Cover Stories

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

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

KQA December 2006 Open Quizzes

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

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

Hubbubba

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ITC ClientLogic Open 2006

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

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

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

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

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

(I will be writing more on this soon)

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

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


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

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

Landmark Open, Bangalore

Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Personal

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

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

Trivia Tidbits picked up
(please confirm before use)

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

Job-Trotting

JOB-TROTTING
----------------------
Like herds set loose out to graze
You ramble away on wayward ways
Forever seeking pastures greener.
But tell me, do you really know
Just how green should green be?
And just how much grass can you eat?

- Thomas Jay Cubb

456 x 456

Yesterday a couple of my friends met for the first time at an eatery- Binu Ninan Kovoor and Emil Eapen Thomas. I thought it was an incredible, almost eerie coincidence - both of them have the same number of letters in their first names, middle names AND their surnames.

BINU NINAN KOVOOR
EMIL EAPEN THOMAS
(4) (5) (6)

I got scoffed at for making this reflexive observation. Both of them simultaneously (and independently and instantaneously) gave me the oh-yeah-so-what, something's-really-seriously-wrong-with-you look.

But I bet this happens only very rarely.

Beauty With Brains

Searching for beauty with brains.
A divine beauty witty
Or at least, an erudite Aphrodite.
Or so I fantasized.

But my poet's dream capsized
When I realized
That erudite
Doesn't rhyme quite
with Aphrodite!

- Thomas Jay Cubb

JUST-IN-CASE LEXICON

1. Aphrodite (pronounce afro-die-tee) - Goddess of love and beauty and daughter of Zeus in ancient mythology; identified with Roman Venus
2. Erudite - Having or showing profound knowledge

The Five Commandments - Effective Email

Five rules to follow if you want to communicate effectively using email and get the response you need.

1. Fill in the subject line of your email suitably.

a) If you cannot title the email properly, then it is probably better not to write it! Talking to the addressee(s) over the phone or, if possible, face-to-face about the things you want to discuss will be more effective.

b) It is very confusing to see important, unrelated things discussed in a mail innoccuously titled "Hi" or "Re: my vacation". Subject lines like "Re:Re:Fw:Re: " are, at best, irritating .

2. Do not discuss more than one important point in an email.

Put in more points and it is guaranteed that many of your "important" points will be ignored. If it is really necessary to do so, then make sure that all of them fit the email's subject line, assuming that you have obeyed the First Law.

a) As far as possible, ask only one question in an email...
b) Put your question at the end of the email for maximum impact.
c) Ask the questions in a questionnaire-like form with numbering or bulleting, if you absolutely must ask many questions in your email. When more than one question is asked in an email people get confused as to which of the questions are more important and how to answer and so on.
d) Do not forget the question mark!?

3. Time for response/action is inversely proportional to the number of people on the CC list.

If you want immediate action on your email, put lots of people in the CC list. The more important the people in your CC list are than your main recipient, the faster the response will be.

4. Keep your email as short as possible.

(Explanation intentionally short)
The attention-spans of most people are goldfish-like, so make your emails concise and precise.

a) As short as possible...but no shorter!
Cryptic emails are the worst! Make it concise, but not too concise. (Point proven!) :-)

5. Read before you send!

As the adage goes, look before you leap. Typos and grammatical errors are major put-offs for recipients. Use the grammar-check or spell-check tool, if needed; but remember, you are your best checker if you read what you have written impartially. Make sure that you have said only what you mean. Use emoticons if appropriate, otherwise reword. Leave no scope for ambiguity.

- Thomas Jay Cubb

Queuriest - X

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

hi everybody!

welcome to the final episode of Queuriest.

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

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

Answers in 10 days time.

What's YOUR score?

luv
thomas


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


hi folks!

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

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

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

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

Enough about me. Go read the answers!

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

luv
thomas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The scores (in chronological order)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The toppers are

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

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

Bye!


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

ORACLIQUE
Are you in yet?

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

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

False Adage

------------------
FALSE ADAGE
------------------
Does the fact that brevity
Is the soul of levity
Make this ditty
In any way witty?

- Thomas Jay Cubb

Alternate title: The Soul Of Wit

10 NINE 8 7 SIX

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

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

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

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

Sign Of Life

To not respond to happenings around you is equivalent to being dead.

-TJ

Hag In My Seat

(To RIP)

When traveling by train, people generally avoid the side-lower berth in sleeper coaches. Even if you are only of average height, your feet don’t fit within the berth’s frame when lying down. In order to sleep, you have to embryonize yourself, curve into a banana.

Even so, your feet will jut out and the people – vendors, beggars, passengers, who not - walking by will brush your feet as they make their way through the passage. Slumber is well-nigh impossible with hot kettles and cold bottles grazing your toes, however fleeting the contact may be.

People would give anything for a good night’s sleep and hence they give a wide berth to the lowly side-berth unless they’re elderly or extremely short. However, given a choice, in spite of the discomfort that it entails, I always take the side-lower berth. Call it a quirk of mine, but the side-lower berth does offer some definite advantages:

(Ir-rationale)

a) In hot weather, you can open the windows before sleeping. It’s a pleasure sleeping with the wind blowing on your face and cooling the length of your body.
b) You can keep your distance if your co-passengers are gasbags. If they are interesting, you can always talk of course. You have the best of both worlds. In the six-seat/berth compartment, you are stuck; you have to put up with whomever you are put up with. Also, if you choose the side-lower, you have only one co-passenger whom you absolutely must bear.
c) You can sleep with your head pointing whichever direction you choose- either in the direction of the train’s motion or against. I hate traveling backwards.

Plus, every time you make a booking indicating your preference as side-lower, it being so unpopular, you get what you asked for. Who can say that there is no joy in that? Hey, somebody actually granted you your wish!

So there I was in the Bangalore-Trivandrum Express. Sure enough, I had gotten my very own side-lower berth. I had dozed off almost instantly after settling in; it had been a tiring day. I woke up refreshed after a good night’s sleep, the cool night-wind had energized me. I found that many of my co-passengers had gotten off on the way.

(The Encroacher)

From a station on the way, an old woman with her son and his family boarded the train. They chose to sit in the six-seat cubicle on my side. Thankfully, they left me alone, one of them could’ve opted to sit on the other half of my berth, you see.

The train chugged on, and after a while, I left my seat to take a dump, leaving behind my bag and novel, “booking” my seat. Even so, when I came back, I found that the old woman had crept into my seat. Encroachment! Infringement! In sharp contrast with me who would’ve taken the seat of my preference given a choice, she had taken it given a chance!

She seemed harmless enough, the praying, God-fearing, grandmother-type, with big gold earrings the size of bangles dangling from her ears. The rosary in her hand would’ve made her seem saintly to some but to me, she was a scheming demon in white. The white witch was not going to vacate; she seemed oblivious of me - lost in thought, engrossed in prayer. I quietly sat on the other half of the berth.

(Do unto others as others do unto you)

I didn’t protest aloud but I did keep shooting lethal looks at her, my eyes glowing with indignation and irritation. For a while, I shifted around trying to force her out through subtle, surreptitious changes in the position of my legs, pulsing, nudging but no, no way she was budging. She was a Mountain Of Faith, confident that she would be forgiven her trespass against me.

Some time later, after futile minutes of desperation, I decided to hunt around for another suitable seat. Trudging along the coach’s passage, I detected a side-lower berth that had been left unguarded by its owner. I seized the opportunity! I sat down and when the rightful owner, a young man, returned and saw me there, I thought I could see glimpses of me in him. For a while, he and I played me-and-encroacher-grandma.

He started behaving almost identically as I had previously. Perhaps it was normal - just human nature, or maybe comfort-loving-selfish-young-urban-male nature, that made us behave like we did. What hardships had we ever known, born into a pacifist world of plenty? Here we were, pettily fighting for a mere seat. Enlightened, after a while, I smiled a knowing smile and ‘surrendered’. I walked away.

(Thought experiments)

I returned to grandma-taunting. I would appeal to the encroacher’s conscience telepathically: Get up! Get up! Respect the boundaries! Why were wars fought in your day? The prime reason… Moved by the injustice, and convinced of my innocence, I was shaking my head so much that it could possibly have been classified as an audible vibration. But older people have a higher threshold of hearing and hence my mental remonstrations failed to inspire remorse in the old lady.

She continued counting the beads on the rosary. Couldn’t she see the futility of that? You can keep doing that for an eternity and not have a clue as to how many. Infinity is a circle… Maybe God was listening to her prayers…If she wanted to stretch her legs, Let There Be Space! I climbed to the upper berth and I lay back reconciling myself to my fate.

For some time, I read my book with an occasional glance down at the old lady who, by now, had settled into a conscious trance, evidenced by her rotary rosary. I also resumed my stare-athon, with the old lady’s son this time, hoping that he would get the message.

Amongst other nefarious schemes for an ouster, of varying subterfuge, I thought of starting a conversation with the man in which I would cursorily and casually throw in the anecdote about the Arab and the camel – the one in which the Arab shares his tent with a camel and ends up being kicked out – with an occasional chance glance at his mother for good measure. That could get the idea through.

The parabolic parable was not to be, though; one just could not predict how people would react to their mother being called a camel! I’ve seen fights break out and heard that men have been killed for less. I could possibly have scraped through with my feathers unruffled in the probable scuffle with my quick-and-ready rejoinder: I was not an Arab, of course not! But cool logic tends to evaporate in the heat of rage; I decided not to take the risk. Thus scheming and plotting coups, unable to concentrate on my book, I nodded off momentarily.

(Hand Of God)

When I opened my eyes, sure enough, I fixed my gaze, leaning over, to my seat of contention. It was…empty! There for the taking! I looked to my left and saw the old lady, sitting with her family again. Thought can move mountains.

Joyously, though not ostentatiously (I think I managed to keep my rapturous glee down to a smirk of smug satisfaction), I descended down to my berth (mine!) and lay down. I even managed to read my book.

My joy was short-lived though; I shortly discovered that my cell phone was missing. Frantic, I rummaged around the compartment. My annexed neighbour however was unperturbed. Still counting the beads on her prayer-chain, she pointed out the phone to me.

It was there on the berth, my berth, where her head had been previously. It must have fallen down when I was sleeping in the upper berth. (I keep my wallet and my cell phone in my trouser-pockets, another of my quirks) I apologized profusely; I had only thought evil, you see, not said or done things. My apologies must have rung hollow and insincere; from the way they looked at me, it was obvious that they thought that I had done it intentionally.

She flung an accusatory glance at me, which rebounded off my innocence. I was only an instrument of Fate. And it was not as if she had not known the truth of gravity when she had lain in my berth - “There is a God, and He is Up Above.”

-Thomas Jay Cubb

Word Splurge

A peek into the creator's mind...when he feels he just has to write a poem only because he has learnt a couple of new (and similar) words, and wants to use them!
:-)

---------------------
WORD SPLURGE
---------------------

Er..Er...
I hesitate
Words to concatenate,
amalgamate and ostentate

Er..However
I have this urge
a creative urge
And it begins to surge.

I wonder whether
My inhibitions to expunge.
Make that lunge
and take the plunge.

No longer
a procrastinating Demivierge
I will emerge
my own demiurge.

- Thomas Jay Cubb


LEXICON
----------------
Demivierge - a young woman who takes part in sexual activity without ending her virginity
Demiurge - A subordinate deity, in some philosophies the creator of the universe

JUST-IN-CASE LEXICON
------------------------------
concatenate - Add by linking or joining so as to form a chain or series
amalgamate - To bring or combine together or with something else
ostentate - Display proudly; act ostentatiously or pretentiously
expunge - Remove by erasing or crossing out or as if by drawing a line
lunge - The act of moving forward suddenly
procrastinate - Postpone or delay needlessly

Queuriest - IX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

hi everybody!

welcome to episode 9 of Queuriest.

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

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

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

Answers in a week's time.

trivially yours,

luv
thomas

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

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

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

hi folks!

31 responses in all.

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

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

Queuriest-X tomorrow.

luv
thomas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The scores (in chronological order)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Queuriest - VIII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

hi everybody!

welcome to episode 8 of Queuriest.

answers in a week's time.

luv
thomas


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

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

hi folks!

23 responses in all.

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

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

In the previous answers post, I'd queried:

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

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

...thanx for the responses.

luv
thomas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The scores (in chronological order):

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fahrenheit 451 - Review

Here's a review of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 that I posted on epinions.com Diamond Is Carbon. Apr 26 '04 Pros *Powerful ideas *Compelling dialogue *Imaginative storyline Cons *Weak prose at times *A bit raw, lacks polish *Strong, but one-dimensional characters The Bottom Line A good read. Find some wisdom here. But it fades in comparison to other dystopia-novels like 1984 or Brave New World.

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a gem of a book; but it has a few flawed edges that mar the brilliance. On more than one occasion, I was reminded of the Saddest Words of Man- What could have been and If only... On to the story. F451's is a dystopic world in which books have been banned. There is even a Fire-Force whose duty is to burn books. Guy Montag, the protagonist, is a satisfied member of the Force, who enjoys his work. Meet Beatty, his know-it-all boss and the Mechanical Hound, the ruthless instrument of horror, that hunts down wrong-doers. It's a bad, bad world in which people betray their closest friends to the Force just to watch their house burning bright at night! The seeds of unrest and doubt are planted in Montag when he gets influenced by Clarisse, a sweet young girl who still lives life the old-fashioned and happy way. Montag also meets Faber, an old professor, in a park. The professor quite literally becomes the Voice in Montag's head (He gets a radio-receiver implanted), and our hero becomes just the person he must not be. A lover of books!. Montag is torn between what now seems to him to be the truth and what he has stood for all his life. Montag's crisis deepens with his ultra-materialistic wife Mildred dragging him down with her constant demands, his Mentor egging him on and his Boss tugging at him to return to the normal, routine life, all of which lead to interesting situations. The main characters are strong-as-rum and are also powerfully developed by the author. The confrontations between Montag and Beatty form the highlights of the book. The conversations Montag has with the Professor, though good, are not as impressive. Even though Bradbury is known primarily as a scienc-fiction writer , Fahrenheit 451 is more than just another sci-fi novel. It has substance: nourishing brain-food, in the form of original thoughts and delicious, albeit well-known quotes. A little learning is a dangerous thing/Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. F451 will help you findyour thinking cap - the philosophical interludes are written powerfully and of course, proverb-fully. Bradbury even has a sure-fire way to get through life all guns blazing! If you don't like them, burn them! These nuggets of wisdom are thought-provoking and entertaining. Things go from the sublime to the ridiculous at times in Fahrenheit 451. But it is definitely worth its paper, even if only for those sublime parts, and there are many of those. Sci-fi writers have true, original and even brilliant ideas at times, but are often brutally so! They are perfectly capable of calling cute babies human-larvae! Or of calling diamonds glorified clarified carbon-blocks! Metaphors mixed, readers vexed! Take, for example, the opening sequence of the novel. It describes the protagonist Montag's daily routine of burning books. The author describes the fireman's hose as "...the great python spitting its venomous kerosene..." The python-hose comparison is okay, even good. But... pythons spitting venom??? From wheat to corn! (Just in case you didn't know, pythons are not poisonous. Sorry, but that's just not how pythons kill!) Such segments abound. The prophet in Bradbury shines through occasionally. His words about books becoming less popular and people getting addicted to TV ring alarmingly true. Fahrenheit 451 is most often termed a wannabe-1984. Where Orwell's 1984 was a masterpiece, Fahrenheit 451, though pretty good cannot be placed in the same league because it has more than a few flaws. It has as much substance but lacks the style. But all said, Fahrenheit 451 is a book that you would want to re-read. Some of the concepts are left abstract (purposefully?) and are worth chewing over. Or maybe ponder over some of those similes? There! Again I am reminded of those sad words...if only Ending with some mandatory bits of trivia. As Bradbury reminds us in an Afterword, Faber is a maker of pencils and Montag is a paper-manufacturer! And Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper burns. Feel the mercury rising! All the way to 233 degrees Celsius...

Goose With The Golden Eggs

Never kill the goose that lays golden eggs. The fable of the 'golden-egg-laying goose', on the face of it, tells us about the folly of greed. But the story also gives us two other important lessons when we analyze it from the modern-day perspective.

The Golden Eggs are the favours that you receive (and need) whereas the Goose is the favour-broker or whoever that is useful to you.

1. A relationship will deteriorate when one of the persons realizes that he is just being used by the other.
If the goose realizes that you are taking care of it only for the eggs, it will, sooner than later, stop giving you eggs.

2. Being cultured means having the ability to say no when you have the opportunity of having more and you actually want more.
You could kill the goose by taking too many eggs. Exploit the resources too much and the land becomes fallow. Learn when to say no.


- Thomas Jay Cubb

Today is Pi Day

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

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

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

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

Cocktail Notes

Some notes from a one-day session on cocktails (January 2006).

Tall glass- for soft-drinks based/soda-based.
Whisky glass - for on the rocks
Martini glass only small difference with Margarita glass

Thinner glass - better
Champagne glass - Tulip, Flute

How to tell the difference between glass and crystal
Glass pings, Crystal rings.

Hot cocktails - put a spoon in the glass while serving

Shakers - Stainless steel best; neutral does not
Silver - EPNS, keep in
Boston shaker - steel, plastic, glass on top

Holtain strainer

30 ml = 1 small
Prefer ice-scoop to ice-tong
Long spoon
Bar-blade
Hand-blender

Martinis - the litmus test of a bar-tender
Insider joke
dry=not sweet
Stirred is the classic one, not shaken.

Alcohol does not freeze if kept in freezer
Level of ice should be above that of alcohol

Balalaika- first cousin of margarita - vodka + orange liqueur (originally)

Queuriest - VII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome to episode 7 of Queuriest.

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

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

luv
thomas


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

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

hi there!

34 responses in all.

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

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

luv
thomas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The scores (in chronological order):

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


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

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

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


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

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