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?)
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
ASKQANCE 2007
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)
--------------
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)
Monday, May 28, 2007
KQA Mahaquizzer 2007
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
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
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Queuriestu - I
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!)
-----------------------------------
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!)
Saturday, March 31, 2007
MetaQuizziks 17th Anniversary Quiz
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!)
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!)
Monday, March 05, 2007
Lao Me Thanda - KQA Love Quiz
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)
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)
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Ganesh Nayak Memorial Open 2007
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)
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)
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Under The Peepal Tree 2007 Open(s)
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!)
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. 1ST 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
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
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
Saturday, February 17, 2007
KQA Music Open & Ladies' Open 2007
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)
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)
Monday, February 05, 2007
Mulky Memorial Open 2007
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. ;-)
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
1. Sarla Devi
2. CNRQ
3. Nimbus chief
4. Some CEO
5. CNRQ
6. CNRQ
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 10th century Indian chronicler
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! ;-)
Sunday, February 04, 2007
IIM-B Unmaad Open 2007
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.
(Self-note: The trip to IIM-B. Home to Marathahalli to campus! Taxi advice!)
PRELIMS
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
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.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Odyssey Open 2007, Chennai - Finals
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)
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