Last night's trivia was a trip. Let me tell you. Nice crowd, good energy and WOAH some high scores. 
There are apparently some people out there who still remember every member of G-Unit. 
Who'da thunk? 

If you really want to get the full experience, by the way, I recommend you listen to the songs under the questions as you work. If you're not done by the time the songs are done, FAILURE! EXILE! 

Enjoy!

1.1

1. Due to lack of interest from theaters, which iconic 1977 movie was bundled for sale with the more hotly anticipated film The Other Side of Midnight? Your hint is that of all the iconic movies that came out in 1977, I can promise that the answer is not Eraserhead.
2. What cinematic Easter egg did Google embed in their search code this past week?  
3. Which alarmingly attractive contemporary female singer has blessed us with such lyrics as, ‘yayo yayo moo la la yayo,’ and ‘Don’t act like you forgot, I call the shots shots shots like blah brrap brrap.’
4. Sub Pop, Interphon, Island, Mirage, and United Artists are all what kind of company?
5. Following the appearance of this…candidate… ahem… on Saturday Night Live a few weeks back, NBC will grant four other republican presidential candidates 12 minutes of free advertising. To be fair.

Blakroc, On the Vista
Kieza, hideaway
 
 
1.2

1. According to statistics from the department of labor, what is the most dangerous job in America? Is it fishing, logging or power line installation and maintenance?
2. What was the first video game ever sports arcade game ever produced?
3. True or false: A sixty Minute/Vanity Fair poll published in 2012 revealed that one or two percent of Americans believe that Mitt Romney’s name is Mittens. For one bonus point, what is Mitt Romney’s given name?
4. Complete this sentence, courtesy of Wikipedia and my nightmare journal: “FourFiveSeconds is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna, American Rapper Kanye West, and ____________.”
5. And finally, taking us back to high school physics and a hint of what hell there is to come in the following rounds, what is the name for the principle that dictates that the observed frequency of a of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer?

Cyndi Lauper, Money Changes Everything
Daya, Hide Away

2.1

1. How many Narnia books are there, as in the Chronic WHAT Cles of Narnia, and for one bonus point who wrote the chronicles of Narnia? And...all the other ones.
2. What does the F stand for in John F. Kennedy?
3. In which sport would you find an eighteenth man, tap tackles, scrums and yet another iteration of the dreaded offsides rule?
4. In which northern country would you find the Phallus Museum, a museum featuring the preserved phalluses of more than two hundred different creatures, both human and non-human? That’s right, they have Edward Cullen’s AND Mr. Spock’s wieners.
5. What does it mean if a law has a sunset provision?

Meat Puppets, Backwater
Thin Lizzy, Jailbreak

2.2 SUPER SECRET BONUS ROUND 
              Per usual these questions fit a theme. What is that theme? 

1. If you fill a glass to the absolute top with water and then add a handful of powdered salt, will the water overflow?
2. What is the only letter that does not appear on the periodic table of the elements?
3. For one point apiece, what are the only two metals that are not silvery in color?
4. TRUE OR FALSE! Lightning is good for the environment, because lightning strikes produce ozone, which is good for the ozone layer.
5. What is the name of the MOLECULE that makes hot peppers hot?
6. For five points, WHAT IS…this weeks SUPER SECRET bonus THEME?

Freedy Johnson, Bad Reputation
Wallflowers, One Headlight

3.1

1. Who was the first American to orbit the Earth?
2. What is the name of the commission put together by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy?
3. For three points, what number day of the year is it [11/29/15]? Your hint is, what number day of the year is it?
4. This thirst-inducing racing and car testing facility, located two hours from Salt Lake City in Utah, is usually covered with about an inch of water during the winter.
5. A single organism composed of genetically distinct cells is known as a what? This is not a trick question, I am not referring to sexual reproduction. A single organism, composed of two distinct and coexisting genetic structures, is known as what? Your hint is that this is a word derived from Greek mythology.

Michael Jackson The way you make me feel
The Weeknd In The Night
 
3.2

1. For three points apiece, what two insects top the Schmidt Pain Index, which rates the pain of insect stings?
2. For one point apiece, give me the winners of these football games from last Sunday: Cowboys/Dolphins, Jets/Texans, Packers/Vikings, and Bengals/Cardinals and Rams/Ravens.
3. For three points apiece, name all the members of G-Unit. That’s Guerrilla-Unit, by the way, in case it’s any help. It probably isn’t.
4. Hat Trick is most commonly associated with Hockey on this continent, but the phrase originated in the 1800s in another sport, where it had a similar, but different meaning. What sport first coined the phrase “Hat Trick?”
5. And finally, using a separate sheet of paper, explain what is happening in the sentence Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo.

Led Zepplin Hot Dog
Steve N Seagulls Thunderstruck

Stay tuned for the answers, after THESE MESSAGES!

"So I was on my way to work and I was trying to drink my Starbucks and do my makeup and talk to my girlfriend all while on the train and I kept dropping my phone in my triple-sweet extra-hot nonfat Chai Latte, but like we were having this really important convo about the guy she's been talking to and how like they like to netflix and chill and stuff and junk but like neither of them is trying to do anything serious like a relationship-relationship right? I mean that's not crazy or anything they're just looking for like casual sex and companionship and help with their bills but like they don't want to be a couple or anything like that's too much, and like I kept getting chai in my hair and then my boss was a total dick about it when I asked if I could stop in at Forever 21 for maybe like a new blouse cause the old one had chai on it and really I needed to keep talking to my friend cause like I have my problems too right? Like the guy I'VE been talking to is TOTALLY talking to this other girl too and he says it's not serious but you KNOW that he's not telling me the truth cause I'VE been talking to this other guy too just in case you know? So like I know what it looks like and I TOTALLY needed the time to get my shirt and talk to my girl but like my boss was–"
           SCREEEEEEECAAAAW *flap flap flap* SCREEEEEEEEEEE *flap smack crunch* Omigod get it off of her oh god her face Jesus Christ SCREEEEEEEAAAAW *flap flap flap* Screeeeeeeeeeeeee *flap flap*
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     Flamberg's. Because sometimes the children AREN'T our future. 

The Origami Man is now on sale at

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0692572872/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile !

Pardon the ugly link. I'm writing this post in a foreign house in a foreign environment, because it is the Holidays and I have spent the night with Friends.
I can hear the coffee machine, so clearly these people are not savages. But I locked my door and sprinkled salt on the windowsills just in case.

Anyway, I'm posting from my phone. Dogshit technology. Truly amazing, harrumph snort, but still, idiotic in its own right. Damnable thing won't let me embed the link! Ah well. I'll make pretty later.

My book is available. I'll speak more of it later, play it up, point out its positive elements (it's fun) and downplay its flaws. (If you shove it down a person's throat they could choke.)

But for right now, I'll say this.
It's taken six years to get here, and here is amorphous.
I make twenty grand a year if I'm lucky.
I've been stuck in Ithaca since college, because, again, I've made maybe a hundred grand in that time. Before taxes.

I won't say something stupid like "but it's all been worth it," because I'm weaning myself off insipid comments. This has been a hard road. I've alienated people, burnt out relationships, I've found myself stuck in a moment when I needed for my very SOUL to be mobile, and I've learned to make living lean an art.

It isn't worth it. Not yet. But for the first time, I see that I might have made the right choice. When I can put out a book with drafts of two sequels written. When I find myself rewriting a published novel, exhaustively, because I know I should, and it doesn't meet my standard yet, but I also know I can't waste time on an old project. When I find myself hurrying, but still writing well.

I see, in those and moments similar, that I may have made the right choice. That I may have some business doing this. I see, now, that this hasn't been worth it, but that soon it will be.

The best feeling, some times, is not ecstasy. Sometimes the best feeling is calm. After six years, I'm calm about been a writer.

Time to get freaked out and write some more.

Ben

You ever think about the fact that when C-3PO says 'thank the maker,' he's acknowledging droid monotheism?
You think about the most wonderful things whilst occupied with the post thanksgiving porcelain throne.

Amelie wondered how many people are having orgasms right now. (Cans!) I wonder how many people are falling asleep mid-shit right now.
Theoretically if you were to chart such a thing you might see a western wave of mid-shit nap takers, thanks to the time difference from the east to west coasters. So while Aunt Mildred is castigating you for your ill bathroom manners in Providence, you're falling asleep on the toilet in the master bath is Minneapolis, and just about to sit down to dinner in Portland. Except it's the turkey poops in Providence, the sausage shits in Minneapolis, and the tofu regrets in Portland. Also, if you can manage to be in RI, MN and OR at the same time, I'd like to have a chat with you regarding a moneymaking venture. Call me.


Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I like holidays, but there's a hangover after Halloween and New Years, and Christmas and Valentine's Day are too full of self-comparison heartache. Who needs to wonder what kind of oral the guy next door got from Valentine's Claus? (I have a shaky understanding of holidays.)

But thanksgiving, an acknowledgment of the joy of being alive, and of the necessity of gratitude, I like that. And I like to feed my people. And to be fed, and to drink, these are simple, fundamental pleasures. The framework of the tradition doesn't demand that my family for a specific mold. I don't have to do this holiday any way but the way I want. That's a holiday I can respect, because it's a holiday that respects me.

Happy thanksgiving folks. Be happy and be grateful.

Fun crowd, last night. Lots of teams, good turnout. Hopefully Rulloff's made theirs, I feel a mite guilty when they shell out a hundred bucks for me to lead one of three teams to a fifty dollar gift certificate. Last night had twelve, I believe, and a few extra splinter teams that only played the bonus rounds for beer. God bless 'em. 

Enjoy! 

​1.1

1. Kicking things off with a sobering metaphor for our political landscape in 2015, a Democratic candidate in Mississippi won a seat in the state house of representatives this past week by performing what feat in order to break an electoral tie?
2. Continuing our theme of end of the world shenanigans, what is the first genetically modified food animal approved for sale in the united states? Your hint is that dolly the sheep died a long time ago, and that’s gross.
3. Add a four letter word to the beginning of the following four words in order to create four entirely new words! Back, fish, hard, job.
4. During the Cold War the US government in its infinite wisdom considered dropping enormous WHATs on the soviet union, each with the label ‘Medium?
5.  The literary review awarded which self-obsessed, hyper-judgemental and permanently sad, melancholy, depressed, PAIN IN THE ASS singer the Literary Review Bad Sex Award for the ‘egregious passage of sexual description’ in said singer’s debut novel, List of the Lost.

 
1.2

1. It takes approximately what fraction of a second for a ninety-five mile an hour fastball to travel the sixty feet six inches from the mound to the plate, and yes, this is a round one question because you can just do the math if you’re so inclined.
2. Scientists this past week revealed in a paper that they had trained what sort of animal to correctly identify benign or malignant tissue in mammograms?
3. The phrase, “Do geese see god,” is an example of what?
4. What common physical term comes from a root Latin word meaning “to throw out, shoot out, hurl, cast or dart?”
5. Clark Kent is to Superman as Robert Zimmerman is to whom? 

2.1

1. The first ever WHAT was created in 1991 to watch the coffee pot in the Trojan Room, a break room in the computer lab at Cambridge University?
2. The failure a company manufacturing miniature WHAT’S has prompted calls for stricter controls and vetting processes by the Kickstarter crowdfunding organization.
3. A version of Mattel’s famous toy, 1965s Slumber Party Barbie came with a  book called ‘How to Lose Weight’ that featured which two word weight-loss tip?
4. The second largest WHAT was discovered this past week at a mine in South Africa?
5. Louis Reard, the inventor of the bikini, said that a two piece bathing suit could not be called a bikini unless it could be pulled through what piece of matrimonial accouterment?

 

2.2 SUPER SECRET BONUS ROUND
There's a theme linking all of these answers. Can you tell me what it is? 

1. What was the first film created entirely from computer-generated imagery?
2. What is the more common name of the Beatles album entitled, “The Beatles?”
3. This volatile, toothy boxer defeated Trevor Berbick in 1986 to become the youngest ever heavyweight boxing champion of the world.
4. James Franco is starring in the currently filming adaptation of which recent Stephen King novel?
5. What American non-profit organization was created in 1954 by Fred Myers, Helen Jones, Larry Andrews and Marcia Glaser to address animal-related cruelties and animal welfare problems on a national scale?
6. WHAT IS...this weeks super secret bonus theme? 

 
3.1

1. After 40 years Carly Simon revealed this past week which man was the subject of her hit song “you’re so vain,” which famously features the line, ‘You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you.” For three points, is You’re So Vain about Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson or Mick Jagger, all of whom Simon knew…BIBlically?
2. G-Mail was originally a service offered by which website?
3. Richard Nixon delivered his famous line, “I am not a crook,” at a resort in which famous theme park?
4. Due to lyrics that may have misled careless consumers, camera company Polaroid was forced to release a statement clarifying that “Shaking or waving can actually damage the image” following the release of this song in 2003.
5. A 2002 paper from astronomers at Johns Hopkins University clarified that the light of 200,000 galaxies, taken together, colors the universe a shade of beige called WHAT?

 

3.2

1. The city of Detroit presented which middle eastern dictator with the Key to the City in 1980, after he donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a struggling church?
2. This ex-Python, that is, Monty Python cast member, is the director of such films as Time Bandits, Brazil, and The Fischer King.
3. Who is the only non-human to testify before Congress?
4. What is the only word that rhymes with Orange, and for two bonus points, what color is a polar bear’s fur?
5. No republican has been elected to the office of President of the United States since 1928 without what or what on their ticket? 

Answers after the break. 

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Dramatic, yet soothing music
You've been together a long time. 
You've grown close. 
And formed a bond. 
But life won't last forever. 
Isn't it time you made sure they're cared for...after you're gone? 
McEdelmann's Psittacoppascerae. 
Parrot-focused life insurance policies designed to ensure the safety and comfort of your feathered loved one in case of the unforeseen. 
McEdelmann's Psittacoppascerae. Do it for Mr. Crackers. 

​

I write these trivia games to infuriate and confuse students at an Ivy League university. 
Protip: Just because you got into an Ivy League school, doesn't mean you're smart. 

Try your might!

Oh, by the way, this is the first time I'm posting one of these, so this is quiz is a week old. In the future, I'll post Sunday's quiz on Monday. 
​
1.1

1. Which famous rapper announced recently that he is starting his own brand of Cannabis products?
2. A police officer in Mountain View California made history this past week when he performed the first traffic stop on what kind of a car?
3. Who wrote A Boy Named Sue?
4. True or false: Pineapples are not a single fruit, but are instead made up of a collection of berries.
5. Outbreaks of which scary but ultimately not terribly dangerous to humans disease have driven turkey prices up in several states this holiday season?

ANSWERS
 
1.2

1. Monkey, Crane, Praying Mantis and White Eyebrow are all forms of what?
2. The actor who played which famous captain of the Enterprise said this past week that they wanted to put together a Star Trek musical in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the show’s debut, and that any reunion show would be incomplete without him?
3. The first modern iteration of this famous ancient athletic festival began on this day in 1859 in Athens Greece.
4. Which modern lyricist said, ‘Really though, I’ve got the cleanest meanest penis, you’ve never seen this stroke of genius?’
5. What do you call it when you rearrange the letters in a word or phrase to create a new word or phrase?

ANSWERS
SCORES
BONUS
 
2.1

1. A Boston based artist made headlines this past week when she unveiled a recreation of __________ that she had grown in a vat. Did she grow: John Wayne Bobbit’s penis, Van Gogh’s ear, Beethoven’s ear, or liver cells from Jackson Pollack?
2. For the first time in US history, a student in New Jersey will be allowed to take which controversial medication in school?
3. What is the only food that doesn’t spoil?
4. What is the official, Toyota sanctioned plural form of the word “prius?’
5. Where in the world would you find the only ATMs that will perform transactions in Latin? 

2.2 SUPER SECRET BONUS ROUND: The answers to these five questions fit a theme! Can you tell me what that theme is? Most people could, with this one. You're smarter than most people, aren't you? 

1. What is the only US state to be named after an American?
2. This fleshy component of the male throat is gets its name from an allusion to the biblical concept of sin and sinful knowledge.
3. This American sitcom aired on CBS from 1975-1985 was the second spin-off of ‘All in the Family’ and followed the lives of an affluent black family living in New York City.
4. The name of this New York City street is often used metonymically to represent the advertising industry as a whole.
5. This famous blonde actress and model was born Norma Jean Mortenson, and was in truth a brunette, because your dreams will all eventually crumble.
6. BONUS THEME IS? (4 points)

3.1

1. What does Georgia O’Keefe the painter have in common with the Old Dirty Bastard, the rapper?
2. The murder of the Clutter family on 11/15/59 in Holcomb, Kansas, inspired this famous book by Truman Capote, which remains a teachable example of literary journalism.
3. US Soccer, the governing body of soccer in the United States, announced recently that it will no longer permit what athletic act in games for children under thirteen? Your hint is that it’s something that happens in soccer games.
4. What is the only agricultural product that bears its seeds on the outside of its skin?
5. What is the only number whose letters, when spelled, appear in alphabetical order?

 
ANSWERS
 
3.2

1. What is the only wedding to have the bride given away by a sitting president to a future president?
2. This saloon-owning gentleman, who owned and operated the Hotel Brunswick, a popular cornell bar, in the 1890s, is immortalized in the Cornell Fight Song, Give My Regards to Davy.
3. Fredric Baur, American chemist and food storage technician, was cremated when he died, and his ashes buried in this iconic snackfood storage device, which Baur invented.
4. In the seventies, Mattel sold a doll called Growing Up Skipper, which did WHAT if you twisted her arm?
5. Name every member of the bridge crew of the starship Enterprise in The Next Generation. 

I've done a strange thing...