam-packed, to witness the landmark quizzing event of the year. Please also check the following links for other reports:
Wenkey
Inquizition
Hindu

The prelims on the first listen, I mean while writing the answers, seemed to be pretty decent. But in retrospect, only the first 30 questions or so seem to pass muster. Hindsight is 30/40! :-) There was an unnatural bias towards Harry Potter in the set of Qs (3+ out of 40; am complaining even though we got all of them), many were arbitrarily worded (avarahonam) or dead giveaways (one Q was even a repeat from the Odyssey event) and hence non-competitive; it was all in all an uneven spread. The cut-off was way too high, 30+/40, I have reason to believe, and would have been OK only if the quality/standard was uniform throughout.

Personal. Participated as the Borobodur Orangutans - Sreeram, Prasanth & me. DNQ. Usual story! :-( Managed to predict quite a few questions in the prelims and still did not qualify! Also ended up with a bout of Chennai-belly... Was a bad outing, all round.

The final round was not so great either. Not much substance (nothing to note!) and hence I left early. Usually I stay till the end, if only because I have traveled all the way to participate. The questions were rather stale, many seemed to have been left-overs from the 2006 quizzing season! Most of the current-affairs questions were based on early, mid 2006 stuff.

There was a high level of arbitness felt in some of the Qs (possibly because of the staleness factor) mentioned above. One of the teams even resorted to answering "Michael Jackson" based answers for all Qs that came to them - just because of a monstrously horrendous and banal connection question. And the answer to one of the questions which captured everyone's imagination, dendronautics was answered incorrectly and still given points. The team had answered something to the effect of "tree climbing" when the answer was morel like "study of vegetation according to height"!

The questions in the quizzer of the year round also was of non-uniform standard. Some of the participants had it real easy while some had it real tough. Of course, luck is a factor and also, this is a subjective opinion, but this was the general impression left behind.

In my opinion, it was a disappointing show, a let-down compared to the Odyssey Open in January 2007 held at the same venue.

QED from Chennai, the crowd-favourites won again, as other reports tell me. Some fun team names as well, "Cheque De", "Eternal Moonshine Of The Spotless Behind", "Munnabhai and the Jacky Sparrows" etc

The organizers could have made (and should in future make) better use of the computer during the registration stages in order to minimize the chaos that prevailed just before the prelims. Online registration/seating reservations for outstation teams would have been really cool.

Trivia Bytes
---------------
(prelims, thanx to prasanth for jogging my memory)
01. Wolf in Norse mythology. Harry Potter - Fenrir (cracked with Norse not HP cue!)
02. Movie clip --> Harry Potter and Dolores Umbridge
03. Visual Of - The Deathly Hallows
04. Kalashnikov most famous model - 1947
05. Philippines national flower - Jasmine
06. Avarohanam -> Avatar (abstrusely worded)
07. Origin of rivers - Manasarovar
08. Dalai Lama Nobel Prize - Gandhi
09. Only Non-Indian Bharat Ratnas - Nelson Mandela, Khan Abdul Gafar Khan
10. 1991 book - Generation X
11. Etymology. Asterix cue . - Font
12. Only bulletproofable car in India - Ambassador
13. Countries with Square flags - Vatican, Switzerland
14. Visual. Pale Blue Dot.
15. Predicted by Mendeleev - Technetium
16. Ekta Kapoor. Non 'K' film - Shootout at Lokhanwala
17. Question that has to be answered in Parliament - Starred question (This was a nice one)
18. Rearview mirror (Odyssey repeat)
19. Magnetic North Pole, GPS (Have disagreement about this one)
20. Named after son of Vayu - Maruti
21. Student body with certification -
22. AR Rahman song used for - Taj promotion (Predicted Q!)
23. Visual of stained glass in study - Venn diagram (another beauty)
24. Robinson Crusoe Island (Has become a chestnut!)
25. Types of webs

(Please check the other links for a better version of the questions)

Queuriestu - II

2007-07-15T12:00:00.000+05:30

hi
Welcome to Queuriestu 2. The TUTU edition? :-)
Took longer and had more fun than expected, framing this set of questions. Hope you enjoy it.
Answers next week.
luv
sonofdelphi
http://oraclique.blogspot.com

------------------------------
QUEURIESTU
We Can Work It Out
-------------------------------
Q1. Eunoia is a rarely used (you know, yeah!) term denoting a normal mental state. Root words: Eu + nous = good thinking. What's special about this word? Eminently guessable, analyze the word.
A:

Q2. Tintin was created by...everybody knows...Herge. His real name was...wait, I'll say it...Georges Remi. The question is, why Herge?
A:

Q3. You will miss this most queuriest question for sure. :-) After whom (that's correct, not who) is the unit for radioactivity named?
A:

Q4. Symbolic question. Led Zeppelin's first three studio albums were called I, II and III. Though their fourth was untitled, LZ-IV was known by another name. Gimme the name ????
A:

Q5. Which organization(?)'s name is derived from a corruption of the Greek word for circle? Don't be klueless, rounding up was one of their activities!
A:

Q6. What was peculiar about Australian fast bowler Merv Hughes's hat-trick against the West Indies in the late 1980s?
A:

Q7. Question 007. Which was the last James Bond movie with its title the same as an Ian Fleming work? Cryptic Clue: Vital shy gin delight - shaken, not stirred
A:

Q8. Googleable. Who or what is a sabra?
A:

Q9. Never mind your score in Queuriestu, but if you got an Apgar score of zero, what'd you probably be?
A:

QX. Fill in the blank. Heaven (Christian):Pearly Gates:: Valhalla: _______ .
A:

ANSWERS

hi

Just remembered that I'd forgotten to say when I would send in the answers.I decided two days after the last reply trickled in would mean it was about time. The list stopped at P. So, here are the answers.
Tough set this was, I guess. (Presented this set to crack, I would have scored 3...max) Bubbli and Venkateshwar, who attempted all the questions in the true spirit of Queuriestu, get special mentions.
Not many people spotted the anagram in question 007- VITAL SHY GIN DELIGHT shaken and stirred will give you the name of the movie (3,6,9). Take another shot at (of?) it before you scroll down.

luv
sonofdelphi
http://oraclique.blogspot.com

------------------------------
QUEURIESTU - II
We Can Work It Out
-------------------------------
Q1. Eunoia is a rarely used (you know, yeah!) term denoting a normal mental state. Root words: Eu + nous = good thinking. What's special about this word? Eminently guessable, analyze the word.
A: It is the shortest word that contains all the vowels.
+I: Mozambique also contains all the vowels
+I: Abstemious, Facetious contain all the vowels in alphabetical order

Q2. Tintin was created by...everybody knows...Herge. His real name was...wait, I'll say it...Georges Remi. The question is, why Herge?
A: Herge is the French pronunciation of "R.G.", the author's initials in reverse order.
Confession: I'd read this somewhere. l still don't know how to pronounce it. :-)

Q3. You will miss this most queuriest question for sure. :-) After whom (that's correct, not who) is the unit for radioactivity named?
A: (Question cancelled)
I lost my footing on the framing of this one. Points for everyone.
What I had meant to ask was: You will 'miss' this most queuriest question for sure. After whom was the unit of radioactivy, curie named? There is a controversy regarding whether it was Pierre Curie or after both the Curies. The answer I wanted was Pierre Curie, and why I had said you would 'miss' this for sure... (+I http://www.orau.org/ptp/articlesstories/thecurie.htm - note "named after the late Prof. Curie")
The controversy was the reason why I had asked the question in the first place, but forgot to include the curie bit! :-) It was intended as a curious, 'curie'ous, queurious question....
+I Becquerel - is the SI unit of radioactivity. Named after Henri Becquerel
+I Roentgen Equivalent Man - named after Wilhelm Roentgen
But in any case, I'd like to make a comment here - when the name of a person is asked, and is the same as the unit, please mention the name of the person not just his/her surname. I got many answers of just "Curie" - which Curie?

Q4. Symbolic question. Led Zeppelin's first three studio albums were called I, II and III. Though their fourth was untitled, LZ-IV was known by another name. Gimme the name ????
A: Zoso
The album cover had only symbols (runes?) and one of the symbols (picked by Jimmy Page, the guitarist) vaguely resembled the English spelling Z-O-S-O.
+I This was never endorsed by the band members though.

Q5. Which organization(?)'s name is derived from a corruption of the Greek word for circle? Don't be klueless, rounding up was one of their activities!
A: Ku Klux Klan.
Klue was the direct clue, the Klan introduced the k-spelling corruption in many words. Also, the Klan did round up and lynch blacks.

Q6. What was peculiar about Australian fast bowler Merv Hughes's hat-trick against the West Indies in the late 1980s?
A: The three wickets came in three different overs!
Last ball of one over, first ball of next to end the first innings and first ball of second innings.
+I: Courtney Walsh also had a hat-trick across two innings in the previous Test but it came in two overs.
+I: Best ever bowling figures for Australia - 9/121 AA Mailey v England at Melbourne, 4th Test, 1920/21

Q7. Question 007. Which was the last James Bond movie with its title the same as an Ian Fleming work? Cryptic Clue: Vital shy gin delight - shaken, not stirred
A: The Living Daylights
Anagram of VITAL SHY GIN DELIGHT. Shaken and stirred was probably a better anagram indicator from a crossword point of view, but shaken not stirred was better from the quizzing point of view. I made my pick when at the crossroads.
+I Living Daylights was a short story by Ian Fleming

QM: None of Pierce Brosnan's Bond movies were bonafide Ian Fleming novels. Anyways, he never played cards (baccarat) with the villain in his movies, hence some charm was lacking afaiac...

Q8. Googleable. Who or what is a sabra?
A: A sabra is a native-born Israeli.
QM: Googleable was a red herring to throw you off your tracks. Maybe you should just have looked it up in your dictionary or encyclopaedia!!! ;-)
+I - Sabra liqueur is a famous chocolate liqueur from Israel (Hadn't known this)
+I - Sabra also seems to be the name of a mutant Israeli with superhuman powers in Marvel Comics (Courtesy Mayura). QM: The names of comic characters often go a long way in increasing your QQ (Quizzing Quotient).

Q9. Never mind your score in Queuriestu, but if you got an Apgar score of zero, what'd you probably be?
A: Dead or seriously unhealthy.
Apgar score is a rating given as an estimation of the health of a newborn baby. If you geta zero, you are, most probably, done for!
QM: When you google, google deep! - TJ

QX. Fill in the blank. Heaven (Christian):Pearly Gates:: Valhalla: _______ .
A: Valgrind
In Norse mythology, it is the name of the entrance to Valhalla.
+I: It is pronounced val- grinned, not grind
+I: It is a software tool on Linux, the documentation of which is where I picked this piece of trivia
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CURIOUSEST! - Enjoyable attempts
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rotary Club (QM: was expected)
A Jew who is a Mossad mole in hiding
Helen of Troy
Banquet Hall
European union
Master at wielding the sabre
Odin's arms
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SCORES (chronological, quiznetimal numbering)
----------------
1. Rajkamal Vasu - 5 (Good work on the anagram)
2. Dijo - 4 (Yeah, I have read the book)
3. Rajesh Raghavan - 3 (Enjoyable effort)
4. Anurag Singh - 3 (You got a point for the wild guess too!)
5. Bubbli - 5.5 (Attempted all the Qs, way to go! 0.5 for zoFo)
6. Varun Reddy - 4 (Newborn yes, but dead too. 3 separate overs)
7. Shashi Prakash - 5.5 (Didn't know about drink)
8. Rajesh Mohan - 5 (Klan)
9. Manu S Madhav - 2 (More attempts please)
X. Minhaj Alam - 5 (Nice to see you back)
Y. Prasanna Shankar - 4 (Two 0.5s in there)
Z. Santanu Dey - 4.5 ('e' comes before 'u' ;-)
A. Abhirup Ganguly - 3 (Good work on eunoia)
B. Himanshu Sapra - 1 (One on One)
C. Barb Rose Mayura- 5.5 (Thanx for all the extra info)
D. Prateek Vijayavargia - 5 (100% strike rate)
E. Prakash Swaminathan - 2 (Good working out, but two answers not specific enough)
F. Abid EH - 2 (Placements over?)
G. Mamatha Balasubramanian - 4 (Call it cues!)
H. Dinesh Krithivasan - 6.5 (Great show)
I. Srikanth - 2 (Two out of one!)
J. Samrat Sengupta - 3 (Missed shortest word)
K. Sushant Raut - 3.5 (Qurie :D Me2)
L. Nishad Manerikar - 2 (Good attempts)
M. PG G - 3 ( This line reads like a video file extension. Pray, expand ur name :-)
N. Shashwat Bhattacharya - 4 (It was not best ever figures for Australia, I could think of Shane Warne's best - 8 for 71)
O. Venkateshwar KR - 2.5 (Enjoyable as usual)
P. Ranjith Kumar - 5 (I picked up Apgar from you, remember? Back in Trivandrum?)

ASKQANCE 2007

2007-06-24T11:22:00.000+05:30

REVIEW
--------------
Arul Mani was the QM for this one. There were a couple of other quizzes organized on the same occasion which I did not attend. The prelims was decent enough and the finals were OK. Cannot recall much more, writing this after a gap of nearly 2 months now.

You can read more about the event here http://kqaquizzes.org/2007/07/05/kqa-xxiv-anniversary/

PERSONAL
---------------
Team: Past Blast Masters (Lloyd, Ramdas, Prasanth & TJ) DNQ by a longish margin.

TRIVIA BITES
-----------------
Lazarus gena
Date given - Gavrilo Princip Bridge
Mary Quant - Mini Cooper car, mini-skirt
French Somaliland - Djibouti
Ra I & II - Thor Heyerdahl expeditions
Multiskins
Baptism, Miracle at Cana, Magi - Theophanies
Castle of Otranto - Gothic literature
Binney & Smith => Crayola
Oracle of delphi - gases
General Tapioca vs Alcazar (Tintin) - Shown pic of tapioca and a castle
Bread fruit, Jack fruit
Rashomon - Japanese map with gates
Battle of Armageddon
Salt Castle - Salzburg
On the banks of Vistula - Warsaw
Liverbird
European capital outside Europe - 1816-1822 - Rio de Janeiro (of Portgual)

KQA Mahaquizzer 2007

2007-05-28T15:34:00.000+05:30

The Bangalore leg of the Mahaquizzer 2007 competition was organized by the KQA at the ITC campus on Sunday. The exam(!) was administered simultaneously in 9 other cities. It was, for the most part, a great set of questions. The general opinion it was much better than those in the previous editions.

There were 150 questions to answer in 90 minutes' time. Anustup Datta top-scored with 67 points for Bangalore. I hear the national top was 71 (in Chennai). The official results and answers will be put up on the KQA blog soon. Sreeram, my friend in Chennai scored 46, he told me. The topper in Kerala was Harikrishnan with 51.

It was an enjoyable outing for me, was writing anything resembling an examination after a gap of nearly 4 years! I managed to scored 34 points out of 150 (as per my count,the cursory in-situ evaluation put me at 30; the vagaries of evaluation!). After the unofficial results were announced, Praveen, Sai, Vivek and I headed to Mangalore Pearl, a restaurant in Fraser Town, for a pork-fest!

Kudos to the KQA for a job well done!

----------------------------------------------------
TRIVIA BYTES
(110/150, watch the KQA site for full detail E&OE)
----------------------------------------------------
* 1992 Bharat Rana sent by registered post - Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
* Fruit "song of the wolf" - Cantaloupe
* Greek for hatred and cold - Styx
* Camphiris, used to dye nails of mummies - Henna
* Popeye Bulge
* Impurity list 1881 - Ivory Soap
* Two word term coined in 90s book about sleep - Power Nap
* City of Angels soundtrack, Greek Rainbow - Iris
* Kumbha mela modern => Harsha Vardhana
* Obituary 1975 misquote Shakespeare - Hercule Poirot
* Banks list. - highest altitude ATM
* Adult reproductive stage - Imago
* Island listing - Galapagos
* Julius Caesar Burial. Inspiration for Roman history book - The Forum
* Plane Mosquito aviation company - De Havillan
* Jagmohan Mundra
* Spy - Nana Phadnawis
* Number of horses > number of people - Mongolia
* SI unit of charge Coulomb. CGS - Coulomb
* 1951 case. Somebody vs State of Madras - First Constitutional Amendment
* Samuel Rubin. Paris brothers - Faberge
* Stuff about pigs and fences! Erinaceous - Hedgehog
* Brazil rock formation - Pao de Pizugur
* Mnemonic to remember speed of light. How? - Using telephonic keypad
* Somebody - Indy500 founder
* Trained to catch fish - Cormorants
* 1851 book by inventor Elastic - Charles Goodyear
* John McDermot won the first. Dominated by Kenyans - Boston Marathon
* BOMIS, beard award - Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia
* Assistant of Robert Koch - Petri dish
* Sage curse Brahma not to be worshipped anywhere - Bhrigu
* Apple software to convert to Intel - Rosetta
* Uluru Ayers Rock
* Expulsion list. Missing two name - The Grimm Brothers
* Name inspired by "And Quiet Flows The Don" - Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hain
* First reality show - Candid Camera
* Only mineral to be directly consumed by humans - Rock salt (The only shocker!)
* Hypothetical landmass, Roman May 7,9,11 - Lemuria
* Ethnical classification of idiocy - trisomy of Chromosome 21 - Mongoloidism (Down's syndrome)
* Father son duo. Father => Country - Israel and Judah
* Plant response imitation of animal - Mimosa
* Heal-all, trifoliate and five-foliate = Ginseng
* Iranian capture of British soldiers. Look like - Mister Bean
* Hurakan
* Resident of Spain, highest civilian honour - Vishwanathan Anand
* Name of character - Godot
* 1988 Nobel Peace Prize - UN Peacekeeping Force
* Saka, Kollam etc out of 29 used in India- Calendar
* Debonair founder, Illustrated Weekly - Ashok Rao Gavi
* Manufacturer of golf-clubs and tennis racquets. All England sponsor - Yonex
* Pierre De Coubertin introduced. skills needed by soldier to escape - Modern Pentathlon
* Oldest in Pirelli calendar - Sophia Loren
* River in Himalaya, Karnataka, character in Matrix Reloaded (4) - Kali
* Fallen Soldier Robert Capa photo
* Complete - Gambia, Niger, Nigeria, Congo - Senegal (rivers too)
* Islamic earthquake, also late 80s Hindi movie - Zalzala
* Hong Kong star "what Hollywood aspires" - Jackie Chan
* First Indian woman historian - Gulbadan Begum
* Former Belgian Grand Prix, health location - Spa
* Only trophy with names of all winners and management. Everybody gets to keep - Stanley Cup
* Movie called US warfare against Iran - 300
* Hungarian scientist coined "chain reaction" ~= Geo Lillard
* brother of famous person. built platform nations - Ernest Hemingway
* Persepolis ruins
* Named after Japanese steaks - Kobe Bryant (My only real miss!)
* Duel description - Alexander Pushkin
* Sanam - Idol in Arabic, Majrooh Sultanpuri popularized
* Golden flower Chinese movie - Chrysanthemum
* Photography story - Great Wall Of China
* Norwegian for destruction - Lemming
* editor of Esquire 2004, to become smartest man - Read entire Britannica
* Building, blending etc - Cocktails
* Locarnot - place where seven treaties were signed
* Lingua franca
* Oxford Cambridge boat race
* Missing movie 1939 - Wizard Of Oz
* Lumbar puncture, name of movie - Spinal Tap
* Handheld camera pioneered by Elvis => series (first 1989) - MTV Unplugged
* How to play lyre brother - Mercury and Cadatius
* Australian dollar, main city, no capital - Nauru
* Coined by Desmond Tutu at end of apartheid - Rainbow Nation
* Pilomotor reflex, 62-book horror series - Goosebumps
* Legumes name and music band former name given - Black Eyed Peas
* Company identity something. Used seasonally in India, Africa (worldwide) - Election Ink
* Format wider than tabloid - Berliner
* Vishwesarayya - "useless" - Jog Falls
* Tuartara
* Updike poem No French movie without _______ - Depardieueu (I wrote an Eiffel-tower-view!)
* Description of game - Quoits
* US National Monuments founding story
* Tributary of Colorado - Gila
* Superiority, Satisfaction, Incongruity - Smiling
* White House Design
* Steven Soderbergh - 1986 rock documentary
* Largest plant seed- Double coconut
* Plaster of Paris
* Debut in Perfect Murder - Daughter of Saeed and Madhur Jaffrey
* Brief bio - Mohsin Hameed
* Newest Independent Caribbean - St. Kitts & Nevis
* 1935 Nobel, took on wife's name - Frederic Joliot-Curie
* Theodore Roosevelt first US prez out of country - Panama
* Capybara - eaten in Venezuela, fo hide elsewhere
* according to different myths - Fire
* Battle Royale movie based on - The Lord Of The Flies
* Actor debut in 1975 Kannada movie, never in mother-tongue - Rajni Kant
* Waverly by Walter Scott
* Daredevil needs a female - Frank Miller, Elektra
* Four Quarter - Inca
* Yellow fever nursery rhyme => Jack Be Nimble
* Egyptian god, ram head - Ammon
* Blue Stone Excrement - Spirulina

Queuriestu - I

2007-04-15T12:00:00.000+05:30

Queuriestu, was another series of quizzes that I ran on Quiznet. Not successful as the previous series "Queuriest", due to different reasons, but I think this was the tougher of the two. Running this series also helped me stay in touch. I was in quizzing wilderness from 2003 to 2006; this series helped me a lot.
-----------------------------------

Hi all!
Old habits die hard. The Quiznet (and quizzing) habit of mine was almost well-and-truly dead! But then the quizzing motherlode pointed the way to the Young World quiz (as a spectator) and that inspired the resurrection, the Quizzerrection! :-) Have also rediscovered my crossword habit...
I name this series as Queuriestu (2)- after my old series on Quiznet, the cluesy (and classy as well I hope :-) Queuriest which I ran around two years back. "Quizzerrection" was probably a better name for this series as I can't guarantee that this will be in the Queuriest vein; this may not be QueuriesTWO exactly. But then I thought about the possible problems with spam filters and the like . :-)
I will try my best to live up to the name. I also hope that I will be able to maintain the momentum and keep going.
Shoot in your attempts ASAP. Answers and scores next Friday (promise)
// (emoticon I invented for "bye-bye") :-)
luv
sonofdelphi
http://oraclique.blogspot.com

------------------------------
QUEURIESTU
We Can Work It Out
-------------------------------

Q1. Let's start off with an ungoogleable (or is it ungooglable?) one. Gimme one word that describes the following formation.
x-----------x
|-----------|
|-----x-----|
|-----------|
x-----------x
(Hope this displays correctly. Anyway, it's supposed to be a rectangle with 'x's indicating things at the corner and the centre.)
A:

Q2. If you google, hitting below the belt, I hope you'll go straight to the foul bowl! But where are ice-hockey players (puckers!) sent for committing fouls?
A:

Q3. Anti-democracy statement: Not everyone is equal. What does the abbreviation YMMV stand for?
A:

Q4. Very literal one. Why is Cape Three Points, in the Gulf of Guinea, Ghana known as the `land nearest nowhere'?
A:

Q5. Rumble In The .... You've all heard it. Who or what is a borborygmus?
A:

Q6. Current affairs. Watergate. What was Deep Throat's real name? Cryptic Potter Clue: Possibly Death Eater Nixon's response to Voldemort's call.
A:

Q7. A bland, boaring question. To kill which demon did Vishnu take the avatar of Varaha?
A:

Q8. Computer programming trivia. What does a quine do? Goto Q8 and print it.
A:

Q9. Filler question. What's Japanese for "single number"?
A:

Q10. Let's round it off with this one. Forever with chuckers, cricket was never a gentleman's game. Who invented over-arm bowling?
A:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANSWERS

hi
Sorry for the delay. The promise of Friday was a promise broken. I apologize.
Anyways, here are the scores and answers.
Next set when the when the next set comes.... ASAP... :-)
luv
sonofdelphi
http://oraclique.blogspot.com

------------------------------
QUEURIESTU - I
We Can Work It Out
-------------------------------
Q1. Let's start off with an ungoogleable (or is it ungooglable?) one. Gimme one word that describes the following formation.
x-----------x
|-----------|
|-----x-----|
|-----------|
x-----------x
(Hope this displays correctly. Anyway, it's supposed to be a rectangle with 'x's indicating things at the corner and the centre.)
A: Quincunx
An extremely cool word to know. Starts with a Q and ends with an X! Maybe I should have given that as a clue. But that would have made it googleable.
Does ungoogleable = unsolvable? And does ungoogleable mean unattemptable???? There was just one attempt at cracking this - pentagram by SM.

Q2. If you google, hitting below the belt, I hope you'll go straight to the foul bowl! But where are ice-hockey players (puckers!) sent for committing fouls?
A: Sin-Bin
This was the preferred answer. Have given points to "Penalty Box" also. When there is "foul bowl" in the question, sin-bin is the better answer.

Q3. Anti-democracy statement: Not everyone is equal. What does the abbreviation YMMV stand for?
A: Your Mileage May Vary
Had a lot of responses to this one! Was fun to read.

Q4. Very literal one. Why is Cape Three Points, in the Gulf of Guinea, Ghana known as the `land nearest nowhere'?
A: Because it is the land nearest a location in the sea which is at 0 latitude, 0 longitude AND 0 altitude.
Most of you missed the altitude part. Half points for those who missed that.

Q5. Rumble In The .... You've all heard it. Who or what is a borborygmus?
A: Stomach fills the blank. The sound made by gas and fluid moving through the intestines.
No who answers...

5. Q6. Current affairs. Watergate. What was Deep Throat's real name? Cryptic Potter Clue: Possibly Death Eater Nixon's response to Voldemort's call.
A: (W) Mark Felt.
If you are a Potterhead, you didn't need to get the newspapers to get this one. The followers of Voldemort (Death Eaters) feel a mark burning! Thus, Mark Felt!
Some of you tried guessing the first name (incorrectly), In a quiz, any quiz, it is better to be incomplete than incorrect. Haven't penalized though.

Q7. A bland, boaring question. To kill which demon did Vishnu take the avatar of Varaha?
A: Hiranyaksha
+I: Bali or Mahabali was killed by Vishnu in his avatar as Vamana.

Q8. Computer programming trivia. What does a quine do? Goto Q8 and print it.
A: A quine is a program that prints itself.
If you follow the instruction in the question, you would have printed the question itself. The goto part was a red herring (QM blooper actually); not really needed.

Q9. Filler question. What's Japanese for "single number"?
A: Sudoku
The clue was in....Filler! Leave no word unread!
I don't think sudoku can be a replacement for crosswords. With crosswords, you can learn a lot from the answers and improve your vocabulary, but there are no such advantages with sudoku. It's hit-or-miss. Sudoku is a good timekiller though and leaves you feeling intelligent!

Q10. Let's round it off with this one. Forever with chuckers, cricket was never a gentleman's game. Who invented over-arm bowling?
A: Christina Willes.
I've given points for slight variations as well. The story, though, is apocryphal - rather dubious.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CURIOUSEST! - Enjoyable attempts
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your movement is mainly in vain ;)
Not Greg Chappell
Eccentric? (x-centric)
You sail from there around the globe and reach the same place. nothing else in that latitude!
Pentagram
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

SCORES (chronological, quiznetimal numbering)
----------------
1. Sreeram - 4 (The Early Bird!)
2. Santanu Dey - 4 (Some half-points)
3. Rajesh Mohan - 1.5 (Yeah, I am the TKM guy)
4. Ranjith Kumar - 2.5 (You missed the altitude part)
5. Venkateswar KR - 5 (Superwittive effort as expected. You haven't changed one bit! :-) Thanks!)
6. Anirudh Batra - 1 (100% strike rate, but why don't you guess more?)
7. Anees Sekhar - 4 (Solid show)
8. Sushant Raut - 3.5 (Very enjoyable effort, Mr. X SentriK)
9. Vaibhav Devanathan - 3 (Almost missed ur answers because you left the numbers blank!)
X. Kumar Vaibhav - 9 (Superlative)
Y. Divya Kanal - 3.5 (.5 for omitting the term)
Z. Akshar Chandra - 3 (100% - bring down the percentage; more guesses please)
A. Abhishek Nigam - 1 (A sin-bin win!)
B. Anurag Singh - 4 (Fortune favours the guessers. Way to go, man!)
C. Sanjeev Mittal - 4 (Emphatic display. Was quine a guess? Superb)
D. Abid EH - 4 (Where are you now?)
E. Sandeep Unni - 4 (Good to see you back too!)
F. Abhishek D - 1 (Now you do know!)
G. Srikanth Madani - 1 (Great attempts. In the true spirit of quizzing)
H. Varun Reddy - 4 (Good effort)
I. Balasubramanian KA - 5 (Smooth sailing)
J. Mamatha Balasubramanian - (Hi there!)
K. Dijo - 1 (I Almost Missed It!)

MetaQuizziks 17th Anniversary Quiz

2007-03-31T13:29:00.000+05:30

Arul Mani and Mitesh Aggarwal conducted a quiz at the Daly Memorial Hall on the occasion of their team's (MetaQuizziks) 17 th anniversary (17th!). The quiz was open only to unseeded teams, the top 5 teams had to stay out, they were [quote] banned [unquote] from participating! More info at the KQA blog.

The quiz was very good - though Arul Mani seemed to be suffering from a love-quiz hangover; many Qs were of a scatological nature! Mitesh's set was top-notch, no complaints whatsoever. The prelims was a workable set.

It was an unsuccessful outing for my team this time around too, I will spare you the laments this time around though...mainly because I am writing this after a gap of one month! :-) The cutoff was 19; we (LC, RM, P and me as PASS) managed only 12. Vivek joined another team and managed to qualify.

TRIVIA TIDBITS
-----------------------------
(will be filled in soon, promise!)

Lao Me Thanda - KQA Love Quiz

2007-03-05T14:21:00.000+05:30

QM: Arul Mani
Date: 04 March, 2007
(writing this on 01 May,2007)

Though the title was a play on Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender", the quiz was more heavily oriented towards the physical rather than the spiritual aspects of love , and the questions were definitely not tender!

This was more of a sex -quiz than a love-quiz! The QM deserves a pat on the back for painstaking (was it?) research and excellent presentation. The prurient adolescent behind the bearded, hirsute exterior of Arul Mani shone through at times!... :-) ... the set of questions put on show was enriching, if nothing else.

JUICY TIDBITS
-------------------------------
(coming soon)

Ganesh Nayak Memorial Open 2007

2007-03-04T13:44:00.000+05:30

Jaidev Karunakaran conducted the last ranking quiz of the 2006-07 KQA season, the Ganash Nayak Memorial Open, at the Daly Memorial Hall today.

The quiz had more of a current affairs, newsy, factsy bias, a welcome change from the usual KQA trivial fare. But it suffered from bad execution; the QM was barely audible and when he was, the mumblings were of an incoherent nature. The initial buzz of the audience, undeniably and predictably, turned into the cacophony of hecklers at around the half-way point! Many of the questions were real snorters and were over the top for most people. On the plus side, however, there were a few gems and some with attitude also.

I also felt that the organizers should have actually taken the time out to really remember Ganesh Nayak; there was nothing whatsoever mentioned, at least nothing that I heard, about the person in whose memory this quiz was being organized.

As seems to be the trend nowadays, we (RM, LC, TJ and P) did not qualify :-(, but there were no regrets. The quiz goes down as an unqualified failure! :-( Actually, I'm beginning to think that I ought to change the name of this blog to Losers' Whine or something! Or maybe it's that I am more a Neville Cardus than a WG Grace! Or maybe that we must tweak our team a little bit.?

TRIVIA TIDBITS
(will fill in soon, not many though)

Under The Peepal Tree 2007 Open(s)

2007-02-25T22:42:00.000+05:30

RVCE organized two open quizzes today, at the Chinnaswamy Stadium's pavilion hall as part of their annual quiz fest, Under The Peepal Tree.

1) Audi Vidi Vici
QM: RV QuizCorp girl (don't know her name)
Audio Video Quiz open to all

2) Corporate Quiz (don't recall title)
QM: Avinash Mudaliar
General quiz, mixed corporates allowed

The prelims for the audio video quiz was pretty good but the final round devolved into a Simpsons quiz - there were way too many questions based on the Simpsons (especially), South Park and the like, mainly cartoons. And to top that, it was an insipid affair as well. The presentation skills of the QM left a lot to be desired. Thoroughly disappointed with the show, and feeling a bit hungry, I left in search of food, body-nourishment because neither soul nor mind were getting with the fare being served! Hence, don't know who won it.

Perhaps the organizers should have made better arrangements - there was no food available in the vicinity, finally managed a few bites only after sneaking in to the club area. (Coffee-biscuits were available, thanks for that but no real food, should have been thought of when holding an all-day event) And never forget basic things like the introduction of the QM and so on. And general note to QMs all over, do not assume that everybody knows you (somebody must do an intro) and everybody knows what you're talking about (don't skim/skip answers). Otherwise you alienate the audience, might as well do it over the net or something!

The corporate quiz was much better than the morning-debacle. The prelims set was well-rounded, though there were way too many sitters and did not really set the tone for the final round. The final round was of a different level than the prelims and many teams found the going really tough.

The final round saw an absent QM - Avinash Mudaliar hadn't turned up and was...as the organizers put it...on the way! One of the QuizCorp members (don't know his name) did substitute duty and did a fair job of it. The questions, as Avinash later said after he turned up, was made by the QuizCorp team and perhaps that was the explanation for the confident show by the youngster. It was a hard-core trivia quiz; it was evident that the question-setters had taken pains to not tread the biz-quiz path! (...biz-quiz..that's an oxymoron, isn't it?) The rounds were called For the Peepal, By The Peepal, From the Peepal and so on.

Avinash Mudaliar,dressed for the occasion, turned up half-way through the quiz and took over from the volunteer QM. He livened up the proceedings with his maverick touch - smart-ass comments and quips, haphazardly courting and baiting the audience with prizes and so on. There were a few incidents of arbitrariness and injustices - an on-the-fly conversion of a normal round into a buzzer round, arguments with one of the participants et cetera. But hey, it's all in the game.

SuMo Yet So Far (Swaminathan and team from Chennai) walked away with top honours and the winner's cheque.They tied for first-place and clinched the issue on the tie-breaker deservedly (they had suffered a lot of negatives in the buzzer round). There has not been a single quiz that I have been to and Swaminathan was present, that he has not ended up winning! The list now reads Landmark Bangalore (my awakening), ITC Bangalore, Odyssey Chennai.... should I be his fan or am I his lucky charm?...just kidding about the lucky charm part, serious about the fan part... ;-)

PERSONAL
---------------
For the A/V quiz, I had teamed up with Vivek, called ourselves "Our Duo, We Duo". Prasanth and Lloyd formed another team. (We had thought it was teams of 4) As it turned out, together we might have, but separately we didn't... qualify! We managed 7 or so, they managed 8 or so, and that too fairly disjoint sets. Throw in a few genuine misses and you've got an unbeatable DNQer's Whine! (DNQ=Did Not Qualify). Cut off was 12, I think.

Vivek abandoned ship for the afternoon quiz, as he wanted to attend the Crucible quiz which was also happening today - ditching us in favour of audience prizes and nostalgic kicks (he had won the 2006 edition). Team PASS's was very much a sinking ship today; Vivek made a wise choice. (Intended to self-deprecate ;-) I was hugely disappointed that we did not qualify for this one; the morning's failure did not qualify as a disappointment at all. Cut off was 16 or so, we managed only 12 out of 25.

TRIVIA TIDBITS
----------------------

(waiting for Prasanth to send in the transcripts, was so crestfallen and depressed that I could
not bring myself to take things down!)

RVCE QUIZ QUESTIONS :

(from Prasanth)

I am not including the AUDI VIDI VICI QUESTIONS.

1. Sequential connect : Visuals of DDLJ, KKHH, KHNH, ADITYA CHOPRA,KARAN JOHAR and NIKHIL ADVANI.

Ans. ADITYA CHOPRA( director of DDLJ, asst.director : KARAN JOHAR)

KARAN JOHAR(director of KKHH, asst . director: NIKHIL ADVANI)

NIKHIL ADVANI(director of KHNH)

2. Connect a movie clip and a pic of Russell Crowe.

Ans.The movie is THX 1138(as in the number plate of the car in the clip), the person standing beside the clar in the clip is Ron Howard and he directed ‘The Gladiator’ starring Russell Crowe. THX 1138 is the first movie of George Lucas.

3. Actor born in Jaunpur, U.P. Popular Bhojpuri actor. But earned nation wide fame for something else.

Ans. Ravi Kissen (Big Boss contestant)

4.Visual Connect : samosas, a pic of Lord Ganesha and a pic showing Arjun and Lord Krishna.

Ans.Things that were carried to space by Sunita Lynn Williams – Bhagwad Gita,samosas and a picture of Lord Ganesha

5.Id the voice featured in the audio clip.

Ans. Bianca Castafiore ( of Tin Tin fame) singing the ‘The Jewel Song’.

6. Some description which actually turned out to be J agdish Chandra Bose describing the electromagnetic wave.

7.some ads whose connection turned out to be Maggi

8.Who comes next in the series: Amitabh Bachan, pic of Eklavya(the real one), a pic of Dronacharya teaching the Pandavas,_______: Abhishek Bachan( whose upcoming movie is ‘Drona’).

9.Connect: One picture of EP-101 and Bruce Dickinson song.

Ans.EPSON( named after ‘son of EP-101’ later became Epson).Mascot of Bruce Dickinson’s band was called Epson.

10.Id the pic.(clue: connected to a style of music)

Ans. Calypso( greek myth)

11. ID the singers in the audio clip.

Ans.Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love

12. First seen in a movie with Tom Hanks in 2000.A short biopic was sold along with the movie’s DVD titled “ The life and death of a Hollywood extra “.

Ans.Wilson the volleyball

13.Connect visual pics of two ships.

Ans. They are “Black Pearl “ of Pirates in the Caribbean and “African Queen” of the movie of the same name. The connection is they are the movies named after attractions in Disney Land rides.

14.Identify the musical instrument.

Ans. Jalra

15. A question on Black dogs( something that takes u on a “high” )whisky: basically the funda is that ‘black dog ‘ is an euphemism for hallucination due to sleep deprivation caused in truckers.Stems from the fact that black dogs dart in front of the trucks causing a wreck.

16.Visual connect : A map showing Poland, an athlete in black and white and Santhi soundararajan.

Ans. Ewa Klobukowska is the Polish athlete in B&W. The only athlete known to have failed a femininity. She was ruled ineligible for the European Cup women's track and field competition in 1967.

And the same fate happened to Santhi.

17.ID the actor in the movie clip.

Ans. David Bowie playing Nikola Tesla.

18.ID the monument in the movie clip.

Ans. St. Mary’s Virus Memorial which is dedicated to the game of Ring –a –Roses(from the movie “V for Vendetta”).

19.Connect the two pics.

Ans. 1^ST pic : Mary Queen of Scots who loved the game of golf and is seen along with her “caddies”(origin of the term)

Second pic : King Henry VIII – He loved the sport of tennis and he had ball boys who used to pick up the ball and serve it to him.Thus arose the term “service” in tennis .

The connect: terms in modern day sports that were derived from royalties.

20.Some long passage about the drawing of lines: that was Cyril Radcliffe being responsible for drawing the actual lines of Partition.

21 the actor who comes next in the video clip( features some persons about to take a draw)

Ans. R.D.BURMAN who makes his first appearance in movies in Guru Dutt’s “Bhoot Bungla”.

22. Connect the “kuku kuku “ song from the movie Khal Nayak, a south Indian temple and a pic of Tipu Sultan.

Ans. The term “choli” takes its name from the Chola Dynasty who built that temple.(don’t know wat Tipu Sultan is doing here)

23.What is Steve Buscemi in Con Air referring to when he says this(music playing in the background) : "Define irony: a bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash."?

Ans. Lynyrd Skynyrd who met with a plane crash in1977.

24.Showed some pics of old Indian trains(including “FAIRY QUEEN”).

Ans.The term ‘express’ came into being.

25.Visual of a flower. In areas where the ground does not freeze, it can be a spectacular member of the summer garden. They like good drainage and grow well in a soil rich with organic matter. Some species are known as Spider Lilies.ID it and describe the funda behind it.

Ans.The flower is Hymenocallis and it is the foundation of the design for the Burj Dubai, U.A.E.

26. A visual coonect showing the Watergate Hotel and a the grid design of a car.

Ans. Computer Aided Designing – first building that used CAD in designing it.

27.Visuals of some tourist spots.What is the connection?

Ans. Sites that are included in the ” Ramayana trail “ tourism in Sri Lanka.

28.Connect the two comic pics of Asterix and Obelix.

Ans. The first pic pays tribute to GE and the second to Michelin.

29.Connect and ID the pics.

Ans. Naomi Watts, Sophie Loren, Lou Dhillon, Hillary Swank and Penelope Cruz. The connect is Pirelli Calendar – 2007.

30. Connect the visuals of two mountains.

Ans. Brands inspired by mountains. The Thumbs Up logo inspired by the first mountain and the design of Toblerone chocolate inspired by Mt.Matterhorn.

31.Connect the video and Sonic the HedgeHog.

Ans.The first video to be played on MTV and Sonic the HedgeHog is the mascot of Sega.The connect is VIACOM which owns these.(also Paramount).

32. Connect the pics and ID them.

Ans. A lightning bolt, a thunderbird , Electra ( greek myth) , sten gun, canon , and an emblem of lion capital criss-crossed by swords.The connect is Royal Enfield.

33.Some persons’ names along with certain names that they gave.

Ans. It was a contest to name the AsianPaints mascot which finally ended in the name Gattu.

34.Connect brands and footballers.

Ans. Cristiano Ronaldo- Pepe Jeans ; Ronaldinho-Lenovo ThinkPad ; Freddie Ljunberg – Calvin Klein

35.What was the 2006 “Brand of the year”?

Ans. The headbutt involving Zidane and Matterazzi.Zidane was wearing a jersey with adidas logo.

36Whatz the funda behind the company Hamburg Maxheimer and the FIFA WC 2006?

Ans.It is the insurance company that had insured the FIFA WC trophy.

Solus Rex 2007 & KQA Annual Movie Quiz 2007

2007-02-25T12:45:00.000+05:30

KQA organized two quizzes at the Daly Memorial Hall today -

1) Solus Rex finals
QM: Arul Mani

2) Annual Movie Quiz
QM: Madhav Nair

Did not attend as we had decided to go for RVCE's Under The Peepal Tree. Would be grateful to anyone who could fill me in with some random stuff like who won etc. Sound-bites of the questions would also be appreciated!

(From Sai, thank you!)

Th movie quiz was one of the best Ent quizzes I’ve ever seen. (It’s so easy to have fan-boy quiz when it’s a ent quiz) Either the Simpsons crap like we saw in the morning , or some comics ( like what me n my team would do ;) ) , or some death metal… but if there was ever a quiz which had the perfect mix of the kind of questions / type of films being questioned on , this was it. I’ve been unfortunately missing the movie quizzes conducted by Madhav Nair past two yrs.

Prelims were a bunch of excellent questions, ranging from all types of films starting with > a question on Metropolis being chosen for some UN archive > mandatory question on Hitchcock. > A movie called Westworld, which became the first feature film to use of computer digitized images. Actor & Dircteor – Ans:Yule Brynner & Michael Crichton!!!( Yule plays the role of robot which is spoof on his role in Magnificent seven)
> X & Y , two famed directors engaged in a public argument in 1960’s – Ans:Mrinal Sen & Satyajit Ray. >Dialogues from which film?: “The Godfather is the answer to any question. You're at war. " It's not personal it's business." Recite that to yourself every time you feel you're losing your nerve. What day of the week is it? "Maunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday." And the answer to your question is "Go to the mattresses." Ans: You ve got mail.> Indian actor acting as Zia Ul Haq in new film w/ Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts Ans: Om Puri .> An easy audio of Tarantino talking about dancing. > One of the songs of Kaala Pathhar , became the title of the next action flick of the same film-house, which was made 25 yrs later. Ans: Dhoom >Last scene of The Apartment. (Sitter). > Opening scene of Rashomon

Me n santosh missed the cutoff by few questions, but I don’t remember sitting in the audience and enjoying a quiz this much. (Plus we knocked off few coupons , so ended with the same rewards as that of most finalists. Muahahaha! !!)

Qualifiers : Mustafa , Watwo , Arul Mani (Lone Wolf!) , Dibyendu & Sohan, and couple of other teams ( whose names i m not aware of). What was very interesting was that there were many participants who I ve never seen at KQA( so called 'non-quizzers' , whatever that means ) . Shows the interest that a movie quiz generates ;). Won by Watwo ( Arun Hiregange & Anustup Duttta ).

-- Sai Ganesh

KQA Music Open & Ladies' Open 2007

2007-02-17T21:23:00.000+05:30

Two open quizzes were held today at Daly Memorial Hall by the KQA -

1) Annual Ladies' Open
QM: Arun Hiregange
(by "popular remand"[sic], as Arul Mani had put it in the announcement)

2) Annual Music Quiz
QM: Rajesh Meher & Arul Mani
(titled "Muzak to my ears")

The ladies' quiz was a slow starter, with not too many teams turning up. In the end, the organizers decided to start off with the four teams that were present - a couple of student-teams from RVCE, a team of older ladies, and another team. There was no elimination round. The QM Arun Hiregange's choice of questions was rather good I must say, most of them being workoutable, none smacking of chauvinistic trivalization and highly enjoyable. The girls were no match for the team of ladies, who emerged convincing victors by a long way. I think the RVCE team featuring Aditi finished second; they made some good, fun guesses.

The inside joke for the day was: Kiran Vijayakumar scored in the ladies' quiz! ;-)

The annual music quiz did not draw too many participants either. Perhaps one of the reasons for this was that it was a Saturday and many companies were working (many declaring it a compensatory working day because of the Karnataka bandh on Monday). The QMs decided to start off the finals with the teams that were present (that was the order of the day!). Latecomers had to sit it out in the audience. I teamed up with Arun Hiregange for this one; both of us were casual floaters with no plans to participate actually! We still performed creditably though, finishing second-last I think.

One of the twists in the format was a round where the teams were paired up with each other (based on their standings at the beginning of that round, top with bottom and so on). Teams had to "buzz" (shout) for the question if they thought their partner team knew the answer. Signalling was allowed. If the team then answered correctly, both teams would get points otherwise both teams would get negatives. This is a cool idea (for casual quizzes at least) to ensure less variance in scores. I would call this concept "Tag Along"; I forget what the QMs had named it.

Due to mis-signalling, our partner team (the two guys with thick specs, one really tall, one normal height,don't know their names, somebody please fill in) tagged us for a connect Q. Inner Circle's Games People Play and Kula Shaker's Hush had been played. My nod of recognition was mistaken for knowledge of the answer! But in an epiphanic rush, I don't know from where, the correct answer - Joe South - just rolled off my tongue!

After Rajesh Meher handed over proceedings to Arul, there was (as expected?) a long stretch of unanswered questions. When a team finally broke the ice, all of us (including the audience) clapped!

The quiz ended off with a mammoth A-to-Z (well, nearly!) substitute-for question. We based our attempt on Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon album (what with Roger Waters coming and all you see) but were utterly wrong. It turned out to be the flavour of the season, the Beatles' Sergeant Peppers' Lonely Hearts Club Band!!! Arul Mani has the last laugh on Sergeant Pepper! We scored a creditable '0' on that one, having been thrown off track by a clue about a song based on noises in a barn (==>Animals). Sai & partner won the quiz, pipping Thejaswi Udupa's team and our dear "partner-team" at the post with a superlative crack of the A-to-Z Q.

To paraphrase and misquote Jack Sparrow: "Today will be remembered as the day that Arul Mani almost killed [the] Sergeant Pepper [meme]!". Thank god and Arul!

TRIVIA TIDBITS
(mainly from the Ladies' Open,
the Music Quiz question were largely un'note'able)
-----------------------------------------

(will be filled in soon)

Mulky Memorial Open 2007

2007-02-05T18:24:00.000+05:30

The second edition of the quiz held in memory of KQA's founder and longtime President, Wing Commander G.R. Mulky, who passed away in February 2006, was conducted by the newly-christened Das brothers (Dibyendu and Vinay) at the Canara Union hall yesterday.

The quiz was more fact-based and direct than most. The quiz was themed on India – every question had an India connection. All this added up to being a refreshing change for the quizzing populace. This does not mean, however, that there was a shortage of banal (and sometimes boring) trivia here either. (Please note that arcana is also an anagram of “canara”, the venue!) All in all, it was good fun and enjoyable, although the spread was not exactly delectable.

Almost all the teams found the going mostly tough both in the prelims (the cut-off was just 12/32) and in the final round. The end-scores of all the teams were between 50 and 100 (I think). The quiz was won by Thejaswi Udupa and team. A highlight was someone in the audience shouting Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers for one Q! :-)

The trivia-bites section of this report is somewhat sparse and especially error-filled because many questions had only anecdotal and contextual relevance and meaning, but also because the answers were not projected on-screen. (This is true even of the Unmaad 07 quiz) QMs have a moral (make that legal!) obligation to inform also. ;-)

PERSONAL

I teamed up with Prashanth, Lloyd and Sai for this one. The team-name we chose was….PASS! We managed to qualify this time…eighth and tied for seventh place with 54 points. It was a good team effort even though we were mostly, justifying our name, passing! Creative guesses include Ninyankodi while destructive guesses were “The Das Brothers band” and Shivalingam for crocodile.

I had a minor row with the QMs about a question in the prelims to which we had answered “Big Brother” instead of “Big Boss” even though the connection could have logically been worked out both ways. But as always the QM’s decision prevailed and because of that we only just about managed to scrape through.

PRELIMS

1. Audio (song) – Brett Lee w/Asha Bhosle
2. On Saraswati temple in South India – in news – site of proposed IIT
3. Ravindra Jain, if he could see, wished to see – KJ Yesudas
4. Visual – woman – maker of Ravana effigies
5. Dakshina Kashi, Kumbh Mela organised – T.Narsipur
6. Left at her peak in 1966 to London to study medicine – Rita Faria
7. Ferry across the river ______-- - Zuari
8. Climb films. Indian animator – Bhim Sen (drew boos!)
9. Description of struggle of actor. Extra in Hema Malini debut – Naseeruddin Shah
10. Book cover blanked out – Upamanyu Chatterji, Weight-Loss
11. Cadres ANSAR(under 30), IKHWAN(over 30) – SIMI
12. Princely state 1891 – British restored to same status. MK Priyambada premier – Manipur
13. Visual. Painting features – Vaikkom Muhammad Bashir
14. “A Dangerous Game Is About to begin” tagline. Launched a game also with audio CD, guiding robbers in bank robbery – Aankhein
15. Set up in 1935, Hilton-Young commission. First private, then state-owned – RBI
16. Racquet-sport couple – Chetan Baboor and Jwala Khubta
17. List of nonsensical, fun invention – Prof Shonku (Satyajit Ray character)
18. Tenth day of Muharram – Ashura (Hail Prashanth!)
19. Visual. Common. Dilip Kumar, Morarji Desai – Nishaan-e-Imtiaz
20. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay compete in Madras Provincial seat. First woman to do so. Where from? – Mangalore
21. Sanctuary mentioned by Kipling – Kanha National Park
22. ___’s Odoru Maharaj, Dancing Maharaja key in Indo-Japanese relations. Manmohan Singh address to Diet – Rajni Kant
23. Mahesh L Kunshwar - famous playwright, Holi (drew jovial booing)
24. Visual. Coach of Sriram Singh, finalist 800m in 76 Montreal Olympics – Illyas Bapwar
25. Route description. Guessable. World heritage site. Have to visit by day and return - Valley Of Flowers
26. Bangalore landmark. Lease ran out. Modified from 6000 to 6 lac per month – Windsor Manor
27. First work in Hindi, about king – Prithviraja Raso
28. Sport banned in Tamil Nadu – Jallikattu (Lloyd)
29. Sanjeev Bhaskar (CanNot Recall Question)
30. CNRQ
31. Video. Syriana starting sequence.
32. Movie clip. Bemisal

FINALS

Plain vanilla visuals (written)
1. Sarla Devi
2. CNRQ
3. Nimbus chief
4. Some CEO
5. CNRQ
6. CNRQ

Theme Guess: Scams
Urea (Uric cycle shown with formulae!), St.Kitts map, Bicycles, Sugar (looked like diamonds) and so on
(Pretty Creative)

Infinite Bounds

Only comet named after Indian. Wilson - ______ effect –
Harbhajan Singh & other sportspersons – DSPs in Punjab Police
Hussein-_____ correspondence – Macmahon
One less than a crore. Place – Punalkodi
Margadarshi. Modern-day Carnatic kutcheri format – Araikudy Ramanujam Iyengar
“Hole In The Wall” – computers for all
Robert Pirsig – came to BHU for Eastern Philosophy, Metaphysics of quality
Connect – Coru, Anand, band – British Steel (Missed Judas Priest band!)
Agarkar, fish-dishes – Bombay Duck (Missed declared sitter. So pressure :-) also because there were two dishes)
Hindu Kush = Slayer of Indians
Al Beruni – crater on the moon named after 10^th century Indian chronicler

Stage 2
Socotra – Dioskoriorou
Only four kinds listed. One believed extinct now - River dolphin
Yanam
Ghatam player – Sukanya Ramagopal
Manifestation of Egyptian god “Rock worms” – Crocodile
Saif in Arabic etc. English use same word as locals for this- Talwar
Fast fast slow slow – Foxtrot (we answered cha cha cha)

Theme: Classes of Indian Navy vessels (We cracked this, though we thought it was Indian navy ships. We vaguified well enough! ;-)

IIM-B Unmaad Open 2007

2007-02-04T16:30:00.000+05:30

IIM-B, as part of their annual cultural festival Unmaad, organized an open quiz contest at their campus today. The QMs were Thejaswi Udupa and his college team-mates. The prelims set was pretty cool but the final round was a major letdown. This was despite the prelims being tuned as a sneak pre-taste of the finals (42 questions , Beatles trivia, Escher etc) . There were cushions and not chairs for the qualifiers on stage: perhaps signifying that there were supposed to be no sitters! (Bad PJ TJ!)

It turned out to be, as my friend Sai puts it, a “fan-boy quiz” with not much trivia of lasting value and worth, peppered with some fun questions (all the same) fashioned from arcana about the quiz-masters’ cultural infatuations and hobbies. For example, many questions were themed around France, where one of the QMs, as he kept periodically reminding us, had “spent three months of his life”! It must be said also that some of these questions had the fun-factor.

It must be remembered that, to rephrase an adage, the formula of “all fun and no beef” makes the audience a dull one! It was clear that the QMs were having a lot of fun, enjoying themselves – sharing inside jokes (the Das brothers and the current “in-thing” in Bangalore quizzing circles, cover of the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper) with the on-stage teams and introducing everybody to their idols and other objects of their adoration. All this left the audience in the lurch, I felt.I am basing this judgment on what I saw of the quiz (I left around halfway through), so it might be a little unfair but this is what I felt.

Perhaps because there was another inter-collegiate quiz (IMS, big money) no college-teams made it to the final round. Because I left halfway through, I don’t know who won the quiz or about the final standings. Somebody please fill me in.

PERSONAL

My teammates were Lloyd, Rajesh Mohan and Sai Ganesh (who decided to team up with me at the venue). We called ourselves “Oraclique”! But we did not clear the prelims this time. We came real close though, earning ourselves an “honourable mention” from the QM. We lost out on the tie-breakers; we had only 0.5 on the starred questions in the prelims.

We might have sneaked through had I not made a last-minute, ill-advised change on my response “Fermat’s last theorem” to “Murphy’s Law” on a question about an equation. It was my partner Sai’s gut feeling(he couldn’t justify) against my gut feeling(with some justification). But such is life! It has happened to me before; when will I ever learn. Advice: always go with what can be justified better on a prelims Q! Lloyd said that he considered Biafra to be a miss.

(Self-note: The trip to IIM-B. Home to Marathahalli to campus! Taxi advice!)

PRELIMS

1. Word meaning master of own self. Also husband in Bengali – Swami

2. First used in 1910s for a baseball pitch – Jazz

3. Visual – map – non-fictional country – Biafra

4. 3 equations shown, what’s missing – Fermat’s last theorem

5. Video – Pat Boone covering Little Richard

6. Comic strip – about chick-picking Nash. – Richard Feynman

7. Visual. Comic characters from – Raj comics

8. Missing blank: _________, Magnum force etc – Dirty Harry

9. Visual: Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata (wild guess: wrote Zapatista)

10. Audio – singer died recently – Moksha (Forever never)

11. “No yacht was harmed in the making of the movie. It is the movie that is the shipwreck!” about - Guy Ritchie’s Swept Away

12. Posters: Jamaica Inn, Rebecca – Alfred Hitchcock, Daphne du Maurier (Cracked!)

13. Map – Identify city. American punk rocker – Gothenburg

14. Wives of Muruga (One is name of a Tamil Actress) – Valli & Devayani (Rajesh got Valli)

15. Ad campaign – acclaimed internationally not in India. Clues- Incredible India (miss)

16. Poem missing blanks – Kazakhstan, Borat

17. Connect Perfume, Miss England etc – Shilpa Shetty, Big Brother. (Big bother now! When will the BB mania stop???)

18. List 9 items. FR Spofforth etc – Laker, best bowling figures in Test innings

19. Visual: paintings Connect – Absinthe (Sai!)

20. Story named after another city. Chestnut. – Venezuela, Venice

21. Visuals connect – Gibraltar, London, Paris, Southampton – Ballad Of John & Yoko

22. St. Gobain order supplied 357 of them. Important events have happened here – Hall of Mirrors, Palace of Versailles (QM blooper)

23. First suggested by Thomas Jefferson for Parisians to wake up earlier. Color coded map –Daylight Saving Time

24. Laxmikant Pyarelal not inspired. Decide to leave studio. Chat inspired son – Accha To Hum Chalthe Hai (Rajesh magic!)

25. Visual. Subject of controversy between two countries when lease expired. 1971. – Jim Morrison’s grave

26. Long silences of Parisian beauty => Dumb blonde (Should have worked out :()

27. Listing. Sudden drop in 1939 – Lou Gehrig’s batting averages

28. Average age:45, 16% outsiders (or reverse?), 47% from neighbor, official language also lone neighbour’s – Monaco

29. Visual sitter – Kiran Desai

30. Visual – Hugo Chavez

31. Still from movie – Ghost Rider

32. Visual connect – James Joyce, grave – Black Dahlia

33. Visual – Akbar and – Matt Groening (Sai. Would have banged my head!)

34. Visuals- house , “This is where the original soil…” – Joan Of Arc

35. Velasquez painter

36. Visual – self-portrait of artist from – Art Spiegelman

37. Tulus Dothrek??

38. Location. Story. What? - Jaipur litfest

39. Visual – MC Escher

40. Word origin story. Word first, acronym later – Backronym

41. Audio – Van Morrison Astel week

42. Crimean war connect. (We wrote Last Samurai)

FINALS

Lateral round of 5 visuals – Theme Old names of bands

1. Tradewinds – Styx

2. Soft White Underbelly – Blue Oyster Cult

3. Roundabout – Deep Purple

4. The Mega death – Pink Floyd

5. Earth – Black Sabbath

6. Quarrymen – Beatles

Infinite bounds

1. Sculpture in Perth Triangle – Penrose triangle

2. Michael Steele bassist of band inspired from Elvis grave – Eternal Flame, Bangles

3. East side gallery. World’s largest open air art gallery on – Berlin Wall

4. Rodgers & Hammerstein concentrated on King & I for 1956 Oscars. Also Carousel and Oklahoma in that year, neglected. But Carousel runaway hit song – “You Will Never Walk Alone”, theme song of many football teams

5. Missing picture in series – Husbands of Elizabeth Taylor – Richard Burton

6. A-B 1968 “wasn’t dead and that he hadn’t gone anywhere” 1999 saying at A’s death – Joe Di Maggio, Paul Simon, Mrs. Robinson

7. Visuals. Cerberus, Orpheus charmed – Tribute in literature – Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s stone

8. Oct 14, 1937. Caswell “ Do I have to watch this ___ grow”. Overheard and Stanley Woodward coined => Ivy League

9. Words if used, no ads in gmail – Forms of die, dead etc

10. Visuals. Indian gurujis. Who was missing? Sergeant Pepper cover – Mahatma Gandhi

11. Robocop movie still of car with licence plate “6000 SUX” – Anti-ad by Ford against Pontiac 6000 their competitor

12. Audio. Genre of jazz – Prasnna, Raagabop

13. Website entitled “ The ___ ___ simulator” experiment. Best result “Flavius. Hence: home you idle” – Million monkeys with typewriter to produce Shakespeare

14. List of places and date, starting with Brest and ending in Brest, France – Clemencau ship places

15. Maps. Champagne, Cognac, Bourbon, Port => all give names to liquor only if grown there

16. Space captain poem – Lonely Planet

17. Visuals. Chandigarh, works of art – Le Corbusier connect

18. Monty Python clip. Only person other than 6 to be co-credited. Later influenced – bureaucraticness of Vogons in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

19. Character in South Park – “Token Black”, introduced for the sake of having a black

20. Hell’s Angels, Howard Hughes

21. Connect. Supreme, Robbie Williams video. Inspired by ____. Roman Polanski – directed . Visuals of all of them

22. Connect. Jules Verne pic. Back To The Future guy – sons named Jules and Verne

23. Audio: Norwegian wood covered by Cornershop

24. Bar in Switzerland – Geiger bars by HR Geiger

25. Dexter’s lab. Car Mock-5 based on – Mach 5

26. Poison song audio. Visual of two musicians. => Eagles Of Death Metal (a band!)

27. Baranna, Kannada movie

28. Visuals. Lego-theme parks.

(This is where I got out!)

Odyssey Open 2007, Chennai - Finals

2007-01-30T13:27:00.000+05:30

The final round of the Odyssey Open 2007 was, as I had mentioned earlier in my prelims post, a treat to savour. The questions were great and enjoyable. It lasted for a long, long time leaving the audience and the teams tired and exhausted but trivia-full! A couple of changes in the format were used –

i) Quiz Mountain – A sequence of questions (2,6, 12, 24 points). None of the teams maxed, though.

ii) Relative Grading in Written Round – Score for the Q depends on how many teams answered the same question correctly.

The general format was not infinite bounds(or is it infinite bounce?) but direct-indirect based round with all questions worth the same. I think this makes a lot of sense and is a lot fairer than infinite bounds–

a) Time is of the essence while cracking verbose questions. Infinite bounds disadvantages weaker teams unfairly. More on this later in a separate post.

b) Keeping track of rounds is easier.

Enough commentary, on to my transcript (very long, 4 pages!) of the session. Errors and omissions expected. Please fill in with comments if you were there and would like to add or correct something.

1. Four stories about Buddha – Connect – Four animals on the Sarnath stupa

2. Video clip from Lucky Number Slevin. “The Boss is like Anthony Dawson in From Russia With Love” Why? – Never appears in movie

3. Equal mix by weight of salt and ice – used as 0 by Gabriel Fahrenheit

4. QM

a. Youngest ever to Booker – Ben Okri. Youngest woman – Kiran Desai. Before – Arundhati Roy

b. 1992 Maastricht Treaty – European Union. Father of Euro.

c. Story – clues – worked as assistant in draper’s shop – organization => YMCA

5. Transatlantic flights. When fuel low, no option but to try to continue => “Point of no return”

6. Video – Rajni Kant fight scene from Baasha. Pic of old man. – Old man is Jack Foley. Foley artists are the ones who make “Dishoom dishoom” sounds!

7. International Society of Cryptozoology formed in early 1980s to investigate evidence of unverified species. Animal in emblem – Okapi

8. 4 feet 8 inches = Standard gauge. Used in 60% railways worldwide. Only Indian system to use this – Trams in Calcutta

(AQ) Other cities (used) to have tram systems - Chennai, Mumbai, Nasik

(AQ) MGR institution - to retail alcohol in TN state

9. Audio instrumental. Piece chosen for starting radio program. – Chopin’s Minute Waltz for Just A Minute

10. QM

a. Jackson Pollock (visual)

b. If dad is Boomer, mom is Flyer, kid => Joey (Kangaroos)

c. If H1-B for software, H1-A for => Nurses

11. Chalukyan conquest – relic of Paranjoth commander of Pallavas – Vaathapi Ganapathi (Muthuswami Dikshithar)

12. Visual of person from three angles. (Three musketeers?) Also of statue. Story? – Van Dyke drew all these because king wanted statue made and couldn’t to go to sculptor! King Charles I???

13. QM

a. WICB logo (West Indies Cricket Board)

b. Eclipse – A piece for = original Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon

c. My fair lady clip – Bow Bells – Had to be born within earshot of these bells to be called Cockney

14. Mail order seed catalogues. Used to contain stupid jokes. => Corny jokes

15. Gordon 1849 established store = Peter Orr & Sons (Local shop)

16. Bahama helped by American Prohibition, repealed-> stagnation. Similarly helped by American political event of 60s – Bay of Pigs, alternative to Cuba for tourism

Buzzer round

1. Land of coconuts – Kerala

2. Drink – Italian for gypsies – Zingaro

3. 1/16 of teaspoon – Dash

4. Kerouac described himself after trip as – “beat”

5. Purple people – Phoenicians, Creation of the world

(AQ) Deepika Padukone debut. More famous Padukone earlier – Guru Dutt also Padukone

(AQ) Turn your watch around to know GMT from IST. Mentioned in – Satanic Verses

17. Balloon story – name origin of Winnie the Pooh

18. Jaipal Singh captain of the 1928 Indian Olympic hockey gold team.Later MP. Demand in 1954 to create something rejected – but allowed recently – Jharkhand

19. Visual of birds. What’s missing? – Golf! Bogey, Ostrich – 4 under par, Condor – 5 under par

20. “Candlelight Blues” Jazz legend started radio in country – King Bhumibol Adulyadej

21. Two poems. Visual Thomas Bruce – Elgin Marbles

22. QM

a. Sea to Air To Land – one – US Navy SEALs

b. Finish fabric. French “ Gloves of Sweden” – Suede

c. Character visual – Mortiana from Ali Baba (was cracked by a little girl in audience)

23. Visual Branasi’s “Bird In Flight”. Jonathan Hayes product – Xbox-360

24. Connect. “My money went to Nigeria and all I got was lousy T-shirt!” Video: Pyar hua ikraar hua song clip. – 419 scam, movie Shree 420 – Cheating codes in India, Nigeria!

Buzzer Round 2

1. Mowgli first appeared

2. David Selznick $500 in Damned

3. Latin “waterfall”. Disease. – Cataract

4. Canada’s official entry into Oscar for Foreign – Deepa Mehta’s Water

5. Founding major league football – LA Galaxy (Beckham team)

(AQ) Albania Tehran

(AQ)Shh.. Perfume – Jade Goody

25. Tintin and Alphart – Scene description – villain pouring plastic over him. What happens next? – Nobody knows. Herge left incomplete

26. Paul Newman, Steve McQueen. Towering Inferno. Ego clash => Same number of dialogues etc. Something else also -> Diagonal billing in credits

27. Max von Laue, Jah(something) left Nobel medals with Bohr. Had to reapply for these. Why? – Stored in aqua regia to prevent slipping into Nazi hands, dissolved

28. Invented in NHL in Canada. Later in USA . Story. What? – Mexican wave

29. Florence Balcombe, love of Oscar Wilde married another Irish author. Film adaptation used without permission. Successfully sued. = Nosferatu, Bram Stoker

30. Covering for dish to avoid flies. Snack => Tapas

31. Ad =Baking Powder (visual) => A picture is worth a thousand words

32. QM

a. Checkpoints of Berlin Wall

b. SOWSPODES, US uses OWL-2 – Scrabble

c. Spanish word for chestnut. Ater its shape. Musical instrument – Castanet

Written round (Relative scoring)

1. 50 page pamphlet. Sold lots of copies. Thomas Jefferson. Other clues – Thomas Paine

2. Fil clip – offering money – Lew Wallace, Ben Hur author

3. Karora Singh Dhalliwala deman 2 lac ransom and also 30,000 troops to be garrisoned in Delhi – Tis Hazari

4. Unfurled Vande mataram flag in Stuttgart, German 100 years ago – Madam Bhikaji Cama

5. Identify missing guys – Father son pairs to have won Nobels

6. WH Davies – “What is this life full of care” poem. Autobiography of a _________ . Audio in background – Supertramp

7. Visual – Penguins known as – Groucho Marx penguins

8. Bandra Worli ceiling

33. United Fruit Company introduced bananas. Dirk browne Miss Chiquita character for ad campaign. Audio singing – “Don’t store bananas in refrigerator”, a lot of people were having problems!

34. QM

a. First introduced in 1997. Zimbabwe/England match – Duckworth Lewis

b. Before graduating from apprentice on ship, one had to tie the mast => Learning the ropes

c. Unusual choice for Sports Illustrated subscribers – whether to receive the swimsuit edition or not

35. Mark something millionaire. Clients AP, Reuters – Getty Images Jean Paul Getty’s grandson

36. Connect some visuals of art – All destroyed in WTC bombing

37. Classical Greek comedy. “alazon – “, “bomolochus – buffoon” third? – irony

38. Videos – two film clips. High Noon Fred Zinnemann, Rio Bravo Howard Hawk

39. USSR Svyatoslav Fyodorov developed process in 1970s which made him millionaire. Recently a modern version of his technique – LASIK

40. Visual. Thiruthani temple, Capitol Hill – Both 365 steps.

Buzzer Round 3

1. Uncle who got Eleanor married to FDR – Theodore Roosevelt

2. UN Security council smallest state – England (a team answered France)

3. Largest carnivore in Africa – Nile crocodile

4. 1000 wickets first – Shane Warne

5. Non borderd US states – Alaska, Hawaii

(AQ) Named for love-god disease - Venereal disease

(AQ) First 10 digits of e – Google ad for recruitment

41. QM

a. Momofoku Antu – Top Raman

b. Ted’s father, Mom 200 pounds. Some BS story – Dr. Seuss

42. Back cover of music album blanked out – Hard Rock Café

43. Herbert Baker’s new Grandstand at Lords. “Never has a stand so large held so few people.” – Father Time weathervane (very arbit question)

44. Tabla(visual). Song(audio) – Connection Amir Khusro , penned the lyrics, invented table by bifurcating a mridangam(??)

45. Indy 500 1911 winner Ray Harowcen no riding mechanic. Controversy. Introduced something – Rear view mirror, before mechanic used to tell anybody in back (I wanted to answer knew it but a team guessed!)

46. Hunti in 2002. Story. DNA samples – Sherbet Gul (Afghan girl on NGEO cover)

47. Edible item in India after African country (map shown) – Mozambique and musambi

48. Virgil described recipe for salad in Morefum. Visual of such a salad. Concept -=> E pluribus unum

(post completed 5 Feb,2007)

Odyssey Open 2007, Chennai - Prelims

2007-01-29T11:06:00.000+05:30

Here are the Q&A of the elimination round of the open quiz organized by Odyssey in Chennai on 26 January 2007. The QM was Diwakar Pingle. The set of questions for the prelims were very good indeed. The questions were relevant, trivial, informative, useful, endearing, done with a personal touch, all at the same time!

The venue was packed, both floors of it plus a mini hall(!), with participants. Yeah, like a tin of sardines! All hell broke loose just before the prelims stage, with the organizers not having a clue as to how to handle the mad rush of people. Thankfully, things calmed down and things improved by the time the on-stage round began.

The cut-off was around 24, I guess from my friend Sreeram, who had made it to the final rounds. The final round was a trivia-fest; it was Triwiali, with crackers and sparklers of questions. I will try to put up some of the questions here soon. Frankly, there is just too much stuff! A problem of plenty... The quiz lasted for more than 3 hours!

The quiz was won by Swami, VV Ramanan and teammate, who came back strongly from behind to trump the Bangalore teams. It was truly an inspired effort from them and the adrenaline could be smelled from far!

PRELIMS
--------------
1. Rabindranath sang this for the first time @ 1896 session of Congress. Published in Bangabandhu.
- Vande mataram
2. Peoples Action Party hasn't lost a single election since independence from Britain - Singapore
3. Which laboratory crosses an international boundary? - CERN
4. Visual - Rajapalayam dog
5. Video - Film dedicated to? - Steve Irwin (Ice Age 2??)
6. Audio: Bappi Lahiri singing
7. Mix of jazz, blues and gospel ==> Rock&Roll - R&B
8. Jan 25th. Scotland night. Ode To A ____ - Haggis
9. Retired in 1962. All records overhauled by Gavaskar ==> Sachin - Polly Umrigar
X. Visual - UNESCO World Heritage Site
Y. Audio - Theme song of ICC World Cup 2007
Z. Visual - cover of white mughal, william dalrymple - Bahadur Shah Zafar
A. Anand most winningest streak - Corus (Wijk Aan Zee)
B. Finnair recently launched Helsinki-Delhi. Brand ambassador - Santa Claus
C. Purandara mudra etc Thyagaraja mudra what? - Thyagaraja
D. Visual - Red shirt unveiling his own statue - James Brown
E. Audio - Raaga - Punnaraya varal
F. Recent Indian word added to OED Gujarati "without servitude" - Bindaas
G. Examples of - pangrams
H. Who visited which dictator, inspiring reforms - Friedman visited Pinochet
I. Remove two letters from country to get capital, add the same two letters to get capital - Brazil, Tunisia
J. Jefferson popularized. In Europe, was initially used for decorative purposes - Tomato, Potato
K. Visiting quiz in Delhi. Shocked to see people not knowing "mother of Rama" - Kausalya, Amar Chitra Katha Origin, Anant Pai
L. ___, ___, arub etc - Lakh, Crore
M. Original name changed after visiting ruler gave something near canal - Nehru, Orig name: Kaul
N. Story about small letters being more used. What terms? - Upper case, Lower case
O. Australian coat of arms - Kangaroo, Emu
P. Swahili word, Makonde word - Chikangunya, Dengue
Q. Like Moses, river parted for Indian myth - Krishna and Vasudeva
R. Visual: free running game - Parkour
S. (local) cookery book trivia - Samaithu Paar
T. (local) visual - mascot of Harlem Globetrotters (had recently visited Chennai)
U. Why ships' breadth 32.3m ? - Width of locks of Panama canal
(guessed Suez)
V. Duke of ___ story. Replace Amsterdam with ours! - York (New York name origin)

PERSONAL
--------------
I teamed up with a couple of guys from Chennai, Karthik Narayan and his friend Anand. All we actually had going for us was our team name, which I thought was pretty good: The 3 MUST GET BEERS! A play on The Three Musketeers, to make it bleedingly obvious! We made 17 points, I guess, which was definitely not good enough in an open quiz of this scale. Plainly put, I failed to qualify.

But the final round was worth the trip (I had come on the Shatabdi from Bangalore n the morning) just for the infotainment value. It was also good to meet up with some old friends like Sreeram and to make some new friends. All in all, I must say it was an enriching experience.

There was an impoverishing experience also though, in the morning. I got fleeced by an auto-rickshaw driver who dropped me off at the Museum instead of Music Academy (the venue), where I had asked to be dropped. It always happens to me in Chennai!

SciTech Open Quiz KQA Jan 2007

2007-01-14T14:15:00.000+05:30

REVIEW
The open science and technology quiz organized by the KQA on Saturday, January the 13th turned out to be a decent affair despite snome technical snafus. The QM was Avinash Thirumalai (of the team Thought Gang). The quiz was entirely written because something nasty had happened to the quiz's slides on the QM's laptop.

The questions were well-researched and very relevant. There were a few controversial and "subjective" questions as well. For a change, the questions were also well-framed - succinct and memorable.

It was question-setting the way it should be. The questions should never be verbose Wikipedia extracts with irrelevant stuff retained and relevant, useful stuff blanked out. Yesterday's was a refreshing change from the "Copy-Paste-From-Wiki-Blank-Out-Stuff-And-Ask" style of questioning that seems to be prevalent amongst QMs of the day. And details, if present in the question should aim to guide and not to obfuscate and mislead.

The highlight of the question-set was a fill-in-the-blanks poem questions which, if original (I think it was), highlights the imagination of the QM and also the effort which went into the framing of the questions.

The quiz was won by Mujib & Praveen, who closely edged out MQ and WALTW.

PERSONAL
I teamed up with E. Gopal, my teammate for technical quizzes from my college days, from San Francisco, who happened to be in Bangalore on the day . We called ourselves the Icons, a harkback to yesteryear which, sadly was not to be relived. Mujib, of the winning team, used to be the quiz-master for some of the technical quizzes that we as a team had participated - so in that way, it was pretty much nostalgic and (strangely) appropriate for us!

---------------------------------------------------------------

TRIVIA TIDBITS
---------------------

0. Identify A-N
(A poetic question!)

B an C found a beautiful spiral
While triplets mad D go the wrong way
K was D's favourite
The lack of which caused L
So, M fed his men cabbage
While sailing to beautiful N
float across H

E discovered the structure of F
Central to which is G
One of the last to be produced in H
Which gives its name to I
Next in abundance only to J
Which was found by A
Whose name graces the place where B and C worked.

(A dependency graph was also given! Work it out! Not giving the answers here. Possibly later, in a comment)

1. Technique perfected by Go Ben Hok in 1958. Voted Japanese invention of the century in a 2000 poll. - Instant Noodles
2.Term coined by physiologist Wilhelm Kuhne from Greek for "in yeast" - Enzyme
3.Established in 1980 by Holger ___, inventor of artificial kidney. Recognition in non-Nobel areas - Crafoord Prize
4.Biggest producer of methane. India, China - Cattle
5.Founded by Madhava in 14th century. Prominent members Parmeshwara, Achyuta Pisharati, Ahyuta Panikar - Kerala School Of Mathematics
6.First working model by Theodore Maiman - LASER
7.Designed to make DOS programmers switch to Win95, built on the concept of Exodus by Kinesoft Development. Set of APIs for games. - DirectX
8.Created by Jorge Cham. BS=BullShit, MS=More of the Same, PhD=Piled Higher and Deeper. - PhD Comics
9.Coined by Ernest Starling. From Greek for "set into motion" Injecting intestinal extracts into dogs -
Hormone
10. See sounds, Hears colours. Neurological condition - Synesthesia
11.Named after first director-general of CSIR. Prestigious award for Indian scientists - Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar
12.____ signed controversial agreement with Microsoft. More clues. - Novell
13.Connect Santorini in Crete, Olmecs in Mexico,Harappan civilisation,Phoenecian city of Gebal, the Minoan palace site of Phaistos, the Elamite civilisation in Iran and the city of Robonc in Hungary - Undeciphered scripts
14.Two elements named after stories of evil spirits (teaser clues) Copper and - Cobalt
15.Musical instruments acoustic superior because of syahi or karnai, a mix of rice flour, ferric oxide and starch - Tabla, Mridangam
16.Last Charles Davis and team successfully placed a parasitic plant in tree of life, problematic before - Rafflesia
17.Term referring to pre-announced software/hardware which fail to materialize. Duke Nukem 3 Forever - Vaporware
18.Scientific test inspired by party game called "The Imitation Game" - Turing Test
19."Physics do not need mysticism ,and Mystics do not need physics, but the world needs both." On John Horgan's list of 10 worst science books. - Tao Of Physics by Fritjof Capra
20.Prehistoric Map. Identify Region - Gondwanaland
(The other part is Laurasia)
21.Budget document per unit shown (around 1000$) - 100$ laptop
22.Half purple, half white. Petunias - RNA interference
23.Visual - Yangtze River dolphin
24. Graph of substance - Carbon-60
25. Visual showing cricket ball dynamics - Contrast Swing
(Not reverse swing!)
26.Tree Of Life. Centre is LUCA - Last Universal Common Ancestor
27.Visual in the news recently- Cisco Iphone
28.Graph - Bose-Einstein condensate
29.Space Odyssey theme in Simpsons clip, IBM documentary actually made by brothers - Powers Of Ten
30.Long video trailer about experiment - Large Hadron Collider Experiment
31.Heated to 446F. Smells emerged- Chocolate
32.___ drive in Arthur C. Clarked. 1975 Peace Prize - Andrei Sakharov
33.Name origin. Become one with lover - Hermaphrodite
34. Letter about DNA Helix - Rosalind Franklin
35.Movie Poster - An Inconvenient Truth (Al Gore)
36.Visual of space. Contrast. X-Ray, Optical - Dark Matter exists
37.Visual (Clue: 23) - David Hilbert
38.Visual. Woman asked to write her name, ends up writing husband's - Alzheimer's
39.Visual - Gregory Perelman, mathematician solved Poincare's conjecture, 2006 Fields Medal winner
40. ECG Sudarsan not getting Nobel
41. Connect : Fractals, Icon- Stephen Wolfram
42. Penziers and Wilson (not sure about names)- Cosmic Background Radiation
43. Place in Austria and deVries, Carl Corens, Eric von - Mendel

Vidyasagar Rajan Memorial Quiz 2007

2007-01-13T15:34:00.000+05:30

This was an intercollegiate quiz that was conducted on 13 January,2007. Arul Mani was the QM. IIM Bangalore ended up winning the contest, mostly on the strength of written rounds.

The standard of the questions was a tad too high for the teams to tackle. Most of the questions in the finals were unanswered by the teams or the audience. It was way over the top of the head, the quizzing equivalent of bowling bouncers at tailenders, who should be made to play the ball and get out! It was Infinite Bounce, well and truly!

To the QM's credit though, the standards of the prelims was also similar. The cut-off I think was very low indeed! But these questions would have been better played out in one of the KQA Opens, I would say. The Themed rounds and Stage-2s were toned down to appropriate levels of tough, even then there were still not too many takers!

It being an intercollegiate affair, I had gone just to watch the quiz... though nowadays usually it turns out that way in any case, even if I go to participate! ;-) I was the only pure spectator, the rest of the audience (there were only about 3 others) were members from teams that hadn't qualified. It is a shame that more of the teams didn't stay back and watch the quiz. Read Living To Fight Another Day for reasons why to do so. To address this issue, the QM had special audience rounds as well; he had even planned it as dividing the audience into teams! :-(

TRIVIA TIDBITS
---------------------
*Humulus lupulus - Hops, used in beer
*Grand Prix Internation ==> Golden Palm
*Losing finalist at Wimbledon in '54,'56,'70,'74 - Ken Rosewall
*Movie Poster - Garrincha
*Bio - PVR=Priya Village Roadshow
*Shona language, independence in 1980, name-change - Zimbabwe
*Logo, sort of like a spade cavity in a disc - World Heritage Site
*RayBan sold to Italian company in 1999
*Story - L'Oreal
*Brain Contrast Map - London taxidrivers
*Visual, one died recently - Hanna and Barbera
*Audio - You're Pitiful James Blunt parody
*Cartoon. Superman Is It Kryptonite? - Zidane headbutt
*Amelie movie
*Turkenbashi, Miyazo
*Audience Stage 2 - AR Rahman songs
*HarleQuin Great Dane - when a Great Dane has spots
*Unknown author piece extract, identify - My Pet Goat
*Yours Mine and Ours, last film she made - Lucille Ball
*Imegaphone album cover - Anagram of Imogen Heap, the artist
*"Don't let no one beat you no more" - Kosovo
*Philip Pullman's Dark Material Trilogy
*Two audios - Written by Founder of Arlantic Records passed away
*Vir Sanghvi Anthology
*"Flight Of The Brickbats"
*Sting's new album - Songs From The Labyrinth
*Arthur Okun calculate index using unemployment and inflation. Used by Republicans to eject Carter - Misery Index
*Sesame Street character Oscar Grouch ==> inspiration for Artemis Fowl character
*Last appearance in Woman called Golda, Oscars for Gaslight(44) and Anastasia(56) - Ingrid Bergman
*Sea-side structure built all over England for Napoleon attacks - opening sequence of Ulysses
*Viggo Mortensen portraying character created by - (forgot)
*Elly awards shaped like an elephant
*Haruki Murakami - Kafka On The Beach photo
*Once known as Asia Minor. Name comes from Greek for "east" - Anatolia
*Beer, River, City- Amstel
*Road to Wellville about - Kellogg
*Tree-dwelling nymphs, alternative name for King Cobra - Hamadryad
*Waistcoat, African capital, corporal equivalent rank in Israeli Defence - Rabat
*Curse of Capistrano first story - Zorro
*Kazakhstan, Borat
*Statue shown, Ulan Bator = Red Hero
*Eaters Of The Dead - version of Beowulf
*Gulf of Mexico = Sea Of Cortes
*Peter Benchley was speechwriter

KQA January 2007 Open Quizzes

2007-01-07T16:02:00.000+05:30

BRIEF REVIEWS
----------------------
Two quizzes were conducted by the KQA at the Daly Memorial Hall, Bangalore on 7 January 2007. One was a general quiz while the other was a speciality quiz (the theme was "Maps")

1) At Las' (The Map Quiz)
QM: Arun Hiregange of WALTW and Arul Mani

2) Open Quiz
QM: Anustup Datta of WALTW

Both the quizzes were extremely intriguing. I would even go so far as to say that a Sunday afternoon could not have been better spent by a trivia-buff!

The map quiz was a written affair comprising of around 50 questions. Arul Mani and Appu shared QM-duty. The questions, expectedly, blended geography with an eclectic mix of topics while still retaining the "map focus". Even so, the unbeliever could justifiably claim that many were just normal trivia questions being passed on as map questions by just displaying a map on screen! Also, the blanking of some areas of text on the maps even in cases where they would only have helped as "workouter helpers" was somewhat dubious. And on some of the maps, more profound and less arbit questions could have been framed. But all in all, it was an excellent set of questions and a good show by the QMs.

The open quiz was conducted by the Derek O'Brien-crowned ;-) "Brain of Bangalore" Anustup Datta. The enthusiasm and diligence shown by the QM was contagious. The selection of questions was judicious; unanswered questions were few and far in between and when they were, were applauded for ingeniousness and uniqueness of perspective by everyone within hearing distance! The questions of the prelims, thankfully, had good correlation with the questions asked in the finals too. The standard of the questions was generally very good and pretty much uniform, though the odd sitter and "too-arbit"ter were also there.

The final round was a marathon by the master quizzer; it lasted for nearly 4 hours. In fact and jest, towards the end, when the QM needn't have said "Anyone in the audience?" for unanswered questions! (There was no "one" left or only one choice of one was possible ;-) Jokes apart, thank you Anustup for your wonderful and sincere effort at both enlightenment and entertainment!

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
-------------------------------
I participated in both the quizzes though my regular partners had backed out because of other commitments.

My partner for the Map Quiz was Dr.Krishnan who came up with more than a few strokes of brilliance during our fate-imposed collaboration. We scored only around 10 points on the entire set but there were more than a few near-misses. I am mostly to blame; I rue the fact that I haven't perused the mammoth geographical encyclopaedia that I purchased in 2005! :-)

For the general quiz, I teamed up with my erstwhile nemeses and rivals(for a brief time) from REC Calicut- Praveen, Vipin and Atul. We called ourselve Oomph, an abbreviation of the Sanskrit verse on Praveen's T-shirt. For a change :-), we managed to qualify and also placed sixth (I think) in the finals.

Excuse-time! None of us had had anything to eat the whole day and an excess of Food-For-Thought in place of Food-For-Body led to momentary blackouts. Any newbies reading this, really, it makes a difference; this has happened to me before also. Quizzing is a mind-sport and we need to be fit both mentally and physically to sustain high levels of focus and concentration. Self-note: Next time onwards, I have to make sure that I am better nourished for the quizzes that I attend...both ways! ( body... eat more! and perhaps more importantly, mind.. read more! ) ;-)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OPEN QUIZ
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRELIMS
--------------
1.Kajol sequence in KANK Rock & Roll Sonia - inspired by 1950s film Tum Sa Nahin Dekha
(miss,went with a Shammi kapoor film)
2. Barbarians - term comes from Greek, adopted by Romans - unintelligible sounds
(hit, sitter)
3.State animal of Sikkim - Ailures fulgens Why in news- Firefox
(Miss, Inspired attempt: Sleepycat software acquired by Oracle. ailure=>cat, animal is very lethargic)
4. Visual of ISKCON temple Bangalore
(miss)
5.Commissaires (police), pleureurs (criers), bisseurs (encorers), rieuers (laughers) == Claque (Professional applauders)
(miss, featured in Yaake quiz, should have got)
6.Started in '50s. Average 34-25-34 "The girl next door without any clothes on" == Playboy's Playmate of the month
(Went against hunch and missed, attempt Barbie)
7.Visual of Jan 2, 1928 issue of time - Charles Lindbergh, First TMoY
(Hit, another sitter)
8.Author about most famous creation - I have a feeling of having had too much to eat. Conan Doyle about Holmes
(Miss, Went with Disney about Donald)
9.Coptic text discovered by local peasants - Gnostic Gospels or Nag Hammadi library
(miss)
X.Visual of Red Umbrella - Citigroup HQ
(miss,Vipin's input lost in noise)
Y.Anthem composed by Joseph Haydn - used by Austria - Deutschland uber alles
(miss)
Z.Brief bio. Question about Tom Stoppard.
(miss)
A.Audio: Cliff Richards - Theme from a Dream ==> Pal Pal from Lage Raho Munnabhai
(hit, sitter)
B.Artist, son of tailor, brief bio = Auguste Renoir
(miss)
C.Film clip with blue umbrella = Ruskin Bond's Blue Umbrella
(miss)
D.Letter with dashes Dear ____ Swami = Graham Greene to RK Narayanan
(hit)
E.Visual - Dilmom Dilbert's mom
(miss, +I - Dilbert's dad is Dogbert)
F.brief tech/management bio, 8 people left in 1950s- William Shockley
(miss, wrote John Bardeen)
G.Ancient egyptians started, napoleon thought of continuing - Suez Canal
(miss)
H.Visual connect : Dead Man's Chest, KLM logo - Flying Dutchman
(miss, KLM didn't flash)
I.Poem snippet "In memory yet green" etc - Isaac Asimov
(hit, dug deep into recesses of memory!!)
J.When Mecca under fidels, Muslims prayed facing - Solomon temple, Al-Aqsa mosque, Jerusalem
(hit)
K.Map with 30 spots highlighted - NGEO Biodiversity Hotspots
(miss, went with tourism)
L.Monster hit 2002, now reappear with "Bloody Mary" single - Las Ketchup
(hit)
M.Only Pindar's house spared when rumours of Alexander's death surfaced
(hit)
N.Brief bio and funda about journal - Mc Graw, Hill
(miss, went with Prentice Hall)
O.Military system ==> Braille
(hit, sitter of the quiz)
P.ABCL talent-finds = Arshad Warsi, Chandrachur Singh
(hit)
Q.Song played, identify lyricist - Salman Rushdie, acoustic version of U2 Ground Beneath her Feet
(miss, too acoustic to recognize)
R.Changed name to claim lineage - Benjamin Disraeli
(hit)

FINALS
titled "The Revenge of The Baby SAT"
----------------------------------------------
The first round was a Multigroup Connect -
9 groups of 5 visuals each..
Theme was "...for dummies books"
TJ: Very lame and stupid. Unguessable. I would say this was the worst part of the quiz.
Jezebel, Mel Brooks, Dancer In The Dark - shot entirely digitally

Regular Rounds
*"Saurav's"= restaurant, "Tendulkar's"= restaurant. Lillees's and Thommo's = Beds reserved in Perth hospital
*Hat in Brokeback Mountain. From spanish for "gold" - Ten Galleon Hat
*Description of encounter in store - who met whom? - Eva Braun with Hitler
*85 functions. "No fish in the southern face of Himalayas" - Swiss army knife
*Video of Mediterranean - Tarantella dance, based on bite of Tarantula spider
*Peyton Place
*Chateau de Cheverney ==> Marlinspike Hall. "Search for identity" - Tintin, Herge
*"Killer" name of car in which Godse travelled.
*Peyton Place
*video.Casino royale, car accident scene - in Guinness Book for most number of rolls by a car
*Sporting term called "side" in England. Rest of the world = "English" snooker
*Anecdote about somebody's death. Both sides of the Atlantic mourned = Little Nel
*Audio, singing style why so- Kumar Gandharv, only one lung
*started because "no major sporting events to cover" = Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition
*Pause before continuing good=Zeigarnik effect ==> Cliffhanger plot device
*Asteroid named for its highly irregular orbit - Toutatis, protector of Asterix and compatriots
*First supporter for Salman Rushdie after fatwa - Orhan Parmuk
*Quarantine changed from 30 days to 40 days. Why? - Because Jesus spent 40 days in wilderness
(We scored on this. I didn't know this one but my answer "Because Jesus took 40 days for something" was accepted)
*Glen Burke baseball play, one of the first openly gay - invented the high-five!
*Beetle which fetches a lot of money - named after Hitler
(I tried: Beetle after which Volkswagen's Beetle was named!)
*Isambard Kingdom Brunel
*Description of sequence of spots in Bombay - Shantaram Trail
(Praveen said "Something to do with Shantaram". Accepted! Hazy answers seemed to be our way)
*Visual + description - Rajapalyam dog (Was too easy)
*Risus sardonicus
*Why baker's dozen still 13? - 13 gets the best packing ratio, while baking in rectangular
*Descriptive. last screenwriter hired by etc = Gore Vidal, Ben Hur
*Poem with title Saint _______ - Saint Maudlin
(I answered Saint Lachrymose!)
*Eris (Greek deity lawlessness)new "planet" which caused demotion of Pluto is appropriately named. Why? - Earlier named Xena, acted by Lucy Lawless
*Apple glass box in NY controversial - exact dimension Kaaba
*Impressionists, quakers (few more)... what's common - derogatory references which became their names
*"Turn on, tune in, dropout story - Timothy Leary, Marshall McLuhan
*Description of something starting. Chinese eating carrion. - SARS
*"Anyone who __, ___ or ____ this will " - Bramah safe challenge
*"Half the money I spend on ads is wasted..trouble is I don't know which half" Also associated with PGA - Joe Wanamaker
*Visual of hill in Ogden - Paramount Pictures logo
*Poem __ the butcher ___ the boy who buys beef etc - reference to West Port murders a la Noida
*Writing on the wall from Belshazar's feast, Indian ocean song - Aramaic
*Ripley's Believe it or not for most number educational institutions - Tonse Madhav Anant Pai
*Bob Dylan plagiarism
*PG Wodehouse. Psmith Journalist. Dialogue What followed? - "Elementary my dear Watson"
(I got this one out of the blue. Long evening=> blackout ==> Smoke-break==>Brain cells awoke)

Written round
Toponymous dystopia. places (shown in map) + description of word ==> places, words
5 sets of words and places (Forgot to note down. Can anyone fill me in?)
(Shamefully, we didn't score in this round! :-( I'd been upbeat on hearing the them)

The audio round was cancelled due to lack of time!

The final Theme round Stage 2.
The theme was people who had won Emmy and Oscar for the same role in Broadway and movie
*Tmesis = "abso-blooming-utely" audio from My Fair Lady. Another example, How-heinous-ever from Shakespeare Richard
*"The Subject was roses"
*Yul Brynner
*Fill in the 5 blanks - Thomas More, "A man for all seasons"
*Mel Brooks and Ann Bancroft in "Silent Movie"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MAP QUIZ
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Just putting up answers, hope they make sense. Will meaning-ize later. Check this space)
0 Chorinti - spinach leaves, region in Italy
1.Grand Chapo Region - conflict referred to in Tintin & Broken Ear
2.Route of Captain Cook
3.Tombs of Mughal Emperors
4.Jersey and New Jersey
5.India coded map - literacy
6.Regions shaded - Asterix comics camp named after
7.English speaking Central American country - Belize
8.Island - Mount Terror and so on - Ross Island, Antarctica
9.Blanked out region - Munchkin Country, Map Of Oz
X.Connect of leaves - India
Y.Dots - Shankaracharya Mutts
Z.Route of Lief Erikson
A.9th largest country - Kazakhstan
B.Pentecost Island - Origin of bungee jumping
C. Connect Orange Free State, Yellow River China etc - Colours
D.Aerial shot - Istanbul
E.Two lowest - Dead Sea, Sea Of Galilee
F.Route of Vasco da Gama
G.(Two islands) clue: think linear - International Date Line passes through these
H.Chihuahua region of Mexico
I.Routes of Marco Polo & Ibn Batuta
J.Challenger Deep
K.Map of Kashmir, missing dot - Vaishnodevi
L.Connect Hudson Bay and something else - actor - Rock Hudson
M.Sargasso Sea
N.Map of world in - Orwell's 1984
O.Thomas Hardy's Wessex
P.Mulholland Drive
Q.Lake Ujiji - Livingstone
R.Railroute shown identify two stations - Putney and Motley or something
S.Map of Europe imposed on Antarctica
(naughty, naughty question from Arul Mani. Q was "What's happening in this?")
T.European Union shaded. (Also includes French Guyana)
U.Route 66
V.Map, turtle - Cayman Islands
W.Two islands renamed for tourism - Alexander Selkirk and Robinson Crusoe
a. Senegal and Cape Verde - named after westmost point of Africa
b. Dominica, Christmas, Easter - named after days on which discovered. Dominica=Sunday
c. Beagle Channel - after HMS Beagle
d. Thomas (can't recall question)
e. Radio, tea, etc connect - Ceylon
f. Peter O'Toole, coffee etc connect - Arabia
g. Bhandarpur - clue was famous temple
h. Sites of Asian Games
i. Prester John (can't recall question)
j. Contrast maps - Tribal and non-tribal regions of Andaman
k. Map with arrows - Spread of Indo-European languages
l. Moses route
(My partner Dr.Krishnan cracked this!)
m. Andorra
n. Lake Chad
o. Kourou
p. Achamenid Empire
q. Limerick

Cover Stories

2006-12-24T22:36:00.000+05:30

Facts which I saw printed on the plastic carry-bags in which Landmark book store in Bangalore gives out stuff in!

* At the nearest point, Russia & America are less than 4 km apart.
* 5 piranha fish can chew up a horse and its rider in 7 minutes.
* The syllable OUGH can be pronounced in 9 different ways. `A rough, dough-faced thoughtful ploughman emerged from a slough to walk through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing.'
* A newborn Kangaroo is small enough to fit in a teaspoon.
* Hot water freezes quicker than cold water.
* Half the world's population has seen at least on James Bond movie.
* Earthworms have 5 heads.
* Nine out of every ten living things live in the ocean.
* Goethe could write only if he had an apple rotting on his desk.
* Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address was just 267 words.
* Eskimos use refrigerators to keep their food from freezing.
* Brazil, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand all have more cattle than people.
* If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
* The colour RED has been found to trigger the hunger reflex in humans. That is why most fast-food restaurants use the colour in their logo and decor.

KQA December 2006 Open Quizzes

2006-12-10T12:26:00.000+05:30

KQA dished out their monthly serving of quizzing on December 10, 2006. There were two open quizzes at Daly Hall -
1) Hubbubba - Quiz on Bangalore
QM: Arul Mani
2) The regular Open Quiz
QM: Members of the team "Yaake"

(I am writing this after one month; hence this post might be short on details.)

Hubbubba

The Bangalore quiz was a snorter - would have been really tough for a non-Bangalorean (I, wisely, chose to not participate :-)- was tough even for Bangaloreans. The quiz was quite entertaining all the same - with the usual dose of Arul Mani quips and shockingly relevant pieces of trivia about everyday Bangalore.

The range of the questions was quite astounding; there were 50 questions spanning different areas. The quiz was won by (I think) Thejaswi Udupa and partner with a whopping score of...I forget how much... The name Hubbubba was a take (and spoof) on the Bangalore Hubba (very much derided by the QM) that takes place every year.

Trivia tidbits picked up:
There is a Bangalore Square in the city of Minsk
Prabodh Chandra - Manna De used to stay here(?)
Esplanade, boulevard

Open Quiz
The open quiz by Team Yaake was a disappointment. The set of the questions for the prelims was of a very good standard but the the spread of questions for the finals was a big letdown, I would say. The final round was way too long, boring and somewhat repetitive. The questions were too much based around the QMs's special interests - mainly films and songs.

The hightlight of the quiz was the Stage 2 kinda question in the prelims based on the radio stations in Bangalore. The question drew oohs and aahs from the vast majority of those present. It was uncracked I think. It involved the identification of songs (Red Hot Chili Peppers ==> Radio Mirchi, House Of The Rising Sun ==> Soorya or something and so on. Somebody fill me in you can as I've forgotten)

The proportion of weighty trivia, literature, geography, history, politics, etc was too low in order to sustain interest. Even the onstage participants were taking more than the usual number of breaks in between! And yes... there is such a level as being "too trivial"! Some of the questions were set, as it seemed to me, not to be answered but as if to prove a point regarding superiority of knowledge.

Trivia tidbits picked up (finals only, misplaced my notes of the prelims):
polak - game in X-box ad
Dead Lesbian and the Fibrillating something - Scissor Sisters
Mistress Of Spices - Chitro Banerji
Names 911, Steps --> VH1 Return Of The Boyband
MJ Gopalan Trophy - Madras vs Sri Lanka. MJ Gopalan also bowled the first ball in Ranji trophy.
Holla, Mohalla - some funda about the meanings of these words
Comic strips shown - drawn by ??? - from the movie Unbreakable
Stage2 Connection question of a string of visuals - Satyajit Ray
Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy - old Phonetic alphabet - also names of nurses in MASH
Tudor Hall - residence of John Wilkes Booth - family of actors

Personal Experience
My teammates were Vivek and Pavan. We called ourselves "The Corporate Soldiers". We missed out on qualification (oh no, there he goes again!) by a whisker. But it was a very much improved performance - the misses were few, but there were also wild shots that compensated. I missed out on a question on the naming of Trainspotting but that was made up by an effort on an "I Shot Andy Warhol", a movie I hadn't even heard about but still ended up guessing! There were similar hits-and-misses from my teammates too.

But it was just as well that we did not qualify as we wouldn't have been great shakes onstage for the reasons mentioned above and because there was very little correlation between the prelims and the final round questions.

ITC ClientLogic Open 2006

2006-12-09T20:25:00.000+05:30

Report
----------
The ITC ClientLogic Open quiz happened today at the ITC campus in Cox Town, Bangalore. The QM for the day was Sutanu Mukherjee. The top eight teams made it to the final round after a written preliminary round which featured 40 questions and around 20 teams. The quiz was won by QED from Chennai with 102 points while WALTO (We Are Like This Only) finished a very close second on 98, in a near repeat of the Landmark Open.

The questions for the prelims were of very good standard barring three or four absolute sitters, recliners(!) if you may. The prelims did the job of elimination pretty well. My 50% rule for judging the quality of a preliminary round held good, with the standard of the questions in the finals also being on par with that of the questions asked in the finals. The quiz ended with a Stage 2 round, themed with questions about people featuring on the Beatles' Sergeant Peppers album.

The quiz was enjoyable even though it should have been rendered boring by the sheer length of the questions being asked in the final round. They were a wee bit too long and texty, way too long in fact. The questions should have been made crisper; a little bit more of effort should have been invested in the framing of the questions. Perhaps the QM should have taken a cue (a Q? ;-)) from my book, instead of bombarding everybody with insignificant detail after detail ?

I'd like to make a general comment about the carrying over of prelims' scores to the finals, . The points from the prelims were carried over into the finals in this quiz too. I think this is very fair, as it favours a "conquest for the best", and a quiz is very much about who is the best on the day. But, I also think the score is carried over into the finals must be in integral multiples of the value of a question in the final. How about a formula like:

Carried over score = (PrelimScore*ValueQuestionInFinal)/(PrelimsFinalWeightFactor).

(I will be writing more on this soon)

The ITC campus is very good indeed - green and clean. The quiz was held in the cafeteria/food-court, with the questions also being projected on to 4 screens. The atmosphere was very relaxed, and smoke-filled too (it being ITC and all, what else would you expect!)! Almost everybody was smoking a cigarette...the QM included, and that too, on stage! My friend informed me that in any ITC office worldwide, one was allowed to smoke whenever and anywhere. How about that?

Trivia Tidbits
--------------------
Richard Grossman - a minister in the British cabinet used to maintain diaries ==> Yes Minister
Diff readings of a chinese ideogram which entered into diff languages - ti and cha - for tea
Esperanto = Hopeful
Shape of a particular wine-glass after the left breast of Marie Antoinette/Madame Pompadour
Blind something band's album cover shown - two members of that band inspired the name Pink Floyd
Ribengmo - land of mountains or something - Chinese name for - Japan
Yakuza
Visual of city with factory on lake - Nokia
Farlane, member of the Syndicate wrote Ghost of the ____ ____ . == Hardy Boys
Origins of the name Britain and London - Aeneas's son Brutus, city he founded, New Troy or something
Yakuza
NCNS in BPO slang = No Call No Show
Max Yasgur - speaking at Woodstock video (We got this!)
Honoured with Tibetan award in June 2006 - Tintin
Montgomerie martini - 15:1 martin:vermouth
Mojo Priest album by - Steven Seagal
Flemencos - originally from the Americas
mafia
"There is only one ___ ____" - lady - Coco Chanel
Visual of Don Bradman with Babe Ruth

Personal
-------------
We called ourselves Quearthake, a play on "earthquake", this time around. Our team comprised of me, Lloyd Colopilly, Rajesh Mohan and Anoop Bhat. We got Anoop into our team at the venue; he didn't have any partners and we were one person short. Anoop, it turned out, was an old friend of Sutanu's and an erstwhile avid quizzer from Mumbai/IIM Calcutta. He proved to be a valuable addition to our team, coming up with important inputs and answers.

Quearthake didn't manage any great shakes this time either though. We did not cause any earthquakes though we nearly managed a small tremor; we failed to qualify by just a single point (We managed 16, the cutoff was 17 I heard). Does the margin really matter? Is it just binary - on stage/ not on stage? But I still managed to get an audience-prize.... Things are picking up... I hope! :-)

Landmark Open, Bangalore

2006-11-02T11:08:00.000+05:30

Report

The Bangalore leg of the Landmark Open Quiz happened yesterday. Derek O'Brien was the quiz-master. The questions were of pretty high quality, unlike what I had thought when I had heard who the QM was. Derek put up an excellent show, involving and entertaining the audience.

The only gripe was that there was no parity between the standards of the questions in the prelims and in the finals. I guess this is always the case in an open quiz, where there should be something for all the participants. Four of the eight teams that qualified did not score any points in the Finals! But the very best teams too qualified, to the credit of the prelims' question-setters.

The team which had topped the prelims Mustafa (Infosys) (with 32 out of 40!), and the only team with a lady member, lasted till the penultimate round of the finals. It was largely because of the points carried over from the prelims, they didn’t answer too many questions in the on-stage round.

QED from Chennai beat "We Are Like This (W)Only" from Bangalore in a nail-bitingly thrilling buzzer-round face-off. They came back from behind and surprised the seasoned and omniscient WALTO. It was a top-notch performance from Swami and friends! Congrats guys! They had won the Chennai leg as well.

Anustup Dutta of WALTO was "crowned" the Brain Of Bangalore though. Derek O'Brien, in a jovial coronation ceremony, crowned him with an "18-carat, fake-gem-studded, aluminium crown [sic]". There was even a maid-of-honor chosen from the audience!

In retrospect (it seemed fair at the time), the only controversial event in the finals was when Derek cancelled a question to which WALTO had given the correct answer after being passed and the next team had given an incorrect attempt. WALTO would have won if it had not been cancelled...and they had not gotten negatives in the buzzer rounds!!! As Sidhu would have said, "If there were no 'ifs' and 'buts', my aunt would have been my uncle!"

Winning the hearts of the quiz-master and the audience, but no points(!) for his wildly creative guesses, Avinash Mudaliar and his team, Memory Blank, got eliminated in the “Brain Of Bangalore” round. Just earlier, he had buzzed his team out from the mire of first stage elimination. He was asked to stop attempting buzzing by Derek because he had accumulated so many negatives!

The prizes were grand; the toppers won Landmark vouchers worth Rs.30, 000 and a trip to Bangkok. As is common fashion now, there were special prizes for best team name, for the best corporate team and for the best school team as well. In an informal audience vote for best team name, “Quizzingunya Symptoms Personified” beat out “Youtube or Metro” and “Know Or Never (thanks RN for reminding me)”. There were lots of audience prizes as well which were given not only for correct answers but for cheeky remarks as well!

Personal

I had also participated in the Landmark Open. My teammates were Lloyd and Rajesh Mohan. As seems to be the case nowadays, we did not qualify. A far cry from our heyday, sadly, but who knows or cares! :-)

The questions for the prelims were pretty simple really. But somehow, we seemed to mostly have lost the "gift" of shooting in the dark and finding the mark. Of course, encouragingly for us, there were quite a few brilliant flashes of clairvoyance as well. :-) If only we had been on stage… :-(

Trivia Tidbits picked up
(please confirm before use)

Lilith, mythological first wife of - Adam
India came fourth in football at the 1956 Olympics
1957 – Decimal coinage introduced
Statues of yakshas at RBI entrance – Guardians of Kubera’s palace
Swiss lake named after – Yash Chopra
Jorge Luis Borges called “Fight between two bald men over a comb” – Falklands War
Word coined in 90s after Clint Eastwood characters meaning “young, good-looking men who lack intelligence or experience – himbo
Canoe race in Andamans unique – Only race on sand (Answered by audience!)
Tapers,votives, pillars, tea lights, floating – types of – candles
Hooke’s law was published as an – anagram
Sushi Sashimi difference – Sushi served with rice, sashimi without
Victor Hugo called “Europe’s richest vagabond” – Alfred Nobel
Vienna anecdote describing Tagore as god, only thousand years older than what Michaelangelo had painted – Sigmund Freud
Skid lid = Helmet
January 1 – common birthday all horses in equestrian events
Finland only country to broadcast news in – Latin
Fastest in days to get to 1000 runs in Tests – Mike Hussey
Longest gap between ODI and test debut – Andrew Symonds Made test debut after 94 ODIs
Represented India for longest period in Davis Cup – Anand Amritraj
First US commemorative coin 1992 on non American – Christopher Columbus
AIR’s first broadcast was in language – Pushtu
Custer’s Last Stand only survivor – Comanche horse
Painting visual – Yusuf Arakkal
Compartment 2949, Feb 12 (no year), Headed to Triveni – Gandhi’s ashes

Queuriest - X

2006-06-21T16:38:00.000+05:30

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - X
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. Let's start at the very beginning, which is a very good place to start . What are Aretinian syllables?
*

2. Cryptic question worth a thousand words! Vietnam : Kim Phuc, Afghanistan: Sherbet Gul , Gujarat Riots : ________ ?
*

3. The name of which highly addictive substance means "acid-former"? Hint: The leader of the Chalcogens!
*

4. Netizens! Expand IAKI. (You'll probably say this after you find the answer! :-)
*

5. Perhaps not absolutely strange, but pretty strange all the same. What is common to the writers John H Watson, Eugene Pota and Kilgore Trout? (list by no means exhaustive)
*

6. Where would you find Guala Caps? No, no clooz!
*

7. Very unambiguous question actually. If aardvark is the first, what is the last?
*

8. Time to get really, really specific. In which video game did Mario make his debut?
*

9. Elementary question again. Which place has four elements named after it?
*

10. Sitter. In Alice In Wonderland, what is the name of Alice's cat?
*

11. Which drink gets its name from Dutch for `burnt wine'? It is, maybe, a label unknown.
*

12. Real scorcher in Santiago. What is measured in scoville units?
*

13. Question for old & young alike? If you underwent a rhytidectomy, what would be removed?
*

14. Hardly an original question. In advertising, what is a 'ripomatic'?
*

15. Matchbox labels: Phillumenist:: Penang lawyers: __________?
*

16. A bit arbit perhaps, but a chance for you to let your imagination run free. Where would you find "Miss Sibyl Thornton in her flowing nightie"?
*

17. Coda was a posthumous release of studio and live recordings of Led Zeppelin compiled by Jimmy Page in 1982. What is a 'coda'?
*

18. If Keralites speak Malayalam and Americans speak English, who speak? Ameslan?
*

19. Which African country gets its name from Greek for, you guessed it, Africa?
*

20. "Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!", whose last words?
*

---------------------------------
Try not. Do or do not.
There is no try - Yoda
--------------------------------

hi everybody!

welcome to the final episode of Queuriest.

20 questions for you to crack - more than the usual ten. Some are discards from previous episodes - stuff that could not be included, because they were similar to the Qs already asked etc. More questions, sitters galore means a chance for you to boost your tally...

not too many people sent in intros in response to the previous episode, do send them in if you haven't already done so...All I'd meant was that the letters should've a personal touch...Sometimes one wonders about the person behind the mail...and sometimes, whether there IS a person! (answers only, terse, no comments)...perhaps you could tell me something about urself - about ur favourite bits of trivia/info, questions u've enjoyed , general comments....anything!

Answers in 10 days time.

What's YOUR score?

luv
thomas

ANSWERS
---------------

hi folks!

21 responses in all = the floccinaucinihilipilification (though redundantly) of an already trivial Queuriest? really, was expecting more responses :-( ...but used that word in context at last! :-)

=> new Q : What do Walter Scott and I have in common?

A lot of you wrote in saying maybe I owe you an intro as well. But I believe most of you know me fairly well by now - as to how my mind works, my interests - evident from the way I frame the questions. (Nothing defines one so well as the questions one asks! - TJ ) There have even been complaints that I was getting too predictable! I am, but an open book! ...and because it is open, some details must be missing! (some things can be judged only from the cover! ;-)

Well, the name is Thomas Jacob and I am a final year student of Computer Engineering from Kerala. My interests are reading (favourite authors: Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut,Garrison Keillor), writing (poems,pieces,stories- humour mostly, any one of you care to get a sample, just write in! ), crossword puzzles (you guessed it!) and rock music(fav artists - Tom Petty, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Pearl Jam, Eagles)

Enough about me. Go read the answers!

This is The End of Queuriest - where quizzing met crosswords.

luv
thomas

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - X
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. Let's start at the very beginning, which is a very good place to start . What are Aretinian syllables?
* Aretinian syllables are the do, re, mi . . . notes. Let's start at the very beginning is from the Sound Of Music song that goes Doe a deer,... The most widely answered question of the quiz. ( = When you know the words to search, you can find 'most anything? ;-) Almost everybody told me that these referred to Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, used by Guido d'Arezzo in the eleventh century for his system of hexachords AND that ut later became do AND that hexachord means scale of six notes! So that just HAS to be authentic information! ;-)

2. Cryptic question worth a thousand words! Vietnam : Kim Phuc, Afghanistan: Sherbet Gul , Gujarat Riots : ________ ?
* Nasiruddin Ansari
Many of you managed to work out what the question was, only a couple, got the name of the crying man, whose photograph appeared in most of the newspapers, after the riots. Kim Phuc is associated with the Vietnam war and Sherbet Gul was the `Unknown Afghan' girl on National Geographic. These were photographs which defined the crises/situations...Most probably you would have seen these photos.
+I: Nick Ut photographed Kim Phuc
+I: Steve McCurry took Sherbet Gul's
don't know about Ansari's. fill me in, anyone?

3. The name of which highly addictive substance means "acid-former"? Hint: The leader of the Chalcogens!
* Oxygen
Who said nicotine and heroin are the only addictive substances?! ;-)
+I:Chalcogen refers to the group of the periodic table to which oxygen belongs. Just like the Halogens..

4. Netizens! Expand IAKI. (You'll probably say this after you find the answer! :-)
* I Already Know/Knew It
There! You're saying it now... ;-)

5. Perhaps not absolutely strange, but pretty strange all the same. What is common to the writers John H Watson, Eugene Pota and Kilgore Trout? (list by no means exhaustive)
* These are all fictional writers.
John H Watson is our dear Dr. Watson from Doyle
Eugene Pota - created by Joseph Heller
Kilgore Trout - features in Kurt Vonnegut's novels

6. Where would you find Guala Caps? No, no clooz!
* On Liquor bottles
RP: That irritating piece of plastic that restricts the quick flow of booze & hence makes 1 drink slower (5 sec.s downtime!). Supposedly to prevent the adulteration of alcohol.
KSJ: It's the tamper proof, unidirectional valve cap on Booze bottles
7. Very unambiguous question actually. If aardvark is the first, what is the last?
* Zoril, a kind of African weasel, is the last animal in the dictionary. Also called zorilla.
I was not asking for the last word in the dictionary, as `a' is the first word in the dictionary, not 'aardvark'. Some of you mentioned that I could've been asking for the last topic in an encyclopaedia. Again, same arguement holds, plus 'Aachen' comes before `aardvark'. Aardvark is just the first animal in the dictionary. So it was, as I said, unambiguous!
+I: Last word in most dictionaries: Zymurgy
+I: There is an animal called zebu- which is a sort of domesticated ox used chiefly as a draft animal in _India_? and east Asia!

8. Time to get really, really specific. In which video game did Mario make his debut?
* Donkey Kong
Not too many takers on this one.

9. Elementary question again. Which place has four elements named after it?
* Ytterby.
teaser for you: Can you name the four elements? ytterbium and yttrium are the obvious ones but what are the other ones? Clue for starters, they do not start with Y!

10. Sitter. In Alice In Wonderland, what is the name of Alice's cat?
* Dinah
And no, the Cheshire Cat did not belong to Alice - it was a VERY independent sort of cat! ;-)
One of you mentioned that the cat Dinah features only in Through The Looking Glass. But I believe it does appear in the first one also...

11. Which drink gets its name from Dutch for `burnt wine'? It is, maybe, a label unknown.
* Brandy
Could've been worked out from the clue : Brand Y
+I: Dutch word: brandewijn

12. Real scorcher in Santiago. What is measured in scoville units?
* The degree of hotness of chillies
+I: measure of capsaicin (the chemical in hot peppers that is responsible for their heat).

13. Question for old & young alike? If you underwent a rhytidectomy, what would be removed?
* Rhytidectomy is an operation to remove wrinkles and other signs of ageing from your face. Old becoming like the young...

14. Hardly an original question. In advertising, what is a 'ripomatic'?
* When you put together a new version of an ad by piecing together clips of the same ad- for eg, to create a shorter version of the same ad.

15. Matchbox labels: Phillumenist:: Penang lawyers: __________?
* Rabdophilist
The toughie of the quiz. Only a couple or so came anywhere close - cracking the Penang lawyer part. Penang lawyer is a term for a walking stick/canes. A collector of walking sticks is called a rhabdophilist. Yeah, I agree with you, that was a real twisted one! And why were there no clues?!...

16. A bit arbit perhaps, but a chance for you to let your imagination run free. Where would you find "Miss Sibyl Thornton in her flowing nightie"?
* On a Rolls Royce.
It is the Rolls-Royce emblem variously known as the Silver Lady, or the Flying Lady, popularly called "Spirit of Ecstasy". Eleanor Thornton was the model on which the figure was based. Sibyl, I guess, was what Eleanor was called at home - the explanation for the Sibyl part.
Very few takers on this one.

17. Coda was a posthumous release of studio and live recordings of Led Zeppelin compiled by Jimmy Page in 1982. What is a 'coda'?
* Coda is the closing section of a musical composition.

18. If Keralites speak Malayalam and Americans speak English, who speak? Ameslan?
* Ameslan is sign-language used by the deaf/dumb people. That's what the question mark after the word speak was for! ;-) Speak? Ameslan?

19. Which African country gets its name from Greek for, you guessed it, Africa?
* Libya
One of you mentioned that it was actually Latin, but as far as I know it is Greek.

20. "Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!", whose last words?
* Karl Marx
(apocryphal, though famous) He said this, when asked by his housekeeper, eager for her 15 minutes, what his last words would be, when on his death-bed. What else could he have said! ;-)

---------------------------------
Try not. Do or do not.
There is no try - Yoda
--------------------------------

The scores (in chronological order)

1. Debashree Mitra - 8 (How'd ur quiz go?)
2. Rexy Joseph - 5 (King Of Quizzes!)
3. Rahul Pandey - 4 (california was a good guess)
4. Vijay Nidhi - 4.5 (some good tries in there boss)
5. Kunal Malhotra - 11 (nice, solid effort)
6. Rohaan Pereira - 11 (my regards to Cindy! ;-)
7. Ghevarghese Daniel - 7 (zorilla pretty cool ;-)
8. KS Jaishankar - 4.5 (good guessing)
9. Thejaswi Udupa - 12 (rocking hard!)
10. Shom Biswas - 6 (i did!)
11. Vijay Krishnan - 4 (100% hitrate)
12. Bhaskar Singh - 3 (Thornton was a real snorter though)
13. Kartick Suriamoorthy -14 (thanx for the tidbit)
14. Sandeep Unni - 12 (chase to be the Queuriest?)
15. Prasun Ramakrishnan - 7 (nice effort)
16. Sreeram - 7 (It's aardwolf.)
17. Venkateshwar K.R - 4 (Four pennies!)
18. Manish Chiddarwar - 3 (too bad it's not zephyr)
19. Syam Prasad - 7 (good show)
20. Mamatha Balasubramanian - 4 (thanx for tidbits)
21. Prithwiraj Mukherjee - 5 (enjoyable effort!)

--------STATS ------------explained-------------------------

Funnest! -
(well-phrased answers or just plain funny ones.)

I Almost Knew It on IAKI
All the 'dumb' Americans on Ameslan
Burndt Vijn on Brandy
All had professions of creators on Fictional Authors
what??...someone collects lawyers from Penang on Collector
-----------------------------------------

Ridiqulest! -
(answers that deviated from the real one so much, possibly good guesses (no insult intended), misled by clues - sometimes leaving me clueless!)

Female fortune-teller on Rolls Royce
Narendra Modi on Gujarat Riots
The Moon On Guala Caps
The Moon On Spirit Of Ecstasy (QM - what's this moon coming to?)

------------------------------------------
Guessest!-
(nice, educated guesses, good use of the clues, which, though wrong, are laudable)

Beer on Scoville units
Yucky on IAKI
Sun,California on Ytterby
Zymurgy on Zoril
Tunisia, Egypt on Libya
-----------------------------------------

* All questions except 15 were cracked
* TU & SU top the quiz with 12 points
* Average score :
-----------------------------------------------------------------

<<<<<>>>>>>>
Your performance throughout the series...
(in alphabetic order)

Abhinandan LN --- XXX7XXXXXX ==7
Abhishek Hariharan --- XX 2XXXXXXX ==2
Acharya Rajib --- XXXXX7XXXX == 7
Aishwariya V --- XX34XXXXXX ==7
Ajay Sahoo --- XXXX0XXXXX ==0
Amit De---XX5XXXXXXX == 5
Anand Sivashankar--- XXXXXX3XXX ==3
Ananya Deb--- XXX5.5X4XXXX ==9.5
Aniruddha Gupta---XXXXX7XXXX==7
Anish--- XXXX4.5XXXXX ==4.5
Ankur Jain--- 9X7X6.5XXX6X ==28.5
Anoop Radhakrishna--- XXXXXXXX5X ==5
Anshuman Mishra --- XX5XX5XXXX ==10
Arjun Siva --- XXXXXX49.5XX ==13.5
Arun Prashanth --- XXXXXX2XXX ==2
Aseem--- XX4XXXXXXX==4
Asish Koshy---XXXXX7XXXX ==7
Avik Chatterjee---XXXXX2XXXX ==2
Avinash Iyer---XXXXX3XXXX ==3
Avjit Chaudhuri---XXXXX7XXXX ==7
B. Sreeram---X465534427 ==40
Bharat Jayakumar---X042213X1X == 13
Bhaskar Singh---XX22X04.5XX3 ==11.5
Binoj George---7.5XXXXXXXXX ==7.5
Biswabijoy Sen---XX5X3X3X3X ==14
CoolDude9456---XXXXXXX1XX ==1
Debanjan Ghosh---XXX5XXXXXX ==5
Debashree Mitra---XX66.564343X ==32.5
Devilcat---XXXXX4XXXX ==4
Dhananjay Shettigar --- XX3.5XXXXXXX ==3.5
Dhiraj Ramakrishnan --- XX2XXXXXXX ==2
Dinesh Krithivasan --- XXX6.5X5.5XXXX ==12
Gaurav Lochan---XXXXXXXX2.5X ==2.5
Gautham Ravichander--- XX2XXXXXXX==2
Ghevarghese Daniel---XXXXXXXXX7 ==7
Girish Bhat---XXX3XXXXXX ==3
Harish J Prabhu---XX6XXXXXXX ==6
Husain Poonawala---XX40.5X1XXXX ==5.5
I___I 666---XXXXXX2XXX ==2
Ian Anderson---XXXXXX 8XXX ==8
Indraneel Sikdar---XXXXXX21XX ==3
Jaishankar KS---XXXXXXXXX4.5 ==4.5
Kamal---XXXXXX5XXX ==5
Kamal Rathi---65XXXXXXXX ==11
Karthik Ramgopal---XXXXXXXX8X ==8
Kartick Sriamoorthy---XXXXXXXXX14 ==14
Kasthuri---XX6.5XXXXXXX ==6.5
Kensy Joseph---XXXXX3X23X ==8
Kewl Kittein---XXXX2XXXXX ==2
Koushik Vedaraman---XXXXX5XXXX ==5
Krishna T---XX 1.5XXXXXXX ==1.5
KrisSriram---XXXXXX3XXX ==3
Kunal Malhotra---X4.5XX48X6511 ==38.5
Lahar Appaiah---XXXXX5XXXX ==5
Madhu M---XX 2XX2XXXX ==4
Mahesh M Nair---XXX5.57X5XXX ==17.5
Mamatha Balasubramaniam---XXX3 221.5X44 ==16.5
Manish Chiddarwar---XXXXXXXXX3 ==3
Minhaj Alam---XXXXXX2X2X ==4
Mohit Sud---XX 6.5XXXXXXX ==6.5
Naveed Mohammed---9X7XXXXXXX ==16
Navneet Bal---XXXXX5XXXX ==5
Nilesh Sinha---XXXXXXX 1XX ==1
Nithin---XXXXXXXX4X ==4
Parmitaghosh---XXXXXXXX4.5X ==4.5
Partha Sengupta---XXX1X331XX ==8
Paul Ahmitough---XXXXX9XXXX ==9
Pauline Daniel---XX2451X13X ==16
Prakash Pillai---XXXXXX5XXX ==5
Pramod R---XXXXX1XXXX ==1
Prasenjit Sengupta---XXXXXX42XX ==6
Prasun Ramakrishnan---XXXXXXXXX7 ==7
Prasun Ratn---XXXXX1XXXX ==1
Prithwiraj Mukherjee---XXXXX3.51325 ==14.5
Priyambad Pattanayak---XXXXXXXX3X ==3
Quizgeek---XX6XXXXXXX ==6
R. Krishna---XX778.58XXXX ==30.5
Raghav Narayanan---6.5XXXXX3XXX ==9.5
Raghavendra Achar---1X1XXXXXXX ==2
Rahul Chattopadhyay---XXXXXX6XXX ==6
Rahul Guha---XXXXXXXX3.58 ==11.5
Rahul Jayanthi---XXXX8XXXXX ==8
Rahul Pandey---XXXXXXXXX4 ==4
Rajaram Sethuraman---XXX1XXXXXX ==1
Rajesh Malviya--- 1.5X3.5XXXXXXX ==5
Rajiv Rai---XXXX 5XXX3.5X ==8.5
Ramkey---XX3XXXXXXX ==3
Ramkumar Shankar---XXX 3X1XXXX ==4
Ramsu---XX7XXXXXXX ==7
Ranganathan Sairam---XX 4XXXXXXX ==4
Ranjith---XXXXXX4X1X ==5
Ravikiran Rao---XXX3.5XXXXXX ==3.5
Rexy Joseph---XXXXXXXX45 ==9
Rinks S---XXXXXXX3.5XX ==3.5
Rohaan Pereira---XXXXXXXXX11 ==11
Ryan Michigan---XXX8.5XXXXXX ==8.5
Sameer Baxi---XX7XXXXXXX ==7
Samir Bora---XX4.5XXXXXXX ==4.5
Samrat Sengupta---XXXXX2XXXX ==2
Sandeep Unni---XXXXXXX4612 ==22
Sankle Pradesh---XXXXX3XXXX ==3
Santhosh D'Souza--- XXXXX9XXXX ==9
Sathish K---7.56.55X5.5XXXXX ==24.5
Satyajit Chetri---XXXX51XXXX ==6
Sharad Singh---XXXXX4XXXX ==4
Shashi Shekar--- 0X6X8.5X1XXX ==15.5
Shashi Thutupalli---XXXXXX34XX ==7
Shiraz---XX7X997XXX ==32
Shobhana Balakrishnan---XX2XXXX24.5X ==8.5
Shom Biswas---3.5X5XXX2246 ==22.5
Shrijit Plapally---XX2X1XXXXX ==3
Shrinath Nagarajan --- XXXXXXX2XX ==2
Siddharth K---XX2.5XXXXXXX ==2.5
Sivaramakrishnan---XXXXXX3XXX ==3
Sourabh Issar---XX11.5XX1XXX ==3.5
Stephen Mathew---XXXX3XXXXX ==3
Sujith Vijay---XXXX69XXXX ==15
Sukhamaya---7.5XXX6.54XXXX ==18
Suki---XXXXX1.5XXXX==1.5
Sundeep Venkatraman --- XXXXXXXX3X ==3
Suranjan Chakrabarty--- XXXXX6XXXX ==6
Syam Prasad --- XX4.54754X37 ==34.5
Sylvia---XXXX1XXXXX ==1
TalonX the Surreal --- XXXXX22XXX ==4
Thejaswi Udupa---XX8.5X6.57X7.57.512 ==49
U Damodaran---XXXXXX5XXX ==5
Udayan Chakrabarti---XX2.5XXXXXXX ==2.5
Usha Ramaswamy---XXXX1XXX 0.5X ==1.5
Vaidyanathan---XX57XXXXXX ==12
Venkateshwar KR---2.5X20 20X224 ==14.5
Venu Gopal---XXXX6XXXXX ==6
Vijay Anand Menon---6XXXXXXXXX ==6
Vijay Krishnan---XXXXX2XXX4 ==6
Vijay Nidhi---XXXXXXXXX4.5 ==4.5
Vilayannur Viswanathan---XXXX4XXXXX ==4
Vimal Vikrant Vardhan M---XXX2.51XX0.50.5X ==4.5
Vinay Sriganesh---XXXXXX0XXX ==0
Vittal Avinash---XXXXXXX2XX ==2

-----------------------------------------------

The toppers are

1. Thejaswi Udupa - 49
2. Sreeram - 40
3. Kunal Malhotra - 38.5

Thanks for all the support folks!
So, until the next time...

Bye!

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Coming soon!

ORACLIQUE
Are you in yet?

oracle- A shrine where an oracular
god is consulted
clique -1.An exclusive circle of
people with a common
purpose
2.Completely interconnected
graph

This will be my next series. Should
hit quiznet by April or May.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

10 NINE 8 7 SIX

2006-05-23T10:31:00.000+05:30

At the start of old British films, the pre-title countdown sequence leading up to the actual start of the film would go: "10 NINE 8 7 SIX 5 4 3" in one-second intervals.

The 6 and 9 were spelt out to avoid confusion in case the film is put in upside-down!

The countdown ends at three so that the countdown isn't shown if the film is put on screen a little earlier than intended.

+I: Countdowns were used for the first time in the context of launching rockets in Fritz Lang's movie Frau im Mond.

Queuriest - IX

2006-04-21T14:38:00.000+05:30

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - IX
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. You might not know it, but you actually have a philtrum. What could it be?
*

2. Which country is divided into administrative units called parishes? Clue: Hush,sh...death!
*

3. Horror in the 20th century! Be warned, this is not for the weak-at-heart. Who said after what, "I am a new Frankstein." ?
*

4. I wonder whether being perfect is the same as being ideal... If a perfect number is a number that is equal to the sum of its factors, what are ideal numbers?
*

5. What is Spanish for Mary Jane? (Try saying it repeatedly in as Spanish a way as you can...even if you don't get the answer, you might get a kick out of it!)
*

6. Which band takes its name from the Bob Dylan song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee And ..."? Cryptic Clue: The traitor preaches about violation of rules!
*

7. Who was the first person* to win the US Open on all three surfaces - clay, grass and hard-court? *to appease feminists! Clue: Say, when edges meet!
*

8. One that will surely make your eyes pop out! (Please don't google on this one, it'll really spoil the joy of guessing!)
Who or what are Peepeye, Poopeye, Pupeye and Pipeye?
*

9. Where would you expect to find Kirkwood gaps? Clue: Earth-grazers?
*

10. A very rough correspondence, maybe. Japanese: Hara-kiri :: Balinese: ___________ ?
*

---------------------------------------------------------------
BONUS QUESTION ;-)
Q: What is a paragodge? Tell me about it. . . :-)
*

----------------------------------------------------------------
Of all the words of mice
and men, the saddest are
"It might have been..."
------------------------------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Tue Feb 11, 2003 8:52 pm
Subject: Queuriest - IX

hi everybody!

welcome to episode 9 of Queuriest.

this is the penultimate instalment of Queuriest. The 10th episode will be the last one. I've enjoyed setting these quizzes, especially the framing part - putting in the clues etc... mostly the Qs come from my diaries - stuff that I've noted down over the years from books I've read, quizzes that I've been to etc

when you reply to this, i would appreciate it if you could send in a brief intro of urself (asl+quizistory should do) so that I can put in something about u in the final episode* + maybe a few quizzing tidbits as well...stuff that you've gleaned and which you think suit the Queuriest mould.

Note that you do not need to do this, ONLY if you don't mind...

Answers in a week's time.

trivially yours,

luv
thomas

*will feature a mega-scoreboard of all responses to all episodes and ur rating based on performance.

ANSWERS
---------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Tue Feb 18, 2003 7:32 pm
Subject: Answers to Queuriest - IX

hi folks!

31 responses in all.

Lots of half-points this time. May be because some of the questions were a bit arbitrary. . .

Only a few - 4 - got the bonus question right. Congrats! Though none corrected me on the spelling.

Queuriest-X tomorrow.

luv
thomas

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - VIII
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. You might not know it, but you actually have a philtrum. What could it be?
* Philtrum refers to the groove in the upper lip...that channel below your nose...that depression...yes, you are touching it now...:-)
Most answered question of the quiz. Perhaps the way the question was framed was taken as a direct insult? So it was philtrum with a vengeance! ;-)
Many answers referred to love-potion, as philtre=love-potion, nice guessing there...
+I from RK: in medico language its called the nasolabial fold

2. Which country is divided into administrative units called parishes? Clue: Hush,sh...death!
* Jamaica
Sort of ambiguous question...lots of countries are divided into parishes, I guess. . .that's why I had given the clue. . .
The clue referred to Whispering Death --> Michael Holding who comes from Jamaica...this being World-Cup mania, I thought somebody would crack the clue . . .Also I thought this was an FAQ on the circuit, but seems I was wrong on both counts..
If you answered England and feel 'wrong'ed, in spite of the validity of the clue you didn't use, go ahead and add 1 point to ur score.But before you do that, try this : Is India divided into states or is it divided into districts? England is divided into counties and __counties__ are divided into parishes. Now, read the question again and decide for urself.

3. Horror in the 20th century! Be warned, this is not for the weak-at-heart. Who said after what, "I am a new Frankstein." ?
* Louis Washkansky after the world's successful human heart-transplant by Dr.Christian Barnard.
In the book, Frankenstein is the creator, not the monster, which was nameless.( When will people stop thinking that it's the monster's name?!! )...and should have been said by the doctor actually...:-)

4. I wonder whether being perfect is the same as being ideal... If a perfect number is a number that is equal to the sum of its factors, what are ideal numbers?
* Ideal numbers were a class of numbers invented in order to prove Fermat's last theorem whose factorization in terms of complex numbers is unique.
A bit too technical?

5. What is Spanish for Mary Jane? (Try saying it repeatedly in as Spanish a way as you can...even if you don't get the answer, you might get a kick out of it!)
* Marijuana (Got the kick?)
Some of you came up with some very creative answers on this one...i wonder why...:-)

6. Which band takes its name from the Bob Dylan song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee And ..."? Cryptic Clue: The traitor preaches about violation of rules!
* Judas Priest
Clue made it really obvious. "Breaking The Law" song, Judas = Traitor disciple, Priest preaches ZZZZZZZZ...?

7. Who was the first person* to win the US Open on all three surfaces - clay, grass and hard-court? *to appease feminists! Clue: Say, when edges meet!
*Jimmy Connors
When edges meet, say CORNERS!
...and people take note (feminists esp), men are persons too! :-). . .got a lot of women players as answers...as expected... ;-)

8. One that will surely make your eyes pop out! (Please don't google on this one, it'll really spoil the joy of guessing!)
Who or what are Peepeye, Poopeye, Pupeye and Pipeye?
* They are Popeye the Sailor's nephews.
I've been liberal on this one and given half-points to any answer that they are related to Popeye.

9. Where would you expect to find Kirkwood gaps? Clue: Earth-grazers?
* These are the relatively empty regions in the asteroid-belt.
Earth-grazer=

10. A very rough correspondence, maybe. Japanese: Hara-kiri :: Balinese: ___________ ?
* Puputan
Puputan was collective suicide committed by the Balinese kings and their courtiers because of the humiliation they suffered at the hands of the Dutch...
(and, remember puputan before you google! ;-)
I'd said it was a very rough correspondence. Strictly speaking, very different from hara-kiri. But basically, the idea in both was suicide...so I hope it's acceptable.

---------------------------------------------------------------
BONUS QUESTION ;-)
Q: What is a paragodge? Tell me about it. . . :-)
* There is no such thing as a paragodge! However there is something called paragoge. what couldd it be? adding sounds to words for eg. extra 'd's for effect, like in drownded, often seen in poems. So now you see!...why the smilies...why this was a bonusQ...why it was paragoDge!...;-)

----------------------------------------------------------------
Of all the words of mice
and men, the saddest are
"It might have been..."
----------------------------------------------------------------

The scores (in chronological order)

1. Gaurav Lochan - 2.5 (Still looking for a kick?)
2. Shobhana Balakrishnan - 4.5 (Tell me about it!)
3. Rajiv Rai - 3.5 (very good tries indeed)
4. Rahul Guha - 3.5 (Maria Janelle...dunno)
5. Vimal Vikrant Vardhan - 0.5 (nephews actually)
6. Kensy Joseph - 3 (Who's Juano? ;-)
7. Sundeep Venkatraman - 3 (Outrageous...and correct! Keep guessing is the motto here.)
8. Kunal Malhotra - 5 (good show)
9. Usha Ramaswamy - 0.5 (Very good guessing though, really you deserve more)
10. Biswabijoy Sen - 3 (play-it-safe man?)
11. Parmitaghosh - 4.5 (r u parmita or parmit a. ghosh?)
12. Partha Sengupta - 2.5 (Pop I)
13. Mamatha Balasubramanian - 4 (solid effort)
14. Sreeram - 2 (old man ;-)
15. Karthik Ramgopal - 8 (great show, bonusQ also..)
16. Shom Biswas - 4 (u confuse me with ur many names!)
17. Rexy Joseph - 4 (Jam!!??)
18. Minhaj Alam - 2 (really liked ur answers..)
19. Priyambad Pattanayak - 3 (congrats on BonusQ, but did u get the misspelling?)
20. Bhaskar Singh - 1 (Afghanistan!)
21. Ankur Jain - 6 (good, solid effort)
22. Thejaswi Udupa - 7.5 (good use of the clues after all eh?)
23. Anoop Radhakrishna - 5 (pretty cool)
24. Syam Prasad - 3 (It was not Dr.Barnard)
25. Ranjith Kumar - 1 (nice guesses though)
26. Pauline Daniel - 3 (UK hmm...)
27. Debashree Mitra - 3 (loooong intro! cool.)
28. Prithwiraj Mukherjee - 2 (nice answers)
29. Sandeep Unni - 6 (going great guns!)
30. Venkateswar - 2 (Two pennies! = 1 + 0.5 + 0.5)
31. Nithin - 4 (Ian Wilmut was a superb try)
32. Annanya Deb - 4 (in the nick of time!)

--------STATS ----------------------------------------------

Funnest! -
Area in which Hitler had moustache on Philtrum
Mike Tyson after EarBiting on Frankenstein
Maria Juano on Mary Jane
All Popeyes in different languages on Popeye's nephews
Numbers that "feel" right on ideal numbers
Atma hatya on Puputan

Ridiqulest! -
Numbers with no application on Ideal numbers
Crocodile's mouth on Kirkwood Gaps
Jam on Marijuana
Saddam Hussein on Frankenstein
Barakiri on Puputan

Guessest!- nice guessing
Kevorkian on Frankenstein
Numbers equal to product of factors on Ideal numbers
Ability to love! on Philtrum (how cute!...sentimental)
Ian Wilmut of Dolly fame on Frankenstein
Redundant nicticating eye membrane on Philtrum (Impressive!)
Names Olive Oyl calls Popeye on Nephews

* All questions except 2 and 10 were cracked fully
* Karthik Ramgopal tops the quiz with 8 points
* Average score : 3.5
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Queuriest - VIII

2006-03-22T11:54:00.000+05:30

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - VIII
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. Eminently workoutable one for starters, especially if you read this aloud! What is echolalia? echolalia. . .
*

2. Who made his debut in the 1934 film `The Wise Little Hen'? Cryptic Clue: Bradman gets out for zero!
*

3. "Asking the ignorant to use the incomprehensible to decide the unknowable." Who defined what thus?
*

4. Question framed with a purpose?...What is chindogu?
*

5. USSR / Russia: Cosmonaut :: USA: Astronaut :: China:: ________?
*

6. Who or what is a Lazy Susan? Clue: Pass!
*

7. BeeGees, as in the pop band, was actually (obviously?) an abbreviation. What does it stand for? They were the . . .
*

8. Asterix question, or . . . is it? What was the codename for the spy Vitriolix?
*

9. Not so comical question, I swear, by Apollo! What is a nosocomical infection?
*

10. The name adopted by which dictator literally meant "Glorious Sun"? Direct Clue (for a change!) : He had Chinese blood in him.
*

------------------------------------
Fear is only a preference.
When one's enemies are
too strong, one chooses
weaker ones!
------------------------------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Fri Feb 7, 2003 6:49 pm
Subject: Queuriest - VIII

hi everybody!

welcome to episode 8 of Queuriest.

answers in a week's time.

luv
thomas

ANSWERS
---------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Tue Feb 11, 2003 8:49 pm
Subject: Answers to Queuriest - VIII

hi folks!

23 responses in all.

am out with the answers early 'cos answers've stopped coming...what with so many quizzes being posted in the previous 2 days...and most of the regular respondents having sent their post in... WHY WAIT?

apologies to anyone who was planning to send in answers today. but hey, you can check out Queuriest-IX.

In the previous answers post, I'd queried:

>I wonder if this is the only flag with a bird on it...(Papua New Guinea)
Sreeram: Flag of Mexico has an eagle
Peter: Guatemala's flag has a quetzal
...there may be many more...futile search for a new question...:-(

>Moonraker is the term for a native of _______
got no responses for this one. but found out that this is applied to residents of Wiltshire, England

...thanx for the responses.

luv
thomas

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - VIII
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. Eminently workoutable one for starters, especially if you read this aloud! What is echolalia? echolalia. . .
* Echolalia is a condition in which one tends to repeat words one has heard, usually the last word or sentence. So it pays to follow instructions. . . So it pays to follow instructions. . . So it pays to follow instructions....;-)

2. Who made his debut in the 1934 film `The Wise Little Hen'? Cryptic Clue: Bradman gets out for zero!
* Donald Duck
Many of you worked it out from the clue which made it pretty obvious, I guess. I don't know whether this is true, but I've heard this story that Walt Disney was in the stadium during this match / heard commentator exclaiming "Donald Duck"! --> name of Mr. Donald Fauntleroy Duck.

3. "Asking the ignorant to use the incomprehensible to decide the unknowable." Who defined what thus?
* Judge Hiller Zobel of the US (yeah the Louise Woodward/Mathew Eappen "nanny" case judge) criticizing/defining the jury system.
He mentioned this after the OJ Simpson case.
Nobody cracked this one fully. AS & TU got as far as "juries" but couldn't get the person right
Not too many attepts either...was waiting to be flooded with imaginative

4. Question framed with a purpose?...What is chindogu?
* It is the Japanese art of making "useless inventions" or devices that seem to be useful but actually are not. Like this question perhaps...totally useless information!...but hey I'm not Japanese!

5. USSR / Russia: Cosmonaut :: USA: Astronaut :: China:: ________?
* Taikonaut is what you would call a Chinese space-traveller
AS: taikong is the actual Chinese word

6. Who or what is a Lazy Susan? Clue: Pass!
* A revolving tray placed on a dining table. Pass...if you can't reach the pudding!

7. BeeGees, as in the pop band, was actually (obviously?) an abbreviation. What does it stand for? They were the . . .
* Brothers Gibb. They were literally a "Band of Brothers". :-)

8. Asterix question, or . . . is it? What was the codename for the spy Vitriolix?
* H2SO4 (echh-too-es-o-four)
(Oil of) Vitriol is sulphuric acid which has the formula h2so4... Z.Z.Z.Z....?
Workoutable one even if you are not an Asterix fanatic. I believe he features in Asterix and the Legionary (not too sure...) Dubbelosix, another spy, a caricature of Sean Connery features in Asterix & The Black Gold.

9. Not so comical question, I swear, by Apollo! What is a nosocomial infection?
* An infection you get from a hospital.
I apologise for a mistake in the question, it is nosocomial, without the second 'c'. (not nosocomical) Sory foks four thi bad speling. ;-)
About the clue: Swearing by Apollo --> Hippocratic Oath --> Doctors --> Hospitals
+I: Apollo is also the god of healing
Many of you worked it out as Apollo--> space, moon, sun etc. Good work but hey, where was the need to interpret it as a clue? I could've been just stating a fact (though I was not! ), nosocomial infections are pretty serious after all. . .and who else can Son Of Delphi swear by, but Apollo! ;-)

10. The name adopted by which dictator literally meant "Glorious Sun"? Direct Clue (for a change!) : He had Chinese blood in him.
* Ne Win of Myanmar. His real name was Shu Maung. He was of mixed Chinese-Burmese descent. He died in December 2002...
Current affairs in Queuriest! I'm SHOCKED!

------------------------------------
Fear is only a preference.
When one's enemies are
too strong, one chooses
weaker ones!
------------------------------------

The scores (in chronological order):

1. Debashree Mitra - 4 (nice going)
2. Prasenjit Sengupta - 2 (la la la liya)
3. Indraneel Sikdar - 1 (Tennyson is my guess)
4. Shobhana Balakrishnan - 2 (More tries please m'lady!)
5. Sreeram - 4 (ex-amnesiac!)
6. Shashi Thutupalli - 4 (nice guessing!)
7. Arjun Siva - 9.5 (Robert Burton's not the guy)
8. CoolDude9456 - 1 (100% cool)
9. Venkateswar KR - 2 ( u light up my quiz!)
10. Prithwiraj Mukherjee - 3 (so do u!)
11. Kunal Malhotra - 6 (good show boss)
12. Vittal Avinash - 2 (guess more)
13. Nilesh Sinha - 1 (what's the ureasusan connection?)
14. Shom Biswas - 2 (hope exams went great)
15. Pauline Daniel - 1 (use the clues more)
16. Sandeep Unni - 4 (I love my X-words too!)
17. Rinks S - 3.5 (Stalin & Chinese blood!)
18. Shrinath Nagarajan - 2 ( nice working out)
19. Bharat Jayakumar - 3.5 (It's not Queriest!)
20. Narayan Vinay - 8 (going great guns)
21. Thejaswi Udupa - 7.5 (solid effort)
22. Kensy Joseph - 2 (nice guesses though)
23. Partha Sengupta - 1 (Hollies was great)

--------STATS ----------------------------------------------

Funnest! -
Bill Gates on Linux for JuryQuote!
Answering Queuriest on JuryQuote!
Unuseless inventions on Chindogu
Nomanout on Taikonaut

Ridiqulest! -
Singing in the bathroom on Echolalia
Dogs leading with their chins on Chindogu
Question framed to get correct answer always on Chindogu
Urinal on Lazy Susan

Guessest!- nice guessing
006, 000 on Vitriolix
"Sun"Yat Sen on Glorious Sun
Chinonaut on Chinese Astronaut
Doubleohsix on Vitriolix
Infection from sunlight on Nosocomial infection

* Most popular wrong answer: Pol Pot on Ne Win
* All questions except 3 were cracked fully
* Arjun Siva tops the quiz with 9.5 points
* Average score : 3.3
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Today is Pi Day

2006-03-14T16:46:00.000+05:30

Today is 3/14 (March 14) and at 1:59 pm, if you string the date and time together, we would get the sequence 314159 or pi, the magic number. Hence the trivially inclined mathematicians(?) celebrate it as Pi Day!

Exercise for the reader: July 22 is also celebrated as Pi Approximation Day. Work out why.

Another interesting celebration is that of Mole Day. In honour of Avogadro's constant, 6.023 x 10^23. That is celebrated on October 23, between 6.02 am and 6.02 pm. Same logic.

But I believe June 02(6/02), 10:23 would have been a more appropriate choice for Mole Day! Just a trifle better...How trivial can one get, huh?

Queuriest - VII

2006-02-21T10:46:00.000+05:30

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - VII
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. Sitter (Flier?) to start off. Which bird features on the flag of Papua New Guinea? Clue: Milton flies!
*

2. What's dentinology the study of? If you know the answer, then definitely you are a dentinologist!
*

3. If beauty is measured in Helens, what is measured in dols?
*

4. Which English author's middle name was Klapta? Yeah, out of three...
*

5. Charles Dickens: Mystery of Edwin Drood :: Douglas Adams: _________?
*

6. What would you have if you had diastimia? Don't grin so much, it's not that evident if you don't!
*

7. Which rock star is nicknamed after a hearing-aid? Maybe he lives on the edge....
*

8. Where would you find the Mountains of the Moon?
*

9. Which country has the Internet domain extension .il ?
*

10. Who or what is a Hoosier? Clue: Mr. Jones!
*

------------------------------
Seven deadly sins
Seven ways to win
Seven holy paths to hell

Seven downward slopes
Seven bloody hopes
Seven are your burning fires
Seven your desires...
------------------------------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Fri Jan 31, 2003 4:13 pm
Subject: Queuriest - VII

Welcome to episode 7 of Queuriest.

sorry for the long delay. (for excuse, please refer answers to previous episode :-) ...and hope none of you have developed queuriest-withdrawal symptoms! ;-) just kidding...

no google-bashing this time around. but hope that does not mean less responses . ( i've noticed whenever i google-bash, more replies pour in! ). be good.

luv
thomas

ANSWERS
--------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Fri Feb 7, 2003 6:43 pm
Subject: Answers to Queuriest - VII

hi there!

34 responses in all.

low-scoring affair all-round. average score was 3. = questions tougher?

Quote of the Episode: Who needs google?! by Shom Biswas.

luv
thomas

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - VII
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. Sitter (Flier?) to start off. Which bird features on the flag of Papua New Guinea? Clue: Milton flies!
* Bird of Paradise. Many got real specific with Kumul.
The clue made it pretty obvious I guess. I wonder if this is the only flag with a bird on it...

2. What's dentinology the study of? If you know the answer, then definitely you are a dentinologist!
* It's the study of collections and/or their naming.
Answers varied from knowledge to morality. The clue was a dead give-away? just kidding...this was answered correctly only by a handful...

3. If beauty is measured in Helens, what is measured in dols?
* Pain is measured in dols
Ugliness was a common response.

4. Which English author's middle name was Klapka? Yeah, out of three...
* Jerome Klapka Jerome.
Sorry for the error in the question where it was Klapta instead of Klapka. Was a tip of the slinger...No, it was not an anti-google measure (google corrects it automatically! i checked)

5. Charles Dickens: Mystery of Edwin Drood :: Douglas Adams: _________?
* The Salmon Of Doubt.
Mystery of Edwin Drood was the unfinished novel of Charles Dickens, when he died.
Prasenjit Sengupta said that Salmon Of Doubt was in fact completed by DA and it is due to be released this year
QM: I believe the book being released is only a collection of pieces by the author. It is named so after the Salmon Of Doubt, an unfinished story by DA about Dirk Gently I think.

6. What would you have if you had diastimia? Don't grin so much, it's not that evident if you don't!
* Diastimia is the gap between your front teeth.
Not too many dentists in here?
OK...now you may GRIN! ;-)
that it had something to do with teeth was universally worked out.

7. Which rock star is nicknamed after a hearing-aid? Maybe he lives on the edge....
* Bono (Paul Hewson) of U2
Definitely he lives on The Edge, U2's guitarist! Aerosmith/Steve Tyler was a popular guess 'cos of the Living on the Edge song interpretation of the clue. A googly?
PS: Boss (Headphone)--> Bruce Springsteen
QM: also accepted though it's a different story!

8. Where would you find the Mountains of the Moon?
* Africa.
Ruwenzori mountain-range between Uganda and Congo was referred to as Mountains of the Moon by Ptolemy 'cos these had snow.
had some answers about them being referred to in a Grateful Dead song also...many answers mentioned palm/knuckles also...

9. Which country has the Internet domain extension .il ?
* Israel is the correct answer...and .ps is Palestine...
Iceland and Ireland were common guesses

10. Who or what is a Hoosier? Clue: Mr. Jones!
* Resident of Indiana.
Mr.Jones supposed to remind you of Indiana Jones. Lots of you worked it out as farmer (from Animal Farm - Mr.Jones? ) good work though incorrect.
Can anybody tell me where a Moonraker is from? I don't know the answer myself.
+I : Buckeye - Ohio, Lett - Latvia, Carioca - RioDeJaneiro

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seven deadly sins
Seven ways to win
Seven holy paths to hell

Seven downward slopes
Seven bloody hopes
Seven are your burning fires
Seven your desires...
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The scores (in chronological order):

1. Indraneel Sikdar - 2 (DA has written plenty of other books)
2. Shashi Thutupalli - 3 (congrats on dentinology)
3. Shashi Shekar - 1 (go to the dentist ok, but why?)
4. Prasenjit Sengupta - 4 (it's coming out this year? yay!)
5. Shiraz - 7 (no it was not an anti-google measure)
6. Mamatha Balasubramanian - 1.5 (nice guesses)
7. Vinay Sriganesh - 0 (I think IM rocks too)
8. Arjun Siva - 4 (first to crack diastimia)
9. Prakash Pillai - 5 (nice effort)
10. U Damodaran - 5 (sorry I don't know the origin either)
11. Vijay Krishnan - 4 (are you from calicut?)
12. Raghav Narayanan - 3 (nice work)
13. Sourabh Issar - 1(keep guessing!)
14. Rahul Chattopadhyay - 6 (solid effort)
15. Shom Biswas - 2 ( Thanx for the compliments man! and sorry the clues misled you! ;-) never mind!)
16. TalonX the Surreal - 2 ( What's not! )
17. B. Sreeram - 4 (Sreeramnesia! )
18. Bhaskar Singh - 4.5 (native of indiana expected)
19. Arun Prashanth - 2 (Both great answers!)
20. Ranjith - 4 (Keep on answering...)
21. Minhaj Alam - 2 (use the clues!)
22. 666 - 2 (Beast, what thy name? ;-)
23. Anand Sivashankar - 3 (cool show dude)
24. Mahesh Nair - 5 (can't give it for missing tooth)
25. Bharat Jayakumar - 3 (Stellarantagonophile maybe?)
26. KrisSriram - 3 (some answers not specific enough)
27. Ian Anderson - 8 (Tull the first one!)
28. Debashree Mitra - 3 (dictionary ok i guess)
29. Prithwiraj Mukherjee - 1 (thanx for enlivening the quiz!)
30. Syam Prasad - 4 (hotPOP next time!)
31. Sivaramakrishnan - 3 (Have u read 3 Men on the Bummel, the sequel?)
32. Kamal - 5 (solid effort)
33. Biswabijoy Sen - 3 (Keep guessing! Outrageously..u r welcome!)
34. Partha Sengupta - 3 (Boss was great work)

--------STATS ----------------------------------------------

Funnest! -
Pestering neighbour on Hoosier
A Know-it-all on Dentinology
Cheek pain on Diastimia
Go to a dentist on Diastimia
hmmm on Mountains of the Moon.

Ridiqulest!
Mystery of Columbia on Doug Adams
"Hoosier means nothing actually. It can be used as a substitute word depending on the situation. It is basically a Hoosier word!" on Hoosier.
Blue teeth! on Diastimia

Guessest!- nice guessing
Study of quizzes on Dentinology
Stain on teeth on Diastimia
Study of unusual words on Dentinology
GK Chesterton on Jerome K Jerome

* Most popular wrong answer: Ireland/Iceland on .il
* All questions were answered
* Ian Anderson tops the quiz with 8 points
* Average score : 3
-----------------------------------------------------------------

God From The Machine

2006-02-10T17:25:00.000+05:30

A calque is an expression introduced into one language by translating it from another language. For example, "'superman' is a calque for the German 'Übermensch'".

An interesting calque that I came across recently was "deus ex machina" meaning "god from the machine". For the trivially inclined, it is a calque from Greek to Latin! It refers to the use of supernatural plot elements in works of art to explain things or solve seemingly unsolvable problems.

We have all seen and experienced this in Hindi movies where towards the climax, when the helpless widow is with the villain..and the situation is hopeless.... the wind starts blowing all of sudden and prayer-bells start ringing and suddenly the villain is knocked down... as a result of the lady-in-distress's or her child's praying in a temple!

That's deus ex machina in play.

On Deja Vu

2006-02-03T15:40:00.000+05:30

déjà vu (French: "already seen") describes the experience of feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously.

jamais vu (French: "never seen") refers to explicitly not remembering having seen something before. The person knows it has happened before, but the experience feels unfamiliar.

presque vu (French: "almost seen") means almost, but not quite, remembering something.

(Content based on Wikipedia)

Divided We Fall

2006-01-18T15:37:00.000+05:30

Disease
Presently, I am running a new series of quizzes on Quiznet . But somehow, I don't seem to be getting the same number of replies (only 10-20) as I used to get (between 30-40) when I ran the original series in 2002-2003. I started to wonder: Have I lost my sting? Should I stop? But a few other old-timers were also complaining that they too were not getting many responses either. I decided to take a look around.

The cause?
I found that a major change from back then was that there were many more quizzing groups around, as was the recent spurt in the number of blogs. Taking into account the similarity in the nature of the quizzes in my two series, perhaps the lackadaisical response had something to do with the fact that I don't crosspost these quizzes, ie, post the same content in different groups.

A cursory examination of the quizzes receiving 30+ replies backed my hypothesis; those were being crossposted.

I believe there too many quiz groups right now. It is getting a bit difficult to keep track of and manage the content in our Inboxes, with the same content appearing on most of the quiz-groups. It also takes more effort to share the information/make announcements; we need to mark copies to all the quiz-groups.

Evils of the crosspost
I understand that the exponential explosion in the number of groups could be because each group has a philosophy of its own. Or does it? If yes, why does the same content appear in most of them? I feel that many are just egotistical pursuits. The duplication of content leads to -
a) Time wastage (Haven't I read this before?)
b) Unnecessary mail-traffic (read as spam; duplicates are as useless as spam)
This is why I don't crosspost.

The group-proliferation is not for the Greater Common Good; indeed, it did much harm. Take a look at the contrast between :-
(pre-blog/multigroup era)
2003 Quiznet Posts : J104 F123 M127 A130 M154 J113 J117 A114 S127 O117 N99 D72
(post-group explosion)
2005 Quiznet Posts : J64 F66 M69 A31 M55 J66 J52 A45 S70 O81 N80 D101

I am reminded of the days when the chess-world was split into the PCA & the FIDE camps. Lots of duplicated and wasted effort and confusion.
Too many cooks spoil the broth: too many groups spoil the fun:: 1:1. What do you think?
....Maybe a grand unified quiz group is the need of the hour?

History shows us the way to go.

Queuriest - VI

2006-01-16T10:23:00.000+05:30

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - VI
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. If James Joyce wrote A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, who wrote A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man? God knows!
*

2. This one might really whip the bails off you. Who holds the record for the most number of stumpings in Test cricket history?
*

3. Golden Hind: Francis Drake :: Millennium Falcon : _____________?
*

4. What happens when somebody is subjected to defenestration? Linux fans, anyone?
*

5. Easy one. Who led the mutiny onboard the HMS Bounty?
*

6. Codenames! The secret plans for what was called Project Chess?
Crazy Cryptic Clue: A giant that could be royal, Prussian and marine has something to do with it, perhaps? But little to do with Mr. Garik Weinstein though, contrary to what you might think.
*

7. Who, along with superstar pals 'Beatle' George Harrison, 'Heartbreaker' Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison - formed a band called the Traveling Wilburys? The answer, my friend is . . .
*

8. Which month in the calendar is named after Latin for `to open'? You may guess, but think what could be before!
*

9. Surprisingly easy one. What does a thaumatologist do?
*

10. What was codified in a 1942 short story called 'Runaround'? Cryptic Clue: Mt.SinAI !
*

BONUS Question
Q. Can you make 24 out of 4 zeroes only? Use mathematical operations only. ie, make an expression out of 0,0,0,0 such that it evaluates to 24.
*

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A match may start a fire. But once the fire is
started, putting out the match will not be of
any use.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Thu Jan 9, 2003 12:18 pm
Subject: Queuriest - VI

Welcome to episode 6 of Queuriest.

a few words about the Queuriest series. I intend these quizzes to be competitive in nature. That's why I toss in a few sitters and also why clues abound, so that there's something for everybody. I don't bury the questions in voluminous prose (obscurification). Neither do I introduce deliberate misspellings or inaccurate info. (Two anti-googling strategies commonly employed). Direct & honest, trust implied. That's what I like...

and if you attempt to answer the Qs honestly, then the answers stay longer in your head when they come. That's the ultimate aim, right? Plus that way it's more fun and satisfying for all involved...and there need be no shame in getting 'just' 1 or 2. And 50% in a set of Qs set by another person is very good indeed.

and in case you do google for a question (when it absolutely CAN't wait!!) , at least indicate that in the answer, I'll give you half the points. CONSCIENCE, not CON-SCIENCE! ;-) That way it would be fair both on googlers (some reward for searching so hard) and on others who attempt the Qs by themselves ...and give me some extra info also please :-)

If, on the other hand, you feel that these quizzes are just google-guides, then please tell me, I'll stop posting the scores, just the answers should do fine then, won't it. . .I feel it's unfair on the genuine, competitive respondents otherwise (sometimes it breaks my heart to place a googler above a genuey :-(. . .also, I need not frame the questions all that carefully then, you would find the errors anyway, huh? :-)

I hope I do not lose my audience because of these lamentations of mine! Not possibly, 'cos it's the other guy that I was complaining about, right? :-)

GET CRACKING NOW!!!!

luv
thomas

ANSWERS
-------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Sun Jan 26, 2003 11:00 pm
Subject: Answers to Queuriest - VI

Hi everybody!

45 responses in all. Perhaps this was the cluesiest episode yet. Most questions had clues - used very imaginatively by respondents!

sorry for the LOOOOOOOOOOONG delay in posting the answers. Now, what excuse can I give? ....

"And on the seventh, He Rested."? :-Queuriegenesis 1:18
;-)

luv
thomas

----------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - VI
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
----------------------------------------------

1. If James Joyce wrote A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, who wrote A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man? God knows!
*Joseph Heller, the Catch-22 guy. God knows was the clue. It's another book he wrote.
Dylan Thomas wrote Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog

2. This one might really whip the bails off you. Who holds the record for the most number of stumpings in Test cricket history?
*Bert Oldfield of Australia. He was the wicketkeeper in the middle 20th century. '30s I guess. 52 in career.
Pure statististics. Never mind if you didn't get this one.

3. Golden Hind: Francis Drake :: Millennium Falcon : _____________?
*Han Solo, in Star Wars
AC:Lando Carlrissian is the actual owner, Han Solo gets it only later.
does anybody know whether there's an expansion for R2D2 or C3PO?

4. What happens when somebody is subjected to defenestration? Linux fans, anyone?
*He gets thrown out of the window.
The Linux comment was just a bit of fun from me. I'm not too sure whether it applies to removing windows from computers ...or .... does IT?
refer Defenestration of Prague & Thirty Years also.

5. Easy one. Who led the mutiny onboard the HMS Bounty?
*Fletcher Christian
Some answered Bligh, Bligh is the author/captain.

6. Codenames! The secret plans for what was called Project Chess?
Crazy Cryptic Clue: A giant that could be royal, Prussian and marine has something to do with it, perhaps? But little to do with Mr. Garik Weinstein though, contrary to what you might think.
*Project Chess was the secret plans for the IBM PC, the PC itself I believe was codenamed Acorn.
The clue wasn't called __Crazy___ Cryptic Clue for nothing! Giant=> Big + royal, Prussian,marine=>Blue (shades of) together => Big Blue => IBM. Garik Weinstein =>original name of Garry Kasparov. little to do with him => Project Chess has nothing to do with chess.

7. Who, along with superstar pals 'Beatle' George Harrison, 'Heartbreaker' Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison - formed a band called the Traveling Wilburys? The answer, my friend is . . .
*...blowin' in the wind. The answer,my friend is Bob Dylan.

8. Which month in the calendar is named after Latin for `to open'? You may guess, but think what could be before!
* April. It's not January as many seemed to think.
Guess! What's before MAY?!! ;-)

9. Surprisingly easy one. What does a thaumatologist do?
*Studies miracles.
A lot of answers mentioned magic. Have given marks for that as well.

10. What was codified in a 1942 short story called 'Runaround'? Cryptic Clue: Mt.SinAI !
* The Three Laws of Robotics. Yeah, the story is by Isaac Asimov. Just robot is not good enough, I'm sorry.
About the clue. Mt.Sinai is where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. and AI= Artificial Intelligence. Get it? Mt.SinAI.

BONUS Question
Q. Can you make 24 out of 4 zeroes only? Use mathematical operations only. ie, make an expression out of 0,0,0,0 such that it evaluates to 24.
* (0! + 0! + 0! + 0!)!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The scores (in chronological order)

1. Asish Koshy - 7
2. Sharad Singh - 4
3. Suki - 1.5
4. Shiraz - 9 (0.5 each for 2Qs)
5. Mamatha Balasubramanian - 2 (nice working out)
6. Sujith Vijay - 9 (o yeah,i know to get 8 with two 0s :-p)
7. Ramkumar Sankar - 1
8. Prasun Ratn - 1
9. Kensy Joseph - 3
10. TalonX the Surreal - 2
11. Avinash Iyer - 3 (Bonus qUIZZER?)
12. Madhu M - 2 (Share ur views on Heller)
13. Kunal Malhotra - 8
14. Partha Sengupta - 3
15. Sreeram - 3
16. Syam Prasad - 5
17. Lahar Appaiah - 5 (May <-- Goddess of fertility Maia)
18. Avjit Chaudhuri - 7
19. Devilcat - 4
20. Sukhamaya - 4
21. Santhosh D'Souza - 9 (nice work on April!)
22. Acharya Rajib - 7
23. R.Krishna - 8
24. Suranjan Chakrabarty- 6 (I believe there's more than 1 album though for TW)
25. Navneet Bal - 5
26. Dinesh Krithivasan - 5.5
27. Samrat Sengupta - 2
28. Aniruddha Gupta - 7
29. Anshuman Mishra - 5
30. Debashree Mitra - 4
31. Koushik Vedaraman - 5
32. Hussain Poonawala - 1
33. Paul Ahmitough - 9
34. Satyajit Chetri - 1
35. Vijay Krishnan - 2
36. Pramod R - 1
37. Venkateswar KR - 0 (queery effort!)
38. Anannya Deb - 4
39. Bhaskar Singh - 0
40. Pauline Daniel - 1
41. Prithwiraj Mukherjee - 3.5
42. Thejaswi Udupa - 7
43. Sankle Pradesh - 3
44. Avik Chatterjee - 2
45. Bharat Jayakumar - 1 (may the 44444.. be with U2!)

--------STATS ----------------------------------------------

Funnest!-
Click OK to restart on Defenestration
00:00 = 24 hrs midnight on BonusQ
Plan to kill Bobby Fischer by Soviets on Proj Chess

Guessest!- nice guessing
May, December on April
Phileas Fogg, Frank Poole on Millennium Falcon
Nirad Chaudhuri on Joseph Heller
Picasso,MF Hussain on Artist as Old Man
Turing Test on Runaround
Hitler's submarine fleet on Project Chess

Expectedest!
Removing MSWindows from PC on defenestration
Deep Blue for Project Chess

* Most popular wrong answer: William Bligh has no HMS mutiny
* All questions were answered
* Shiraz,Paul,Santhosh top the quiz with 9 points

* What I realised: Clues are interpreted and used in myriad ways. Sometimes in ways unIMAGINED by framer!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A match may start a fire. But once the fire is
started, putting out the match will not be of
any use.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Round Trip

2005-12-23T14:20:00.000+05:30

Even across generations of quizzers, a subset of common knowledge exists. There also exists some consensus on the question: what is quiz-worthy and what is not.

I find it rather strange when names like Dag Hammarskjold roll off the tips of the tongues of young quizzing neophytes (quizzerlets?). And everybody seems to answer by reflex to questions like "Who killed the man who killed JFK?" !

1) Magazines/Newspapers keep repeating stuff
a. When records get broken, the same lists are published. The same goes for awards, which are annual affairs.
b. They focus on the same set of personalities, embedding their names and activities in the collective subconscious- laying the foundation for "imaginative, brilliant guesses"
c. Events are regularly commemorated with special issues - serving as time-machines with

2) Quiz masters
a. QMs often repeat questions that they like from other quizzes they might have attended in the past. Repeats become part of the quizzer's armoury - the so-called "chestnuts".

3) Books
Quiz Books and GK books can only get you to the banks of the river.
a. There exists a set of quizzer must-reads. And there is always a "current fad book" - examples from the present would be books like Freakonomics, The World Is Flat. If you keep abreast of the fad books, you're sure to get some points in some quiz or the other, sooner or later. You don't need to read the book; sometimes just reading the review suffices! :-)
b. Science-fiction and pseudo-historical fiction ('fact'ion :-)
Wild, interesting and entertaining theories, generally correct, abound in these books making them gold-mines for quizmasters.

So,

* READ (ABOUT :-) THE FAD BOOKS.
* ATTEND AND OBSERVE QUIZZES.
* PUT THE QUIZ-MASTER'S HAT ON.

* IT'S OK EVEN IF YOU DON'T PORE OVER THE NEWSPAPER EVERY SINGLE DAY.... THE IMPORTANT THINGS WILL REPEAT.

Queuriest - V

2005-12-09T13:03:00.000+05:30

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - V
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. You've heard about the Big Bang. But what's the Interrobang?!?
*

2. A very un-Gentile question, possibly un-gentle as well. What is the Bat Mitzvah? (There has been no misspelling.)
*

3. What is iatrophobia the fear of? Cryptic clue: This might make you eat apples!
*

4. If Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the Moon, who was the last?
*

5. Hesperus & Phosphorus. What's the connection? Real beauty this one, if you know the answer . . .
*

6. In 1982, TIME Magazine chose the PC as the Man of The Year. The next time TIME chose a thing rather than a person for the honour, what was chosen?
*

7. Computers. What is a `frugal floppy'?
*

8. In HG Wells's The Invisible Man, what's the invisible man's name?
*

9. The guitarist of this band lost the tips of his right-hand fingers in an industrial accident just before the release of their debut album around 1970. However he readjusted his style & guitar to give this band its characteristic sound. Which band?
*

10. Which ball-game invented by Niko Brokehysen includes (necessarily) both men and women on a team? Cryptic Clue: Expectorate, maybe?
*

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strange things cease to be strange on repetition...
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Fri Jan 3, 2003 2:10 pm
Subject: Queuriest - V

hi folks!

here's the fifth edition of Queuriest.

questions are slightly tougher this time around, i think. but the hints should be helpful. . .MAY THE CLUES BE WITH YOU!. . .USE THE CLUES. . .- QM Yoda

a new year's resolution in case you don't have one yet: Say No To Google :-), while answering these quizzes. hey, what's so new about 2003?- i'm still preaching, ur still searching...well? :-) just kidding!

Happy New Year everybody!

luv
thomas

ANSWERS
--------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Thu Jan 9, 2003 12:16 pm
Subject: Answers to Queuriest - V

hi there!

am early with the answers. my apologies to those of you who were planning to write in today..

fabulous reponse this time. 31 in all.

thought this was kinda tougher but was surprised. Strange things cease to be strange on repetition...and of course, maybe on googling also! :-( . . .really, lots of you googled which has forced (reluctant) me to reissue the dread(ed/ful) DISCLAIMER, which was in the cupboard for some episodes now...sorry...

when the going gets tough, the tough get googling?

anyway, here are the answers...

luv
thomas

-------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - V
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
-------------------------------------------------------

1. You've heard about the Big Bang. But what's the Interrobang?!?
* combined symbol of ? and !
It didn't catch on at all. That's why I was surprised it was so popular among all of you...
RK: ?! by martin spector head of ny ad agency
AJ gives you http://www.interrobang-mks.com/ . Honesty appreciated, you get 0.5
Somebody told me that I was getting predictable, incorporating the symbol in the question a la tittle etc.

2. A very un-Gentile question, possibly un-gentle as well. What is the Bat Mitzvah? (There has been no misspelling.)
* It's the coming-of-age ceremony for Jewish girls. Bar Mitzvah is it for the Jewish boys. Bar Mitzvah for girls is good enough. It means daughter of the commandment literally.

a couple of you corrected me that it was __bar__mitzvah in spite my claims of 'no misspelling'...without that, it'd have done in more of you I guess... :-)

3. What is iatrophobia the fear of? Cryptic clue: This might make you eat apples!
* The fear of doctors.
The clue which was not at all cryptic made it pretty obvious, I guess.
SS said it is the fear of doctors induced by circumcision: I don't know about that, perhaps you're pulling my leg here by connecting it to the previous question?? Jews... ;-)

4. If Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the Moon, who was the last?
* Eugene (Gene) Cernan.
He went on the Apollo-17 in 1972.
Most people got it right.

5. Hesperus & Phosphorus. What's the connection? Real beauty this one, if you know the answer . . .
* Venus. That's why that was a real beauty! :-) Goddess of beauty-Venus...ZZZZ...
Hesperus= Morning Star and Phosphorus=Evening Star, both of which refer to planet Venus
SS adds Gottlob Frege used them as examples for his theory on usage of words
TU: Hesperus = Phosphorus...the object model used by Gottlob Frege in his work 'Of Sense and Nominatum'.
Full points only if you have mentioned Venus. A bit controversial this, but then, `the real beauty' part of the question should've guided you...

6. In 1982, TIME Magazine chose the PC as the Man of The Year. The next time TIME chose a thing rather than a person for the honour, what was chosen?
* The Endangered Earth in 1988
Possibly the sitter of the quiz

7. Computers. What is a `frugal floppy'?
* Frugal floppy is an 8" floppy drive/disk.
Anybody seen one? Biggest I've seen is the 5.25". Lots of you must have, judging from the number of correct answers...well...:-)

8. In HG Wells's The Invisible Man, what's the invisible man's name?
* Griffin gets you credit. The first name is not mentioned in the book though SC said Hawley Griffin and some others Jack and yet others James. I think the first names came only with the movies

9. The guitarist of this band lost the tips of his right-hand fingers in an industrial accident just before the release of their debut album around 1970. However he readjusted his style & guitar to give this band its characteristic sound. Which band?
* Band: Black Sabbath.
Guitarist: Tony Iommi
+I is that He was left-handed.
+I: Def Leppard's drummer lost a hand in an accident.

10. Which ball-game invented by Niko Brokehysen includes (necessarily) both men and women on a team? Cryptic Clue: Expectorate, maybe?
* Korfball is the answer. There was a major tournament in India some time last year, that's when I first heard about it. Easily gettable from the clue, ehhem ahhem.....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strange things cease to be strange on repetition...
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The scores (in chronological order):

1. Mamatha Balasubramaniam - 2 (early bird gets 2 worms! ;-)
2. Shiraz - 9 (great show boss)
3. Sylvia - 1 (and...,u thought right!)
4. Sukhamaya - 6.5 (kemp is the doctor)
5. R.Krishna - 8.5 (no venus=0.5)
6. Shash Shekar - 8.5 (thanx for the +Info)
7. Syam Prasad - 7 ( am a lithomaniac though)
8. Satyajit Chetri - 5 ( advice:better vague than incorrect)
9. Biswabijoy Sen - 3 (pentapploformula=gastric trouble?)
10. Venkateshwar KR - 2 (enjoyed ur effort as always)
11. Sujith Vijay - 6 (Superb effort, nice tries)
12. Debashree Mitra - 6 (think you got venus q mixed up but it's all right)
13. Ankur Jain - 6.5 (ray of light in a net of darkness)
14. Anish - 4.5 (not specific enough on q1)
15. Mahesh M Nair - 7 (bat mitzvah answer not good enough)
16. Venu Gopal - 6 (good going)
17. Pauline Daniel - 5 (run-a-ball effort)
18. Bharat Jayakumar - 2 (pretty cool)
19. Thejaswi Udupa - 6.5 (thanx for the comps)
20. Usha Ramaswamy - 1 (keep the posts coming in)
21. Rajiv Rai - 5 (nice guessing,appreciate that)
22. Vimal Vikrant Vardhan M - 1 (more tries please!!!)
23. Rahul Jayanthi - 8 (keep it up)
24. Ajay Sahoo - (blank mail was what i got)
25. Kunal Malhotra - 4 (nothing about girls in Bat Mitzvah)
26. B. Sreeram - 5 (getting too predictable, huh?)
27. Shrijit Plapally - 1 (enjoyed the answers)
28. Kewl_Kittein - 2 (0.5 each for 1 & 2)
29. Vilayannur Viswanathan - 4 (who comes of age in q2?)
30. Stephen Mathew - 3 (enjoyed ur guessing)
31. Satish K - 5.5 (solid effort boss)

--------STATS ----------------------------------------------

Funnest!-
Mr.Glass on Invisible Man
Floppy which refuses to give information! on Frugal Floppy
Mouse on TIME's MoY
Interrupted net connections on Interrobang
Batman's Birthday on Bat Mitzvah

Ridiqulest!-
E.T on TIME's MoY
Paper Clip on TIME's MoY
The day Waugh learnt to bat (Bat meetsWaugh) on Bat Mitzvah

Guessest!- nice guessing
Spitball on Korfball
New key on Apple keyboards on Interrobang
Mixed Doubles on Korfball
Bar Mitzvah party where women are present on Bat Mitz
Internet on TIME's MoY
First ever floppy on Frugal floppy
Fear of diseases picked up in hospital on iatrophobia
Circumcision etc on Bat Mizvah

* Most popular wrong answer: Invisible Man has no name
* All questions were answered
* Shiraz tops the quiz with 9 points
* Average score : 4.5
-----------------------------------------------------------------

DISCLAIMER - Not applicable where void

The QM's congratulatory remarks regarding the maintenance of the state of elevation* conditional to the respondent's abstinence from the use of deprecated extraneous assistance - automated or otherwise. All responses accepted as accurate transcriptions of the respondent's cranial contents. Reponses not matching aforementioned description, if any, constitute breach of trust and are deplored.

*=keep it up etc

Any inconvenience/distress to genuine respondents as a result of this disclaimer is regretted.

Queuriest - IV

2005-11-21T09:43:00.000+05:30

------------------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - IV
Keep Guessing! --- Johnnie Guesser
------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Merry X-mas folks (belated) ! But tell me, why is it X in X-mas? C-mas would've been better abbreviations for Christmas, right? What's the story? ------ The question, in short, is : Y X?
*

2.If it is Dr. Watson for Sherlock Holmes, who is it for Hercule Poirot?
*

3.George Orwell's 1984 gave us the terms Big Brother, doublespeak etc. What was 'the ultimate' torture room in the novel called?
*

4.Absolute sitter this one. Which fabric literally means `cloth of the king'? Work it out!
*

5.Eminently guessable one. Which rock star named himself (or/and his band) after a 17th century witch? Maybe you gotta be eighteen to answer this one. . .
*

6. How would most of us better know a virgule as?
*

7. What is the claim to fame of two people called Dismas and Gestas? For Christ's sake, don't google on this one...
*

8. Elementary question! Name the only elements that exist as liquids at 0C (zero degree celsius). Clue: There are words derived from them in the English language. Calling Mr.Webster?....
*

9. It's all Greek to me! Who was killed by Zeus after Pluto complained to him that Hades was getting underpopulated?
*

10.Which four-letter word did Dr. Seuss coin in his 1950 book "If I Ran the Zoo"? Do not search excessively, you just might become one! ;-p
*

-----------------------------------------------------------------
********* Bonus Q for no points:*********
**Gimme a word with the sequence `uqu' in it.
------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Fri Dec 27, 2002 9:05 pm
Subject: Queuriest - IV

hi everybody!

Here's the fourth edition of Queuriest.

Hope this edition gets more responses than the previous one (if that is possible!). Get the answers straight from the heart (or wherever it is that you keep ur facts ;-) No WYSWIG (=what you search is what i get) please. Gimme what you got. Make me happy...flood me with replies!

answers in a week's time. get cracking!!!

luv
thomas

ANSWERS
--------------

hi folks!

pretty good response to the quiz. there were 25 responses in all. was expecting more though...(never get enuff of you!) :-) what with more responses to the previous edition.

were the clues too obvious? that's what put some of u off? don't want no more clues? questions too easy? tell me when u answer to Queuriest-V.

the answers follow...

luv
thomas

------------------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - IV
Keep Guessing! --- Johnnie Guesser
------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Merry X-mas folks (belated) ! But tell me, why is it X in X-mas? C-mas would've been better abbreviations for Christmas, right? What's the story? ------ The question, in short, is : Y X?
*X looks similar to the greek alphabet chi,which in greek is the first letter in the name Christ, Chi was used to represent the name Christ ,so christmas=chimas or Xmas

2.If it is Dr. Watson for Sherlock Holmes, who is it for Hercule Poirot?
*Captain Arthur Hastings
I think the Poirot short-stories were almost knocking-copies of the SH stories...personal opinion. everything corresponds
to the Advs of SH&W. Novels pretty good though.

3.George Orwell's 1984 gave us the terms Big Brother, doublespeak etc. What was 'the ultimate' torture room in the novel called?
* Room 101 is what the torture room was called.
When Winston Smith was taken there, he got rats. It contained ur worst fears, whatever that was. His was rats.
GB: Room 101. Where your ultimate personal nightmare is given shape?

4.Absolute sitter this one. Which fabric literally means `cloth of the king'? Work it out!
*Corduroy was what I was expecting. CORD DU ROI
But many of you came up with rexine, working the rex part superbly. Good work but points only for corduroy as rexine is not cloth, just a leather-substitute.

5.Eminently guessable one. Which rock star named himself (or/and his band) after a 17th century witch? Maybe you gotta be eighteen to answer this one. . .
Alice Cooper. the clue had something to do with AC's song Eighteen. among the world's first shock-rockers...white makeup, lipstick etc onstage

6. How would most of us better know a virgule as?
* Slash, the "/", forward slash more precisely.
AV said: comma. in French. FYI puan is a fullstop, and Puan-Virgule, a semicolon.
QM:what would a backslash be called, i wonder . . .

7. What is the claim to fame of two people called Dismas and Gestas? For Christ's sake, don't google on this one...
* These are the people (thieves) who were crucified along with Jesus Christ. The clue was a dead giveaway I guess.
Most of you got it right.Assignment for u: who was on the left and who was on the right?

8. Elementary question! Name the only elements that exist as liquids at 0C (zero degree celsius). Clue: There are words derived from them in the English language. Calling Mr.Webster?....
* Bromine & Mercury
Not too many got both right.

9. It's all Greek to me! Who was killed by Zeus after Pluto complained to him that Hades was getting underpopulated?
* Aesculapius, who was bringing people back to life. Zeus afraid that it would violate the exclusivity of the Gods' immortality, strikes him down with thunderbolt as some versions have it.
BJ complained:MAJOR MISTAKES IN THE QUESTION #1 Zeus- Greek (=Jupiter in Roman) and Pluto- Roman #2 Hades-God of the underworld in Greek mythology (NOT greek for hell!!)
QM:well, Hades IS the name for the Greek underworld as well as the god, as you mentioned. It was named so after the god, I think.And...Pluto, as you mentioned, is Roman but Hade's (the god's) equivalent. I used Pluto just to avoid the confusion between the god and the place. And one more thing,Hades(the place) is not hell: it is the abode of the dead, not a place of punishment like Hell.. . .well, maybe the question would've been better framed as ...Hades complained that the Underworld was...? anyways...

10.Which four-letter word did Dr. Seuss coin in his 1950 book "If I Ran the Zoo"? Do not search excessively, you just might become one! ;-p
*Nerd
Many of you came up with geek which was pretty good work i thought. A lot of other 4-letter words also did come up. . .

-----------------------------------------------------------------
********* Bonus Q for no points:*********
**Gimme a word with the sequence `uqu' in it.
Not too many attempted this, bouquet was the only one that turned up. i guess that's the only word. my anagrammer dug out these obscure words from my comp dictionary:albuquerque,bouquet, chautauqua,chibouque,dubuque,duque,duquesne, ololiuqui, ololiuquis, ottauquechee,tuque. But none of these seem to be 'normal' words. Strange, considering that words with 'uq' would also be the same, since q is always followed by u! Is bouquet the only real word?
------------------------------------------------------------------

The scores (in chronological order):

1. Ravikiran Rao - 3.5 ( not 205 sorry, .5 for Hg)
2. Aishwariya V - 4 (the French connection!)
3. Debashree Mitra - 6.5 (good going)
4. Vaidyanathan - 7 (great show boss)
5. Dinesh Krothivasan - 6.5 (thanx for the comps)
6. Mamatha Baloo - 3 (roll the dice sometimes)
7. Ramkumar Shankar - 3 (geek was good)
8. Venkateshwar - (but having major fun though!)
9. Abhinandan LN - 7 (100%hit rate!)
10.Ananya Deb - 5.5 (.5 for Greek god part tho Aeschylus was somebody else)
11. R.Krishna - 7 (nice work)
12. B.Sreeram - 5 (cafe-panic-amnesia? :-)
13. Bharat Jayakumar - 2 (xQ = 0.5! )
14. Pauline Daniel - 4 (guess more!)
15. Vimal Vikran Vardhan M - 2.5 ( V3M :-)
16. Bhaskar Singh - 2 (hi nerd pal?? ;-)
17. Rajaram Sethuraman - 1 (enjoyed ur effort)
18. Sourabh Issar - 1.5 (Bromine, not Iodine)
19. Girish Bhat - 3 ( u nu no uqu in sequence didn't u? ;-)
20. Syam Prasad - 4 (It's Winston Smith in '84)
21. Ryan Michigan - 8.5 (ref my expl on Q9. )
22. Husain Poonawala - .5 (BS named after a movie)
23. Partha Sengupta - 1 (Dude! ;-)
24. Debanjan Ghosh - 5 (solid show)
25. Mahesh M Nair - 5.5 (back in tvm?)

----- STATS --------------------------------------------------------------

Funnest!-
Classroom/School on Room 101!
X stands for the cross, rotated by 45 degrees on Xmas
People who became words: Dismal & Gestapo! on Dismas/Gestas
Most of us know it as an unknown word! on Virgule

Guessest!- good guessing
Rexin,Shahtoosh on Corduroy
Geek on Nerd
Rat Trap on Room 101
Alice In Chains on Alice Cooper (QM: same Alice I wonder?)

* Ryan Michigan tops with 8.5 points
* Average score : 4
* All the questions were answered.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Living To Fight Another Day

2005-11-10T16:43:00.000+05:30

After writing the elimination round of any quiz competition, there is always this doubt in one's mind - Have we scored enough? Will we get through to the final round?

In my experience, I have found that around 50% does it. Of course, the more points you get, the surer you are to get through. But if one is sure about around half the questions, the odds are that you will make it. We might not qualify as the toppers, but we will most probably scrape through - living to fight another day and that's what counts.

On a couple of occasions, I have been eliminated even after touching this magic figure. Each time, there were more than a couple of teams on the same score, we were shot out after a tiebreaker or a coin-toss and apology. It's fair and square, I've been on the benefiting side as well.

Now, suppose you are sure about 60% and you still don't get through.
Chances are that -
a) you were wrong on a few (QM googlies). Oh.......#@*#.....That! How could I have not spotted that! The QM knows better than you.
b) you know better than the QM. He uses an old edition of that book. But there's no point in arguing, remember the cardinal rule : the QM is always, always, no matter what, right.
c) it was not a good set of questions- hugely loaded with current affairs or some niche topic - favouring some teams with specific backgrounds. Was Rembrandt really that good? So many questions... Or is today that important a day?
d) The other teams were fantabulously great. They make it every time, why don't I?

In all four scenarios, it's probably best that you didn't make it. But no matter what, stay to watch the final round. Don't leave the venue disappointed.

On the other hand, if you didn't score around half and the cut off was round about there, it's time for some serious book- or web-crawling!

What say you?

This 50% rule is also the criterion by which I make out who google on my online quizzes and who don't. Generally, I'm right! Or, it was a bad set of questions....More thoughts on what makes a good set of prelims questions, later.

Queuriest - III

2005-10-28T14:57:00.000+05:30

----------------------------------
QUEURIEST - III
Keep Guessing - Johnnie Guesser
----------------------------------

1. What is a tittle? Clue: There are six of them in this question!
*

2. Connect the seed-drill and scuba. Maybe you should be sitting on a park-bench while thinking this one out!
*

3. Real sitter. Who stays at Apartment 3D, 344, ClintonStreet?
*

4. Which modern-day term was originally used to refer to the high-flying flags on ships in the 18th century?
*

5. Who, according to Don Bradman, "scored goals like runs"?
*

6. "Woods are lovely,dark and deep..." All of us are familiar with these words by Robert Frost. But tell me which poem?
*

7. Who were the signatories of the Treaty Of Park Avenue?
*

8. Pete Sampras currently holds the record for maximum number of Grand Slam titles among me. Whose record did he break?
*

9. If a philanthropist makes charitable donations to increase human well-being, what does a psilanthropist do?
*

10. What kind of people did Gulliver encounter in Glubbdubdrib?
*

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great men are only agents of a great cause. - Nietschze
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

hello everybody!

hope this edition gets more responses than the previous one.

questions are fairly straightforward this time around. gimme what u got! No What-You-Search-Is-What-I-Get please! rediscover the joy of guessing!

answers in 7 days time. get cracking!

luv
thomas

hi folks!

thanks for the fantabulous response. there were 44 responses in all.

had a lot of fun compiling the stats, scoring the responses etc...and thanks a lot for 'rediscovering the joy of guessing'.

luv
thomas

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANSWERS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. What is a tittle? Clue: There are six of them in this question!
*the dot over the i . Almost universally cracked. Did EVERYBODY really know this one?. . . I guess the clue gave it away!!! ...or was it ...? ;-)

AJ adds: - however i think there are eight in ur question...since ur question mark as well as ur exclamation mark have one each (below them) they too are called tittles .....e.g. spanish has an inverted question mark before the question and an inverted exclamation mark before an exclamation (and of course a straight question mark and straight exclamation mark after a question and exclamation respectively) so they too are called tittles.
MM says: A title is a small mark or point added to a letter like the German Umlaut, I'm not sure whether the dot over the i qualifies as a tittle.
QM: tittle literally = A tiny or scarcely detectable amount, Related word: diacritic, check it out.

2. Connect the seed-drill and scuba. Maybe you should be sitting on a park-bench while thinking this one out!
*The seed-drill was invented by a person called Jethro Tull. And Aqualung is another name for the scuba gear which is an album/song by Ian Anderson's Jethro Tull.
Really,you should be specific and clear while answering connection Qs. 1 point only if both JT and AL mentioned.only 0.5 if just one mentioned.
about the clue:'Sitting on a park-bench' is how the song starts...
Not too many takers on this one.

3. Real sitter. Who stays at Apartment 3D, 344, ClintonStreet?
* Clark Kent aka Superman
No controversy on this one. Most of you got it.

4. Which modern-day term was originally used to refer to the high-flying flags on ships in the 18th century?
*Skyscraper.
Only Shash Shekar got this one.

5. Who, according to Don Bradman, "scored goals like runs"?
* Indian hockey team/Dhyan Chand
I'd been thinking that it was about the hockey team alone, but so many of u `remembered' it as being about Dhyan Chand also...maybe it was about Dhyan Chand's Indian hockey team! Points for either.

6. "Woods are lovely,dark and deep..." All of us are familiar with these words by Robert Frost. But tell me which poem?
*Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening.
Had many variants like Walking, winter evening, winter morning..but I've been very generous!

7. Who were the signatories of the Treaty Of Park Avenue?
*Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. The treaty was that whenever asked who the best science-fiction writer was, Asimov would say Clarke, and Clarke would name Asimov.
Shiraz adds: its basically while in the taxi cab on Park Ave that they made a pact

8. Pete Sampras currently holds the record for maximum number of Grand Slam singles titles among men. Whose record did he break?
*Roy Emerson's record of 12 Grand Slam singles titles (A6,F2,W2,U2). He still has the maximum number of Grand Slam titles overall (including doubles, 28).
Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg have 11 each.

9. If a philanthropist makes charitable donations to increase human well-being, what does a psilanthropist do?
* A psilanthropist is a person who believes that Jesus Christ was a mere mortal.
(Perhaps this was the most referred answer. Hail Webster?)

10. What kind of people did Gulliver encounter in Glubbdubdrib?
*Sorcers and Magicians.
Glubbdubdrib was ruled by a sorcerer, who entertains his guests by calling forth the spirits of the ancient world.
QM: Many of you answered Yahoos for this one. Well, Gulliver met them in the land of the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent horses. The Yahoos were the human savages there...and Gulliver met the Struldbrugs, a race of immortals, in Luggnagg.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The scores (in chronological order)

1. Pauline Daniel - 2 (that was such a quick response!)
2. Gautham Ravichander - 2 (Great work on Jethro Tull )
3. Husain Poonawala - 4 (cool show)
4. Shiraz - 7 (superb show man! hope u enjoyed the rediscovery process! :-)
5. Shobhana Balakrishnan - 2 (stopping by, not walking thru,but I'm generous!)
6. Krishna T - 1.5 (First to get hockey team as such!)
7. Aishwariya V - 3 (had planned 2 put ur lace tidbit as a Q in fact. but now NO!!!)
8. Vaidyanathan - 5 (why duplicates? confused me.)
9. Mohit Sud - 6.5 (y didn't u mention Aqualung?)
10. Naveed Mohammed - 7 (right on Laver/Borg but Emerson has 12. )
11. Abhishek Hariharan - 2 (nice try)
12. Sourabh Issar - 1 (GlubbDubbians was a cheeky one! ;-)
13. Rajesh Malviya - 3.5 (It's not Doug Adams)
14. Syam Prasad - 4.5 (way to go man! it was not too much after all, eh?)
15. Madhu M - 2 (a tittle of a doubt! but dot over i good enough to get points here)
16. Biswabijoy Sen - 5 (Aqualung could not have been answered in a better way!)
17. Ranganathan Sairam - 4 (y didn't u answer prev quiz if u liked it? anyway,thanx for the compliment.)
18. Samir Bora - 4.5 (Superman/(Superman+Mask) = 0.5 )
19. Debashree Mitra - 6 (solid!)
20. Quizgeek - 6 (who's the man behind the mask?)
21. Anshuman Mishra - 5 (OK!OK! I wish you luck ;-P )
22. B.Sreeram - 6 (How old are you anyway, huh?)
23. Sameer Baxi - 7 (Check out RAMA series by ACC)
24. Ramsu - 7 (It's not Pele! Go head! Kick urself :-)
25. Ramkey - 3 (100% hit rate! u should've made more attempts!)
26. Soumyadipta B - 5 (glad to know u appreciate the Qs)
27. Harish J Prabhu - 6 (Bradman's grandkids LOL!!!)
28. Satish K - 5 (no points for meaning of tittle sorry. u should have used the clue!)
29. Kasthuri - 6.5 (glad to know u used the clue. and...is ur heart content now? ;-p)
30. Raghavendra Achar - 1 (Good guesses but hard luck :-(
31. Thejaswi Udupa - 8.5 (about history textbook-people. he met only their ghosts thru way of necromancy.)
32. Dhiraj Ramakrishnan - 2 (nice try)
33. Aseem - 4 (solid)
34. Udayan Chakrabarti - 2.5 (y didn't u mention Jethro Tull)
35. Shrijit Plapally - 2 (enjoyed ur answers ;-)
36. Dhananjay Shettigar - 3.5 (good work on hockey team)
37. Amit De - 5 (willie renshaw was that guy who kept winning Wimbledon right? he ever win anything else?)
38. R.Krishna - 7 ( is the middle name really jerome? please confirm)
39. Ankur Jain - 7 (Holmes Jain!!!)
40. Bhaskar Singh - 2 (William Renshaw won a few Wimbledons.But that was it, I guess)
41. Venkateswar - 2 (there were some queery answers after all hey?)
42. Shash Shekar - 6 (congrats on skyscraper)
43. Bharat Jayakumar - 4 (hi there. mudblood? :-)
44. Siddharth K - 2.5 ( No AL on JT = 0.5)

--------------------STATS--------------------------------------

*Honestest! -
SP who said `He believes that Christ was only a man. (Do not give me marks for this. I consulted my Dictionary.) '

Queuriest! -
Response to q2 seed-drill & scuba
UC: Aqualung yes but no Jethro Tull !
MS & DS: Jethro Tull, yes but no Aqualung !

Cryptickest!-
SB who said IS IS POINTS to What is a tittle?
and QM deciphered as is I's points! yay!!!

Funnest!-
Monica Lewinsky on Clintonstreet
Raymonds on Treaty Of Park Avenue
Snot nosed- drippy nosed people on Glubbdubbdrib
Misspell Philanthropist on Psilanthropist
Himself playing football with his grandchildren on Don's comment
...and now the cricketers score runs like goals! on Don's comment

(thought it gooddest not to reveal authors.)

* Thejaswi Udupa tops the quiz with 8.5 points
* Average score: 4.5
* Everybody scored!
* All the questions were answered.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great men are only agents of a great cause. - Nietschze
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Better Incomplete Than Incorrect

2005-10-17T15:12:00.000+05:30

While answering a question in a quiz, if you're not sure about the entire answer, omit the parts of the answer that you are not really sure about.

Also, say the parts you are sure about loud and confident (in oral rounds) or conveniently abbreviate. Maybe the QM won't notice or the answer that you say might be unambiguous enough for him.

Let's say the answer to a question is John F Kennedy, but you are not sure about the John part. Just say Kennedy. Never say James (often you will be sure that the name starts with a J) or, god forbid, Robert Kennedy (another person famous in his own right).

Even if the answer is incomplete, the QM might give you half-points but if it is wrong you won't get any. Mask your ignorance in the quiz. But be aware of your ignorance and work towards gaining some knowledge in that area afterwards. Questions do repeat and next time around, you might not be so lucky.

Queuriest - II

2005-10-10T12:50:00.000+05:30

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - II
Keep Guessing! --- Johnnie Guesser
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. A pricky question (piquant?) that could leave you in stitches? Tell me, what you would do with Buffon's needle?
*

2. Name the Sherlock Holmes stories in which Holmes himself is the narrator? Points only if you get all of them.
*

3. Calling all Purpleheads...What was peculiar ( queuerious? ;-) about the way in which Deep Purple's mid-70s lead singer David Coverdale used to sing Deep Purple's all-time classic and possibly their most famous song "Smoke On The Water"? Why? (If you know the lyrics to the song, this is very much workoutable.)
*

4. Chess. Who or what is known as a patzer? (Cryptic clue: A Remus would be a good option for them! )
*

5. Was grass ever for Indian cows? Who was the first Indian to be seeded at Wimbledon?
*

6. Art Spiegelman's Maus won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 . What's the distinction?
*

7. The absolute sitter of this quiz possibly. You've heard about telegrams and anagrams. But what is a pangram?
*

8. Rama, Shiva, Sugriva. What's the connection? (apart from the fact that they are mythological characters etc). Unleash your imagination! I'm waiting to learn more . . .
*

9. Who is a picaninny? You should never call them this!
*

10. How do we better know Mosi-o-Tunya? Cryptic clue: Smoke that thunders rises when a monarch capitulates?
*

hi folks!

here's the next installment of Queuriest.

the questions are fairly straightforward. there are no deliberate misspellings or hazification of questions in order to prevent you from googling. do justify the trust placed in you. there are lots of clues in the questions! tell me if they helped you work out the answers.

hope u enjoy cracking the Qs as much as I did setting them!

luv
thomas

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
`Curiouser and curiouser!'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANSWERS

1. * You could try to find the value of pi.
Sathish: Buffons needle is experimental method used to calculate the value of pi. one of the method is like this, say you got a needle of length 'x',draw parallel lines of distance 's' apart. if you drop the needle 'n' timesand it touche the lines 'y' times then the value of pi can be calculates as app (2*n*x)/(y*s).
Kamal:Buffon's Needle is one of the oldest problems in the field of geometrical probability. It was first stated in 1777. It involves dropping a needle on a lined sheet of paper and determining the probability of the needle crossing one of the lines on the page. The remarkable result is that the probability is directly related to the value of pi.

2. *Only two - The Adventure of The Blanched Soldier and The Adventure Of The Lion's Mane. Only Sreeram gets both.

3. * The song goes `We all came out to Montreux. . .', it was about an fire episode during a Frank Zappa concert that the members attended. Those days Ian Gillan was their lead-singer. After David Coverdale replaced Gillan in the band, at concerts/shows whent the band played the song, DC sang the song with 'We' replaced by `They', since he was not involved in the episode. (`They all came out to Montreux' etc). He sure was a sentimental guy!

4. * A patzer is a poor(moderate to inferior in quality) chess player. Of course, patzers are bound to be poor as well! :-) About the clue - Remus is German for draw, patzers would be very happy if they manage to draw the game?
Sathish: Patzer is a term for novice in chess. the persons elo rating is around 1400.

5. * Dilip Bose was seeded 15 in 1950. He could reach only the 2nd round. He had reached the 4th round in 1948.

6. * First cartoon/graphic book to win the Prize. In fact a whole new category was created for it,it seems.

7. * A sentence or poem which contains all the letters of the alphabet. eg. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

8. *The key word was pithecus.All have hominids named after them, Ramapithecus, Shivapithecus etc.
Cracked only by Sreeram.
Bharat says: RSS. (The party's alternate expansion!!)
Sreeram asks: Are there parts of Niagra which are named after them?
QM: I know there's some such trivia Q about Niagara but forget what exactly it was. Or was it about Colorado? HELP!!!

9. * It's a derogatory term for a Black child.
SK: Dominant racial carricature of Black children. They are described with bulging eyes, unkempt hair and wide mouths. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin explains better.

10. * Victoria Falls. That's its local name. Literally means 'smoke that thunders'. So, the clue was not so cryptic after all, huh?

-------------------------------------------
hi everybody!

Here are the answers to Queuriest -II.

Why were there only so many responses? Just 5! Was this because of my criticism of googlaholics (ref: DISCLAIMER in the prev Answers post)? Is this the size of the nongooglaholic population within Quiznet? ;-) But really, was expecting more... :-(

anyways. . .

luv
thomas

The scores (in chronological order):

Sathish.K - 6.5 (some answers were not specific enough)
Kamal Rathi - 5 (Computer opponent was a good try)
Sreeram - 4 ( <=4 prediction ---> =4 = 4 ! )
Kunal Malhotra - 4.5 (patzer answer vague)
Bharat Jayakumar - (:-)) Keep ur creativity going though!!!

* The only unanswered question was the one about Smoke On The Water

No disclaimer needed this time around!!!

Sudoku

2005-09-08T17:18:00.000+05:30

Sudoku's all the rage nowadays. Have attempted two thus far, completed one.

The word Sudoku means "single number" in Japanese. The first puzzle was created by Howard Garnes, a freelance puzzle constructor, in 1979. It was originally called Number Place.

Should appear in a quiz near you in the near future...

Queuriest - I

2005-09-02T10:09:00.000+05:30

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUEURIEST - I
Keep Guessing! --- Johnnie Guesser
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Here's to all you dedicated Googlers. What's the building in which Google's HQ is based called? You are allowed to google only if u get this one! ;-)
*

2. Question for hairy men? tell me what Occam's razor is.
*

3. Who was the first Indian cricketer to get a Man Of The Match in the World Cup?
*

4. What is Korsakoff's Syndrome? Cryptic clue: People who play golf and sum up their scores rarely get it!
*

5. From sick to verse!

The night has a thousand eyes,
The day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When its love is done.

Who's the poet?
*

6. Bland question. Who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1972?
*

7. Expand JRR as in JRR Tolkien.
*

8. Who called M.K. Gandhi "Mahatma Major" and himself "Mahatma Minor"?
*

9.Van Halen's first album with Sammy Hagar as lead singer was 5150. Now 5150 was used as a code for the criminally insane by the police. Their next album was called OU812. What's the story?
*

10. How many faces does a icosahedron have? Go ahead, sit on it.
*

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Sat Dec 7, 2002 12:33 am
Subject: Queuriest - I

hi everybody!

here's the first edition of Queuriest. Ten questions for you to crack. Answers in a week.
cool words to know: . . .phthisis. . . chthonian. . .looks like they've been misspelt huh?

thomas

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANTI-GOOGLING SONG

lucifer is the light-giver
go ogle in the egg loo,
you'll get goo leg

evil one,
if you didn't get the first one
you deserve it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(To discourage googling for the answers. Some resorted to other search engines!)

ANSWERS
-------------
From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Sat Dec 14, 2002 12:46 am
Subject: Answers to Queuriest - I

hi everybody!

Here are the answers to Queuriest -I.

well, about the name Queuriest. . .Pronounced kyooriyest. Inspired by `curiouser and curiouser!'. supposed to be curious-est contracted and spelled with Q (the best letter of them all! ). some of you thought it was supposed to be `queer'iest, and so came up with some queer answers. well?

about the words (did all of u know the meaning?)
-phthisis = Involving the lungs with progressive wasting of the body
-chthonian= Of the underworld

the literal meaning of lucifer is light-giver, really. i was not kidding in the anti-google poem . . .and luciferin is a pigment that's there in fireflies.

luv
thomas

-------------------------------------------
ANSWERS

>1. Googleplex.
It's at Mountain View, CA ? . . .and 1 followed by a googol zeroes is called a googol-plex. yawn? a googol is one followed by a hundred zeroes. ZZZZZZZ.....'googol' coined by Milton Sirotta, nine-year-old nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner.

>2. * It is the principle that explanations should not be unnecessarily complicated and that assumptions should not be needlessly multiplied. now that is very clear, is it not? ;-) ) I've been rather liberal on this one. Some of you mentioned this was the same as Principle Of Parsimony and that it is attributed to Willam Of Occam.

>3.* It was Farokh Engineer, in the match vs East Africa in WC'75 at Headingley
Most of you answered Bishan Singh Bedi for his superb spell of 12-8-6-1 in the same match but Engineer was the MoM. I wonder why though. He scored 54* but was not the topscorer either. Gavaskar got 65*. India won the match by 10 wickets.
Turned out to be the Chinaman of the quiz (since the googly was spotted)!

>4. * Dementia observed during the last stages of severe chronic alcoholism; involves loss of memory for recent events although long term memory is intact. (what did i just say?). Occurs due to Vit B1 (thiamine) deficiency. But mostly associated with alcoholism. Only few of you mentioned alcoholism. Only 0.5 if alcoholism not mentioned.
The clue could've ben worked out as -- people who golf tee, sum up score=total. so they could be called teetotallers? yuck, i feel ashamed about the clue now! so twisted. maybe i should've added something about amnesia as well. I'd meant to as well, but forgot!

>5. * Francis William Bourdillon. The poem is called Light.

>6.* Nobody. The prize money was allocated to the main fund of the Nobel foundation (why?)
This was supposed to be the googly of the quiz but was almost universally spotted! :-(
How I hate you, Google!

>7. * John Ronald Reuel

>8. * Eminently guessable, George Bernard Shaw. Most of you got it.

>9.* When spoken aloud, it sounds like "Oh You Ate One Too". This was a dig at their previous lead singer, David Lee Roth's solo album "Eat 'em and smile" which was released about the same time.

>10. * Twenty (20) . Polyhedron having twenty plane faces. Absolutely no controversy about this one!

--------------------------------------------------------------

The scores (in chronological order)

Raghavendra Achar - 1 (the first! )
Sukhamaya - 7.5 (keep it up!)
Raghav Narayanan - 6.5 (don't know about ur query regarding women's WC. sorry.)
Shashi Shekar - (better luck next time.)
Rajesh Malviya - 1.5 (Your Hypermetropia of memory answer was way cool man!)
Ankur Jain - 9 (good going. keep it up!)
Venkateshwar KR - 2.5 (enjoyed the queery answers)
Vijay Anand Menon - 6 (good show boss)
Soumyadipta B - 3.5 (ur icosahedron has 2 faces? or did u mean 20? add 1 if that was so)
Binoj George - 7.5 (keep it up!)
Naveed Mohammed - 9 (got two .5s you didn't mention anything about DLR's album for 9 and no alcoholism in 4, sorry)
Sathish K - 7.5 (great show boss)
Kamal Rathi - 6 (thanx for the address of Google's HQ.)

* The Van Halen question was the least attempted question int the quiz. (Not too many Halen fans in here?)
* Most of the .5s are 'coz no mention of alcoholism in Korsakoff's syndrome. I know this is gonna be controversial but this tidbit was what i was looking for.
*Most wrongly answered question was the first Indian MoM at WC. Mohinder Amarnath.

DISCLAIMER: The QM's congratulatory remarks regarding the maintenance of the state of elevation* conditional to the respondent's abstinence from the use of deprecated extraneous assistance - automated or otherwise. All responses accepted as accurate transcriptions of the respondent's cranial contents. Reponses not matching aforementioned description, if any, constitute breach of trust and are deplored.

*=keep it up etc

Any inconvenience to genuine respondents as a result of this disclaimer is regretted.

Queuriest - Intro

2005-09-02T09:43:00.000+05:30

Queuriest was a series of very "cluesy" quizzes that I ran on Quiznet 3 or 4 years back. If you like cryptic crossword puzzles, it's highly likely that you'll like this also.

The clues were blended into the questions - sometimes as separate clues and sometimes hidden in the framing of the questions. One would not be able to guess the answer from the clue without background knowledge but the clue would help churn out the creamy answer from the depths of your memory. And if one didn't know the answer, when one heard it, one had to have the I-should-have-got-it feeling.

I had a lot of fun compiling the questions and also reading the answers that came in. Be sure to read the comments on the posts as well. There were 10 episodes. It got curiouser and curiouser...

Check them out. These quizzes are also available on Quiznet. You can read the time-capsule versions there if you choose, instead of the retrospective versions here . The answers will be given as comments for each post.

Time's Man Of The Year

2005-08-29T15:22:00.000+05:30

-------------------------

ORACLIQUE - I

Time's MoYs

--------------------------

Feminists, the reason I didn't use Person Of the Year was because the abbreviation TPoY would have unnecessarily reminded one of a certain piece of furniture... :-)

1. First things first. Who was the first person to be chosen as TIME's Man Of The Year?

2. In which year was the PC famously chosen as the first non-living TMoY?

3. Still on 'it', what was the next non-person TMoY?

4. Toughie. Grab that list! Who has been chosen as TMoY the most number of times?

5. A relatively easy one. Who was selected as person of the century by the magazine?

6. What were the trio Sherron Watkins, Cynthia Cooper, Kathleen Rowley who shared the last one collectively called? It's not Referees...

7. Who was the first non-American to be a TMoY? What you wear be you!

8. Who was the first woman to be chosen TMoY? Quite possibly the other woman...

9. Who is the youngest person to be a TMoY? Strange.. very strange. Could it be that the oldest is also the youngest???

10. Who is the only person to have been selected as TMoY in consecutive years?

11. Who received the honour in 1938? (Now why would I pick that year?)

12. Four people shared the TMoY in a certain year. All of them have also won the Nobel Prize. And strangely enough, they also shared Nobel Prizes when they did get them (separately, 2 + 2). Identify these Nobel couples.

13. Just to make it a couple of couple-questions...;-) Who were (was? grammar be my bane!! ) the first couple to be chosen as TMoY?

I'll stop at that. An un-nice, un-round number. Round me up!!!

------------------------------------

ORACLIQUE

The Clique Unoblique

-------------------------------------

Answers
-------------
1. Charles Lindbergh. Too many "Charles Augustus Lindbergh"s came in. Sniff, sniff...hmm..ok..Don't think I don't know you don't know ;-)
2. 1982. Point-blank.
3. Endangered Earth in 1988
4. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Have given points for just Roosevelt as well.
5. Albert Einstein
6. Whistleblowers. They blew the whistle on Enron, WorldCom and FBI respectively.
7. Mahatma Gandhi. Khadi!
8. Mrs. Wallis Simpson. The woman for whose love Edward VIII abdicated the
throne.
9. Charles Lindberg again. He was the first and hence the oldest as well!
10. Richard Nixon. In 1971 and 1972.
11. Adolf Hitler
12. The Peacemakers - Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, F.W. de Klerk and
Nelson Mandela
are the Nobel-couples!!! got so many 'curie'ous answers to this one!
13. Chiang Kaishek and Madam

14) TIME had a Man Of The Decade award once. Who won it? Which decade?
Mikhail Gorbachev. 1980s.

>I'll stop at that. An un-nice, un-round number. Round me up!!!
That's where everybody stopped! No further Qs came in... :-( Too bad each
of you thought that the "other person" would do it...

------------------------------------
ORACLIQUE
The Clique Unoblique
-------------------------------------
Sandeep Unni Adds:
* interestingly Elvis Presley topped the polls for the man of the century,
but time decided to honor Einstein.

Oraclique Trivia

2005-08-26T16:08:00.000+05:30

Welcome to Oraclique...
Steeped in trivia and mystique!

Oracle + Clique = Oraclique
Such words are called portmanteaus. Lewis Carroll is regarded as the inventor of this technique.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau

Oraclique was a series of quizzes I had started on Quiznet http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quiznet/ with the nick sonofdelphi.

The name is based on the meanings (all angles) of the combining words.

Oracle:

1. An authoritative person who divines the future

2. A prophecy (usually obscure or allegorical) revealed by a priest or priestess; believed to be infallible

Clique:
1. An exclusive circle of people with a common purpose
2. Completely interconnected graph in computer science

And in Greek mythology, the oracle at Delphi had all the answers.

Couldn't be a more meaningful name, huh?