Thursday, November 1, 2007

Contested Histories, Contested Futures

The Thursday Quiz X


The gentle L&TM5K readers know their linguistics, baby! It was one of those weeks when it was pretty brutal to miss a single question; five perfect submissions made for very little margin of error. Well, no margin of error, actually.
  • Defending champion Mrs. 5000 took the gold star.

  • Completing a sweep of the first ten Thursday Quizzes for the Parker household, Rex Parker returned to form to capture the silver.

  • Perennial Quiz contender Rebel brought home the blue.

  • Two green stars this week. One goes to Blythe, who now needs only a blue to complete her collection, and one to fingerstothebone, her first quiz star!

Congratulations to all competitors, and to all of you non-competitors too. In fact, if you are reading this sentence, I hereby declare you awesome.


The Trophy Case

I hope it's obvious that the giving of stars to a bunch of adults taking wildly arbitrary pop quizzes is not done with an entirely straight face. At the same time, it does seem to add a certain frisson to the whole experience, at least for some of us. So feel free to roll your eyes at this juncture. But, I think you should also join me in admiration of some of our more dominent Quizsters.

These are the people who have combined a startling wealth of knowledge, intuition, and reasoning ability with a certain, shall we say, tenacity in their internet habits, to earn three or more stars over the course of the first ten quizzes. Here is a rare glimpse inside their trophy cases.

{Sustained Applause}


Quizzes Future

As you may already know, the Thursday Quiz has been greenlighted (or perhaps greenlit) for a second season, and you'll be happy to know that ten more episodes are already in production.

We are also very excited here at headquarters about the new Monday Quiz! Taking a cue from the popularity of Thursday Quizzes VIII and X, the new Monday Quiz will be image-based. Instead of an is/isn't format, Monday will now be all about identification -- the operative question being "what is this a picture of?" With only five questions a week, though, Monday will continue to be quicker -- although not necessarily easier -- than Thursday.

And, there will now be virtual prizes on Monday as well as Thursday. More on that in three days -- be here bright and early for what we will, somewhat misleadingly, call The Monday Quiz I!

There. Do I have you all fired up?


Speaking of Fired Up!

BigBrother5000 has come through and produced ticket to the must-see game of the weekend: the #4 Oregon Ducks against the #6 Arizona State Sun Devils. And so I will have the great pleasure of being in Autzen Stadium this weekend to witness Oregon's victory, 35 - 17, against the overrated boys from Tempe.

So, those of you who missed my appearance on Clackamas County's government cable channel this morning -- what, you didn't watch it? -- perhaps you can catch me in crowd shots on the national feed. I'll have my game face on:


...except probably without the face paint.


The Thursday Quiz: a First-Season Outtake

Here it is, the infamous topic that was too pendantic, even for the Thursday Quiz.

Papal Names

1. Alexander
2. Benedict
3.Celestine
4. Charles
5. Epiphany
6. Innocent
7. Joshua
8. Leo
9. Nicholas
10. Pius
11. Spiritus
12. Urban

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am evidently silly enough to offer guesses for the Thursday Quiz That Never Was:

1. Alexander IS, I think.
2. Benedict IS, definitely.
3. Celestine ISN'T ??
4. Charles ISN'T ??
5. Epiphany ISN'T ... but then again. Nah, I'll say ISN'T.
6. Innocent IS, definitely.
7. Joshua ISN'T ??
8. Leo ISN'T ??
9. Nicholas IS, I think.
10. Pius IS, definitely.
11. Spiritus ISN'T ??
12. Urban IS, definitely and rather oddly it seems to me.

Rebel said...

Seeing all my little stars up there makes me irrationally happy. =)

blythe said...

i know right? i'm instantly having a better day now! yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kritkrat said...

I'll guess too! I love feeling stupid!
1. isn't
2. is
3. is
4. isn't
5. isn't
6. is
7. isn't
8. Shortened like that? isn't. But I think leonardo would be an is...
9. is
10. is
11. isn't
12. isn't

So, how obvious is it that I am not Catholic?

Anonymous said...

Ah, I too cannot resist the potpourri of popery. I think Mark has them right, except that I'm pretty sure there was a Pope Leo or two running around at some point. And I have question marks in roughly the same places. But whaddya mean this quiz was too "pendantic"? Too necklace-like for this crowd? Not that I would ever criticize my immortal beloved's spelling or anything.

Especially not when he's finally issuing me gold stars! Woo hoo! But I promise not to change my sleep habits for sake of the Thursday quiz. I know a slippery slope when I see one.

Michael5000 said...

@rebel, Blythe, Mrs.5000: You earned your stars. The universe OWED you this happiness.

@mark, Kadonk, Mrs.: Awright then, quiz on. I'll divulge the answers tonight.

@Mrs.5000: I'm enchanted by your self-referential humor. It's so metta.

Michael5000 said...

Oops, sorry about forgetting the Popes. Herewith the answers, with the most recent holders of the actual papel names.

1. Alexander VIII held the post 1689-1691.
2. Benedict: Current pope is Benedict XVI.
3. Celestine V was a short-timer back in 1294.
4. Charles. Nope.
5. Epiphany. Nope. But it's a good one, and the one I plan to use if I ever get the nod.
6. Innocent XIII was pope 1721 to 1724.
7. Joshua. Nope.
8. Leo XIII was around 1878 to 1903.
9. Nicholas V was in charge 1447 to 1455.
10. Pius XII served from 1939 to 1958.
11. Spiritus. Nope.
12. Urban VIII, 1623 to 1644.

A brief inspection of the submitted answers suggests that Mrs.5000 takes top papal honors. Not bad for a Presbyterian girl from New Jersey.

Anonymous said...

Excellent game face and I'm sorry I missed that quiz. Though it does remind me of made up lists at McSweeneys Internet Tendency. You would be great at that.

What a cool trophy case too. I think I may steal that idea for the classroom for fun stuff.