Mark Brader:
> These questions were written to be asked in Toronto on 2017-09-25,
> and should be interpreted accordingly... For further information
> see my 2017-09-25 companion posting on "Questions from the Canadian
> Inquisition (QFTCI*)".
> * Game 2, Round 7 - Entertainment - "I Beat Meryl Streep!"
> Meryl Streep has the record for most Oscar Best Actress nominations
> at 16, yet has only won twice. This is a round about the women who
> beat her. In each case, *name that other actress*. All dates shown
> relate to the release of the movies, not the Oscar ceremony itself.
> 1. Meryl's first nomination came in 1981 for her role in the
> "French Lieutenant's Woman", but the award that year went
> to the same actress whose record for most acting nominations
> Meryl eventually surpassed. Name that actress who beat Meryl,
> in the character of Ethel.
Katharine Hepburn. ("On Golden Pond".) "Hepburn" was sufficient,
so: 4 for Marc, Joshua, and Calvin.
> 2. After a win in 1982 for her role in "Sophie's Choice", Meryl
> was nominated in '83 for "Silkwood". The Oscar ended up going
> to this actress who won, after five nominations, for her role in
> "Terms of Endearment". Who was that?
Shirley MacLaine. 4 for Joshua, Jason, and Dan Blum. 3 for Calvin.
> 3. In 1988 Meryl was nominated for "A Cry in the Dark", but the
> Oscar ended up going to this actress, who portrayed a rape
> victim in "The Accused".
Jodie Foster. 4 for Joshua, Jason, Calvin, and Dan Blum.
> 4. While Meryl's performance in 1990 in Carrie Fisher's "Postcards
> from the Edge" was well received, she lost to which woman who
> played "Superfan" Annie Wilkes?
Kathy Bates. ("Misery".) 4 for Bruce, Marc, Joshua, Jason,
and Calvin.
> 5. Meryl's role as a war bride in 1995's "The Bridges of Madison
> County" was no match for which actress playing a nun comforting
> a convicted killer on death row in "Dead Man Walking"?
Susan Sarandon. 4 for Marc, Joshua, Jason, Calvin, and Dan Blum.
> 6. Meryl couldn't nab an Oscar as a cancer patient in the 1998
> film "One True Thing", losing to this actress who literally
> defied gender roles in "Shakespeare in Love".
Gwyneth Paltrow. 4 for Marc, Joshua, Jason, Calvin, and Dan Blum.
> 7. The next year Meryl was nominated for her role as a music
> teacher in "Music of the Heart", but this time the lost to a
> woman portraying a trans-man in the docudrama "Boys Don't Cry".
> Who is this actress?
Hilary Swank. 4 for Marc, Joshua, Jason, and Dan Blum.
> 8. Meryl's role as Miranda Priestly in the 2006 film "The Devil
> Wears Prada" was no match for royalty, as "The Queen" nabbed
> this portrayer of Queen Elizabeth II the Oscar that year.
> Who played the Queen?
Helen Mirren. 4 for Bruce, Marc, Joshua, and Calvin.
> 9. Meryl tried to keep everything together in 2013 after her
> husband disappeared in "August: Osage County", but lost to this
> woman portraying a socialite's fall from the upper class in
> "Blue Jasmine".
Cate Blanchett. 4 for Joshua and Calvin.
> 10. Meryl's most recent nomination came as her role as Florence in
> "Florence Foster Jenkins", which saw her losing to "Moonlight".
> --No, wait, I mean she lost to the struggling actress Mia in
> the film "La La Land". Who played Mia?
Emma Stone. "Stone" was sufficient. 4 for Joshua and Calvin.
> * Game 2, Round 8 - Misc - Do You Want to Be a Millionaire?
> All the following questions were $1,000,000 questions on the
> game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". See if you could've
> won $1,000,000. Unfortunately there are no lifelines for you,
> and no multiple-choice either.
And it was the hardest round in the original game.
I note in passing that since the show's heyday the last few questions
to a contestant have been made hard enough that for practical purposes
the $1,000,000 prize is unwinnable -- the last time someone did win
it in a regular game (as opposed to a special tournament) was in
2003 or 2004, depending on which source is correct. Anyway, on the
show as it exists today, I'm sure that some of these questions would
be deemed too easy for any level above about $30,000.
> 1. In the children's book series, where is Paddington Bear
> originally from?
Peru. 4 for Joshua, Calvin, and Dan Blum.
> 2. Nephelococcygia is the practice of doing what?
Finding shapes in clouds.
> 3. Which insect shorted out an early supercomputer and inspired
> the term "computer bug"?
Moth. 4 for Marc, Joshua, Dan Tilque, Calvin, and Dan Blum.
The description of the incident is inaccurate, but that's the way it
was worded on the original show. In fact the "supercomputer" was a
relay-based machine and what the late moth had done was to jam one
of the relays. Also, "bug" as a slang term for a defect goes back to
Edison's time -- in fact, the moth was taped in the machine's logbook
alongside the words "first actual case of bug being found". The term
that apparently did originate from this incident was "debugging".
> 4. Name any one of the ships taken over during the Boston Tea Party.
Eleanor, Dartmouth, Beaver.
I didn't see the original show for this one, but presumably the
original multiple-choice question required identifying which of a
list of four names was *not* that of one of the ships.
> 5. Now used to refer to a cat, the word "tabby" is derived from
> the name of a district in what world capital?
Baghdad.
> 6. For ordering his favorite beverages on demand, Lyndon Johnson
> had four buttons installed in the Oval Office -- labeled coffee,
> tea, Coke, and what?
Fresca. 4 for Marc.
> 7. Krushchev's famous 1960 "shoe-banging" outburst at the UN was
> in response to a delegate from which nation?
Philippines. Who knew?
> 8. Which US president appeared on the television series "Laugh-in"?
Richard Nixon. 4 for Bruce, Marc, Joshua, Dan Tilque, Jason,
and Dan Blum. 2 for Calvin.
> 9. Who did artist Grant Wood use as the model for the farmer in
> his classic painting "American Gothic"?
His dentist (one Byron McKeeby). 4 for Bruce, Joshua, and Calvin.
> 10. Which English king was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine?
Henry II. 4 for Bruce, Joshua, Dan Tilque, Calvin, and Dan Blum.
Scores, if there are no errors:
GAME 2 ROUNDS-> 2 3 4 6 7 8 BEST
TOPICS-> Can Geo Art Spo Ent Mis FOUR
Joshua Kreitzer 8 24 32 28 40 20 124
"Calvin" 0 26 22 20 35 18 103
Dan Blum 4 18 27 11 20 16 81
Marc Dashevsky 0 16 24 8 24 12 76
Don Piven 0 32 20 24 -- -- 76
Dan Tilque 8 20 16 20 0 12 68
Erland Sommarskog 4 20 24 16 -- -- 64
Bruce Bowler -- -- 32 12 8 12 64
Pete Gayde -- -- 32 28 -- -- 60
Jason Kreitzer 0 12 12 0 24 4 52
Peter Smyth -- -- 8 20 -- -- 28
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Gadgetry abounded everywhere, almost all of which
m...@vex.net | he could justify." -- Robert Asprin