Reretaken Down

[Bamaman]

RIP a true Jeopardy! fan, my Great Aunt Elaine, a month shy of her 99th birthday. She would often call me right after Final to discuss the outcome.

Very sorry for your loss. She must have been proud when you were on the show.

[MarkBarrett]

Ken Jennings announced this morning that he will be ending his Tuesday Trivia e-mail feature with Tuesday Trivia DCCC (800). He cited as the reason conflicts of schedule and interest with his travel and duties writing for Jeopardy! and his other paid gigs (Kennections, his books), along with the difficulty of coming up with novel Google-proof Question Sevens. Here, courtesy my e-mail archive, is the first Tuesday Trivia, from July 4, 2006:

Spoiler

Welcome to the debut installment of the weekly Ken-Jennings.com trivia mailing. A new seven-question quiz from Ken will appear in your inbox every Tuesday. Why Tuesday? Mostly for the alliteration in the subject line, honestly. I guess it could have been "Monday Marginalia" or "Friday Effluvia." But it's not.

Each week, you can just puzzle through the questions for your own enjoyment, or you can send in your answers every week and match wits against the other players. Submission instructions appear below.

Note to our international readers: we apologize (or "apologise," if that makes you feel more at home) if there's an inherent American or Anglophone slant in the questions. That bias will probably continue every week, and isn't just because today is the Fourth of July. One of the few privileges of being "the last superpower" is that we don't have to answer trivia questions on cricket if we don't want to.

THIS WEEK'S QUIZ:

1. What artistic director of London's Old Vic theatre shaved his head for a 2006 movie role?

2. What country was called "Northern Rhodesia" until 1964?

3. Who got his famous nickname from a Butte, Montana city jailer after he crashed his motorcycle in a 1956 police chase?

4. Who or what lives in a formicarium?

5. Who was the last U.S. President to have facial hair in office? (Nixonian stubble doesn't count.)

6. What piece of sports equipment is typically composed of 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons?

7. What do these four literary characters have in common: Charles Darnay, Tom Brown, Jane Bennet, and Fyodor Karamazov?
-------------------------------------------
As with all good trivia, it would take you about 30 seconds to Google the answers to the first six questions above. So you're on the honor system here: no peeking, and only send in the answers you knew off the top of your head. Answers will appear in next week's mailing.

I'll keep informal running totals on the blog and message boards at Ken-Jennings.com, so check for the leaderboard there. The seventh and final question every week will be a "What do they have in common?" question, designed to be harder to Google. If and when I arrange to send out goodies to high scorers, it will be on the basis of these seventh questions only.

Send responses to webmaster@ken-jennings.com by noon Pacific each following Monday. You have received this e-mail because your address was submitted to the mailing list at www.ken-jennings.com. If you were subscribed in error, or wish to unsubscribe at any time, send that request to webmaster@ken-jennings.com.

That was a nice surprise this morning to receive DCCCI.

[Robert K S]

That was a nice surprise this morning to receive DCCCI.

5 out of 7 ain't bad. Missed #3 (said Handel) and #4 (said Jimmy Stewart).

[alietr]

Does anyone know what the term is for Mayim's vocal affectation where her voice goes up about an octave for a syllable or two? She does it frequently. I know it's not vocal fry.

[Leander]

Does anyone know what the term is for Mayim's vocal affectation where her voice goes up about an octave for a syllable or two? She does it frequently. I know it's not vocal fry.

Probably what they call “uptalk”, usually at the end of a sentence.

[Volante]

London Stadium has both feet and meters on the outfield walls for the two Cubs/Cards games

[alietr]

From the New Old Games thread:

Adam was profiled in a 1999 New York Times article about NYPD officers with Ivy League credentials.

I had a classmate who became a NYFD firefighter and perished at the WTC on 9/11.

[opusthepenguin]

On this Day in History:

1804 - Alexander Hamilton dies the day after he was shot in a duel by the Vice President of the United States, Aaron "Peanut Butter" Burr. (I knew Burr had a stint as VP, but I hadn't realized that his famous duel happened while he was VP.)

1979 - Comiskey Park in Chicago (home of the White Sox) stages Disco Demolition Night. Heavily promoted on the radio, White Sox officials had hoped the stunt would draw 20,000 to the park, 5,000 more than the average attendance. 50,000 exuberant disco haters filled the park to capacity with thousands more continuing to sneak in after the gates were closed. Between the two games of a double-header against the Detroit Tigers, a crate filled with disco records supplied by the attendees was blown up. Records that hadn't been collected for the crate were sailed Frisbee-style onto the field from the stands. Fans stormed the field and remained there until dispersed by riot police. The field being in no condition for a resumption of play, the second game was initially postponed. The following day it was canceled by American League president Lee MacPhail. The White Sox, having lost the first game 4-1, were now forced to forfeit the second.

[Robert K S]

I hadn't realized that his famous duel happened while he was VP.)

Hence why Dick Cheney had the ignominious distinction of being the second sitting veep to shoot someone.

Records that hadn't been collected for the crate were sailed Frisbee-style onto the field from the stands. Fans stormed the field and remained there until dispersed by riot police.

That's a way better baseball riot story than 10-cent beer night.

[trainman]

There's an "Omnibus" podcast episode about Disco Demolition Night: link

And the new album by The Baseball Project, the indie-rock supergroup that only writes and performs baseball-related songs, contains a song about it:

[trainman]

I figured this should go here rather than in the J! and the Media thread due to political content:



I know, she's no Ken, or even Mayim, but they don't have to hold the board up themselves while reading the clues.

[Woof]

I figured this should go here rather than in the J! and the Media thread due to political content:



I know, she's no Ken, or even Mayim, but they don't have to hold the board up themselves while reading the clues.

I love Rep. Porter. She’s a breath of fresh air in the House.

[opusthepenguin]

I figured this should go here rather than in the J! and the Media thread due to political content:

Spoiler

I know, she's no Ken, or even Mayim, but they don't have to hold the board up themselves while reading the clues.

The $300 clue in ENABLERS was overvalued. How do they not get that one right?

[squarekara]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180982504/

[opusthepenguin]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180982504/

New Extinct Species of ‘Ridiculously Cute,’ Tiny Penguins Discovered in New Zealand

Awww.

Scientists identified the diminutive birds after finding two of their fossilized skulls

Well, THAT took a turn.

[seaborgium]

I suppose I should have expected it from the word "extinct" in the headline.

[squarekara]

The press needs to wait until all relatives have been notified.

[Volante]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66251751

Stanford head to resign after data manipulation probe
...
The president of Stanford University, one of the top-rated colleges in the US, is stepping down after its board found scientific papers he published contained manipulated research data.

Marc Tessier-Lavigne did not personally falsify any of the research, the panel concluded, but he co-authored papers with "serious flaws" .
...
His term at the Ivy League institution will end on 31 August.

Swing and a miss...

[opusthepenguin]

I suppose I should have expected it from the word "extinct" in the headline.

Yeah, that spoiled the fun a little, but it seemed revisionist to remove it. For my part, my eyes skipped over the word the first time, so it really was the sub-heading that clued me in.

[Game Girl]

I put this and 'taken down' even though I am not sure what exactly happened since this was before my time. I just kinda wanna know why did the interview transcript get cut. The thread on the subject never explained in just ended one day. I wonder if it would even be possible to resurrect it even if not in the word for word transcript way a summary of the interviews. I would not make such a thing without input because it is a really big addition that someone already ended at one point. thanks for any input.