The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

Our Melbourne correspondent suggests we point our browsers at the cornucopia of art-film-et-video goodness that resides at UbuWeb.

And who are we to doubt him? After attending a recent Meredith Monk performance, we're looking forward to viewing Peter Greenway's treatment of her. But you can also catch up on your surrealist classics (image, sadly, is pretty grainy on that one), buy a parrot with a man in a black hat, or get up close and personal with Argentina's greatest writer.

You can also check out John Lennon's Erection. And yes, this one's safe for work.

Thanks, Art!

Posted by BT at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

And yet.

Is the worst of it the fact that I can hum "No More Diapers for Me," or that the insipid antics of the hideously animated toilet-paper-roll character "T.P." can now be readily recalled to memory? Is it my morbid fascination with the perky narrator/hostess, an actress who was doubtless selected for the role for her fascinating genetic anomaly (she being the only human being able to retract her eyelids to an extent appropriate for the average manga heroine)?

No, the worst of it is the appalling potti-gogical drama in rhyme which concludes this $14.95 digital-video, "The Princess and the Potty." There's this character of a jester, a sort of strangley supplementary comic-sidekick role, played by a man who has apparently convinced himself he's the reincarnation of the late Paul Lynde. You know when something is so bad it's good? Well, imagine that this is so much more bad that it's gone straight around the world and wound up right back home in bad. And the camped-up performance by this guy is like the exclamation point on the bad. It's bad!

And, like an annoying commercial jingle or a Phil Collins song, bits of the scenes lodge in the brain. Please god send me something, anything, some Monster Earworm to forever drive away all recollection of the horror that is Potty Power.

Posted by BT at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here in our glorious amalgamation of various -inas, -idas, -otas, and -onts, this Wednesday is not unlike a Friday, coming as it does before our patriotic orgy of poultry, root vegetables, team sports and frenzied consumerism. So, why not a pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday quiz? (and yes, I know it's still technically Tuesday. But I've got to get to bed.)

In deference to our many two readers outside of the U.S., and because it's just too much work to do it otherwise, this week's nix to the neural network has nothing whatsoever to do with Thanksgiving.

Born Bessie Wallis Warfield in 1895 (or 1896 according to her own account), she became the first woman to receive this honor, in 1936. The following year, Soong May-ling became the second -- although in her case she was honored jointly with her husband.

What was the honor, and under what names are these two women better known?

The first correct answer to every bit of the above question wins a slice of the heavenly custard-in-a-pastry-shell that goes by the misleading name of "pumpkin pie." No Googling or Soong-May-ling. One guess per comment, but comment as often as you like.

Posted by BT at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

No time for our usual inane preambulations today. But before you sink your skull into this week's cortical anaesthetic, have a look here at what's to come, and let the Wombat know you're ready to enlist in the mighty Q.U.I.Z.

Now, on to this week's bagatelle:

In 1959, this novel (published in '58) was the No. 6 fiction bestseller for the year, according to Publishers Weekly. Its co-authors were a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who had served on a gunboat on the Yangtze river, and a psychology Ph.D. who later wrote (with a different co-author) the bestselling Cold War thriller Fail-Safe.

The book, set in the fictional nation of "Sarkhan" is chiefly remembered because of its title, which lives on as a catchphrase to this day.

What was the name of the book? For extra credit, what was the (much more famous and still widely read) book that finished just above it on the U.S. bestseller charts that year?

First correct answer posted to comments wins a collection of inspirational verse lovingly saved from the expired pages of a 2006 Wolf Lover's Desk Calendar (a sample, from Nov. 18: "Through the veil of winter frost/ A glimpse of Wolf is seen, then lost..."). No Googling or emailing Tom Clancy, who despite his love for the Naval Academy is too busy working on the new videogame Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Project Pulverize Pelosi to take your questions this week. One guess per comment, but comment as often as your conscience allows.

Posted by BT at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)

Yes, the leaves are turning (here in the Upper Hemisphere, anyway), appointments to get a flu shot are reluctantly made, the eggnog industry crosses its fingers, and thousands of pages of "The Year's Best -- and Worst! -- Dressed Celebrities" are being prepared by America's hard-working corps of entertainment journalists.

Here at Wombat HQ, this seasonal change means that it's once again time to prepare for our annual foray into the mind-bogglingly...um, mind-boggling. We've previously dubbed it the Quizvitational, and the Quiztacular. This year? We're thinking along the lines of "Quizintitdeadyet?"

Or maybe...wait for it...

The Quizmaculately Ultimate International Zuperfest.

All right! Nothing says "first-class" like an acronym.

What, might you ask, will set apart this year's multi-week orgy of nearly-nonsensical questions, pointless point-gathering, and tediously manufactured suspense?

TEAM PLAY. That's right. For the first time in the history, all the members of this great and noble community of quizlers and triviates will be formed into synergistically mighty SUPERGROUPS of head-to-head trivia moxie. It's like a battle of the bands where Asia, the New Pornographers, the Travelling Crunchberries, GTR and Camper Van Chadbourne all vie for supremacy in an all-audience-request musical smackdown.

Except with DUMB QUESTIONS.

And now...it's time for you to step up to the plate. Calling all lurkers, TypeKey haters, recalcitrant Friends of the Wombat, shy people, and oh-that's-too-easies. Calling all those of you who casually check in of a Friday now and again, and who certainly have better things to do. It's time to pretend that you don't. It's time to waste time. It's time to do your part.

Email the Wombat, and reassure him that he's not alone in this thing. Tell him that you care. Say, "By god, you've got a lot of nerve for a guy writing under the guise of an improbably long-winded marsupial. But yes. By all that's holy and good, yes."

Teams will be chosen without reference to ethnicity, age, gender or height. I'll endeavor, however, to separate those who have attached earlobes from those who do not. No promises.

Dates, team assignments, and more enticements to follow. Don't miss out. Don't even think about it.

Posted by BT at 07:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Missing out on all the freaking meteor showers.

Posted by BT at 07:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm going to get right down to today's quiz here, but stay tuned for details about the mighty Quizvitational -- the multiweek, annual trivia event that would not resign. Even though it lost the war long, long ago.

Now, on to the business at hand -- this week's attempt to "take back" the brain by the Know-Nothing Party.*

Born in Sweden, Gideon Sundback contributed his most enduring creation to the world in 1913 in Canada, later perfecting it in the U.S. The name it later took was actually the name of a product introduced in 1923 by B.F. Goodrich, which used the invention. In 1932, George G. Blaisdell founded a manufacturing company to create an entirely unrelated product. Although it did not draw on Sundback's invention, Blaisdell liked the name Goodrich had coined. He named his company a slight variation on the name of Goodrich's product; the company and it maintains the name today.

What was the name of Goodrich's product? For a bonus point, what did Blaisdell manufacture?

First correct answer posted to comments wins a collection of vintage qualifiers, double negatives and circular statements left behind at the Pentagon by a departing Donald Rumsfeld. No Googling, and there will be no recounts. One guess per comment, but comment as often as you like.

*Our playful use of "Know-Nothing" in the above preamble should not be taken to suggest any ideological sympathy or political connection with a bunch of mid-nineteenth century bigots and Pope-o-phobics. (Although, sometimes we do find the Pope a little scary.)

Posted by BT at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)

(apologies for the headline)

While the fact that Denny Hastert will shortly lose his role as chief legislative stooge does make the cockles of the heart a touch warmer -- as does seeing the Keystone State's resident superbigot get dropped off of the power bus -- but it's all leavened by the fact that it looks dark for the hopes to wrest control of the Senate away from the thieves.

As I type, CNN is indicating that Webb is narrowly leading George Allen in Virginia. As a longtime former resident, nothing would please me more. But it's a margin of fewer than 3000 votes, with about 2% left to be counted. In Missouri, Claire McCaskill still trails Jim Talent, and the Tennessee race has been tight, but there's little sign that Corker isn't going to win. Even if the Democrats pick up Montana and the Webb lead survives a recount,
it seems pretty unlikely.

I know...I know...I'm never satisfied.

Posted by BT at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

They can have their hi-falutin' names and throw around words like "respiratory secretions."

They can get all lab-speak and call it "RSV."

We've got our own way of talking about it. Because, a solid record of "frequent handwashing" aside, we've been up close and personal with the bastard over the past several days.

We call it "The Snot Bomb."

Posted by BT at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The shameful lack of activity on this page continues to be evidence of the fact that personal computing time around the Wombat File Editorial HQ* has lately been restricted to only a few minutes a day. Those are generally spent feverishly checking politics news to see if any of the polls have changed. We freely admit to feeling a little bit desperate for a sense of political victory, and we've become fixated on Claire McCaskill's Senate challenge to Jim Talent in Missouri.

But you've come here to forget about the sordid world of politics, right? Well, I'm sorry to report that this week's head-squisher contains a typically indigestible nugget from American political history. Have at it:

The first U.S. President to leave office voluntarily after one term and not run for re-election was succeeded by the first U.S. President never to have before held elected office. Name the two men.

First correct answer (both surnames, in correct order) wins the Diebold "secret code" to ensure your vote is actually recorded by their machines and not just emailed to "karlr@electoralcontrol.gov". No Googling or trying to explain to the telephone poller that even though you've never once voted for anyone other than a Democrat you're really still an Independent. Not only won't they believe you, it won't help you answer the quiz. One guess (at both names) per comment, but comment as often as you like.

*Accounts Receivable, Human Resources, Puppeteering, and Non-Marsupial Animal Control have all, as of last quarter, been fully relocated to our Devil's Tower facility.

Posted by BT at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)