October 31, 2009

Yelpin' in up

Yelp, I'm sure you're familiar with. I've visited it here and there (it helped me find a good service for my semiannual apartment cleaning), but it's my lady friend who is all over it: She literally cannot visit any business without recording her reactions on the site. She is, in fact, an Elite Yelper. Hooray.

It always bothered me that the BQT had a minimal presence on the site--'cause, you know, there was nothing in NYC more worth crowing about. It seemed to me you could Yelp only about places and not events--but we just now discovered that that's not so. So there is now a Big Quiz Thing event listing. Once again, hooray.

Not the most exciting news, I know, but the more we're out there, the happier I am. So go there, sing our praises, let your voice be heard, support the Big Quiz Thing. Karma will make it up to you.

October 27, 2009

Creepy, crawly, trivia-y

Thank you, gods of baseball, for letting the Yankees win on Sunday night. Oh, I don't particularly care which teams play in the World Series (could you guess, based on the rarity of sports questions at the BQT?), but I'm so, so glad there wasn't a game seven to conflict with last night's quiz. Although, I do know you all would've picked me over A-Rod. Of course.

Great fun last night—"Crawling with Real Live Insects!" was exciting, and creepy, and fairly easy, but I knew that would happen (although I'm still bummed that Crash Mansion's video system failed to reveal the lovely detail in my insect designs; check YouTube for the full picture). I came up with this game while riding the 1 train, as reported here. Inspiration is everywhere; truly we live in a trivial world.

Last night was brutal on the Smart-Ass Point front, though despite your curmudgeonly booing, I maintain that "Kool and the Gang" is a funny answer for "Coulrophobia refers to the very common fear of what very strange people?" I also think "Dan Aykroyd" is a clever response to "Who replaced John Belushi as the rotund brother in Blues Brothers 2000?"

But it didn't matter, because that team won the game anyway. Yes, the Fantastic Fournicators (this time with two women) returned to the top spot, edging out Jefferson Davis Starship, perennial fifth-placers who are so due for a victory (DJ GB—or "Gizz Bizz"—even protested JDS's near loss by refusing to play the traditional victory music postshow. You can't get more honest.)

The standings:

1. Fantastic Fournicators
2. Jefferson Davis Starship
3. Gerard Depardouche
4. Birds of Ill Omen
5. Betty Draper Thighs

And yes, the Saw question was poorly phrased. Apologies.

NEXT TIME: November 9, the return of "Three Degrees of Musical Separation," plus something called "The Geography Junk Bin." Wacky.

And don't forget: You can win free admission to the BQT throughout 2010! Refer us for your office holiday party. If we book the event, you win, plus I give you a hearty slap on the back, or a pleasing pat on the head, whichever you prefer.

October 26, 2009

My family: Straight out of Mad Men

Here be spoilers…

Big fan of Mad Men, I am, and I thought last night's episode was particularly well done. Last week, Betty had found Don't magic box of identity-theft surprises, and this episode she confronted him. I loved that moment when she demands he unlock the drawer: He hems and haws and lamely tries to wiggle out of it, but even the famed Don Draper cool is no use here. His drops his hand to the desk, still clutching the keys, knowing that Bets had checkmate.

But if you care at all, you know all that. One line that stood out for me, during the big discussion, was Don asking Betty, "When? When could I have told you? The night we met? Our first date? Our wedding night?" (I'm paraphrasing). Because while yes, I had some sympathy for Don throughout this scene (despite the schoolteacher mistress just outside the house), this seemed like an especially absurd question on his part.

Don had a million chances to tell Betty in the ten-plus years they'd known each other, many of them far more honest than a decade after they'd gotten married, with three children to show for it. I've never felt that Don's identity theft was all that horrible a crime—the real Draper is dead, after all, and he clearly made peace with his widow—it's the fact that he won't be honest with those closest to him that reflects poorly on him.

I'm reminded of a chapter from my own family history. My grandfather, who died three years before I was born, was named Israel Wilderman—"Issie," he was called in his youth. Here's his passenger record, from when he came through Ellis Island, age of five.

Once he graduated college, the Great Depression was getting going, and he figured that a name like "Israel" wasn't much of an advantage for a guy trying to make it as a big shot in Philadelphia (he ended up an architect, and eventually became mayor of Tamarac, Florida). So "Issie" became "Bob." My mother insists the name change was primarily to score with girls (she believes he was Bob Wilderman to Jewish girls, Bob Hoover to gentiles, though I wonder how appealing the name "Hoover" was in those days). When he met my grandmother, he introduced himself as Bob. She got to know him as Bob. She probably assumed his full first name was Robert; it was only after they got engaged that her told her the truth. She was cool with it, they got married, they had two kids, they stayed together until he died. And yes, she and everyone else called him Bob.

Granted, this is hardly on par with Don Draper's deception, but I do find it instructive. I don't see why Don couldn't have come clean with Betty much earlier: before the marriage, before the children, before the years and years he spent constructing a persona distinct from that unsure farm boy Dick Whitman (who seemed to return as he was confessing the truth to Betty, don't you think?). I imagine if he had told Betty as soon as they got engaged, she could've handled it, and they could have moved forward into a happy life together (or as happy as these two can be with each other; the show obviously keeps that topic ambiguous). I guess that the idea is that Don didn't feel like he could have Betty by his side in his effort to become a new person. It was the '60s, after all, and he might not have thought such marital trust was truly possible, or practical.

Interesting to see where this goes in the next two weeks, as the season winds down. Till then, let's watch this awesome scene again:

October 25, 2009

Sex, Drugs & Gefilte Fish—THIS TUESDAY


As mentioned last month, I am now a published author, Mom. This Tuesday sees the release of Sex, Drugs & Gefilte Fish: The Heeb Storytelling Collection, featuring a contribution by your own quizmaster (me, that is). Click here to purchase on Amazon, or come to tomorrow (Monday's) Big Quiz Thing for your chance to win a copy. And visit Heeb's website for details on readings, etc., in the NYC and L.A. areas; I'd probably have something more clever to say here if I were reading at any of these events, but hey, you know, them the breaks.


October 23, 2009

NT's greatest hits vol. 21 (of 34)

I'd do that cutesy "It's ba-ack!" thing, but that's such a cliché, don't you think?


The sheer power of this song simply cannot be overestimated. Bruce Springsteen is one of the biggest rock stars of all time, and that's a good thing. Although I am a fan, I'm not a hyper-Bruce partisan (haven't once seen him in concert), but I think he better than anyone embodies the sense of hugeness, freedom and epic excitement that rock & roll is supposedly all about, but too often isn't. There's a purity to Springsteen, no matter how rich and famous he gets, and even when his songs are more boring than dirt, I appreciate that it's real, honest, American dirt.

"Born to Run" is not boring as dirt. It's unquestionably his best song, probably one of the best songs by anyone ever. It's just such a bracingly pure expression of what everyone must feel during some dark night of the American soul or something. By 1975, when it was released, Springsteen was maturing, looking back on the endless hardscrabble streets of his New Jersey upbringing, the epic nights of possibility and adventure, and he was seeing the bitter undercurrent. "Born to Run" is hardly a bitter song (unlike "Born in the USA"—you hear me, dumb-ass politicians?), there's some resilient optimism, but he drenches it in the desperation and neglect of a man who's starting to see his runaway American Dream for what it truly is: a death trap, a suicide rap. He's begging—absolutely begging—Wendy to let him in, he wants to be her friend, he wants to guard her dreams and visions. He swears, they'll run till they drop, baby, they'll never go back (altogether now)—WO-O-OH!

I like to karaoke to this song, but it takes a whole lot out of me; for a tune like this, you either bring it hardcore of you don't bring it at all (I once knocked over a bass drum during the instrumental solo; another time, I broke the microphone before the vocals even began). Better yet, sing along to it while you're driving, and make sure you learn all the lyrics first. Trust me, it's worth it.

More of NT's greatest hits: "Shake Some Action," "Chips Ahoy!," "Radio, Radio," "Could You Be the One?," "Summer in the City," "Teenage Kicks," "Strawberry Fields Forever, " "Tunnel of Love," "I Get Around," "Local Girls," "Don't Let's Start," "Suffragette City," "See-Saw," "My Name Is Jonas," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Reelin' in the Years," "Objects of My Affection" and "Crimson and Clover," "OK Apartment" and "Just What I Needed"

October 22, 2009

Jackets for sale, appetizing young jackets for sale…

I just got home from hosting a private party for a corporation whose identity will go undisclosed (seriously—they made me sign a contract and everything). Always great fun, watching my work facilitate drunken office hookups.

It's pretty predictable at this point that someone at a private party will make a comment about my shiny jacket. The coat is a little more shticky than what they expected from an office trivia party, but hey, shticky's my game. But tonight, postgame, as I collected answer pads and passed out postcards, I got no fewer than three specific requests of where one could purchase a jacket like mine. I was wearing the second of my two coats, by the way, the "Star" model, as I call it:'
Cool, right? Here's the back, as worn by me and delighting my friend Virginia:
The jacket is the handiwork of my friend Sherry, possibly known to you as the BQT's most frequent door girl (and currently a stalwart member of Jefferson Davis Starship). My aunt gave me a cheesy sport jacket that she found in the wilds of her suburban closet (still had the 1983 Patti LaBelle ticket stub in the pocket) and Sherry gimmicked it up with puffy paint. So it's indeed one of a kind. But after speaking with Sherry, I'm happy to report that yes, this model is for sale. She will customize a jacket if you so desire; the cost ranges from, oh, $100 to $200. E-mail her at sherrys@inbox.com, and witness the magic.

While we're at it, the original quizmaster jacket, the "Stripe" model, also the work of Sherry:
Do I worry that the streets will be swarming with people wearing a jacket like mine, and I'll lose my uniqueness? Not really…how many of those people will be using the word figureoutable?

October 21, 2009

It's the little differences

Some more on my voyage to Puerto Rico: As you are no doubt aware, PR is officially part of the United States (I required no passport, I paid for things with George, Abe, Alexander, and Andrew). So it wasn't all that different from what we imperialist American pigs know and love. But Vincent Vega was right: It's the little differences.

Along with coconut soda, this caught my eye at the grocery store:
I don't believe I've ever seen personal-size breakfast cereal sold this way, several boxes of the same kind packaged together. I'm used to the standard variety pack, ten boxes covering a wide gamut (there's always that stray box of All-Bran that no one ever wants). So what's this about? What marketing genius determined that the Puerto Rican market, and only the Puerto Rican market, was prepared for eight blasts of Froot Loops at once? Or can this be found on the mainland if you look hard enough? Eternal questions.

A few shelves down, there was this:
I was very tempted to purchase this, partly because it looked delicious, but also partly because that's the single best product name I've ever seen.

Then, in the airport en route back home, I spotted this:
That's chicken sausage in a little can, in a vending machine. Fascinating…

But the fact is, the food was excellent in Puerto Rico. I had what's probably the best bowl of shrimp and linguine I've ever consumed, a wonderfully authentic chicken quesadilla in a kiosko by the beach and, best of all, mofongo:
That's mashed plantains stuffed with meat (in this case, scrumptious flank steak), a Puerto Rican delicacy. This serving basically looked like a giant beef cupcake, which I gamely consumed with a glass of Sprite. Vacation is good.

October 19, 2009

Puerto Rico, crawling with non-insects

Yes, this Monday, for the video round, we're "Crawling with Real Live Insects." All you need to know is that it is indeed about insects, and it's awesome.

Sorry for the blogging delay, but I just returned from San Juan, Puerto Rico, my longest vacation in a stupid many years. It was beyond lovely. The people are cool, the place is beautiful; again, I have no clue why it is merely a commonwealth and not a state, and why Menudo don't collectively stride the earth like a colossus.

But, sadly, I gained no insight for this Monday's video round, because I didn't see a whole lot of insects. Oh, sure, there were the odd mosquitoes (much calamine graced my skin), but that was it, entomologically. In fact, I was slightly disappointed at the wildlife on display in PR. As a cat lover, I enjoyed seeing the streets of Old San Juan populated by a whole mess of oddly well-fed gatos
And the gorgeous El Yunque rain forest didn't offer much animal-wise; we didn't see the famed mascot of PR, the the coqui frog, nor the small Indian mongoose, which I'm duly frightened of after reading this:In the beautiful and temperate ocean, there were apparently numerous small jellyfish. Apparently, because although we didn't see them, my Quizette's jellyfish allergy kicked in with a vengeance, and her arms are plagued with biblical-looking blisters at the moment (lovely, I know). We did, however, spot bioluminescent plankton during a kayaking sojourn; you dip your hand in the water and it looks like you're Ghost Rider.

I also saw a pretty wicked snail in the rain forest, which prompted our "Weird Al"–like composition of a song called "It's Hard Out Here for a Snail." Didn't take a picture, but here's the dreaded Giant African Snail, which the USDA scanned our luggage to make sure we weren't bringing back into the mainland.And I'm extremely disappointed to report that I did not manage to see your pal and mine, the chupacabra. You'll have to settle for this gruesome-looking iguana hanging out in an 18th-century Spanish fort:
Tomorrow, interesting consumer products in Puerto Rico.

October 12, 2009

The longest tie breaker EVER!

Maybe, perhaps, who knows? It was eight questions total. We had Steve (short for Stephen, a.k.a. Ph), of returning champs Fantastic Fournicators, squaring off with Steven (a.k.a. V), of Gerard Depardouche. I still can't believe neither one of these guys was geeky enough to know what kind of animal fought a zombie in the 1979 horror movie Zombie. People really can surprise you. But 'Douche man V took it by knowing who, in 1948, was the lead researcher behind the groundbreaking work Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. We cover the gamut, my friends.

Otherwise, I'm going to keep it brief, since in 13 hours I leave for the most trivial land of Puerto Rico. The Movie Quote Thesaurus was a great mess of giggles, and the Wizard of Oz audio round fulfilled a childhood dream of mine; will Alice in Wonderland be next? Finally, in an effort to thwart the testosterony Fantastic Fournicators, I inserted (heh) a four-part question about feminine hygiene products (attention anyone reading this who did not attend the show: this is true). As I say, the gamut is covered at the BQT.

And the standings:

1. Gerard Depardouche: Nails were bitten!
2. The Fantastic Fournicators: Questions about tampons barely slowed them down.
3. Strippers for Stephen Hawking/Incontinental Congress (tie)
5. Birds of Ill Omen

October 26 we're back: We're going to be "Crawling with Real Live Insects!," which I'm pretty excited about (some entomology knowledge is helpful but hardly required). See you on the other side.

October 9, 2009

Do you like blood and guts in your theater?

You do? Good: The Big Quiz Thing will provide.

This Monday night, our prizes include tickets to two (count 'em) theatrical experiences, both featuring the kind of lovable, over-the-top violence that you simply won't get from Phantom of the Opera (though that would make it a lot better). And, discount offers.

First, more tickets to The Toxic Avenger.

Perhaps you don't believe that I sincerely loved this show and am just blowing smoke to get more free passes, but so be it. It's really clever, and genuinely funny (even though it's only loosely based on the "classic" Troma movie). Don't miss when Toxie rips a dude's spine out. Even if you don't win on Monday, you can click here for a nifty discount offer. And hey, upgrade to the best seats for $10 more by clicking here.

Plus, this Monday, we have passes to a haunted house! Really! NYC's biggest, Nightmare: Vampires

I'm told Nightmare is set in the "Museum of Vampyric Artifacts… At first you will be viewing the exhibits…and then you'll be running from them!" (Kind of like when I went to the Pompidou Centre after doing mushrooms.) Another discount offer: Click here and use the code "LDED1" for $5 off.

I need to check this out; never been, but I'm a fan of haunted houses. In college, I was the tour guide for one, accompanied by a sci-fi geek girl I had the serious hots for. We dressed as Dream and Death and made little kids cry. One townie jock thought he was hot shit and grabbed one of our "cow's eyeballs" and popped it into his mouth; he was disappointed to discover it was a rancid cocktail onion. Death eventually rejected my advances (wow), but many moons later, I sort of met my current lady friend through a completely different haunted house, so there's always a happy ending. Even when vampires are chasing you and someone's getting their spine ripped out.

October 8, 2009

Off to the Rich Port…

This Tuesday, mere hours after the next Big Quiz Thing concludes, I'm going on vacation. A real vacation—not this "take a three-day weekend and get on a 7:30am bus to Boston" bullshit. Heavens no: I'm going to the airport, putting my shoes through the X-ray, getting on an airplane, and sitting on a beach for five solid days. Perhaps drinking something out of a glass equipped with a small novelty umbrella, who knows.

I'm going to Puerto Rico, with my little quizette. Puerto Rico: It's sunny, it's warm, it's not that far away, and we got a good deal. Also, we can zip-line through the rain forest, which will fulfill some kind of preteen fantasy of mine. But that's about it as far as reasoning goes. And that's all we need.

I don't know all that much about Puerto Rico. As with most subjects, I know only the trivial and mundane. For example…

-- It's the ancestral home of the Latino characters in West Side Story (which, by the way, is worth seeing in its current Broadway run; the Spanish content gets in the way only during "I Feel Pretty," and not even that much). The preamble to "America" tells you a lot about the island: Rosalia offers the point—"lovely island, island of tropical breezes," etc. Anita, of course, has the counterpoint—"ugly island, island of tropic diseases." She likes the isle of Manhattan, you see; smoke on your pipe and put that in. I like the isle of Manhattan too, and Karen Olivo absolutely kicks ass in the current production. But I'm trusting Rosalia for next week. Watch this; the magic of the stage…



-- In 1950, a couple of Puerto Rican independent radicals attempted to assassinate President Truman, managing to kill a White House security agent. Kind of intense stuff; read more here, and gaze at this, the menacing-looking flag of the Puerto Rican Nationalist party of the time:-- In a sequel to the 50 State Quarter Program, the mint issued a quarter for Puerto Rican quarter this past March. It was released alongside coins for D.C., Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and your favorite, the Northern Mariana Islands. Should've gone there, perhaps.

-- Menudo was from Puerto Rico (the boy band; the soup is from Mexico). They were monstrously huge for a time in the early '80s, and were famous for booting out any member who either (a) turned 16 or (b) got a girlfriend, which sounds creepier to my adult mind than it did to my childhood one. Ricky Martin was a member for a while, they made a guest appearance on Silver Spoons, and they bought a private plane that had been owned by Richard Nixon. Also, in the fall of 1983, they starred in a series of mind-bogglingly cheesy music videos shown between Saturday morning cartoons on ABC. Check their ode to a shopping mall; I've had that "Menudo on ABC" theme song stuck in my head for more than a quarter century:



-- Despite what some think, Puerto Rico is in the United States, it just isn't itself a state; it's a commonwealth. Their voting power and representation in Congress is very limited, and I have no idea how this constitutes anything resembling fairness (it probably doesn't). I'm not sure what's holding them back from becoming the 51st star; as a fan of American geographical trivia, I'd love another state to play around with, and I can't imagine that Puerto Rico would be any greater drag on the USA than some of those pointless existing states, like Alaska or South Carolina. But apparently, the Puerto Ricans themselves are split on the issue: Some do want to become a state, some want full independence, some like things as is. (When she was scrounging for primary votes last year, Hillary Clinton apparently made an ill-advised promise to the Puerto Ricans that if elected President, she'd work toward PR statehood. She trounced Obama in the primary, for all the good it did her.) As with everywhere I go, there's so much to learn while on my vacation…

October 4, 2009

The ethics of quiz writing, as it relates to postapocalyptic serial drama

Through the magic of Netflix, I recently added a title to my list of TV series of which I've seen every episode: Jericho. Another program that I never saw when it was airing new episodes—wasn't even aware of its existence—but I became intrigued by the concept later, and caught up on thanks to modern technology. (I didn't even get the DVDs of this one; the 'Flix lets you stream every episode on your computer.)

The elevator pitch of Jericho: Nuclear war comes to the U.S. of A., and the residents of a small, all-American Kansas town spared the worst of it must deal with the new reality. Skeet Ulrich (the villain from Scream, the poor man's Johnny Depp) is the wayward son who becomes a reluctant leader. The supporting cast included very few actors I had seen before: Major Dad plays Skeet's father and the town's mayor, Arnold's partner from Kindergarten Cop is Skeet's mom, the sexy divorcée on Mad Men is his sister-in-law, the deaf girl from Weeds plays a different deaf girl here.

I liked the show a lot, though it's not TV for the ages. It's fairly hokey, and pretty unrealistic (seriously? you can see an explosion in Denver all the way from Kansas? aren't there a whole bunch of mountains there?), but it keeps you on your toes, and you genuinely care about the supporting cast (I was overjoyed when Stanley and Mimi got together). Plus, it generated a lot of popular support; the show was canceled at the end of its first season, but a fan campaign brought it back for an abbreviated (and much weaker) second cycle.

Like pretty much anything I become briefly infatuated with, I aimed to reference it in a question at the Big Quiz Thing. So I wrote this question, and included it in the preliminary lineup of last week's show:

Q: What TV drama, debuting in 2006, was described as "The Day After: The Series"?Seems about right, yes? A few days later, in my routine fact-checking of the episode's questions, I discovered that I had no source whatsoever for this little factoid. Scouring my brain, I realized that I had independently coined this phrase; I used it in describing the series to a friend. The question would have to die.

Or would it? I mean, it was accurate; someone had described Jericho as "The Day After: The Series," even if that someone was me, in a private conversation. It was certainly figureoutable. Why not? Who gets hurt?

But no: This was a violation of quizmastering ethics, or at least supremely lame. I mean, yes, technically it was accurate, but that doesn't mean it isn't a rotten question. While I'm at it, why don't I ask, "What TV drama, debuting in 2006, featured set design by Harry E. Otto?" I have a higher standard, my friends.

The question was killed, replaced with "The late-‘80s sitcom Just the Ten of Us was a spin-off of what other sitcom?" Oh, I did come up with an alternate Jericho question, which will show up in a future quiz; be warned. But I was again reminded that this silly little job of mine is really, in its own bizarre way, an art.

October 1, 2009

Wizard of Oz…the truth revealed!

As requested, the answers to yesterday's Wizard of Oz trivia questions. Hey, while we're at it, if you want to be a traitor to the Big Quiz Thing, there's another screening here in NYC on Monday, October 12, at the Academy Theater on East 59th Street. Watching this film on the big screen grants the temporary illusion that all is well in the world.

In The Wizard of Oz, what does the Wicked Witch of the West skywrite above the Emerald City?
A: "Surrender, Dorothy." Bold!


What was the original published title of the book commonly called The Wizard of Oz?

A: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, though later editions cut the Wonderful

Four-part question: Wizard of Oz urban legends.

a. The members of BLANK totally made their album to sync up with the movie

b. A depressed actor who played BLANK can be seen hanging himself onscreen

c. As Miss Gulch, Margaret Hamilton utters the then-scandalous word of BLANK.

d. That guy from The Beverly Hillbillies had to drop out of playing the Tin Man because he was allergic to BLANK.

A: a. Pink Floyd, naturally
b. a Munchkin. Bullshit; it was actually a big bird.
c. "Damn." She actually said "damage," when she's pissed about Toto and threatens to bring a "damage suit."
d. makeup, the silver makeup specifically. This one is true.


In 2004, Bravo counted down “The 100 Scariest Movie Moments.” The two live-action children's movies on the list were The Wizard of Oz and what else?
A: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. That boat ride scene, when the chicken gets its head chopped off, totally freaked me out.

What trademarked name for a dessert comes from a 1939 movie?
A: Munchkins, meaning Dunkin' Donuts. I'm not that keen on this question, since lots of people eat Munchkins for breakfast and not dessert. But it worked for us once upon a time…long ago…somewhere over the rainbow…