•10:31 PM
How goes it with ZF-360, many of you are asking? It’s going very well overall, but I’m going to need every minute of writing time this week to finish it up. Yesterday I declared that I’d make my deadline no problem, but I didn’t knock on wood quite hard enough.Today I did some serious frogging, and believe me: frogging when you’re writing is even more painful than when you’re knitting. It’s all good, though; I’m very pleased with what I’ve got. It's just not enough.
I’m fairly certain I’ll be busy at work on ZF until Friday morning, when I hand Patrick the manuscript and Kara and I take off for the geekified bliss that is Readercon. Since I won’t be posting again until the Monday after that, I thought I’d keep you all occupied with a quiz/contest.
There will be two winners: the contestant with the greatest number of correct answers, and the contestant with the most entertaining answers. Though most of these are multiple choice questions, you’ll get extra points if you elaborate on why you made the choices you did.
Trust me: the very real prizes are fabulous, so get after it, already.
1) Though it is a fine song, which of the following does not appear in Luisa’s running mix entitled “Me Likey?”
a. “Mirror in the Bathroom,” by The English Beat
b. “The Ghost in You,” by The Psychedelic Furs
c. “A Forest,” by The Cure
d. “You Give Love a Bad Name,” by Bon Jovi
2) Luisa’s second cat was named for:
a. A French Canadian idiom
b. A character from The Lord of the Rings
c. The lead singer of The Bangles
d. A flavor of quark
3) ¿Quién es más macho? Latrell Sprewell o George Clooney?
4) Which junk food would Luisa readily admit to enjoying?
a. Magic Shell ice cream topping
b. Taco Bell Beef Enchirito
c. Lucky Charms breakfast cereal
d. All of the above
e. None of the above
5) The first LP Luisa bought with her own money was:
a. Saturday Night Fever soundtrack
b. Grease soundtrack
c. ABBA: Arrival
d. Billy Joel: The Stranger
6) If Luisa were to pursue a Ph.D., in which field would it be and why?
7) Which of the following great American writers does Luisa loathe most?
a. Norman Mailer
b. Philip Roth
c. Ernest Hemingway
d. Saul Bellow
8) If Luisa could commission one production by The Metropolitan Opera, which of the following would she choose?
a. The Turn of the Screw, by Benjamin Britten
b. Pilgrim’s Progress, by Ralph Vaughan Williams
c. Lakmé, by Leo Delibes
d. Orlando, by G. F. Handel
9) What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
10) Luisa's hero Hugh Nibley wrote, “Sin is waste.” Which of the following does Luisa consider the most sinful waste of time, energy, and/or resources?
a. Playing Weboggle
b. Memorizing all the words to The Barenaked Ladies hit song “One Week”
c. Getting a massage
d. Watching Law and Order
BONUS QUESTION: A still photo of Ralph Fiennes playing Charles Van Doren in the movie Quizshow appears at the top of this post. This is because:
a. Ralph Fiennes is at his most attractive in that film.
b. The surnames 'Fiennes' and 'Van Doren' both appear in Luisa's extensively researched family tree.
c. The results of this quiz are fixed.
d. None of the above
Hasta la vista, babies!
14 comments:
Good night, Nurse! Holy cow. You enjoy being mysterious and difficult, don't you? I'll have to do some serious work here.
1. d) Bon Jovi. It seems like a good running song to me, but I'm going by the principle of "Three of these things belong together, three of these things are kind of the same..."
2. b) MY second cat was named for a character from The Lord of the Rings, so I'll go with that one (even though I'm tempted by (d) again because it's just so weird).
3. No speako the espagnol. Mi Canadiano. Parlez francais s'il vous plait.
4. (d) All of the above. Because I can't choose beween the Magic Shell and the Taco Bell (though I admit that I'm balking at the Lucky Charms - ew).
5. (b) Grease. Again with the narcissistic projection here.
6. English (see above). A Ph.D. is a mostly useless degree, so you should choose your field based solely on entertainment value. With an English doctorate, you get to spend four to five years reading books for a living, often with fully funded scholarships, and you even get to choose most of the books yourself.
7. (d) Such a difficult choice here - all your selections so loathe-worthy. I don't remember much about Saul Bellow - just a shuddering echo from my undergraduate American Lit class.
8. Pick (b)! Pick (b)!
9. Huh?
10. I have to go with (d) again (maybe ALL the answers are d?). Playing Boggle can never be wrong - and besides, it prevents Alzheimers. It's Canada Day today - I cannot believe you would be dissing BNL (besides, you could easily and effortlessly memorize those lyrics while exercising). Getting a massage - again, never wrong. That leaves (d).
BONUS: (b) Hee hee. I hope that's the answer.
This will require much more thought than my meager brain is currently capable of. So I will take some time, and come back when I'm ready to unleash my brilliance. That could be a while... And while I will likely get the answers all wrong, my curiosity is piqued and I'm dying to know what the actual answers are!
I couldn't leave this alone! I'm hereby knocking on wood so there will be no more frogging and intead, plenty of productivity.
Here are my (long) answers:
1) A-Mirror in the Bathroom is not on Luisa’s running mix. At least, it wouldn’t be on mine, because really, I don’t want to be reminded first thing in the morning what I look like. Who had the bright idea of putting mirrors in the bathroom to begin with?
2) A-The cat was named after a French Canadian Idiom. More specifically, it was called, “Pain Jack” (or as those in Quebec would say, Pain Jacobin). But the cat’s name doesn’t refer to the bread that the term comes from (which I hear is rather tasty and named after some monks), but because said cat used to bite Luisa and family in . . . well, let’s leave it at that.
3) George Clooney by a mile. Actually, anyone who tries choking another guy is not macho, so Sprewell doesn’t really count as a man.
4) D-All of the above, but not all at the same time, and the Lucky Charms are probably not for breakfast.
5) C-ABBA: Arrival. I’m saying this because I love ABBA and hope I’m right. (Take a chance on meeeeee . . .)
6) Literature is too obvious for the Ph.D. Luisa likes to learn and think and discover. Maybe she’d do something that helps her write her characters and dig into their psyches. I’m going with Psychology.
7) C--Luisa loathes Hemingway. Instead of ranting about him and how over-inflated he is, I’ll just say it the way he would, in a single short, concise sentence: Hemingway sucks.
8) A-The Turn of the Screw. A nice, creepy ghost story seems right her alley, ala Stephen King. Pilgrim’s Progress is too boring. Lakme’s been done. Orlando? Well, that’s intriguing, but not FUN.
9) The air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow (African or European?) is 11 meters per second, or 24 miles per hour. (What is the capital of Assyria?)
10) A: Playing Weboggle is a waste of time and a sin, at least it is if I have to figure out that website and play it online. If there’s a game board and it’s something I can do around a table with food :) and my family, then never mind.
BONUS QUESTION: D, None of the above. I’m thinking this is a trick question. The real reason for the picture is simply that THIS IS A QUIZ.
Hey Luisa, thanks for dropping by my blog. Sorry for me taking so long to get back to you. I just manage to wrangle my way online.
So first off, thanks for calling my blog terrific. That has warranted a resolve to visit your blog and find out it's own terrific-ness.
Second, Wordpress gives you 50MB of space if you upload the photos to your posts using Wordpress itself. There's also another option of inserting photos but this Option B requires you to have uploaded the pics to another server and use the URL to insert. For upgrades, they allow 1GB, 5GB and 10GB upgrades for $20, $50 and $90 respectively. You pay in credits which cost $1 each.
At first I found the lack of control over my templates (they come pre-loaded with extras, but you can't mess with the html) stifling. And the pictures thing made me freak out a little. But after I tweaked with it a little mor I found a template with a look I liked better and a customizable header. As for pictures, I haven't been putting as much in my posts, so I can't really say if it's better than Blogger in that sense.
What I love - the stats, which are pretty comprehensive without relying on a third-party stat-tracker. The ability to edit comments and the pages which gives me more places to compartmentalize me blog.
What I dislike - the pictures thing, the inability to change basic things like font without changing my template, the limited ability to customize small details.
My advice? Tweak, tweak, tweak around at Wordpress till you can't tweak no more. Get an account and test the waters. If you decide to switch, it imports all your posts and comments in a jiff, which is awesome.
Good luck, hope I've helped. :-)
Well, since I have only visited a couple times, I am pretty clueless to the answers, well, not completely clueless, I could give some educated guesses, but I will leave that to some of your readers who have been with you longer.
Tricky, tricky. I have been mulling these over and will give my best guess (fingers crossed here). BTW, thanks for the photo of the dishy Ralphie. Always nice to look at...
1. First off, me need a copy of Me Likey seeing as how I don't have this in my collection to cheat off of. I have eliminated d) just off the bat because I respect you too much to believe you would ever voluntarily listen to Bon Jovi. Great Googly Moogly has "A Forest" on it, so no. I have another CD from you with "Mirror in the Bathroom" on it, so I vote "The Ghost in You" written and sung by our neighbor and close friend, Richard Butler.
2. I wanna say d), just 'cause I like that answer, but I know your cat's name and I will believe she is your second feline and therefore the answer is b).
3. Jorge es muy guapo y delicioso.
4. What about Doritos? I know this was a past indulgence, although I believe you now find Doritos and Taco Bell as strangely unappetizing as I do.
I'm going with the Magic Shell, although as a form of chocolate, I have to wonder about referring to it as "junk" food...
5. Since we are twins separated at birth, I'm going with my gut here and voting for Grease because it was the first album I ever bought with my own money. And Grease is the word.
6.That's easy. English literary-horticultural-geneologic-biologic-astrophysical-philosophical-theological-musical-art appreciation with a minor in French.
7. Hmmm. But you hate them all. How does one rank loathing? I'll go for writing style plus personality and vote for Ernest Hemingway. BTW, you forgot John Updike.
8.Embarrassed silence. Crickets chirping. Uh, B?
9.Is it an Afican or a European swallow? That makes a big difference.
10. Since you have encouraged both my Weboggle habit and my determination to memorize all the words to the Bare-necked Ladies hit song "One Week", and we all know massages are definitely NOT a waste of time, I will vote for Law and Order.
Bonus: (How'm I doing?) I refuse to believe the results of this quiz are fixed. You would never do something so low. Ralph Fiennes, though delicious in Quizshow, is far more delicious (delicious-er?) in The English Patient. I never vote for none of the above, therefore both the surnames Fiennes and Van Doren are in your extensively researched family tree.
Ta-dah!
Gimme the prize. Gimme the prize!
Oooohhhh...
I'm pretty sure I have about a 97% chance of scoring a 0% on this quiz so...I'm not even going to try.
How lame is that?
Cool banner, btw! And fun quiz, even if I didn't know the answers. :)
You're going to readercon??? I am so jealous. It's in massachusetts and i love massachusetts. If you happen to meet anyone by the name of Mary Robinette Kowal, tell her hi and give her a hug from me. Have lots of fun; meet lots of cool people and make sure to tell us all about it when you're home.
She's speaking on a panel and doing a reading i think . . .
And deadlines are sneaky little things, always creeping up behind you and tapping on your shoulder while screaming "boo!" in your ear.
Have a great trip! Wait, are you back already? Just getting there? In another dimension?
Whoa! What a cool quiz. Wish I had time for it. But I don't. Because I'm running one of my own on my blog :-) Ha! Life's such a contest.
Good luck with the work, Luisa. I think your Ph.D. should be in something complicated, not sure what, but definitely complicated and lively.
The eerie sounds of an old favorite by the Psychadelic Furs (1=b) waft through the air as Luisa cries out, "Kitty Hoffs? Kitty? You always loved this song. *sniff*"(2=c) Brillig looks on with concern. "Luisa, hon, Kitty Hoffs died, years and years ago. I'm so sorry."
"But I feel her, I feel her so near me now."
As Brillig began to interrupt, and try to reason with Luisa, de repente, Luisa empeso' a hablar en espanol. No sabimos porque, pero pensamos que tuvo que ser que vio a la pintura en su mared del hombre tan guapo, Jorge. (3=b) Jorge tiene muchos poderes...
"LUISA!!!" shouted our heroine, the mighty Brillig. "You have been eating way too many Organic Lucky Charms (4=c) again!!! They always make you a bit crazy. Your left leg is twitching, your hair is standing on end, and is that 'Dancing Queen' (5=c) that you're humming?"
"Oh Brillig," cried our pathetic Luisa, as she collapsed in a blubbering heap upon the floor. "If you only understood the pressure, Brillig. But you don't. You can't! You never wanted to be anything. But ever since I was a child, I've wanted to obtain my degree in Ancient Meteorology (6), but I can't find a single University that will allow me to study it!"
"Luisa. We've had this discussion before. You need to snap out of it. You do NOT want me to pin your eyelids open with toothpicks and force you to read Norman Mailer (7=a) again, do you?"
"No," she gasped. "I couldn't bear it. Please no!"
Brillig reached out a hand and gently helped Luisa to her feet. "I would never really do that to you... again. I care far too much about your well-being. Remember that time I sacrificed my precious ear drums in order to see 'The Turn of the Screw' (8=a) with you?"
"That's right," recalled Luisa. "You never did like Britten, did you?"
"No, but I was determined--oh how I was determined--to get you to knock off the Monty Python quotes (9) and while every once in a while you relapse, you've really gotten to the point where you only quote Nibley, even though you and I both know that there's a MUCH better writer at FARMS."
"True," replied Luisa's tragic soul. "And I've been striving to help you to overcome your Law and Order Marathon addiction (10=d)."
Brillig considered confessing to having TiVo'ed the latest marathon, but decided that now might not be the moment. After all, Brillig knew that if she played her cards right, Luisa just might have a prize for her. Oh wait, Brillig didn't need to do crap. The results were already fixed. (BONUS=c)
And that, dear Luisa, is my response. I fully expect that I got at least 8 of the answers wrong. Therein lies the fun.
Let's see how many ways I can say "I don't know" and/or "duh" without actually using those words!
1) Song not in running mix: "A Forest" because trees make for tedious running, and - let's face it - even if you *like* running, it's already pretty tedious.
2) 2nd cat named for... a French Canadian idiom. I am of course assuming the cat's name is "Newfie."
3) Y'know it seems like there's never a "None of the above" around when you really need one...
4) Junk food admission... hmm. I'm gonna have to go with Maggot Cheese on this one. Whoops! Just finished reading the rest of the question and realized it's multiple choice. Oh well.
5) First own-money LP: Billy Joel. I have no idea why. Also now I want to listen to ABBA; this is of course all your fault.
6) A Ph.D. in: scamology. No wait! Spam. No wait! ... I don't know. D'Oh!
7) Those are all great American writers? Wow. Who knew? I've pretty much never been able to find any literary use for Mr. Roth, so I'll say "him." Your monkeys will most likely vary but still.
8) See now this looks like a serious question and I can't think of any honest answers besides "I don't know." But I'll guess b. Just because.
9) I'll have to check with "Tim."
10) Most sinful waste: watching Law and Order because it's a 24/7 effort. Or could be. Which kind of falls somewhere between Sad and Pathetic, when you think about it. *ducks*
BONUS: b. Anyone with Ethelwulf in their family tree should have no trouble finding Fiennes and Van Doren. No wait! c. Okay it's definitely d.
I think.
Okay, I'm giving this a shot in the dark, even though I've known you for years. (We must be talking about the wrong things)
1. I vote D for Bon Jovi, and I'm going to reason that you've become a NY snob who won't include the Jersey boy on your running mix. (Even though P's parents live in NJ, it's northern Jersey, which makes a little difference)
2. I vote B for Lord of the Rings. Most idioms are multiple words, and though your mission was in Canada, I can't really see even you naming your cat a phrase. And the flavors of quarks are all such boring names...
3. It depends on if you're being sarcastic, and this question usually deals in sarcasm. I'll take a chance and assume you're really asking, and say George Clooney because there is NOTHING macho about Latrell. What a loser.
4. I vote for B, the Taco Bell Beef Enchirito. Somewhere I think I remember you telling me this was your one exception to the otherwise trashy menu at Taco Smell...I mean Bell. At least I think it was you..
5. D, Billy Joel. Some soulful, edgey piano. That was probably about you in 1977.
6. My guess (or suggestion) is something like horticulture.
7. Has to be C, Hemingway.
8. I vote B, Pilgrim's Progress, which I'm not familiar with, but I know RWV is your favorite.
9. You Monty Python freak you. Is it European or African? Everyone knows it's 24mph.
10. A, Weboggle. Too addicting, and everything else on the list is worthy.
Bonus: I'm going for B, your geneology shining through. You wish you were related to Fiennes.
Well, there it is. Love you!