Round 8 at the Old Pequliar on Dec. 2, 2008
Average score: 4.8/10 (15 teams)

Google’s got a funky logo — what’s the occasion?

You know how Google likes to play with its logo to commemorate special occasions? Here’s 10 of those decked-out presentations. Your job: Identify the occasion being commemorated.

Note: Some are holidays, i.e. Ash Wednesday. Some are milestones, i.e. the anniversary of the sinking of the Maine. All are real Google logos.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

10)

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TODAY’S PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION:

Thanksgiving derailed the “question a day” project for a few days. Go back and fill in, or plunge on ahead?

Practicality dictates: Plunge on ahead. Sorry for the hiatus.

TODAY’S TRIVIA QUESTION:

Toni Morrison has two novels with related names. The title of the later one is entirely contained within the title of the earlier one. Can you name the two books?

TUESDAY’S ANSWER:

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Round 6 at the Old Pequliar on Nov. 18, 2008
Average score: 5.1/10 (15 teams)

I’ll name several or all of the novels in a series. For a half point each, tell me the author and what the series is known as.

Example: The Waste Lands, Song of Susannah, and Wolves of the Calla — Stephen King, The Dark Tower

1) The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, and Mostly Harmless

2) On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, and The Long Winter

3) Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso

4) The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, and White Jazz

5) Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World

6) Master and Commander, The Surgeon’s Mate, and The Far Side of the World

7) The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, and First Among Sequels

8) The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, and The High King

9) Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, and The Deerslayer

10) New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn

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Round 5 at the Old Pequliar on October 7, 2008

Amazon identifies key phrases in many of the books it sells — distinctive phrases or proper names that appear in one book but not many others.

Given five key phrases, can you identify the novel they come from? (Additional clue: They were all first published within the last 100 years.)

1) tighter bomb pattern, more combat missions, stupid mouth, Henry Fonda, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf
2) feminist funeral, ball turret gunner, wrestling practice, Under Toad, and sexual suspect
3) three sénéchaux, seeded womb, corporal mortification, sacred feminine, and Opus Dei
4) grain barges, cell leader, laser drills, new catapult, and Free Luna
5) invisible doctors, banana company, insomnia plague, story about the capon, and siesta time
6) bun compartment, nucular bum, flannel nightshirt, hunting cap, and Patrolman Mancuso
7) keystream letters, Bletchley Park, making license plates, Bobby Shaftoe, and substitution alphabet
8) tennis academy, professional conversationalist, Hal Incandenza, new bong, and howling fantods
9) accused man, fishing gaff, strawberry land, Kabuo Miyamoto, and Island County
10) Las Vegas, rundown bootheels, happy crappy, Captain Trips, and dig your man

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Round 2 at the Old Pequliar on Sept. 2, 2008
Average score: 5.95/10 (11 teams)

Given the famous spoiler or plot twist, tell me what work it comes from. (Spoilers ahead, naturally.)

1) (movie) Keaton wasn’t the mastermind after all — it was Verbal all along.
2) (graphic novel) The bad guy destroys New York City to avert nuclear war. But as one of the heroes reminds him, “Nothing ever ends.”
3) (movie) Katherine is her sister and her daughter. And her father-slash-babydaddy gets custody.
4) (TV) Number 1 is a chimpanzee. Or Number 6. Or maybe the screenwriter. It’s open to interpretation.
5) (book) He finds himself back in the desert where it all began, but this time he’s carrying the Horn of Eld.
6) (TV) She moves to New York, becomes a photographer, and dies in 2085 at age 101.
7) (novel) Each of the 12 suspects stabbed Mr. Ratchett once.
8) (play) Technically, he says he could have asked for the moment to go on forever — so he gets to go to heaven after all.
9) (movie) When Diane — or maybe she’s Betty — finds a blue key, she shoots herself. No one agrees what it all means, though.
10) (web series) Captain Hammer gets hurt, Penny gets killed, and the main character gets his wish: joining Bad Horse in the Evil League of Evil.

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1) A speech in Henry V supplied the title for what nonfiction book and the HBO miniseries based on it?
2) At the climax of “Scott Tenorman Must Die,” the South Park episode inspired by Titus Andronicus, Cartman tricks his enemy into doing what?
3) In 2006, the best-selling album in the United States was the soundtrack to what TV movie, a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet?
4) Spurred by a joke in a 1991 movie, Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing have been translated into what artificial language?
5) Two Gentlemen of Verona inspired “Two Gentlemen of Capeside,” an episode of what TV drama?
6) In 2000, what novelist and New Yorker contributor published a prequel to Hamlet called Gertrude & Claudius?
7) One clue that Paul is dead: Lines from King Lear, including “O untimely death!”, can be heard in the background of what trippy Beatles song?
8) In Neil Gaiman’s comic series The Sandman, Morpheus, the king of dreams, commissions Shakespeare to write two fantastical plays. Name one of them.
9) The 1992 hit “Stay” was the biggest hit for what band, which took its name from a 1985 song by the Smiths, which was inspired by a section of Virginia Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own?
10) Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas play comical variations on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in what movie loosely based on Hamlet?
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David Israel’s “Who Am I?” quiz on Mental Floss asks you to identify 10 books based on 10 clues written in the first person.

I scored 70%, though I think I’ve only read 35%. Thank you, general knowledge!

One peeve (with spoilers):

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I’ll quote you a bit of nonsense. You tell me the name of the work it comes from.

1) Klaatu barada nikto
2) Oo ee, oo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang
3) They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon
4) All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. (Specifically, the title of the poem.)
5) riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
6) Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess, Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your Knickers down.
7) Solakadoola menchicka boola, Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.
8) There’s a letter called YEKK. And the YEKK is for Yekko
Who howls in an underground grotto in Gekko.
These Yekkos love echoes, and this is their motto:
“For best Yekko echoes, try Gekko, our grotto!”
9) Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
Mum mum mum mum mum mum
10) Toora loora toora loo rye aye
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I’ll name a sequel, you tell me the name of the work that immediately preceded it.

1) Casino Royale (2006 film)
2) Prince Caspian (book — in publication order)
3) Hannibal (book and movie)
4) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (novel or movie)
5) Terminator III: Rise of the Machines (movie)
6) Through the Looking Glass (book)
7) Rambo (movie)
8) A Shot in the Dark (movie)
9) The Edge of Human (novel)
10) Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (movie)
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1) What band had a top 10 hit in the US with the song “Devil Inside”?
2) Devil’s Tower National Monument, the famous landmark from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is located in what state?
3) What 2006 film was based on a 2003 novel by Lauren Weisburger?
4) The Vertigo comics series Lucifer was a spinoff of what earlier series created by Neil Gaiman?
5) What’s the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world?
6) The Rolling Stones song “Sympathy for the Devil” debuted on what album?
7) In the story “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” what name does the devil use?
8) What’s the name of the devil who makes a deal with the title character in Goethe’s Faust?
9) What household gadget was introduced by Royal Appliance Manufacturing in 1984?
10) Who referred to George W. Bush as “the devil” in a speech before the UN General Assembly?
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