LJ Daily Answers: 5 February 2007

[chaosvizier.livejournal.com]

The theme of the week is snow. White, fluffy, chilly snow! Those of you in the northern hemisphere may have experienced such a phenomenon recently... or maybe not; for the start of February, it's surprisingly snow-free here. Cheeky weather. Anyway, onward!



1. Which science-fiction novel stars a hero-protagonist named Hiroshi Protagonist?

"Science Fiction For Dummies" - drbear

"...also known as Captain Obvious." - ooyoumasha & others

"I say the bad guy should've been named 'Villain Antagonist' just for consistency's sake." - ANONYMOUS

(I say villains should be named ANONYMOUS just for anonymity's sake. -AL)

"If I ever write a book, my anti-hero is going to be called Auntie Hero." - judith_s

"I don't know, but if the main character's name is any indication, this person was lacking in creativity. So maybe Book by Author." - allie_the_neko

"WHEN THE MOON HITS THE SNOW IN NEO-TOKYO THAT'S AKIRA!" - elfie_samurai

"Snow Crash. Neal Stephenson's masterwork which is on my personal list of banned books because every time I read it, I come down with a virus. Hmmm... I could do with a few days off work... perhaps I should read it again this weekend." - hugh_mannity

(Scrambles for her copy – LL)

"You mean there's science fiction OTHER than Star Wars? *gasp* Blasphemy!" - delmira

(Star Trek, Stargate, Firefly, Doctor Who, and… well, that's about all. – LL)

"Snow Crash, a.k.a. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO MIND HAX" - cougarfang

(I can't resist a good All Your Base joke. Or even a bad one, apparently. – LL)

"OMG - ljdq is famous! When you google 'Hiroshi Protagonist', the first entry returned is to this week's quiz!" - wendynat

(All your Google are belong to ljdq. Also, -50 for web cheating. :D – LL)

(badgerbabe, you didn't play but looked it up on the web for kicks. So you only get a -1. Carry on. -CV)

"Nitpickers will chide you for calling Snow Crash SF rather than cyberpunk, but they're self-important wankers anyway." - etcet

"Snow Crash. Best use of rebar ever -- the redneck katana" - utforsker

"I'm sure I'm the 5,734,859th person to point this out, but that's Hiroaki Protagonist." - tortoise, tarpo

"Do you suppose the guy behind 'Heroes' has to pay any sort of tribute to Neil Stephenson for having a hero named Hiro?" - theninth

(Maybe, or maybe they had writer's block on Character Naming Day too. -AL)

"Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. I've really got no joke here, because the book itself is pretty much a joke. Oh snap, now I'm gonna get some e-hate from the data cowboys." - ckirkman

"Snow Crash. A novel that included both 'Reason', the best-named weapon evar, and 'POOR IMPULSE CONTROL', the best tattoo evar." - basking_lizard
"Because EVERYONE listens to Reason." - eris779

"Snow Crash does not qualify as 'science fiction'. A future where the only thing Americans do better than the rest of the world is high-speed pizza delivery? We're already there!" - thepikey

Correct Answer: Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

"He would have called it AVALANCHE!!!!11one but they ran out of room on the cover." - spatialrift47



2. The Japanese Macaque (Macaca fuscata) is sometimes known by what other common name?

"George Allen" - a plethora of monkeys quizlings

"Snowy, feathery
O macaque of great mystique
what the hell's your name?" - astridsdream

"Monchihi" - sskiptress

(I used to have some of those! -1 for getting the commercial jingle stuck in my head… - LL)

"the snowman's evolutionary ancestor: the snow monkey." - faceless_wonder

"" - hellziggy

(This was our very first answer. An excellent start, hellziggy. -CV)

"I've always thought they threw snow because they knew how cute people would think it was. Attention whores." - eris779

"I took a monkies and apes class last year and so far this has been my first chance to apply what I've learned." - killabee886

(You get a +1 just for having taken a "monkeys and apes" class. +2 for anyone who's ever taken a "ninjas and pirates" class. -CV)

"Aren't those the monkeys who like to soak in the hot springs with their homies and bitches? Everytime I see picturesof them I think of rap songs. 'They see me rollin', they hatin', you know that they think that I'm white and monkey.'" - maisontv
"I always wanted to be one of those monkeys when I was little, because we didn't have a hot tub." - miladygrey
"Snow Monkeys. They cook themselves in pits of boiling water for consumption. How can you not love a creature that cooks itself for you?" - deza

(CV is salivating at the thought. – LL)

"Yeah, yeah, we're the Monkees! People say we monkey around!" - seldear

"That snow monkey! That's a battle station!" - tortise

"That guy with the razor-blade bowler who could never quite hit James Bond." - etcet

"Well, macaques are a type of monkey so it should be a snow monkey, unless its monkey snow, a type of precipitation that falls from the sky, steals your food and then tries to claw your eyes out." - roscrea

"It's the newest coffee at Starbucks...I'll have a tall, skinny, frozen, Macaca fuscata." - csflick

"Little-known fact: although 'Macaca fuscata' looks like Latin, it is actually Japanese for 'poo-flinging beast we don't let anime characters have kinky sex with.'" - barbarienne

(I'm willing to bet ten bucks that somewhere there's an anime where someone's pronging a snow monkey. -CV)

"Macaca fuscata, what a wonderful phrase! Macaca fuscata, ain't no passing craze!..." - basking_lizard, scifantasy
...It means snow monkeys but it's a Latin phrase...Macaca fuscata..." - silensy,
...It means snow monkeys, for the rest of your days. It's our snowmonkeyyyy philosophyyyyy. Macaca fuscata!" - spatialrift47
...It means snow monkeys, basking in the sun's rays! It's the chimpanzee... answer from me! Macaca fuscata!" - cmzero

"Macaca fuscata, the Japanese answer to the Karma Sutra, involves a lot more 'toys' and some of the moves are only possible if you have a robot with seventeen appendages." - niroby

Correct Answer: Snow Monkey



3. What is the name of the band whose single "Chasing Cars" was featured on the TV show Grey's Anatomy?

"I should have read all of the questions before deciding that the theme was pandas." - the_wanlorn

(We didn't get much love for this show, did we? I thought it was The Next Best Thing™, though I've never seen it myself. – LL)

"I call this the Miami Vice Syndrome--turning TV dramas into music videos. You get 25 minutes of actual drama, combined with assorted 5-minute montages of scenes with zero scripted acting, showcasing pieces of popular music, which do nothing to move the story along. Of course, none of this would be happening if MTV and VH1 would START PLAYING F**KING MUSIC VIDEOS AGAIN INSTEAD OF REALITY TV CRAP!!! *end rant" - i_calql8

"How sad is it that I know that the answer is Snow Patrol, but only through Torchwood?" - ryttu3k

(Not at all, it shows you have better taste in TV shows. – LL)

"Um....I know of a Japanese band called SNoW (rely on the Japanese for crazy-ass capitalization)." - eris779

(I met a Japanese band called NYCUSA, pronounced Nigh-coo-suh. So add wacky pronunciation to that list. – LL)

"Deathtongue" - thepikey

"And you thought they smelled bad on the outside." - theninth

"'Snowblind,' which is more than a song by Styx, as I discoverd in Idaho this Christmas." - fax_celestis

"I went skiing recently, and I want one of the snow mobiles those patrol guys have. They are super cool! Especially when they're dragging a mere lifeless body that has crumbled down the mountain.... mmmm ski bruising!" - marilyth

"would you believe that last month virgin radio's listeners voted this the best song ever? i mean, what!? snow patrol was considered better than the jam? better than the who? better than david bowie and iggy pop *and* lou reed? my god, british public, sort your bloody act out." - roscrea

(You know, I saw Lou Reed on Friday night. He looked *WASTED*. But still, Lou Reed. -CV)

Correct Answer: Snow Patrol



4. What is the English name for the place known as Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri in Welsh?

"Welsh? WTF? Is that like Narnia or something? You going to have us start translating Middle Earth Elvish next?" - tarpo
"I'm suddenly getting flashbacks to The Silmarillion, and it's long, ridiculous probably Welsh-sounding names. I still have no idea what happened, other than that guy killed that guy, that guy killed that guy, and the first Dark Lord got himself some new bling." - pirho_maniac

"How in the world do you pronounce that? Hooked on Phonics totally failed the Welsh." - whiski_sour

"Let's see...Parc = park, cenedlaethol = candle-thol, and eryri = ....you know what, I give up on this question." - sergeikatholicm

"snowhenge" - faceless_wonder

"The loo." - kokopellinelli

"Park of Ethanol In Your Eye? That would be the coolest roller coaster ever. You go up and down a bunch of hills and shit and then they SPRAY YOU IN THE FACE WITH EVERCLEAR." - lienne

(I think that would burn. -AL)

"Blowdon, near the valley of Pahnt-y-grdl." - elfie_samurai

(A English-Welsh pun, most impressive. -CV)

"Snow something something park!" - b_hulsmans

(Surprisingly, this answer is correct, as far as it goes. -AL)

"National Park Snowdonia. I lived there at the foot of Cadair Idris for 2 years." - gwenhyffar

"Welsh spelling is just another bit of evidence that the British are evil overlords. The Welsh had their language long before anyone came along with the Roman alphabet. The English decided that the best way to keep the Welsh down was to make it impossible for them to make allies or read captured English communiques. They taught the Welsh some utterly ridiculous spellings--"Hey, guys, 'dd' is pronounced th!"--thus keeping the Welsh functionally illiterate as far as the rest of Europe was concerned." - barbarienne

Correct Answer: Snowdonia

"Sefydlwyd Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri ym 1951 fel y trydydd parc cenedlaethol yng Nghymru a Lloegr. Mae ffiniau'r parc yn cynnwys rhyw 214,159 hectar (840 milltiroedd sgwâr)." - theninth

(Sadly, Babelfish doesn't support Welsh. Another online translation page gives us: "One established Park National Snowdonia in 1951 like the third park national in would forbear I go England. He is being boundaries ' group park containing sex hectar (840 miles sgwâr)." Moving on. -AL)

(Huh huh, you said "sex hectar". Huh huh. -CV)



5. "Aput", "gana", "piqsirpoq",and "qimuqsuq" are all examples of what?

"I like the letter Q. The last two words have Q in them and that makes me happy. Q is a neglected letter. Poor Q." - allie_the_neko

"They're probably Inuit words for "snow". I don't speak Inuit, however, so they could all be extremely rude Inuit insults describing ignorant Anglos and I'd be none the wiser." - hugh_mannity

(This is why I don’t' trust the guys at work to teach me Spanish. "Hola, tengo pechos grandes y deseo tener sexo con usted." – LL)

"People who answer the phone when you call Dell customer support" - ghostrider65

"I'll take 'Titles of spam emails I recieved last week' for $200, Alex." - ANONYMOUS

"Sufficient quantities of gin before attempting to type." - etcet

"Winning Scrabble Against the Gullible, 101" - aynisha

"Words used by spiffington" - sskipstress, lafourchette

(She would be so proud. -CV)

"4 things I *don't order off the sushi menu" - wiredwizard

"Gone stupid again, don't know." - ebiannah

"Snow snow snow snow spam eggs snow and snow. It hasn't got much snow in it!" - astridsdream

"Who did put the ram in the ramalamadingdong?" - kestrel127

(I think he was from Kansas. Or maybe Greece. -CV)

"Pig latin. Wait, it's an anagram of 'The virgin mary was a lesbian.' I'm sensing another stupid Dan Brown book." - niroby

"You wonder if fish have over 51 different terms for 'water', based on its temperature, colour, flavour, the little particulates floating in it, and how smoothly it flows through the gills. 'Watch out for that patch of sihsshs over by the coral rock, mate. A little rough on the gills first thing in the morning.'" - seldear

Correct Answer: Lexemes for Snow in Inuit languages

(For those of you about to shout "URBAN LEGEND!" note the use of the word "lexeme" instead of "word" and "languages" plural. Accuracy prevails. As does England. -CV)



6. Snow: good or evil? Discuss.

"Nothing is ever purely good or purely evil. Except Nietzsche." - s0m3days00n

"It's all about location, really. I grew up in North Carolina, so snow there was like a holy event. When I lived in Boston, though, snow was just a fact of life - a very evil, malicious, gun-toting fact." - ckirkman

"Well, considering we've had something like 240 inches since the middle of December, I'm gonna go with MAKE IT STOOOOOOOP. I shoveled my roof last Friday and my back STILL aches, because on top of the snow, we got the rain, so now the snowload is like 90lbs/sq.foot. Also, my old treehouse just collapsed today. STUPID SNOW." - kokopellinelli

"Snow, like magic, is essentially neutral. How it is applied determines good (like building a snowman) or evil (like dropping it down inside the back of my fiancee's sweater)." - wiredwizard

"Snow is good because like Clairol it covers up the grey, like DDT it kills mosquitos, and like a refrigerator it keeps my beer cold." - sskipstress

"Excellent when stuffed down fiancé's coat collar." - miladygrey

(Do these two cancel each other out? – LL)

(Only if these two folks are engaged. -CV)

"Best kept in globes." - theninth

"He's from my hometown, but as Secretary of the Treasury I don't think he really did much to qualify as a paragon of morality, of whatever polarity. I'd continue with something funnier using molarity (for those of you who remember your chemistry), but there's no such word as porality (but if there was, it'd probably just mean the same thing as poverty)." - adalger

"Every winter I promise myself that once we get enough snow for it I'll build a giant Calvin-and-Hobbes-esque snowmen-eating-each-other sculpture in the front yard. But when it finally snows, I completely forget those plans in favor of sleep. I am hopeless." - miscellanelle

"Chaotic Neutral, with a smattering of Cold Moistness." - shadowed_guise

"I am amazed at how much old I feel when I griped about having to clean snow off my car to get to work. Snow is awesome! Snow is snowballs and sledding and snowfolk and hot chocolate with toast afterwards! Grumbling about snow is for old people. When the hell did I get old enough to be grumbling about snow?" - astridsdream

"Good, except when it is touching your butt, at which point it becomes evil. It's amazing how many phenomena that rule generalizes to. Priests, for example." - lienne

"Snow is good. People who can't drive in it but try anyway are evil." - woap

"Evil and I offer this simple proof: How do you make Hell even worse? You FREEZE IT OVER. The prosecution rests." - silensy

"It snowed here yesterday for my son's 6th birthday. He is convinced I 'made' it happen. Therefore, I say snow is good, because snow made me a GODDESS in the eyes of my child! I'll just ignore the bit about how he'll outgrow that in a few more years." - deza

(Milk it for all you can in the mean time. – LL)

"Here's what you do: Go to any small town in Alabama. Say the words "I heard on the weather report that a cold front's coming in, and we can expect some snow accumulation tomorrow." Go to the grocery store and watch old men beat each other half to death over bread and milk." - silent_r_infork

"The immortal Joni Mitchell once said, 'It don't snow here, stays pretty green.' It is not widely known that this was written about Tennessee in general, and two counties in TN in specific. I am doomed to go to college in one, and have parents in the other. So I do not get snow. I do not get proper winters. Oh, sure I get random days of cold that make me swear profusely...but five or more inches (hell, even two) of sweet, sweet whiteness, fit for snowball fights? Not since elementary school. Bitches." - hippiedancer

"When used for good skiing it's great. When used for evil skiing and falling on your ass a lot, it's the devil's handywork!" - marilyth

"HELLS YEAH. Sadly, I can still see the grass. I live in Pennsylvania, people. If I wanted to see grass in February, I'd move to California." - baseballchica03

"Never experienced it, living 18 degrees north of the equator. I do remember a pathetic attempt to have 'snow machines' in one of the malls here, ended up feeling what a full gale sleet storm feels like. Stingy. Oh, and crushed-ice-ball in the small of the back is no fun. Ow." - ntlespino



Once again everyone, thanks for playing. In closing, let us share an ljdq study tip from one of your fellow Quizlings:

"FYI - I have finally been able to buy my own gin to supplement my pudding supplies, and may I say, the combination is AMAZING. Thank you for showing me the way and being able to appreciate the quiz on a whole other level...the one that involves altered mental status." - sergeikatholicm

You can give it a try on the next Quiz, starting.... NOW! No, just kidding. Starting tomorrow just like always.

Rock on,

CV&AL&LL

Comments

[fullmetalkatu.livejournal.com]

Ah, then you understand the pain of "33 degrees and raining"? XD

When it finally gets down to the magic 32, it's blue skies.