1) How did Catharine the Great die?

ANSWER: Stroke.  There is a legend that she died while having sex with a horse (variations exist, but usually the horse somehow ends up crushing her.)  This is demonstratably bullshit started by French Aristocrats who had an anti-Russian agenda.  Mostly I was looking to see if anyone would list the “horse incident,” which would have resulted in either a point deduction (because it’s not true) or a bonus (for specifically identifying it as a myth.)

BEST ANSWER:   "Catherine the Great is dead?  Damn!" — Marilewanna

2) How did George Washington die? (5 point bonus if you know how he contracted it.)

BEST ANSWER:   "died of boredom waiting for the artist to finish painting the bottom half of his portrait." — shade

3) Why was Sir Frances Drake late in leaving to fight the Spanish Armada?

ANSWER:   He had just started a lawn bowling tournament when news came, and he didn’t want to leave until there was a winner.  (I do not know if he won.)

BEST ANSWER:   "He didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition." —Mme. Unicorn

4) Who of the following was NOT gay?

     a) Richard the Lionhearted
     b) Construction Worker in the Village People
     c) Alexander the Great
     d) Winston Churchill
     e) Waylon Smithers

BEST ANSWER:   "Definately has to be Alexander because has the same last name as Catharine..So they must have been married." — Marilewanna

5) Right after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, he said “Good luck, Mr. Zubikov.” What does that mean? (bonus point: Which of his feet was the first to touch the moon’s surface?)

ANSWER:   When he was growing up, Neil once heard his neighbor’s wife say to her husband through their bedroom window, “Oral sex?!?  You’ll get oral sex when that kid next door walks on the moon!”  [bonus: right foot]

BEST ANSWER:   "It has something to do with sex." — Cinder

6) What did Tommy the civil defense Turtle tell you to do in case of a near-by nuclear explosion?

ANSWER:   “Duck and Cover.”  (Which realistically won’t do much, except maybe save your eyesight for a short time, but hey they were trying...)

BEST ANSWER:   "Kiss yer ass goodbye" — Smoking Gun

7) Who holds the record for being excommunicated the most number of times?

ANSWER:   Nicolo Machiavelli. 

BEST ANSWER:   "Jesus?" — Balls-o'-Fire

8) 5 points per: name the five American Presidents not buried on American soil.

ANSWER:   Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, and Ford.

BEST ANSWER:   "...and Ford, who I think has been undead zombie since 1976 anyway." — Smoking Gun

9) What family was the official purveyor of liquor to the Czar’s court (until the Revolution)?

ANSWER:   Smirnoff 

BEST ANSWER:   "Stoli -- who could resist that yummy vodka?" — Marilewanna

10) Still no sight of land. How long is it?

ANSWER:   33 days (a rather personal question!)

BEST ANSWER:   "Long enough that the Captain is starting to look tasty, despite the gammy leg" — saint

1) What is the last digit of pi?

BEST ANSWER:   "it is 3 of course.... its my favorite number and therefore that is the answer" — Marilewanna

2) Who invented calculus, and why?

BEST ANSWER:   "Marquis de Sade" — Burning Sensation & Smoking Gun

3) Which weighs more: a ton of feathers, or a ton of bricks?

BEST ANSWER:   "ton of feathers by far ..." — Marilewanna

4) What was the last number created?

ANSWER:   two answers are acceptable, and you could argue for and against either.  First, “zero” was the last number, because a number needed to be created to show “nothing”.  However, some (myself included) would say that zero is not a number but a logical concept, especially since you cannot demonstrate or prove “zero” of anything.  The other answer is “negative numbers” (as a whole set) which is an advanced concept of math which clearly came about in the past thousand years.  Fallen Fire also suggests “i”, essentially a variation on the last.

BEST ANSWER:   "that's like asking which color was discovered first" — Rice-a-Roni

5) You’re driving a bus with 23 people on it. 5 get on, 8 get off, and 1 is abducted by aliens. There are also 6 illegal immigrants under the bus. What color are the bus driver's eyes?

ANSWER:   The first line identifies you as the driver, so look in a mirror for the correct answer.

BEST ANSWER:   "my eye would be black, from getting punched trying to pick up hot blondie passenger #4." — Freezer Burn

6) Which sum is greater?

BEST ANSWER:   "A.  or is it B?  I forget--too many numbers."  — Marilewanna 

7) Why are there 360 degrees in a circle?

ANSWER:   the Earth makes a circle around the sun in 365.25 days.  360 is much more division-friendly than 365.25, so the 5.25 were dropped.  This is why most religions with a solar calendar have a holiday with “days off” at the end of the year.

BEST ANSWER:   "There were supposed to be 365 degrees in the circle, after the days in a year, but it was a union job, so they slacked off by a few days toward the end." — Smoking Gun

8) If you take the most number of Stephen King books to come out in a year, divide it by the number of times someone says “Hi, Bob” on the Bob Newhart show, then multiply it by the number of ’NSync songs that aren’t about girls, what number do you get?

ANSWER:   the number of 'NSync songs NOT about girls is zero, so the ultimate answer is, too.

BEST ANSWER:   "The same number of years NSYNC will be around from now: 0" — Freezer Burn

WORST ANSWER:   "Well of course that is zero..However, the reason is that there are no such things as 'NSync songs...such torture could not even be considered a song.  Of course the same could be said of Zappa...were it not for 1 redeeming Valley Girl song he has." — Marilewanna (but what should you expect from someone who was in the army, fer chris'sake, and whose favorite band is Korn?!?)

9) What is the number of snowflakes to fall on Chicago last winter, plus the cube root of HAL 9000’s IQ, divided by the pieces of cheese on a gumby’s pizza?

ANSWER:   as has been well-established, there is ZERO cheese on Gumby’s Pizza, so the answer causes the dreaded “division by zero” conundrum. 

BEST ANSWER:   "Division by zero is "undefined," which seems the extra cheese practice of Gumby's." — saint

1) True or False: the wing span and flapping speed of a humming bird is not great enough to support its weight.

BEST ANSWER:   "Hmmmm Well the last time I saw a humming bird it was flying and it wasn't a windy day...some I'm gonna say false." — Marilewanna

2) True or False: Light is the fastest particle/beam in existence.

ANSWER:   False.  Quantum particles such as neutrinos and gluons have been mathematically proven to travel faster than light.  Then again, as we just saw, humming birds have been mathematically proven to be non-flyers... 

BEST ANSWER:  "False.  Gravity is faster than light-black holes." — Smoking Gun

3) If water is transparent, why are clouds white?

ANSWER:  MmeUnicorn said it best: "Particulate matter collects around the water molecules. What you see when you look at clouds is, basically, dust and ice."

BEST ANSWER:   "how do you know there aren't transparent clouds, too?" — Smoking Gun  (can't argue with that; I gave him 3 points)

4) Which of the four food groups do mushrooms belong to?

BEST ANSWER:   "Mushrooms are unkosher and not part of the Branch Floridian food groups anyway...they aren't cigarettes, they aren't coffee, nor BBQ sauce...and they don't qualify as anything else...therefore they aren't part of any food group."  — Marilewanna

5) If there were no sponges in the ocean, how deep would it be?

ANSWER:   joke; any answer is acceptable.

BEST ANSWER:   "We would be underwater if the sponges weren't there... lets face it...we would be a waterworld."  — Marilewanna

6) How many legs does a Saladrin have?

ANSWER:   8.  For those going “huh?” Saladrin are sentient insects that populate shade’s novels.  Kind of a cross between a crab and a spider, but they breathe methane and usually wear atmosphere suits.

BEST ANSWER:   "I dunno..but I think I had one for lunch the other day"— Marilewanna.

7) What is the largest desert on Earth?

BEST ANSWER:   "Arizona" — Marilewanna

8) How does the little crocodile improve its shining tail, and pour the waters of the Nile on every golden scale?

ANSWER:   any answer is acceptable, but quoting the rest of the poem is where the points were at   “...how cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws, and welcomes little fishies in with gently smiling jaws.”  Clueless readers are referred to Alice in Wonderland

BEST ANSWER:   "He got some nice Egyptian glass blower to create a new set of scales for him and washed them with the waters of the Nile." — Marilewanna

9) How long is a python? 

     a) 1 Andre the Giant long
     b) 2 Andre the Giant’s long
     c) 3 Andre the Giant’s long

ANSWER:   a python is 1 Andre the Giant long.

10) my bee won’t stop buzzing!?!

ANSWER:   [ctrl] + [alt] + [del] and “end task” on whatever’s “not responding.”  However, I would have accepted any answer, with the score being geared towards style.

BEST ANSWER:   "And what's your point? I rather like my bee buzzing,:) to bad I don't have more bees buzzing, I would bottle them up and use it as a sex toy." — Cinder
  

1) Goethe’s masterpiece, Faust, was plagiarized from what two works?

ANSWER:   “The Real Faust Book” (allegedly by Faust—yes, he was real—and his servant) and “Faust,” a play by Chris Marlowe.

BEST ANSWER:  "How to plaigerize Faust" & "Plaigerizing Faust for Dummies" " —saint

2) Who was Shakespeare’s favorite actress?

ANSWER:   he didn’t have one.  Women were not allowed on stage until a few hundred years later.

BEST ANSWER:   "Queen Mary - she acted like a tyrant." — Smoking Gun

3) What is the shortest sentance in the English Language?

ANSWER:   “ I’m. ”  (“ I'd. ” also works, as does “ I's. ” as in “I was”)

5) True or False: Emily Dickenson died a virgin.

ANSWER:   False!  (According to my feminazi Women’s Lit teacher back at FSU, she had an infrequent yet protracted lesbian affair with a neighbor a few miles away, but also had 1 heterosexual experience, with her pen pal/agent. 

BEST ANSWER:   "Obviously a virgin...have you ever seen pictures of that hag?" — Marilewanna

6) What is the longest poem ever written?

ANSWER:   The Mahabharata.  If you’ve never heard of it, it is to Hinduism what the Torah is to Jews, except 3 times longer.

BEST ANSWER:   "I'll let you know when I'm done writing it." — DrTeeth

7) What noise does a Jabberwockey make when it attacks?

ANSWER:   according to the poem, “...the Jabberwok, with eyes of flame, came uffing through the Tulgy wood, and burbled as it came.”

BEST ANSWER:   "sings" — Cinder.  (I gave it to her; she knew it was from Alice, and conceivably, “uffing” and “burbling” could be singing.  Besides, I just like the idea.)

8) How old was Mary Shelley when she wrote Frankenstein?

ANSWER:   19.  She had already had—and lost—four children, so perhaps the motif in the book of “bringing the dead back to life” is a little more understandable.  Mary, her husband, and the Byrons were snowed in  a lodge one winter, so had sort of a “write-off” to pass the time.  She produced Frankenstein, to everyone's astonishment.

BEST ANSWER:   none

9) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has a Masters Degree in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. What was his thesis?

ANSWER: I should toss this question out, because his degree is in “sociology”.  It is an honorary degree, and his thesis was his novel “Cat’s Cradle,” which (aside from the ice 9 sci-fi plot) is very much a sociological commentary.

BEST ANSWER: "Time Travel theory... with the cat and the piece of toast" — Marilewanna

10) What planet is Blade From?

ANSWER: Caandelen’s Star.

BEST ANSWER: "I forget.  Besides, the link's broken, bone head." — Smoking Gun.