New Scaratings

Warm-up Round (10 Questions, 500 Points each, No clues):
1. Which of these items is a low stool that a young child might sit on?________________
[Choices: Luffet, Huffet, Tuffet, Guffet, Buffet]
2. Which famous American was born in the 18th Century?_______________.
[Choices: Noah Webster, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Thomas Edison]
3. In days gone by, hydrochloric acid was also known as:__________________.
[Choices: Spirits of salt, Laughing gas, Grog, Baking soda, Vinegar]
4. Gastonia and Rock Hill are cities close to:________________.
[Choices: Columbus, Cranston, Chicago, Cleveland, Charlotte]
5. U.S. football player Elroy Hirsch was known by this nickname:_______________.
[Choices: Splendid Splinter, Rushville Rocket, Crazylegs, Honey Badger, Bambino]
6. The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 186,282 miles per:______________.
[Choices: Second, Day, Minute, Hour, Week]
7. James Cameron directed both "Titanic" and:_______________.
[Choices: The Godfather, The Dark Knight, Avatar, Star Wars, The English Patient]
8. What island nation sold its Internet domain name for fifty million dollars?______________.
[Choices: Christmas Island, Easter Island, Tobago, Tuvalu, Grand Cayman]
9. An alternate term for "faked death" is:_________________.
[Choices: Boguscide, Amnesia, Shamicide, Phoneycide, Pseudocide]
10. Originating in Chicago, the Wobblies played a major role in the _______________ movement.
[Choices: Labor, Ecology, Women's, Temperance, Civil Rights]

Countdown Round (12 Questions, 1000 Points each, Points decrease rapidly with time and 3 Clues):
11. If you book a flight to Changi Airport, you're on your way to:________________.
[Choices: Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Singapore, Cairo, Beijing]
12. This is the title of a novel by Emile Zola set during the fall of France's Second Empire:________________.
[Choices: Lana, Nana, Zana, Anna, Mona]
13. New Orleans native Buddy Bolden is considered by many to have been the first:_________________.
[Choices: Jazz musician, Martial artist, Hypnotist, Tap dancer, Fascist dictator]
14. Rotavirus usually affects only:__________________.
[Choices: Young children, Old men, Dogs, Women, Cats]
15. "The Way You Look Tonight" is a song written by Dorothy Fields and:________________.
[Choices: Ayn Rand, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Willie Nelson]
16. Which animal has the most teeth?_______________
[Choices: Starling, Snail, Shark, Salamander, Skunk]
17. Where was North Korea's Kim Jong-nam assassinated in 2017?_______________.
[Choices: Monaco, Morocco, Malaysia, Mauritania, Moldova]
18. Which name is a hypocorism?_______________.
[Choices: A-Rod, Jacqueline Onassis, Prince of Wale, Dorian Gray, Mark Twain]
19. By definition, a sloop is a sailing boat with a:________________.
[Choices: Monohull, Daggerboard, Single mast, Fin keep, Trimaran]
20. The Matterhorn is a famous mountain in the _______________ Range.
[Choices: Olympus, Atlas, Tyrol, Pyrenees, Pennine Alps]
21. "Behemoth" is an acclaimed book written in 1668 by:_________________
[Choices: Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Wolfe, Thomas Dryden, Thomas Cromwell]
22. Scientists recently concluded that _______________ has been volcanically active for billions of years.
[Choices: The Martian moon Phobos, The asteroid belt, Halley's comet, The dwarf planet Ceres, Mercury]

Category Round (6 Questions, 1000 Points each, Category chosen by majority vote at each Site):
23.(a) ANCIENT HISTORY v Inventions: Achaeans, Danaans and Argives are names for the people we usually call the:______________.
[Choices: Persians, Druids, Romans, Greeks, Egyptians]
24.(a) TEST YOUR VOCABULARY v Stephen King: Which word means to speak in a verbose and windy fashion?__________________
[Choices: Taunt, Goad, Bloviate, Trifle, Simper]
25.(a) MOTOWN MUSIC v NBA preview: Their hit "Standing in the Shadows of Love" is found on several Motown retrospective albums:_________________
[Choices: Martha & The Vandellas, Guy Lombardo Orchestra, Gladys Knight & The Pips, The Supremes, The Four Tops]
26.(a) Stephen King v ANCIENT HISTORY: Which place belonged to what the Romans called Magna Graecia or Greater Greece?__________________.
[Choices: Syria, Spain, Russia, Ukraine, Sicily]
27.(a) NBA preview v TEST YOUR VOCABULARY: "Misandry" means the hatred of:________________.
[Choices: Fire, Males, Beasts, Plants, Minerals]
28.(a) INVENTIONS v Motown music: In what year did James Ritty and John Birch invent the mechanical cash register?__________________
[Choices: 1901, 1708, 1879, 1938, 1796]

Lightning Round (7 Questions: 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000 Points, but time to read & answer decreases from 15, 12, 10, 8, 7, 5, to 4 seconds):
29. Which of these words is a synonym of "greediness"?________________
[Choices: Temerity, Gulosity, Hircine, Logorrhetic, Catenary]
30. In what year did Anne Boleyn become Queen of England?___________
[Choices: 1755, 1311, 1533, 1422, 1644]
31. Peter Gabriel was the lead singer and flautist of this band:__________________
[Choices: Numbers, Leviticus, Genesis, Deuteronomy, Exodus]
32. Foot Locker, the athletic shoe and sportswear store, is a successor company to:___________________.
[Choices: L.L. Bean, Target, J.C. Penney, F.W. Woolworth, Thiokol]
33. The country of Iran currently has a population of about _______ million.
[Choices: 117, 52, 81, 206, 153]
34. What comic book character uses the Fisk Towers as his headquarters?_____________
[Choices: Doctor Octopus, Shredder, Kingpin, The Riddler, Poison Ivy]
35. In "A Streetcar Named Desire", Stanley Kowalski's sister-in-law is named:________________.
[Choices: Charity, Blanche, Alma, Purity, Faith]

Dreaded Pyramid Round (5 Questions: 12000, 7000, 4000, 2000, 1000 Points for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Right out of 5; No clues):
36. Which literary character was created by German writer Gunter Grass?______________.
[Choices: Maxim de Winter, Lewis Strether, Dolores Haze, Oskar Matzerath, Peter Keating]
37. A plan to annex Texas was a key part of the Presidential campaign of:________________.
[Choices: Calvin Coolidge, Alben Barkley, James Polk, John Quincy Adams, Martin van Buren]
38. In what country is the ballet "La Sylphide" set?_________________
[Choices: France, Italy, Mongolia, Mexico, Scotland]
39. John Powers is credited with popularizing this term in the early 1960's:_______________.
[Choices: A-OK, Critical mass, Domino theory, Hippie, Doomsday]
40. Before it gained its independence in 1828, it was called the Cisplatine Province:______________.
[Choices: Uruguay, Finland, Luxembourg, Kenya, Colombia]

Final Jeopardy Question on WORLD HISTORY (50% Bonus if Right Immediately; Points decrease rapidly with time and 3 Clues; 50% Deduction if Final Choice is Wrong):
41. Which ruler's son was put to death for conspiring against him?___________________
[Choices: Saladin, Richard I, Louis XIV, Genghis Khan, Peter the Great]


Answers:
1. Tuffet [I (REACH) pre-called this; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuffet and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Miss_Muffet . I mentioned the "Bullwinkle's Corner" episode where Rocky asked "What's a tuffet?"; see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5LGapKQXPo .]
2. Noah Webster [I called this, by eliminating the others who were born in the 19th century; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Webster ]
3. Spirits of salt [I pre-called "Muriatic acid", but since this was not one of the Choices, I had to think about each of the 5 Choices listed. Since salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) contains chlorine and produces hydrogen chloride gas (HCl) when reacted with concentrated sulfuric acid (H2SO4), I deduced the Answer "spirits of salt", previously not seen in my training as a chemist. When hydrogen chloride gas dissolves in water, the solution formed is hydrochloric acid. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrochloric_acid .]
4. Charlotte [Myfanwy (SPRAJO) pre-called "the Carolinas". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastonia,_North_Carolina and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Hill,_South_Carolina . Note that the two are in different states.]
5. Crazylegs [I pre-called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elroy_Hirsch ]
6. Second [Jean (LESTER) pre-called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light ]
7. Avatar [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film) ]
8. Tuvalu [Dai (BLADOR) was maybe the first to pre-call this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tv ]
9. Pseudocide [I first called for "Shamicide" (Choice #3), but by the time I read Choice #5, I agreed with others that the answer was "Pseudocide" (a "pseudopod" is a "false foot" for the Amoeba; a "pseudonym" is a "false name", etc.). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faked_death ]
10. Labor [I pre-called this; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industria ... _the_World ]
We at Buster's Bar, Ottawa ON had a 16-way tie with perfect scores of 5000 Points after the Warm-up Round, for Wendy (EKWTSM, ANIL K), Chris (CEEZED, KAYZED), Dave (YELDOR, TULADI), Andrew F (DR LUV, KVETA), Patrick (MRRED), Richard (ACE), Sue (SWIFT), Myfanwy (SPRAJO), Dai (BLADOR), Phil (BSLXPN), Jean (LESTER) and me (REACH).

11. Singapore [Dai pre-called this, since Changi Prison was the infamous WWII prison run by the Japanese military after the fall of Singapore in February 1942. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Changi_Airport and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changi_Prison ]
12. Nana [Dai pre-called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nana_(novel) ]
13. Jazz musician [Several of us, including me and Wendy (EKWTSM, ANIL K), guessed this from "New Orleans"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Bolden ]
14. Young children [Unfortunately, I switched my answer from "Young children" to "Dogs" on a wrong call, losing 802 Points (which cost the Site score 802/6 = 133 Points). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotavirus ]
15. Jerome Kern [I called for a split with Cole Porter, only later remembering that Porter wrote both the words and music for his compositions, so the logical Choice was Kern ("Show Boat"); see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Kern and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cole_Porter . The other Choices were the wrong era. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_You_Look_Tonight , and for a performance by Frank Sinatra, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gab2Vuz2Nk . Is it just me, or does the album cover photo remind you of Ronan Farrow? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Farrow .]
16. Snail [We all guessed "Shark" (WRONG!!!!). Andrew C (GRYFON, GRZLDA) might have got this if he were present, as he knew about a snail's radula in a game a couple years ago when we were at The New Edinburgh Pub in Ottawa ON. See http://factorialist.com/snails-many-hard-teeth/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radula .]
17. Malaysia [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassina ... m_Jong-nam .]
18. A-Rod [Dai called this one, and I agreed, as "hypo" refers to something "low, less"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocorism ]
19. Single mast [Dai called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloop . For Jimmie Rodgers' version of "The Wreck of the Sloop John B.", see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLRAWWJkI0k .]
20. Pennine Alps [I pre-called "Alps", but then had second thoughts because the Pennine Range is in Great Britain. So I called for a change to "Tyrol"; only 3 boards stuck with "Pennine Alps" for 1000 Points, and the others scored below 197 after the third Clue (my bad). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennines , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matterhorn (in the Alps between Switzerland and Italy), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennine_Alps and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrol (Alps between northern Italy and western Austria).]
21. Hobbes [Dai called this one, based on the similarity of the title to Hobbes' "Leviathan"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behemoth_(Hobbes_book) . I was slow to answer because I confused the Choice Thomas Cromwell (c.1485-1540), one of Henry VIII's chief officials, with Richard Cromwell, the son of Oliver Cromwell who took over, briefly, in the mid-1600s after the death of his father. The other Choices were nowhere near 1668.
Hobbes had been a defender of Charles I, an absolute divine monarch, because he feared that the life of Man in a "state of nature" (without government) was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, absolute power in Britain resided in Parliament; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution . This Revolution and John Locke profoundly influenced the Founding Fathers of the USA. The idea of separation of powers in America came from the Roman Republic, which was founded after the last tyrant King of Rome was deposed; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Ta ... s_Superbus (died 495 BC). By the second century BC, Polybius explained that the natural evolution of governments from king to tyrant to aristocracy to oligarchy to democracy to mob-rule would bring back a king, and the cycle would repeat; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacyclosis . Therefore Roman Republican government tried to moderate the extremes by separating powers between 2 elected Consuls (an Executive), an aristocratic Senate, and elected tribunes representing the plebs. Sound familiar?]
22. Ceres [Only 5 guesses were correct on this one (since Ceres is an isolated asteroid, I couldn't think of any plausible heat source for volcanism; volcanoes on the moon Io are powered by tidal friction as it is squeezed back-and-forth in its elliptical orbit around the planet Jupiter. The force of gravity between two masses m and M varies as mM/r^2 , and tidal forces vary as the derivative with respect to r . Since the derivative of 1/r^2 with respect to r is -1/r^3 , tidal forces vary as the inverse cube of the distance, so they become negligible very quickly as distance increases. However, see https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09 ... -on-ceres/ . ]
CEEZED was the Round Winner, with a total of 15,218 Points out of 17,000 max. after the first two Rounds.

23.(a) Greeks [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaeans_(Homer) ]
24.(a) Bloviate [Dai called this one first; see https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bloviate .]
25.(a) Four Tops [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_ ... ws_of_Love , and for a performance, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oSYhNVaHwY ]
26.(a) Sicily [We deduced this from the Greek colony at Syracuse on the island of Sicily; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Graecia ]
27.(a) Males [I first pre-called "Humans", but Dai corrected me to the more accurate "Males"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misandry ]
28.(a) 1879 [I pre-called "late 1800s"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_register . I knew that William Burroughs invented a mechanical adding machine in the late 1800s, and this could be put atop a cash drawer; see http://www.johnwolff.id.au/calculators/ ... roughs.htm (the first experimental model was in 1884, and manufactured in 1892). The Burroughs office machine fortune funded the dissipated life of the grandson, William S. Burroughs, who while drunk shot his wife fatally in the head while playing "William Tell" in 1951. In 1959. he wrote "Naked Lunch". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Vollmer .
Phil wondered if the John Birch who helped invent the cash register was the inspiration for the John Birch Society. The answer is no; the society is named for the American Baptist minister, missionary and Air Force captain killed by the Chinese Communists on Aug. 25, 1945 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_(missionary) .]
The Round winners were KVETA and ANIL K, with CEEZED in the overall lead, with 21,142 Points.

29. Gulosity [See https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gulosity . I called this one, after eliminating the other Choices. "Hircine" refers to a goat; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hircine . I deduced that "logorrhetic" refers to "logo"="word" + diarrhea = diarrhea of the mouth. See https://www.dictionary.com/browse/logorrhea and http://www.cosmoetica.com/TOP53-DES50.htm . A catenary curve is the shape of a hanging chain or cable; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenary .]
30. 1533 [I pre-called "mid-1500s"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Boleyn (Queen from 1533-1536).]
31. Genesis [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gabriel ]
32. Woolworth [It was between 2 defunct companies, J.C. Penney and F.W. Woolworth, and I correctly guessed Woolworth; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_Locker ]
33. 81 [I called for a split between 52 and 81 for those with two boards. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran .]
34. Kingpin [We mostly messed up, guessing wrong (I went with Doctor Octopus). Chris noted afterward that Kingpin is a character in Spiderman; see http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Fisk_Towers .]
35. Blanche [I instantly yelled "Stella!!!", but the others correctly noted Stanley's sister-in-law is Blanche Dubois, not Stella his wife, so we all got the 2000 Points. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Streetcar_Named_Desire ]
The Round winners were LESTER and YELDOR, with 6500 Points out of 7500 max. CEEZED still had the overall lead, with 27442 Points.

36. Oskar Matzerath [I pre-called "The Tin Drum" as a guess for a Clue, and we went with the German-looking name. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Drum .]
37. Polk [Phil (BSLXPN) called this one; see the section "General election" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_K._Polk ]
38. Scotland [We split our guesses between France and Italy, but were totally wiped out. Dai and I thought that "La Sylphide" was a misprint for "Les Sylphides", so were not thinking of the right Question (in Les Sylphides, the dancers jump around in white costumes on a generic stage with no geographical setting; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Sylphides and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBJNc3h7Hp8 ). For the 1836, not 1909 ballet, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Sylphide .]
39. A-OK [Still reeling from the fiasco of Q38, I needed a few extra crucial seconds to reject a wrong call for "Domino theory" (the Domino theory explained why in the 1950s the USA ended up in Vietnam, to prevent the fall of all of Indochina, including Cambodia, Laos, Burma (now Myanmar) and Thailand, etc. to the Commies). By the time I realized John Powers was known as "Shorty" Powers, the NASA PR man for the Mercury astronauts of the 1960s, I was half a second too late to hit the right button, and to call the answer for the others. My missed 3000 Points alone made a difference of (1.5)(3000)/6 = 750 Points on our Site score, since I pre-called the right answer for the Final Question. See the section "Project Mercury" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Powers .]
40. Uruguay [Dai called this one, since "cis"="this side of" and "Platina" refers to the Rio de la Plata = "River Plate". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisplatina . The cis- and trans- prefixes have been used for a long time in Chemistry; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cis-trans_isomerism . "Trans"="across"="the other side of" , for example in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat and in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender , compared to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender .

41. Peter the Great [I pre-called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Pe ... _of_Russia (died 1718, possibly by rogue forces that took interrogation too far). I was worried before the Choices appeared that they might include Ivan the Terrible, who also killed his son, but Ivan the Terrible would have looked obvious, relative to Peter the Great. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsarevich ... _of_Russia (died 1581).
BTW, the order of elimination at Buster's Bar, Ottawa ON was {Richard I, Saladin, Genghis Khan}, leaving Louis XIV and Peter the Great as the Final Two Choices. This would have been a lot easier than if the Final Two Choices were Genghis Khan and Peter the Great; were any Sites burned by this harder decision?


I have included individual scores in this summary because we were the #11 seed in a Semi-final game in the Sandbag Tournament against #7 seed Mad River of New York NY, and they edged us out by a measly 275 Points, 45,085 to 44,810 (#5 Site over #6 Site on October 16, 2018). Congrats to Mad River, and good luck in the Tournament Championship Game next week against #4 seed Teaser's of Chicago IL (#1 Site on October 16).

Complete Site and Player Standings are available until next Wednesday morning at https://www.buzztime.com/ ; just Click on "Players", and then "Hall of Fame, Premium Games". Of the 2034 Players in this SHOWDOWN Game of October 16, 2018, here are the individual Player scores in the Top 100 from Mad River and *Buster's Bar*:
22. NOZOMI 47,717 Points out of 63,759 max.
*28. CEEZED 47,163
33, RIMARI 46,697
*45. LESTER 45,265
*48. KAYZED 45,090
*49. YELDOR 44,905
50. GRUMPY 44,861
54. STRO 44,557
56. SNEEZY 44,438
*66.TULADI 43,244
*67. REACH 43,195
*72. ANIL K 43,020
*82. EKWTSM 42,541
91. EARLZ 42,241
93. RANGER 42,084
98. STROLO 41,990

_________________
liljol, still residing in a humble lil abode in Buzztime's Backyard, San Diego County, in The Horribly Site-Poor Golden State, California...

<--805 NTN Buzztime sites visited as of 11/13/2018...

F CUBS!!!!! FBOSOX!!!!!

FPDRES!!!!! FCHGRS!!!!!

In the answer to Q22, the derivative of 1/r^2 with respect to r is -2/r^-3 (which varies as -1/r^3).

The derivative of 1/r^2 with respect to r is -2/r^3 (which varies as -1/r^3); there was an unwanted extra negative sign in my previous post, as r^-3 = 1/r^3 , where 1/10^3 = 1/(10x10x10) = 1/1000, etc.

The Ragged Rascals cannot provide any additional Altergory questions, as LILJOL has covered most of them.

What we can say is that the Pyramid Round was more of a py-ram-it to us round.

DUFF got Oskar Matzerath.
Several called for James Polk.
And then the wheels fell of the baby carriage.

For Sylphide, we split between France and Italy.

Nobody was A-OK with that answer. We got sucked into a disaster with the Domino Theory.
And nobody could decipher cisplatine fast enough to save us,

Given the team's final score was an average of 42,990 points, it seems likely that a few of the group got good guesses on those last three questions.

The Final Tragedy question received a pre-call from DUFF, so at least the team got its 50% bonus.

At the start of this game, our goal was to better the scores of the Sandbag Semifinalists. We fell a bit short of overtaking any of them. Congrats on a well-played game to the 7 teams ahead of us.

BLZBUB aka Ken Z in the ABQ

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

[quote="BLZBUB”] For Sylphide, we split between France and Italy. [/quote]

I missed Q33, going with the population of Iran at 53 million rather than 81 million (even though MERKIN precalled “80 million”). That dropped me from 4th place at Teasers to 10th. I was only playing one board because the eight other players are far better than I am and we ran out of Playmakers. I contribute a pair of hands and sometimes, some strategy.

For “La Sylphide,” everyone else (I think) put “France,” but this sounded like a trick to me and something in the reptilian part of my brain said “Scotland.” I cannot articulate *why* and it may have, in fact, been a wild guess, but it sounded like everyone else was defaulting to “France,” (no one seemed confident about that answer) and I had nothing at all to lose, so I covered the dark horse.

The other eight players got that win Tuesday night. My name was up there solely because I had nothing to lose by covering “Scotland” on Q38.

But, given that I didn’t know any answers that no one else on the team knew, I was very happy to have been able to contribute something.

Every time I’ve ever won at any bar, it was due to some variation of this. Occasionally I know some strange fact no one else in the room knows, but, had I played solo on Tuesday, I may have lucked myself to a maximum of 30,000.

GYPSY

I knew it was not domino theory as that was Eisenhower in 1954. I was about to choke with hippie until Clipper came down from Mt. Sinai with A-OK. As for cisplatine, there was the river Plata in the word and the year matched Uruguayan independence. Looked up La Sylphide afterwards. I only knew of Les Sylphides, a different ballet, music by Chopin/Glazunov, but did not know where it took place. Turns out it is in some non-specific fantasy land. La Sylphide is a less well known ballet taking place in Scotland, of all places (at least it was not Mongolia). I had never heard of it.

_________________
Merkin

To GYPSY: congrats on your #1 Player score in this game! It goes to show that every good Player is important for a #1 Site score, by potentially contributing even one Right Answer that no one else thought of. With enough Players/boards, you can split your Answers to hedge your bets on hard Questions requiring educated guesses. Highly intelligent people are by definition abnormal ("normal"=IQ 100), but have their uses (it takes only one person thinking outside the box to come up with an innovative solution or invention that can save or benefit everyone), and therefore ought to be tolerated.