1) Using the numbers 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 exactly once, come up with two equations that both equal 53 (such as 89-76=10+24=53, excepting the incorrectness of that example).
2-3) Iowa State linebacker Jimmy Morris, who wears number 53, knows that if Iowa State wins the remaining four games on their Big 12 conference schedule, they will be tippy-top of the Big 12 North and get to play Oklahoma (almost for sure) in the Big 12 Championship. However, Jimmy is worried that if Iowa State loses to Texas this week or Kansas State in a couple more weeks, ISU has no chance of making the Big 12 Championship. In a cordial, soothing paragraph, explain a plausible scenario that will make little Jimmy happy.
4) What is the ratio of the salary Jim Morris received in 2000 for pitching for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to the salary Dennis Quaid received in 2001 for portraying Morris in The Rookie?
5) What is the ratio of the non-infinite maximum number of intersections of x circles to the non-infinite maximum number of intersections of x squares, where x is an integer greater than one?
6) Devise a non-constant (with regards to x) equation u such that y=tan(u) and u are non-infinite for all x. (You may not use tan-1 in your equation, and both y and u must have unbroken graphs.)
7) Regarding children's dictionaries: For all, "x" is the letter from unHeaven. Webster's for wee-ones are required by U.S. law to include a word that begins with "X," but neither "x-ray" nor "xylophone" is particularly inspired. Come up with a better one.
8) (Ed may not answer, because I know he knows.) The xylophone, like the piano and most every brass instrument and most every woodwind instrument, is chromatic. That is, for virtually1 all of its range, it can play any note that is called for: any C#, and Db, any B##. Name a non-chromatic instrument.
9) Brad was looking over all of his range, and he noticed something odd: Only four of his neighbour's cows were eating the hay that he set out in the middle of the field in a ten-by-ten box with one-inch-tall wooden walls. Then he decided that it was not so strange after all. Why?
10-11) The first line of Willa Cather's overly ironic "Neighbour Rosicky" starts with the overly ironic line, "Neighbour Rosicky had a bad heart." It is ironic, of course, because while Neighbour Rosicky had a bad physical heart, he had a very strong emotional heart that was shown over the course of the rest of the blah blah blah. In her hypothetical sequel to "Neighbour Rosicky," "Neighbour Melissa," the first line is, "Neighbour Melissa had a bad nose." In one long-winded but understandable paragraph, explain the irony of Melissa having a bad nose.
12) I knows bad grammer usually nonhereable, but I have intentionally made a blatant (for me) grammatical error in one of the other quiz questions. Find it.
13-14) I refuse to believe that this many people would make such a blatant logical error: "Perhaps you heard from Daniel A. Oluwa over the past few days. He's a member of Nigeria's Federal Audit Committee. He dropped you an e-mail, labeled "Strictly Confidential," stating that he's discovered a frozen account containing $42.5 million. Mr. Oluwa wants to snag the loot, but, for unfathomable reasons, he needs a foreign-based partner to act as an intermediary. Interested? Merely send along your "bank name, address, account number, swift code, ABA number (if any), beneficiary of account, telephone and fax numbers of bank." Thirty percent of the booty shall eventually be yours....This swindle is commonly known as "419 fraud," after the section of the Nigerian penal code covering cons. According to the anti-spam software vendor Brightmail, 419 come-ons are the Web's second-most common form of junk mail, ranking behind only those incessant "herbal Viagra" ads. Though most people merely laugh at the pleas' awful grammar and all-caps style ("I WILL LIKE YOU CONTACT MY LAWYER ..."), about 1 percent of recipients actually respond [emphasis mine]. Of that number, enough people fork over enough cash to sustain an industry that ranks in Nigeria's top five, right up there with palm oil and tin." Explain to me in one paragraph (that somewhere uses a phrase that is an anagram for "Nigerian penal code") why so many people would believe this.
15) What state has the 419xx zip codes?
16) Unzip your mind and uncode this message: "R szev wvxrwvw gl dvzi yfgglm-uob qvzmh rmhgvzw lu ark-fkh. Z tllw wvxrhrlm, ml?"
17) I was giving Kim a shoulder message a Sunday night, and this question occured to me: From I-95 exit 92 just outside of Ashland, Va., how many major escape paths (major meaning interstates and U.S. highways) are there within a 10 minute drive, assuming that the sniper was driving fast but not too fast?
18-19) While most interstates lining our countryside are numbered in a regular pattern: Odd two-digited run north to south (increasing in number from west to east), even two-digited run east to west (increasing in number from north to south), three-digited share the last two numbers with an adjacent two-digit interstate, etc. However, there our at least two examples of interstates that do not come close to having the number that they ought to. Name those interstates and the circumstances that gave them their odd numbers. (Note: The correct answer is not H1 through H4.)
20) Draw a road that connects each question in this quiz with its predecessor.
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1 Footnote bonus question for one point: Tell me why I had to add the word "virtually." (Ed is allowed to answer this one.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
