at Willie McBride’s … in no particular order:
— we talked about Deep Throat.
— we talked about Scott Peck.
— we talked a lot about how we, as human beings, can only see a little bit far ahead of us – the headlights on a car at night revealing the road …
— we talked a lot about Anne Lamott. We both share a love of her writing.
— we talked about Edgar Renteria. And how he’s turning out to be not only good, but actually kind of feckin’ awesome. We talked about Tim Wakefield, and we talked about Curt Schilling.
— we talked a little bit about the United States consitution
— we played Trivia. Our team name was called, appropriately: TOM CRUISE IS PSYCHOTIC. We have played competitive Trivia at Willie McBride’s maybe 4 times now? Our first time we sucked BIG TIME. Our second time we sucked LITTLE TIME. Our third time we came close to not sucking. And this last time? We came in second, and we got a 10 dollar gift certificate to Willie McBride’s as a prize. So we are getting better, stronger, faster … The people who play Trivia there are HARD CORE, so we have to stay sharp. We can’t lose our edge.
— in between rounds, we talked about “love is merely a madness”
— some of our triumphs in Trivia (see if you can guess them):
Who lit the Olympic torch at the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996?
Which Nobel prize winning author died this year?
Which US President had the middle name “Wilson”?
What 3 countries make up Scandinavia?
— some of our failures in Trivia:
What is the length between the pitcher’s mound and home plate? Unbelievably, we did not get this one. Our guess was, actually, the length between home plate and first base. Bummer.
Where were Prince Charles and Lady Di married? I made us say Westminster Abbey. This is incorrect.
There was one question which I can’t remember … but the answer was “Kareem Abdul Jabar” and we guessed “Wilt Chamberlain”
What is the meal most commonly ordered in American restaurants? (The multiple choice possibilities were: 1. roast beef, 2. spaghetti, 3. fried chicken, 4. fried shrimp.) We guessed roast beef. That’s incorrect.
2nd place in a HARD CORE crowd is a great result.. almost excellent.. next time, right?
On the questions –
Chuck and Di? Not really my subject but.. St Paul’s Cathedral?
peteb: Yup!!
Ha!.. not my subject at all.. *ahem*
I’ll try one more then..
Scandinavia? Norway, Finland, Sweden?
It’s been a while since the last Quiz…
Two of your guesses are correct. One is incorrect.
Incidentally, most people in the room guessed what you guessed. We, however, guessed correctly – and it was a bonus 10-pointer!!
Guess again, please.
Dammit.
Ermm… Norway, Sweden… and Denmark?
Yup!
Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Bernard – yup!
I can’t help feeling that the clue may have been in the name…
I should leave the other questions for others.. but I’ll throw one, and only one, guess out for the baseball question.. 22 yards? (that’s the length of a cricket pitch)
Nope – it’s in feet, not yards.
For some reason I’m thinking 60’6″. Don’t ask me why.
Bernard – I think because it’s the right answer! 60.6 it is!
Heh.. not bad.. my guess was only 5’6″ long..
Cool!
I’ll let someone else play now.
‘Lou Alcindor?’ for the question, perhaps?
i’m guessing nba all time leading scorer for the question, and that muhammad ali lit the torch, didn’t he?
Ryan – Does the number 38,000 mean anything to you? Like … the question about Kareen Abdul Jabar had the number 38,000 in it … ??? Some outrageously huge number.
I think you’re right though … it had something to do with highest scorer.
Oh and yes: Muhammad Ali lit the torch.
38,000+ points for Kareem… He had an awfully long career for a center…
Why isn’t Finland considered part of Scandinavia? (When I went to middle school it was)
“Who lit the Olympic torch at the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996?”
Muhammad Ali.
“What 3 countries make up Scandinavia?”
I’m going to dispute “Norway, Sweden and Denmark.” That’s wrong regardless of how one defines Scandinavia. If you mean geographically, the peninsula is Norway, Sweden and Finland. If you mean linguistically (since Finnish is a non-Indo European language related to Hungarian), it’s four or five, because you have to add Iceland to Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and Greenland as well if you count it as part of Denmark.
“What is the meal most commonly ordered in American restaurants?”
Of the four options, I’ll guess fried chicken. The fact that you haven’t lived in the South is showing. ;-)
I mean Greenland if you DON’T count it as part of Denmark.
Dave J:
Yes. Fried chicken.
Here was our reasoning, in terms of fried chicken –
The question specifically said something about “meal ordered in a restaurant” – or a “sit down” dinner – and we thought fried chicken was more of a take-out thing.
Rats! I’m never right, which is why I never play. Or try to juggle, for that matter.
THS:
hahaha
If you ever DO juggle, start with something non-threatening. Like scarves.
JFH – yes, that was the 38,000 numbering. That one was a multiple choice, and obviously we guessed wrongly.
Gotta contest that “Scandinavia” question.
While there’s a geographic argument for “Finland” being part of Russia, ethnographically “Scandinavia” is Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark AND Iceland.
Which doesn’t get me any extra points in trivia, I don’t suppose…
And DaveJ: Who are you gonna dispute the Finland thing with? Me? I didn’t make up the question – it was trivia man who did. Take it up with him, whoever he is.
I can’t believe no one has guessed Nobel prize winning dead author yet.
No, not with you, of course. With the trivia guy, whoever and wherever he or she may be.
And, BTW, how the fuck exactly does one juggle scarves anyway?
I honestly do not know. I’m sure only wimp-ass mimes juggle scarves. ew.
Oh, I thought of another question that we got right:
What network is Britney’s reality show on?
hahaha All the women in the bar nailed that one. No competition there! All the guys just sat back and let their women answer that one.
Nobel Prize winning dead author?
*ahem*
hahaha Of course!!
Saul Bellow?
I was jumping up and down, just wanting to bellow the answer… but, oh well.
It’s really easy to remember the distance from home plate to the pitching mound, here’s how I do it:
We all know that it’s 90 feet between the bases which makes a 90′ square. The pitchers mound is ALMOST in the center of the bases, slightly closer to home, about one stride away for a pitcher.
If the rubber WAS directly in the center between 1st and 3rd you could form a right triangle between the home plate the rubber and first base. And not just any old right triangle, but an isosceles right triangle!… We’ll ignore the geometric proof of this, as it is intuitively obvious to the most casual of observers.
Okay, here’s where it gets really exciting. Since it’s isosceles we know that the angles formed at the plate and first (relative to the aprox. place of the rubber) are exactly the same and because the angle in the center of the infield is the right angle these other angles MUST be 45 degrees (Yes, I know, you geometric purists, we already knew about the 45 degrees, as part of the proof mentioned above necessitated proving that the line between home and second bisected the right angle between third, home and first, but it ruins the flow of the story).
Now all we have to do is to apply simple trigonometry. Since the sine (and cosine) of 45 degrees is one of those things that you just remember (which, obviously, is the reciprocal of the square root of 2 or, aprox. 0.707), we merely muliply the hypotenuse (90′) by the sine (or cosine depending on your preference) and get that the center of the infield is 63.63 feet away from home.
We’re almost there! All we need to do now is take that long pitcher’s stride to the rubber (let’s face it, pitchers are usually pretty tall and have a longer stride than the average person, say just over 3 feet). Subtracting just over 3 ft from the center of the infield to get a relatively even distance, we arrive at the correct answer of 60.5 feet or 60’6″.
….Or we can just remember the number 60’6″ but that’s kind of boring.
JFH: woah.
Just woah. You sound a little bit crazy, and I am VERY impressed. Did you figure this out in the same way you figured out saying the alphabet backwards?
amazing.
60.6. i won’t forget it again!
Yes! Saul Bellow!
The poor guy standing next to us guessed Hunter S. Thompson. He was bummed about it.
But he also got 60.6 right – so it all evened out.
Alternatively, JFH, once we imagine the pitcher’s mound at the centre of the 90′ square.. and the isosceles right-angled triangle is intuited.. Pythagoras’ theorem takes over..
90^2 = x^2 + x^2
giving x = 90 / (square root of 2)
where x is the distance from the plate, and 1st base to the centre of the 90′ square.
[we can ignore negative solution]
Of course, you still have to know about the actual distance of the pitcher’s mound from the centre of the 90′ square.. and I wouldn’t have had a clue about that.
Shiela, the long explanation details in my post were in jest… but, you were close when you asked about the alphabet backwards. Unlike that memorization, knowing the approximation of sine values and using those values to calculate various formulas was an important technique in driving a sub underwater.
peterb – sure, your solution is more elegant (and quicker), it’s much harder to divide by 2^0.5(1.414, as we all know) in your head than multiplying by the sine of 45 degrees (.707), in my opinion.
Either way, however you arrive at the solution, the most important answer that this problem addresses is that we’re both geeks.
HAHAHA
Thank God for geeks.
“.. is that we’re both geeks.”
Totally.
I love it when my comment threads get reaaaalllly geeky. Especially when mathematical equations are somehow involved. It makes me so happy.
More Lunacy.
Common knowledge holds that Scientology is a cult full of nutbags (what cult isn’t comprised of them?), but I was over perusing the Shiela Variations and read what she had to say about Tom Cruise: He seems like he is…
Have to revisit this.. there’s an interesting point to note about the measurements involved.. well i think it’s interesting.. it’s been running through my mind just below my conscious thought level.. ANYway..
From the application of Pythagoras’ theorem we get..
90^2 = x^2 + x^2 (see above)
so 2x^2 = 8100
x^2 = 4050
giving x = 4050^(1/2)
But 4050 can be written as the product of the factors 81.25.2 (where ‘.’ is ‘multiplied by’)
so x = (81.25.2)^(1/2)
or x = 81^(1/2).25^(1/2).2^(1/2)
NB Both 81 and 25 are perfect squares..
81^(1/2) = 9
25^(1/2) = 5
so..
x = 9.5.[2^(1/2)] = 45.[2^(1/2)]
if we then approximate 2^(1/2) as 1.414 (as we all know) we have a relatively straightforward calculation. (back to using the ‘.’ as decimal point)
x = 45 multiplied by (1.414) = 63.63
Well.. I thought the factors being perfect squares was interesting..
[/geek]