Here are the results from Pop Quiz 8.
The Punisher and Goofy 40%
Beast and Beast 40%
Jiminy Cricket and Toad 20%
Ariel and Spider-man 0%
I guess that people don’t see the Little Mermaid as someone who can red-head swap for Mary Jane Watson. Perhaps Peter Parker has a fear of water. Is that behavioral conditioning based on nursery rhymes? Even an itsy-bitsy bit.
I think it’s funny that Penny Arcade saw the same irony/stereotypical name that I did. I love the “Best Beast” coffee mug.
Throughout the years, Marvel has had great match-ups, like the Hulk and Thing or Spider-Man and Wolverine. Now with the merger by Disney, it offers up even more pairings. (Imagine Kingdom Hearts and all of the Square properties. I wonder how Universal Studios (host of the Heroes Island section of their park) reacted to the news. And a Pixar-Marvel match-up? Excelsior, John Lasseter. Excel-si-freaking-yor.)
Click here for the survey, my Facebook stalkers.
The Punisher and Goofy is all Devin’s idea.
Misunderstood
Vermont
Statuesque
Swedish
Arthur’s
Africa
Sensation
Did you see the abbreviations for the days of the week?
Polimomce = Mother-in-law
Woohoo, workshop icebreakers.
LEGO Indy 2 – Now with a brick-by-brick level editor?
We talk of getting an ARC for Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan (giving away galleys at BEA? Argh!). Can you imagine if I got an advanced copy of 1Q84?
What is the book about? No one knows, except that they need to buy it.
Perhaps it’s a puzzle, like this one:
Polimomce
Can you get the pictogram? It’s like one of those “head/heels” puzzles.
A hint? I’m fond of mine.
Why didn’t anyone tell me about Phoenix, Worth1000‘s free online image editor? This is the quickest-loading one I’ve seen. Check out the rest of the aviary.
We’re in day two of a district training. Some of the stuff has been kind of goofy (like which candy bar you choose determining your personality type…I think I may have seen that quiz on Facebook), some just plain weird (thank you, Worth1000…yes, it’s EyePod/money laundering/cardiac arrest), and some brain teasers that I might be able to use as a warm-up in a staff meeting. To give the presenter credit, it’s three days, eight hours per day. We need some wake-up from time to time. (And teachers, if you’ve ever been surrounded by a group of them, are not always the best audience.)(Yes, I said it. Deal with it.) We did a cool graphing out of certain lessons on a rigorous/relevant X,Y chart (to really evaluate if lessons are doing what we intend them to do). I liked it so much, I took some photos with my phone. As I type, more teachers have gotten up and started taking photos with their phones. Muahaha! I am influencing creative uses of common technology. Perhaps some may even try their hand at booyoring next year.
Little known fact: when creating a survey, it’s better to have an even number of options so that you have to answer either high or low – you can’t choose the middle.
The meat of the training has actually been good, even though it’s during the summer. For my professional thoughts on how to make instruction relevant and rigorous, check out the other site.
For here, let’s get irrelevant.
We’ve seen three words to describe an animal you would become, three words to describe your favorite color, and even three words to describe your favorite river (don’t get me started on what educational psychologists say about that result). (I guess three is the magic number, whether in training or in Twittertopia. Nice break-up words, by the way, Devin. The Phantom Menace. That’s comedy.)
But here’s a fun challenge that I had seen before but had momentarily forgotten the solution.
So this week’s Pop Quiz takes on a new form:
What is the connection between these words? Hint: The number seven plays a part.
Misunderstood
Vermont
Statuesque
Swedish
Arthur’s
Africa
Sensation
Post some comments, post some guesses. (I should mention that my group won the challenge. Jodi, I’m gloating on the inside.) The solution will be posted on Saturday.
Mom, this one’s for you:
It’s from Tom Chapin (brother of the Cat’s in the Cradle guy).
Typed this up last night and then Cox went crazy.
Today promises some answers to your questions.
1. The results to the pop quiz:
KHAAAAAAAAAAANNN!!!! 67%
You can’t appreciate Shakespeare until you’ve read him in the original Klingon. 17%
No, I’m from Iowa. I only work in outer space. 8%
I have been, and ever shall be, your friend. Live long and prosper. 8%
What you always do. Turn death into a fighting chance to live. 0%
In any case, were I to invoke logic, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. 0%
2. Yes, Star Trek was a good movie (perhaps even great) and is my favorite, followed closely by Khan and First Contact. The big question is which one was a better re-boot, Batman Begins or Star Trek. Once the potential for spoilers has diminished, we can figure out if Star Trek was a re-boot or a re-loop. Devin, can it serve both as a re-envisioning and fit in the already-established movie canon?
3. Yes, I’m trying to convince my wife to watch The Cage tonight. Pike was awesome in the film.
4. Yes, I was delirious on Saturday night, coffee hallucinations and all. I can’t guarantee that that would have changed the amount of tweets inputted into the system, but I can’t help but think the negotiations would have been smoother with Moff Cage on his A game. He does not like to be surprised and it was pretty gutsy of the Collicoids to switch the deal on him.
Two words: orbital bombardment. Old-school Empire. Corellian Alliance. Meat Parade.
5. Check out the updates to Cry for Kraka.
With The Awesomeness swiftly approaching, I’ve been thinking through which quotes stand out to me as the most memorable from the original cast movies. I know that this weekend we’ll be able to add such memorable lines as, “Do it!!!!” and “Yeeehaaa!!” to the long legacy of class present in the Star Trek films.
(Facebook stalkers, click here for the quiz.)
I’m actually excited. It’ll be crazy seeing a non-traditional Trek film. What would be really crazy would be to have a completely never-before-seen crew in a movie (and I don’t mean DS9). Imagine complete freshness.
If ever the world needed the Battle-Unit Ready National Squad, that time is now. The results from the survey are in:
Nick Fury 64%
Martin Van Buren 27%
J. Jonah Jameson 9%
A definite contender is Asimov if we take the definition of distinguished to be “incredibly noticeable”.
My wife has been untaciturnally mocking my gray hair, feeling liberty that she is a young woman and I am an old man.
But I prefer to think of myself as distinguished. A distinguished gentleman, if you will.
So the big question is: Who best rocks the distinguished sideburns?
Nick Fury (under the captain’s armpit)
J. Jonah Jameson
Martin Van Buren
I don’t quite remember car chases with man-bats and baboon lizards in the original Ray Bradbury story. (Ben Kingsley, if you need some of our coupons to get by, we’d understand. You don’t have to make movies like this. Didn’t you win an award or something?)(Gandhi and Bloodrayne in the same acting career? You are the Christopher Walken, my friend.)
The pop quiz results have been tallied up.
56% Observation
22% Intervention
22% Sucker Punch a T-Rex
Even if we thought we could change history by punching a T-Rex (much like Homer stepping on a butterfly), the crowd dictates that we observe more than the other two options combined.
Little known Simpsons fact: when Homer travels through time in Time and Punishment (THH:V), he’s only in that time period for as long as it takes a piece of toast to toast.
I am surprised, though. I could have sworn we were a more violent crowd. My nephew wants to intervene, but not punch a dinosaur.
Make sure to check out Devin’s reminder about Chuck. Great show – I’m almost caught up. I wish I wasn’t so tired – when I think about the episodes the next day, I laugh. I wish it were on during the summer, as well. My current viewing trend is to sleep through the last ten minutes. I guess Orion died. There goes my dad theory.
Another show that I think I’m caught up with (refer back to my narcolepsy) is Lost.
This season has actually got me interested (previously I watched because my wife was). Hurley and Miles (permanently unlucky guy and ghost hunter guy) are talking about time travel, and the age-old “Well, that exists for him in this time period, because he’s already been here, but not for us” theories start flying. (I did appreciate Hurley staring at his hand, waiting for George McFly to make the future right again.)
But I think (just like many times I think about technology) that the core issue is not the how, but the why.
So, what better way to delve into the future than to offer up a pop quiz? We are officially done with standardized testing today, right?
For my awesome readers, the quiz should be embedded below. For my Facebook stalkers, click here for the quiz.
Results will be posted this weekend.
And thank you, Devin, for always knowing when to balance out my heaviness. (Meaning seriousness. I picture myself sitting at the bottom of a teeter-totter with someone flung into the air.)
I’m almost done with Max Ride 5, so it’s fitting that we have our results of the survey:
If you were forced to be a part of a mad scientist’s recombinant DNA experiment, which creature would you want your DNA mixed with?
45% Koala
36% Chinchilla
9% Manatee
9% Matt Lauer
Let’s pause for a minute while we contemplate Matt Lauer tying in votes with a manatee.
Expect a review of Max within the next few days. Mike, still working on the video. Slade, when April 18 rolls around those zombies will have me to fear. My encouraging fans, we’re on page 90 of Vanguard.
Have you seen the information TurboTax puts out about deductions? I’m curious about the depreciation of my MacBook, DVD burner, and printer based on how many things got booyored in 2008.
From my Inbox:
I get lots of e-mail, some from readers, some from Nigerian royalty, and some from people who need their own blogs so they stop forwarding me messages about $250 cookie recipes or what an 8th grade education was like back in A.D. 600 for the Celts (actually, that does intrigue me)(like an albino deer).
The first link comes from the first category of e-mail. Thanks for the link, Ohm. I know that the parents/grandparents of pre-schoolers will like to see that their condition is more universal than they realize:
Tiny Art Director
The second link comes from the last category of e-mail. Usually I get forwards about why voting for voting is bad because it’s too votey (or whatever), but now I give you the new way to peel potatoes, as presented by Mary Ann, Minnow passenger and spokesperson for Idaho:
Now you don’t have to peel potatoes ever again. I would imagine this works on peaches, yams, and other skin-type foods.
The results to the quiz are in:
44% Twister
33% Clue
11% Risk
11% Stratego
As my wife put it, “The others think too much. In a fight in a dark alley in Gotham, you just gotta act. Twister wins.”
And this, my friends, is one of the many reasons I married her.
She took me to teppanyaki last night:
(The guy was picking fire up with his fingers. Fire. Freaking fire! I guess they use everclear because of its high evaporative point, so the fire burns quickly but doesn’t linger.)
so in all fairness we watched Confessions of a Shop-aholic tonight.
Now, I offer this in my defense:
Granted, I was hesitant to see the movie because I thought it looked very much like a mix between Legally Blonde and Devil Wears Prada.
Caution: Spoilers
The leading lady does end up with the leading man, her boss that she lied to but didn’t get a chance to tell the truth to until someone else revealed the truth, he got offended, but then realized how much he loved her, so it was okay. This formula has been done somewhere before…
But the fun is in the execution of that formula and the character interactions along the way. And Confessions has a cool take on APR financing (not kidding) and investor confidence. Same general plot outline, neat details.
Because, really, most of the movies that we had been seeing had the same plotline, too.
Guy is not awesome. Guy becomes awesome. Something super awesome challenges merely awesome guy. Awesome guy has to find some inspiration/something in himself/a radar network created by cell phones to beat the super awesome entity.
But it’s how they go about it that’s fun.
It’s all very Joseph Campbell-ish (don’t agree with all of his stuff)/Epic of Gilgamesh in that there’s something inside of us that craves these stories. When it’s not told well/told lazily – hoo, buddy.
Have you heard of the 36 plot lines? I had seen it way back when I was GMing (before I had the honor of actually playing and not having to guilt my friends into my dice-induced storytelling delusions).
See if Hollywood plot lines boil down to one of these at their most basic elements:
Supplication – Persecutor, Suppliant, a Power in Authority
Deliverance – Unfortunates, Threatener, Rescuer
Revenge – Avenger, Criminal
Vengeance by Family upon Family – Avenging Kinsman, Guilty Kinsman, Relative
Pursuit – Fugitive from Punishment, Pursuer
Victim of Cruelty or Misfortune – Unfortunates, Master or Unlucky Person
Disaster – Vanquished Power, Victorious Power or Messenger
Revolt – Tyrant, Conspirator(s)
Daring Enterprise – Bold Leader, Goal, Adversary
Abduction – Abductor, Abducted, Guardian
Enigma – Interrogator, Seeker, Problem
Obtaining – Two or more Opposing Parties, Object, maybe an Arbitrator
Familial Hatred – Two Family Members who hate each other
Familial Rivalry – Preferred Kinsman, Rejected Kinsman, Object
Murderous Adultery – Two Adulterers, the Betrayed
Madness – Madman, Victim
Fatal Imprudence – Imprudent person, Victim or lost object
Involuntary Crimes of Love – Lover, Beloved, Revealer
Kinsman Kills Unrecognised Kinsman – Killer, Unrecognised Victim, Revealer
Self Sacrifice for an Ideal – Hero, Ideal, Person or Thing Sacrificed
Self Sacrifice for Kindred – Hero, Kinsman, Person or Thing Sacrificed
All Sacrificed for Passion – Lover, Object of Passion, Person or Thing Sacrificed
Sacrifice of Loved Ones – Hero, Beloved Victim, Need for Sacrifice
Rivalry Between Superior and Inferior – Superior, Inferior, Object
Adultery – Deceived Spouse, Two Adulterers
Crimes of Love – Lover, Beloved, theme of Dissolution
Discovery of Dishonor of a Loved One – Discoverer, Guilty One
Obstacles to Love – Two Lovers, Obstacle
An Enemy Loved – Beloved Enemy, Lover, Hater
Ambition – An Ambitious Person, Coveted Thing, Adversary
Conflict with an Immortal – Mortal, Immortal
Mistaken Jealousy – Jealous One, Object of Jealousy, Supposed Accomplice, Author of Mistake
Faulty Judgment – Mistaken One, Victim of Mistake, Author of Mistake, Guilty Person
Remorse – Culprit, Victim, Interrogator
Recovery of a Lost One – Seeker, One Found
Loss of Loved Ones – Kinsman Slain, Kinsman Witness, Executioner
Remember, folks: keep the comments clean. We have kids and the conservative elderly voting on which board game would win the bloody conflict.
By Friday (The Ever-Sacred Star Wars Night) I need a name for my Star Destroyer and I thought I’d open it up for a vote:
Given that I just put a Lean Pocket on a plastic plate in my toaster oven, I would like to say, “Thank you” to all who helped me to live this weekend.
Jim Gaffigan would say that the Lean Pocket was the most dangerous part of the weekend.
Our survey takers agree that Jack Bauer is the most dangerous part of dinner.
And yes, anyone who grows close to Jack is either a traitor or is gonna die. I mean, look at the statistics.
Thanks again to Jeremy with the save on contact solution and children’s Tylenol.
While driving around this weekend (which, given my previous condition, is probably not wise) I’ve been listening to a lot of Tchaikovsky, specifically his Greatest Hits (Greatest Works? I don’t know…better than his Unplugged album). I remember playing the 1812 Overture in high school and loving it. (The quiet parts as well as the cannon parts.)
Another of my favorites from him is the Marche Slave. I’ll be honest, my first real exposure to the song was in one of the transition scenes in Karateka.
Karateka, grandfather of Prince of Persia and mispronounced by elementary school kids owning an Atari 7800
In it this weekend I heard some folk songs from other countries, but mainly I heard some themes from the 1812 Overture. Here’s the story: Tchai-guy wrote it in five days when his friend Nikolai Rubinstein asked for a song to honor volunteer soldiers killed/wounded fighting the Ottoman Empire in 1876. The whole bloodshed started when the Ottomans killed some Serbian Christians. The Russians felt a connection with their Slavic neighbors and volunteered to fight.
That explains why it has a funeral march sound at the beginning but then gets all crazy at the end (my oldest thought I had a new Star Wars soundtrack. She said, “It’s kinda loud, but I like it.”).
But what about some 1812 themes that show up in Marche Slave?
So, me being so proud of my non-American-centricness, thought that the 1812 Overture was about the War of 1812 (that’s a different song altogether (Vern, I think you’re familiar with this song)).
No, the 1812 Overture refers to the Russian defense of Borodino versus Napoleon’s army. It gave the little guy time to reconsider an invasion of Russia. The emphasis on the cannons in the song is because Napoleon showed up with roughly 1,200 pieces of heavy artillery.
Tsar Alexander I had commissioned the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour to commemorate the French defeat. The cathedral was almost done and once again Nikolai Rubinstein showed up to challenge Tchaikovsky to write some music. The song was supposed to be performed when the cathedral was done. They had planned on the church bells ringing alongside cannons firing and musicians going crazy. But then Tsar Alexander II was assassinated and the performance never happened like Tchaikovsky wanted. It became a very popular song, though, with the Russian people and has been revised by different composers who added in more Russian folk music/anthems.
What blows me away is that Tchaikovsky wrote the 1812 Overture in six weeks.
But why the similar themes between Marche Slave and 1812? Russian soldiers whooping up. (I’m sure that’s what your notes say from Music History, right, Slade?)
Click here for a full orchestral score of Marche Slave.
Chalk it up it a fever-crazed state (what in this site isn’t, really?) but today we introduce a new category:
Pop Quiz, Hotshot
Make sure to click on the “Submit” button to have your answer count.
