Trivia Update: Disappointment. Our bid to defend the title was unsuccessful. We had eight people and we weren’t drunk; we just got a lot wrong this week. We failed to guess the two swimming events Mark Spitz won gold medals in, and we also missed the two years London hosted the Summer Olympics. My own meager personal highlights were knowing the four Presidents shown on Mount Rushmore and correctly identifying the Cure song “Boys Don’t Cry”. Questions of the Week: What letter do most of the world’s countries end in? Which country executed Mata Hari?
Sara
May 2, 2003 — 12:15 am
I’m going to take a wild guess and say most countries in with the letter A. I believe Mata Hari was executed in France.
Kel
May 2, 2003 — 1:48 am
i can tell you the London Olympics years – 1908 and 1948, but i have no clue on those other 2! oh, and i know spitz was a butterfly guy, but he won 7 medals, not 2. if i had to name 2 events for sure i would say the 100 and 200 meter fly?
here’s a fun one from our other quiz last night (which we got our ass kicked at, partially b/c there were only 2 of us and also b/c like 3 of the other teams have jeopardy champions on them): name the 5 nations whose flags are a majority white (more than 50% of the flag)? we only got 3 of them…
Kris
May 2, 2003 — 8:00 am
Score 2 for Sara, and 2 for Kel! Sorry to confuse on the Spitz one. He asked for the two swimming strokes, not events. Butterfly was indeed one of them.
Flags… Hmm… I’ll start us off with China and South Korea… Greece?
Moire
May 2, 2003 — 9:21 am
Shit. I should know the flags one!
I believe that Israel’s flag is more than 50% white. White with two sky blue bars and a blue star of David.
You’re right about South Korea, Kris. White with a blue-and-red yin-yang medallion sort of deal, with four groups of black bars surrounding it.
I think you’ve got China and Japan’s flag mixed up, though. Japan’s is the white one with the red dot in the middle. China’s flag is primarily red, with gold stars. And the only reason I know this is because we just did a report about those countries. 🙂
Greece… I know it’s only white and blue, but can you say that the white takes up more than 50%? The same goes for Indonesia, which was my next guess… That’s only 50%, too.
Dammit!
Kris
May 2, 2003 — 10:22 am
Whoops… I did mix up China and Japan. Eek! 🙂
Kel
May 2, 2003 — 10:47 am
Good job! The 4 I remember are: Israel, Japan, S. Korea, and Finland. There was one more that the quizmaster said, but then also a bunch of Brits were arguing that England’s national flag (apparently all white with a red cross) should also count. I don’t know what that looks like, but he wouldn’t give them the point.
Anonymous
May 2, 2003 — 11:29 am
Yeah but England ain’t a country. It’s Great Britain/United Kingdom.
Typical English as usual to forget this 😉 They is so stooopid!!!
Major
May 2, 2003 — 1:49 pm
England is a country isn’t it. They only compete in the Olympic Games as Great Britain. In the Commonwealth Games, they compete as England, Scotland, Wales etc…Try telling a Scot that he’s actually from the same country as the English!!
Of course…You may be just being sarcastic, in which case, I’m a twit…
Alastair
May 2, 2003 — 5:49 pm
You’re right Major, England is considered a country, as are Scotland et al. to a certain extent. I think that the popular terminology is ‘nation state’… it’s a rather foggy area, and I’d suggest that the reason that most people here don’t know is because they don’t really care that much, either way; that is more typical of the English than being forgetful.
Anonymous
May 2, 2003 — 9:25 pm
I suppose it’s a sort of grey area when it may come to a quiz.
For Commonwealth reasons, you are right regarding all areas being considered their own country.
For the norm though, I reckon it should be Great Britain / UK meaning the whole nation.
It’s weird how us UK’ers think as I’m from Scotland but on official documents I’d never think of putting anything other than GB/UK as my country. Though if someone asked me where I was from, I would reply “Scotland.”
Kris
May 3, 2003 — 12:50 am
The Snook guessed Vatican City… ?
Kris
May 3, 2003 — 12:56 am
Eh, he just cheated and looked it up. Singapore!
grandpa_joe
May 3, 2003 — 10:18 am
Anonymous, you are a disgrace to the Scottish race! Whenever i am prompted to put my nationality on anything, I put “Scottish” even if it isn’t an option. This makes it hard for you to open a hotmail account, but thats a small price to pay for having a sense of national identity! For Freedom and all that!
Anonymous
May 3, 2003 — 12:40 pm
hehe… so why is your email *_uk 😉
Yeah you’re right though I should stick up for the motherland more!
Oooch aye it’s such a bonnie town I come from. Haggis ‘n’ Highland fling.
Also my bday is Jan 25th so you cannae get more Scottish than that.
Good to have a fellow Scot on the W-G weblog of fame!
Kris
May 3, 2003 — 1:22 pm
Anonymous, you’re Ferret aren’t you? Why the disguise?
And what’s so special about Jan 25? Oh, is that Robert Burns day or something?
Alastair
May 3, 2003 — 7:52 pm
Burns Night – spot on.
Anonymous, tell me you like haggis?! I ken fit yer sayin’, typcasting an’ all, but you te admit it’s pretty fine stuff 🙂
BagPipin' Ferret
May 3, 2003 — 11:54 pm
Oooch aye it’s the Ferret here. Hehe..I couldn’t be bothered typing a witty name every post so I just kept it anon.
I love Haggis but having it every year for your birthday dinner does get a bit tiresome. Hmmm …haggis.. sounds a good plan for nosh this week 😉
Anonymous
April 28, 2005 — 6:13 am
I NEver got em mixed up