ljdq | LJ Daily Answers, 14 May 2007.

In case you're wondering where this theme came from, last week

angledge got too close to some of the airplanes at JFK & was suffering from a bit of tinnitus. And in case you're wondering what the theme was, read the answers & see if any of them ring a bell.

1. What term, used to describe a leading indicator or trendsetter, comes from a word meaning "castrated ram"?

"You made this up just to see how many people you get to google 'castrated ram', didn't you?" -

crystalcazzie

(Google Trends had insufficient data to tell me where the webcheaters are located. So there won't be any -50s handed out on this question. -AL)

"Every male taking this quiz just crossed his legs protectively at the very thought." -

noelleleithe
"I feel kind of uneasy with the terms 'trendsetter' and 'castrated' in the same sentence. " -

cmseward
"I don't think I'd like to know whose trends you've been following. " -

tsar_bomba

"ewenick?" -

mark_laura,

i_calql8

(~~(Fired. -AL)~~ Promoted! -CV&LL)

"I actually have no idea... but I think I should start incorporating that into everyday speech. 'Wow! I love the new purse! You're such a castrated ram!'" -

vampyr_aggie

"Look, if someone had just ripped your fuzzy little nuts off, wouldn't you run like hell, too? Or would you just curl up in a ball and whimper? What kind of leading indicator would that be? 'Economists today suggested that the best course of action would be to grab your crotch and mewl piteously.' You know, that really isn't so different from reality now that I see it typed out like that." -

etcet

"I have no idea why you would want a word for 'castrated ram' in the first place. I mean, who goes around castrating rams? Furthermore, who is so proud of this act that they give the castrated ram a new name to commemorate the event? 'Congratulations, Bob the Ram. You are now Bob the Dickless Wonder.' No. Just no." -

lienne

"A bellwether. Didn't know I could spell it right, did you? My Grandfather had a herd of sheep. Now that I'm older, I wonder about him." -

antinomic

(You've just read too much fanfic. -AL)

"I thought a bellwether was a ram that had a warning bell on it for some reason." -

undeadgoat

(Here, let

judith_s explain:)

"...the castrated ram had a bell around his neck and led the other sheep. In other words, if you follow the trend setters, you're a sheep. No surprise there." -

judith_s

Correct Answer: bellwether.

"On a side note, my dad once punched a Ram (named Rambo) in the face. Not only did the Ram find this highly irregular, but the owner pissed himself laughing. To be fair, Rambo was trying to run down my brother and sister who were just little things. Supposedly he was never the same again." -

annemjw

2. What is another name for the graph of a standard Gaussian distribution with a mean of zero and a variance of one?

"Your mom's a standard Gaussian distribution!" -

skfromstamford

(Yup, someone's always gotta go there. -CV)

"Aaauugh! Math words! It hurts us, precious!" -

anonymisty

"I've failed every stats class I've ever taken. Even in fifth grade I kept trying to make the pie charts look like actual pie." -

nextian

"I just spent my day with a class of children who think that 50 minutes after 6:50 is 7:00." -

crystalcazzie

(In physics lectures, that statement is truth. Gah, those classes lasted forever... -CV)

"Oh god the memories, they're all coming back, Run Charlie! Variables in the treetops, Variables in the tree tops!! Nooooo!!!" -

niroby

(+1 to us for giving someone a 'Nam flashback. -CV&LL&AL)

"Why can't we have a nice healthy sports question that I may know the answer to?" -

tsar_bomba

"Is it webcheating if you don't use your own computer?" -

puredeadthingy

(Careful research indicates that even on someone else's computer, the web is the same. Nice try, though. -CV)

"You wrote this one for

icalql8, admit it." -

etumukutenyak
"zomgmathquestionGaussianvariancemeanstandarddeviationzscoresbellcurve *squeeeeeeeeeeeee*" -

i_calql8

(Need I ask if it was good for you? –LL)

"All I know is that sometimes Scotty needs to degauss the ship in the Trek novels and I imagine him pressing a button under the view screen and it going weird for a second. Seriously. Degauss the ship. Old Trek novels were the shit." -

lots42

(Star Trek in and of itself is geeky, but reading the novels is truly Geek Of The Week material. You now have -1 Gausses. -CV)

(

syrazemyla used a whole bunch of big crazy words in their answer, including the phrase "Cauchy distributions". I don't know what that means, but it makes me hot, so +1. -CV)

Correct Answer: bell curve.

3. What is the title of Sylvia Plath's only novel?

"Hahahaha... ol' Oven-Head herself!" -

paradoxotaur

"she was emo before people knew emo existed." -

faceless_wonder

"Dr. Strangelife, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Oven." -

silent_r_infork

"'The Plath Not Taken.' In other news, sales of anti-depressants spiked shortly thereafter." -

stagemanager

"One Hit Wonder" -

fizrep

"That's not important. What's important is that her husband cheated on her with a woman named Assia." -

unleashedfreak

"The Bell Jar. Otherwise known as the home of tinkerbell, until someone screwed the lid on too tight." -

skfromstamford

"'The Bell Jar.' After I read this, I told my mom about Sylvia Plath and how she killed herself by sticking her head in the oven. My mother's response? 'Make sure you don't commit suicide!' Right...I'll put that at the top of my to-do list." -

oboe_dude

(Actually it should be at the top of your not-to-do list. -AL)

"Y'know, I wrote a paper on The Bell Jar when I was a freshman in high school (go fighting Lancers!) and it changed my life. No. I'm lying. But hey, The Bell Jar = Emo Ground Zero, kind of." -

shadow_shimmer

Correct Answer: The Bell Jar.

4. What American symbol is inscribed with a quotation from Leviticus 25:10 as well as the phrase "Pass and Stow"?

"I only know this answer because I watched National Treasure." - lots of you. -10 for poor taste in movies, even CV didn't like that one.

"Tell me Bush doesn't have that tattooed on his ass or something." -

kokopellinelli

(-50 for making us think of Bush's ass. -AL&CV&LL)

"The basketball. You're supposed to pass it to your teammates and stow it in the basket. And Leviticus 25:10 obviously says 'Thou shalt not double-dribble, nor shalt thou travel.'" -

syrazemyla

"A very holy airline, complete with blessed luggage compartments, so that everyone doesn't lose their stuff? Or it could be the Greyhound of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints." -

leaper182

"The Baggage Handler's Union badge." -

niroby

"I didn't know that the USA had a national bong, but hey, never let it be said that you don't learn anything from LJDQ!" -

chlaal

"The Vince Lombardi Trophy. Beneath the laces is the phrase THOU SHALT GO FOR IT ON FOURTH DOWN; YES, EVEN YOU POOR BASTARDS IN PHILLY." -

etcet

(Jerk. -AL)

"The Liberty Bell. On which the word 'Pennsylvania' is misspelled. True story." -

stgreyhounds

(Somewhat true. At the time the bell was cast, the spelling of the colony's name was not standardized. -AL)

"I once read a story entitled 'crack in the liberty bell' in which, ahem, well, gay porn is everybody's friend. And Canada ruled the world." -

thechinesecurse

"Do the other bells make fun of the Liberty Bell for having plumber's butt? 'Dude, I can see your crack!'" -

mark_laura

"Hm. American symbol, and today's theme is ringing a bell..it can only be the Liberty Bell. Cracked, unrung, ignored except on the Glorious 4th of July -- why, it's the very icon of our country." -

etumukutenyak

Correct Answer: the Liberty Bell.

"230 years and that big ol' crack hasn't been fixed yet. Your government at work..." -

spotts1701

5. Most famous for his work on creating the telephone, what American inventor was also infamous for advocating sterilization of "defective varieties of the human race"?

"... Okay, that's something you never read about in the kiddy biographies for book reports." -

leaper182

"Could it be... Satan?" -

mcrunner03

"So he was a racist/prejudiced bastard. He paved the way for the cell phone, I think he can be excused." -

shadowkeeper

(That's debatable... -CV)

"he really didn't invent the phone, he just had good connections." -

fantom07

"Define 'defective', Mr. Bell. Because if you're talking about people who are lousy drivers and slap around their mamas, I might be on your ship. (I said 'might'.) -

elbiesee

"hehehe, my grandmother was an English teacher for the deaf, she has lots of stories of why Alexander Graham Bell is a douchebag. Except she's conservative, so she doesn't say it in that way." -

killabee886

"Nothing witty can come for a guy who'd sterilize his own wife. Except for the fact that he's got kids of his own. This stinks of irony." -

cookie_pixie

(I'd call it hypocrisy, myself. -AL)

"Maybe Bell foresaw the coming of text messaging and related chatspeak and wanted to save humankind from its horror." -

woap

"Alexander 'Can You Hear Me Now?' Bell." -

shadow_shimmer

"OMG, he was a bigot!!! I'm never using his products ever again...Oh, wait a sec while I answer the...dammit!!!" -

badgerbabe

Correct Answer: Alexander Graham Bell.

6. So.... what are your plans for this summer (or winter, if you're in the Southern Hemisphere)?

"What the heck does this question have to do with bells???" -

tweeti

(Nothing. I couldn't think of a good Question 6 this week. *hangs head, shuffles feet* -AL)

"Well, if I can get my lazy ass into gear for organizing it, perhaps (appropriately enough) wedding bells." -

blindgeoff

(Crap, wedding bells would've been a great Question 6. -AL)

"This summer? Yard work, gaming, and leading a very unexamined life. OMGYAY. And possibly getting cool icons. And buying a permanent LJ account. BECAUSE MY LIFE IS JUST SO EL-JAY." -

leaper182

"Answer the ljdq faithfully each week. Get fans installed in my snowtrooper helmet. Learn how to touch my nose with my tongue." =

wendynat

"OMG HARRY POTTER YAAAAAAAAAAY." -

jessicamariek

"Gonna go burn shit in the desert and chase naked blue chicks." -

thepikey

"I plan on getting divorced, getting engaged and planning a wedding. (Man, I sound hoochish!) I also plan on doing a lot of sitting indoors in the A/C until it cools off outside, then fighting the mosquitoes until I get West Nile and become insanely ill. From there I'll just whine to whoever will listen about how I feel like I am dying." -

emilytasticz0rz

"Try to see more boobies (hey, why lie?)" -

lots42

"I'm buying a bikini and high-heeled boots, which I will then use to go out and fight crime in the dead of night. Now I must decide my color scheme, catchphrase, and Loved One Destined to Die." -

pewter_alyssum

"I'll be supervising a gaggle of high school volunteers in rural Panama... Yes, I signed on voluntarily. No, I'm not getting paid." -

babybokal

(Good luck with that, & we hope your particular variety of teh crazy isn't e-contagious. -AL)

"Same as any other time of year. Work, eat, sleep, repeat." -

n5iln

(Doesn't growing up suck? -AL)

"(sings) Millions of beaches, beaches for me..." -

ntlespino

"Wanna come over? I'll make...puddin'." -

puredeadthingy

"My plans for the summer are to become a creepy little Quasimodo-esque recluse huddled in my air-conditioned room with a three month supply of Mt. Dew and muttering to myself randomly as I attempt to finish the novel I've been working on." -

vmisery

(Good luck with that... -LL)

Correct Answer: "I will be enjoying the new-found liberties which I have earned by turning 18. Take that in whatever way you would like." - elf_of_doriath

And all three of the mods heave a sigh, remembering the Paleolithic Era when we, too, were only eighteen. Oh well, at least age has made us wise - wise enough to have a quiz for you again tomorrow. Probably.

Rock on,

AL&CV&LL.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

etcet.livejournal.com

"The Vince Lombardi Trophy. Beneath the laces is the phrase THOU SHALT GO FOR IT ON FOURTH DOWN; YES, EVEN YOU POOR BASTARDS IN PHILLY." - etcet

(Jerk. -AL)

I am a BUFFALO BILLS fan. You get no sympathy from me, bub.

From:

chaosvizier.livejournal.com

Buffalo at least has wings. Philly has... cheesesteaks? Feh! I'm with Buffalo on this one.

(deleted comment)

Though named daily, it is weekly. Behold the first mystery.

LJ Daily Answers, 14 May 2007.

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