Thursday, March 6, 2008

New Feature: Weeklypedia Quiz #1

I was chatting with Nels today and, after asking how my Jeopardy audition prep was going, he declared that he had two trivia questions for me. Here they are:

1. He founded the Dominican Rebuplic.
and
2. It is the only borough in New York City not on an island.
After I answered (I got #2 right), he then demanded that I prepare some trivia for him. I scoured my browser's history for Wikipedia topics I'd read in the previous week, and came up with some clues (Prisoner of Trebekistan has taught me that the nomenclature is clues and responses, since questions and answers don't really apply properly to Jeopardy). I've polished up these clues a bit, and posted them below. Nels says he wants more, so I'm going to keep doing this from time to time.

So, this is the first in a maybe-weekly series of trivia quizzes based on my Wikipedia consumption. Keep in mind that I'm a nerd, so being a nerd will help sometimes (there are two in the quiz below that it'll especially help on). Correct responses will be provided each time a new quiz goes up.

Weeklypedia #1

1. Heiress and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt is the mother of this CNN anchorman.

2. In 1976, the Viking I probe spied a "face" in this region of Mars' surface.

3. It is defined as one minute of an arc of a great circle on the Earth's surface.

4. He has been identified by various groups as the Pope, Martin Luther, and the Secretary General of the United Nations.

5. On the fictional planet of Arrakis, you'd call it Muad'Dib, but this rodent has a different name in the real American Southwest.

6. This film director has been portrayed by Liev Schreiber and Vincent D'Onofrio.

7. In the 1970s, his girlfriends included socialite Silver St. Cloud. Since then he's tended more towards news photographers and burglars.

8. His last theorem proved unsolvable for centuries.

Come back next week for more. Fair warning: comments may have spoilers in them

1 comment:

Fred said...

Answers!

First, Nels's questions:
1. Juan Pablo Duarte founded the Dominican Republic (Nels walks by his statue daily).
2. The Bronx is on the mainland (Manhattan and Staten are Islands, Brooklyn and Queens are on Long Island).

Now, mine:
1. Who is Anderson Cooper?
2. Where is Cydonia?
3. What is a nautical mile?
4. Who is the Antichrist?
5. What is a kangaroo rat?
6. Who is Orson Welles?
7. Who is Batman/Bruce Wayne?
8. Who is Fermat?