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Greg's Useless Trivia #51 (1 Viewer)

GregR

Footballguy
A collection of mostly useless but sometimes interesting things I've come across.

Links to previous Useless Trivia:

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#6   #7   #8   #9   #10  
#11  #12   #13   #14   #15
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#21   #22   #23   #24   #25
#26   #27   #28   #29   #30 
#31  #32   #33   #34   #35
#36   #37   #38   #39   #40
#41   #42   #43   #44   #45
#46   #47   #48   #49  #50 (100 questions)

1)  A cluster of this fruit is called a "hand", while a single one of the fruit is called a "finger".

Bananas.
 
 
 
2) Actor Andre Royo depicted a heroin addict on a TV show. Often filming in marginal neighborhoods, his depiction was authentic enough that a local man in the area once pressed a package of heroin into his hands saying, "Man, you need a fix worse than I do."  What was the TV show?

HBO's The Wire. Royo refers to that moment as his "street Oscar". Filming in the areas of Baltimore that the show did led to a number of other incidents. One was a high speed chase smashing into an actor's car and causing everyone to dive out of the way. Another time, a man was shot yards away, staggered onto the set trailing blood, and was treated by the show's medic.
 
 
 
3) True or False.  If you get a book published in Norway you are guaranteed to sell at least 1000 copies.

True. The Arts Council Norway purchases 1000 copies (1550 if it's a children's book) of each published book and distributes them to libraries.  They do have a quality control measure that has to be passed first, at least.
 
 
 
4) Your mother-in-law asks for hot chocolate and you want to impress her with the flavor of the beverage you provide. Which of the following should you do?

a) have her take a sip of cold water before trying it.
b) serve the hot chocolate in an orange mug
c) drop in a small ice cube and stir it to rapidly melt just before serving
d) tell her to hold her nose closed for 10 seconds before tasting it

b) serve the hot chocolate in an orange mug. Studies have found that colors of serving ware can impact our perception of flavor and strength, and for hot chocolate, an orange or red mug enhanced the flavor. For coffee, white containers make the coffee seem stronger.
 
 
 
5) True or False. The sirloin cut of meat got its name when a particularly tasty loin of beef was knighted by King James I in 1617.
 

False per Snopes. A version of the story is told about several English monarchs, but the word itself predates most of them. It was also originally spelled "surloyn" or "surloine", reflecting origins in the Middle French word "surlonge" with "sur" meaning "over" and "longe" meaning "loin". The sirloin is a cut of beef taken from above the loin.
 
 
 
6) In the 1990s, this famous entertainer wanted so much to have a part in the making of a Spiderman movie that he considered trying to buy Marvel Comics.

Michael Jackson. There are various versions of the story stemming from interaction between Jackson and Spiderman creator Stan Lee.  Some indicate Jackson wanted to play Spiderman, though Stan Lee has stated he did not know from their talks if Jackson wanted to play the role or just produce a movie. In any event, Jackson approached Lee thinking Lee could get Jackson the movie rights to Spiderman. But Lee told Jackson he would have to go to Marvel for that. Though discussed, plans for the purchase of Marvel never materialized further.
 
 
 
7) MIT research shows that drivers doing this prevent traffic from moving nearly twice as fast overall.

Tailgating. According to the research, if everyone kept about the same distance between the car both in front and behind them, traffic flow would be greatly enhanced.  Drivers changing speeds quickly, such as happens during tailgating, cause perturbations in traffic flow that amplify as they travel down a line of traffic, causing traffic jams.
 
 
 
 
8) The Newby-McMahon Building is commonly referred to as the world's littlest skyscraper. How did it achieve this nickname?

a) building is 50 stories tall but each floor is only 100 square feet.
b) building was a con job
c) 3 story building with a 19-story spire on it
d) owner bribed Robert Ripley to call it that in Ripley's Believe It Or Not

b) the building was built by a conman. The builder sought investors for the building he would make which was 480 in height. Rather than 480 feet in height as they assumed, it was literally 480 in(ches) tall, or 4 stories tall. The interior dimensions were also only 12 feet by 9 feet. The investors sued the builder, who won in court as he had been careful to never say "480 feet", and the blueprint which was approved by the investors did show the units were inches. The building did appear in Ripley's Believe It Or Not under the nickname, but it was not exactly something the owners were looking to celebrate, let alone pay for.
 
 
 
9) True or False. Washington DC has street names based on letters, but skips the letter "J" to express architect Pierre L'Enfant's dislike of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Most likely False. While it's a frequently repeated theory, the reasoning usually given for the dislike is an event that did not take place until L'Enfant was no longer involved in the design of the capital city. More likely is that it was omitted because at the time, "I" and "J" were often indistinguishable from each other. As examples, the 1740 New General English Dictionary had a single section for I and J, and Thomas Jefferson used the initials T.I. on his personal possessions.
 
 
 
10) What animal has 3 hearts, 9 brains, and blue blood?

The octopus. Two hearts pump blood to the gills, while a third circulates it to the rest of the body. The nervous system includes a central brain and a large ganglion at the base of each arm which controls movement. Other creatures with multiple hearts, or heart-like structures, include shrimp with three, earthworms with five, and hagfish with four.


 
5/10 also. I found this to be the easiest (of course relatively speaking) of all your trivia games. 

Most notable questions, for me, were the orange mug (I knew that) and The Wire (I also had an educated guess at that one -- what a great first season that was and what a great performance by the actors, especially since I lived in MD for five years and visited and worked in B'More often). 

 
7/10 for me ... gotta think #1 and #6 were guessed correctly by most, if not all   :shrug:

re: #3, i just learned that factoid from a Reddit thread earlier this week  :thumbup:

 
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7/10 for me ... gotta think #1 and #6 were guessed correctly by most, if not all   :shrug:

re: #3, i just learned that factoid from a Reddit thread earlier this week  :thumbup:
Agree about 1 & 6.... I see "90s entertainer" wanting to buy something outlandish in scale and that narrows it down to pretty much one.

#3... We have a good Finnish friend, and they'll pay creative people to do just about anything in the arts. Different country, but seems similar.

 
70s down?  "Off The Wall" and the J5 would like a word ...

the context of Greg's question specified that the bid was made in the '90s. not that said entertainer was perceived as strictly a 90s icon

:shrug:
I just laid my head down thinking of Off The Wall. His best album, maybe. I just didn't sync up MJ with Spidey. 

 
I actually haven't used the reddit one, though I imagine there's so much cross pollination a lot of them are there as well.

On a different note... had TV on last night and a game show called Child Support was on. Contestant had made it to the end, had won $100k and was risking it all to go for $150k.  The question: "What mythical creature is the national animal of Scotland?"

I crossed my fingers waiting for him to answer, "I know this one, because of a guy on a fantasy football message board who posts trivia... I'll have to share my winnings with him!"   Alas, he guessed "Pegasus".  One of the children who serve as backup got the answer right at least, which saved him the $100k he'd already earned.

 
I actually haven't used the reddit one, though I imagine there's so much cross pollination a lot of them are there as well.

On a different note... had TV on last night and a game show called Child Support was on. Contestant had made it to the end, had won $100k and was risking it all to go for $150k.  The question: "What mythical creature is the national animal of Scotland?"

I crossed my fingers waiting for him to answer, "I know this one, because of a guy on a fantasy football message board who posts trivia... I'll have to share my winnings with him!"   Alas, he guessed "Pegasus".  One of the children who serve as backup got the answer right at least, which saved him the $100k he'd already earned.
Did you know that if you type "national animal of Scotland, unicorn" into the googles you get a picture of a rainbow unicorn that says "I believe in myself?" Cute.  

 
Good stuff!

Had to check out if I was still registered here. Been a loooong time.

Must have purged post counts from way back when.

 
Might have happened during the "Update"- because everything got better then.
It must be 10 years since I've posted here. Maybe I'll start hanging out a bit.

My profile says I registered in 2003  :loco:  That's 15 years ago. Some members were probably in diapers!

 

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