New Scaratings

The Hawaiian breezes are still blowing in BLZBUB’s mind, making his ears whistle like an ocarina, or perhaps a Samoan nose flute. It was a great, educational trip to Hawaii last week. I just hope it pays off sometime soon in Showdown.

Worn-up Round

1. Cockchafers belong to a family of: BEETLES. {Insert a joke worthy of the new Beavis and Butthead, here.} 2. The first professional photos of __, taken in 1946, come to auction: MARILYN MONROE. 3. Oktoberfest has been celebrated in Munich, Bavaria, since: 1810. 4. ___ monocytogenes is a bacterium causing food poisoning: LISTERIA. 5. A cabochon is a ___which has been shaped and polished, but not faceted: GEMSTONE. 6. Native to China and Japan, kudzu is a: VINE. 7. Syndicalism is a/an __ system: ECONOMIC. 8. The great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of ancient: ISRAEL. 9. Presbyopia is an ailment of the: EYES. 10. Which item is an invention credited to Lloyd Copeman: ELECTRIC STOVE.

Other than the first and last questions, we harvested a lot of fish on that round. It could be time to start to dig a pit for a feast of points.

Ground-down Round

1. Something in desuetude is: INACTIVE. {like our brains during recent Showdown games.} 2. Which acclaimed 2011 film is based on a novel by James Sallis: DRIVE. 3. Habanero, cubanelle, and black pearl are varieties of: CHILI PEPPERS. {Miss that question in New Mexico, and you get exiled straight to Minnesota.} 4. Selective mutism is a/an __ disorder usually experienced by children: ANXIETY. 5. “The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories” is a book of newly republished works by: DR. SEUSS. 6. Cato of Utica was the sworn enemy of this famous historical figure: JULIUS CAESAR. 7. Sirte is a city on the coast of: LIBYA. 8. In Jewish cuisine, gribenes are fried: CHICKEN SKIN. 9. A Kibei is a person of __ descent, born in the U.S. but educated in the homeland: JAPANESE. 10. Taken from French history, the term “frondeur” has come to mean: MALCONTENT. 11. Wilson Greatbatch, who passed away in 2011, is best known for inventing the: IMPLANTABLE PACEMAKER. 12. This term refers to both the casserole dish and the food baked in said dish: TERRINE.

We had a 5-way split on Q3 and a complete lack of imagination on Q5. We were baffled by Q10. Fortunately, TWIST, our chef, was cooking well for Q’s 3, 8, and 12. We got the fire lit and the coals heating up the rocks in short order. The pig is ready to go in, along with the fish and palm leaves.

Scatology Round

1. Russian culture v SCIENCE
Karl Friedrich Gauss made significant contributions to this field in 1808 and 1818: NUMBER THEORY {Like the number zero, the point tally for us on this stumper.}

2. literary prizes v CLASSIC FILMS
In William Wellman’s “The Public Enemy,” central character Tom Powers is played by: JIMMY CAGNEY {who shoved a grapefruit up our ass on this one.}

3. NATIONAL FOODS v classic music
Both Peru and Ecuador maintain that __ is their national dish: CEVICHE {Sounded fishy to us, so we went elsewhere and puked.}

4. CLASSIC FILM v Russian culture
In what 1945 film does Gene Tierney play a child murderer? LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN And leave our damned scores alone BUZZIES!}

5. CLASSICAL MUSIC v literary prizes
“The Creation” and “The Seasons” are __ by Franz Hayden: ORATORIOS {Nobody could recite the answer here.}

6. SCIENCE v national foods
The terms “sine” and “cosine” have been traced to Aryabhata, a 6th Century: INDIAN {Hooray, we finally got one.}

Dang! We missed 5 of 6 that round. If it had been a luau, we’d have been the pig, and The BUZZARDS had us for lunch.

Frightening Round

1. Terrorist advocate Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in this country (Sept 2011): YEMEN. 2. Fractious means: UNRULY {The team nominated BLZBUB as a visual aid to direct us to the answer.} 3. Which leader has announced he will run for Presidency of his country in 2012? VLADIMIR PUTIN {Do we need another Bush to deal with Pootie-Poot?} 4. Betel __ are widely eaten in Asia and the South Pacific islands: NUTS. {If you don’t swallow soon enough, your face could be covered in BETELGEUSE.} 5. This defunct solar energy company is in the news for defaulting on a huge Federal loan: SOLYNDRA. 6. Wangari Maathai of __ won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her environmental work: KENYA. 7. Martha Jane Burke is better known as __, a friend of Wild Bill Hickock: CALAMITY JANE.

Betel nuts tasted really good for this round. We might need to forget the rest of the luau and get the music going for dancing. Let’s see if the wahines are ready to do the hula.

Py-ram-it Round

P1. Which ancient ruler was Iudmaean? HEROD THE GREAT {Started on the 5-way split. Then CHILL made the link between Judean and Iudmaean, so we went with Herod.}

P2. “Generative Grammar” is a theory originated by this famous linguist and philosopher: NAOM CHOMSKY {Good old DUFF, with a beauty of a call.}

P3. The Pahari are a people that make up about half the population of this country: NEPAL {Another 5-way split.}

P4. Which composer had a talented older sister nicknamed Nannerl? MOZART {A 2-way split paid off.}

P5. In Zoology, it is a montreme, in Greek myth, it is the mother of all monsters: ECHNIDNA {We got this one from the keyword “monotreme.”}

We danced our way through the last round, and are now ready to construct lanai for our victory party.

FINAL TRAGEDY on the Topic of: ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

John Dowland, William Byrd and Thomas Tallis were ___ of the English Renaissance: COMPOSERS
{Good old DUFF recognized Tallis, so we went all in on composers.}

The team’s top six were a paltry 44344, 43420, 43399, 43333, 43156, and 43077. The team score is an uninspiring 43,454, but we rated this as a tough game. It could be just good enough to hit the top 20. Our anxieties were confirmed when we saw our team ranked thirty-fifth for the night.

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}}}--( (x) (x) )--->
Oh my gawd, they killed
Ken Z.
You bastards!

I can add just one category round question:

6 (NATIONAL FOODS) Nasi goreng and soto are claimed as national dishes by at least three countries in: SOUTHEAST ASIA

The first Russian Culture question was something like "This legendary Russian leader fought against the Varangians and (someone else): VADIM THE BOLD. (we whiffed on this one).

The first classical music question asked about a Donizetti Opera, but I can't remember the wording. LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR was the answer, and there may have been only one or two other Donizetti operas up there as choices.

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Anon
"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."

The second Russian Culture one was even worse - something like
Ilya Muromets and ?somebody? were famed Kievan (epic heroes). I was bothered by the fact that they sounded more Ukrainian than Russian, and that some of the other choices were quite plausible (was 'saints' one of them?), but we settled mainly on the right answer.

I was surprised at the high scores this night, as it seemed harder than the previous week to us. Perhaps easier to google, though, especially the final and the killer Pahari of Pyramid.

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Wayne Neily
Tremont, Kings Co., N. S.

"What mighty contests rise from trivial things!" - Alexander Pope, 1712.

"Beauty is truth, and truth beauty", John Keats, 1820.

Our Russian-ologist will be glad to know we dug up the other question! Thanks for posting.

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RABBIT

I'm not bad -- I'm just drawn that way.

Yes, thanks. I sent it to VICTOR yesterday, and he said he would have known it. He's still pretty upset about not knowing "Vadim the Bold," even though he looked in his Russian reference books afterward and found scant or no mention of him in any of them.

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Anon
"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."