The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep: The Friday Quiz: GONZO GRAB BAG TIME

Shout 'em out!

1. What do the Sarplaninac, Hovawart, and Kuvasz all have in common?

2. One of his first published works of fiction is the story ""A Family Elopement." However, it was not included in his first collection of short works, The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents. He is also the creator of the 1913 "Little Wars", credited by some as the first recreational war game? What is his name?

3. Name the top three U.S. states having the highest Gross State Product per Capita.

4. The late-15th-century novel The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo mentions an island ruled by women. Explorers in the western hemisphere, hearing of an island rumored to be under female dominion, they gave it the name of this fictional island. As it turned out, the island was a peninsula, and the name later became adopted for an even wider territory. What is the name?

5. What were the French teams of surveyors who traveled between the cities of Barcelona and Dunkirk, between 1791 and 1799 trying to accomplish?

The contestant who gets the most correct answers first wins a half-price ride in the jump seat of the Caspian Sea Monster. No Googling or trying to pump up your state's Gross State Product by going to that pricey Thai restaurant for lunch, the one with the good squid with the spicy basil thing. One guess (at any question or part of question) per comment but comment as much as your spirit guides tell you to.

Comments

1. all Croatian extension campuses of Hogwarts
2.
4. California b/c there's so much money, Wyoming b/c there are so few people & Nevada b/c of both
5.
6. either a huge progressive drinking party or determine the best angle for viewing France

Posted by: james | August 10, 2007 08:36 AM

1. The real first names of the Three Stooges.

2. None other than little Johnny Halliburton.

Posted by: Errata | August 10, 2007 08:41 AM

2. L. Ron Hubbard
5. Nova Scotia

Posted by: james | August 10, 2007 08:54 AM

1. All words that rhyme with orange and silver.
3. The answer to hidden question #3 is the name that must never be uttered.
4. Alaska, b/c of all that oil + it's too friggin' cold to have a per capita.
5. Amazonia, the island that brought us Wonder Woman, truth-serumy golden lassos & invisible planes.

Posted by: Errata | August 10, 2007 09:24 AM

1. inventors of medical devices
3. Connecticut and Hawaii

Posted by: james | August 10, 2007 10:00 AM

Errata is right about Alaska and James gets Connecticut.

Posted by: BT | August 10, 2007 10:12 AM

I believe that Alaska more valuable than Connecticut in Risk.

Posted by: james | August 10, 2007 10:32 AM

1. They're all real names of famous comedians.
5. They were trying to perfect the unit of distance 'meter' by measuring the distance from the equator to the north pole - by def 10000 kilometers. They actually got to a worse measure than they had before, and they knew it, but they covered it up.

Posted by: boxjam | August 10, 2007 10:44 AM

3. jersey

Posted by: boxjam | August 10, 2007 10:45 AM

4. baja

Posted by: boxjam | August 10, 2007 10:51 AM

1. Descriptive terms for incidences of melanoma.
2. Mister Risk
3. California, New York, Alaska
4. Amazonia
5. Measure a meter.

Posted by: bootsy3000 | August 10, 2007 10:53 AM

3. Delaware

Posted by: bootsy3000 | August 10, 2007 10:56 AM

3. Rhode Island
2. O Henry

2. GK Chesterton

Posted by: boxjam | August 10, 2007 11:15 AM

Bootsy gets #3 -- with its crazy-high percentage of big-money corporations, Delaware has a mighty per-capita GSP.

Boxjam gets the essentials of #5 -- as I understand it they were trying to get the data by measuring the longest bit of a longitudinal meridian available in territory then controlled by France.

Boxjam is getting warm on #4 as well.

The answer to #2 is sort of the anti-G.K. Chesterton. Also, a hint: I'm pretty sure he's been a quiz answer before.

Posted by: BT | August 10, 2007 12:59 PM

5. Yucutan

Posted by: bootsy3000 | August 10, 2007 01:04 PM

Alas, the Yucatan is (counterfactually) colder.

Posted by: BT | August 10, 2007 01:08 PM

Ah, good times there at Dupont-Dow, hunh Bill?
Is it San Jose?

Posted by: bootsy3000 | August 10, 2007 01:22 PM

4. California
2. Hemingway

Posted by: boxjam | August 10, 2007 01:25 PM

1. They're all meat-eating plants.

Posted by: boxjam | August 10, 2007 01:32 PM

1. Microbrews originating from Metuchen, New Jersey in 1898.
4. Florida

Posted by: Jonathan | August 10, 2007 04:57 PM

1. All Catholic

Posted by: Jonathan | August 10, 2007 05:20 PM

1. Never go out without sunscreen

Posted by: Jonathan | August 10, 2007 05:21 PM

1. Runners-up at Westminster

1. Southpaws

Posted by: Jonathan | August 10, 2007 05:22 PM

1. Choose their leaders by dowsing

1. Nobel Prize winners in Freakonomics

Posted by: Jonathan | August 10, 2007 05:23 PM

1. Contraltos

Posted by: Jonathan | August 10, 2007 05:24 PM

1. Drive on the wrong side of the road

Mix killer Mai Tais

Posted by: Jonathan | August 10, 2007 05:25 PM

1. Look great in black

Posted by: Jonathan | August 10, 2007 05:26 PM

1. Get too hungry for dinner at eight

2: HG Wells

Posted by: Scraps | August 10, 2007 05:36 PM

1. Undersea trenches
2. H.P. Lovecraft
3. Connecticut, Alaska, Delaware
4. Baja California
5. Whatever Boxjam Said

Posted by: art | August 10, 2007 07:28 PM

1.Discontinued by Towle

Posted by: Jonathan | August 10, 2007 07:36 PM

1. Met with Cheney on energy policy

Posted by: Jonathan | August 10, 2007 07:37 PM

1. They're all keeping the wombat from checking his file.

Posted by: boxjam | August 10, 2007 08:32 PM

1. Seas on the Moon

Posted by: art | August 12, 2007 06:03 AM

1. Asteroids

4. Iberia

Posted by: art | August 12, 2007 06:06 AM

1. comets discovered this year.

Posted by: boxjam | August 12, 2007 02:55 PM

1. Names of stars (as listed in the International Star Registry).

Posted by: boxjam | August 12, 2007 02:56 PM

1. Missed the cut at Southern Hills
4. Kamchatka

Posted by: Jonathan | August 12, 2007 05:33 PM

Scraps gets #2 -- it's H.G. Wells.

Boxjam picks up #4 with the correct answer of California.

#1 is a surprising stumper; these are three breeds of large dogs (whose origins as breeds are, respectively, Balkan, German, and Hungarian).

Posted by: BT | August 12, 2007 11:38 PM

While not a ringer, I submit that my answer "Runners up at Westminster" landed no more than a foot away in the sand.

As good as winning an Iowa straw poll.

Posted by: Jonathan | August 13, 2007 11:34 AM

I don't understand how HG Wells is the anti-GK Chesterton.

I'm not questioning it, I just want someone to 'splain it to me.

Chesterton was overtly religious and wordy. That's all I know.

I liked #4 - I had no idea. I would've just assumed California was either Native American or Spanish for something or other.

Posted by: boxjam | August 13, 2007 01:30 PM

The Catholic Church vs Shaw, and Chesteron vs Wells, from Time magazine, September 1929.

Posted by: Scraps | August 13, 2007 03:28 PM

Thanks.

Posted by: boxjam | August 14, 2007 08:47 AM

That's a good point, Jonathan. Honorable Mention and a Karl Rove "Turd Blossom" chew toy to you.

Thanks, Scraps, for that illustrative link! When I said "The anti-Chesterton" I was just thinking "vocal atheist, contemporary of Chesterton." I didn't know there'd been such a well-documented public spat.

Posted by: BT | August 14, 2007 09:25 AM

The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

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The Friday Quiz: GONZO GRAB BAG TIME

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