Winner winner chicken dinner!

A big thanks to everyone who was so wonderful and took my quiz. I'm proud to say that Julie, my one and only wikipedia student, did better than everyone else. She made momma so proud. But the official winner of the contest, the person who did the best out of all the entries (there were 6, FYI, all from very smart people) was...

Kate!

Happy Chanukah Kate, you've won a prize! Email me your address and I will send you something awesome. Also you should maybe go on Jeopardy because you know your shit.

Anyway, here is the full quiz again, along with some of Julie's original answers (blue), some of my original comments below that (red), and occasionally, some additional commentary (green).

1. Who won the Franco-Prussian War? Choose France or Prussia.

NO IDEA! I'm guessing France because I feel like prussia is not a country right now. But then maybe prussia is right because it seems wrong (multiple choice mind fuck)..I DON'T KNOWWwwwwwww. France.

The answer was Prussia. WOMP WOMP.
Anyone who answered Germany got bonus points for being smart.
 

2. The person who knew of the Senate’s plan to murder Julius Caesar and unsuccessfully tried to stop them was...

I want to say brutus, but I know that's not right. Oooh marc antony, j lo's husband!
Correct! Marc Antony! Brutus was the person who actually did kill him.

3. Mata Hari was a Dutch stripper who was arrested for ESPIONAGE!

4. Use one word (any word of your choosing as long as it’s at least remotely accurate) to describe dub-step music.

I still don't know what dubstep is. "autotune" and/or "trance" and/or "kanye."
Okay, none of these words appeared in that lesson but I’ll allow “trance” because it’s close enough to “electronic” which would have been correct.

Aside to Julie - I was wrong, the word "Kanye" did appear in that lesson because there's a song on Watch the Throne that is kind of dubsteppy. Sorry for lying!
 

5. Joe Frazier was temporarily the Heavyweight champion of the world. Name either the boxer from whom he took the title OR the boxer to whom he lost the title. Specify which one you’re naming.

He took the belt from Ali and lost it to George Foreman.

6. Name 2 countries known for exporting blood diamonds. BONUS QUESTION: Name the person who sings a song about blood diamonds.
You could have answered any of the following: Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The person who sings the song “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” is Kanye West.

Note: I also accepted Zimbabwe from the people who answered that even though Zimbabwe diamonds are not technically classified as conflict diamonds according to my very official research.

7. Give me 3 facts about Liechtenstein. Any 3 facts.

Thank you everyone for all your awesome facts. Truly. I want to be appalled by those of you that said "It is in Europe," but one of Julie's facts was "It isn't in the United States," which is even worse. 

8. 8. What is the miracle of Chanukah (ie why do we celebrate this holiday)?

The oil lasted for 8 days even though there was only enough for a day or two...
Ding ding ding!

9. Quarks, a form of subatomic particle, come in 6 different what? (Hint: vanilla is not one of them)

Flavors!

A few of you even named them. Smarty pantses. Smarties pants. Whatever.

10. Levi Strauss sold the first pairs of blue jeans to _____________? 

Hippies?
California gold miners.

11. Say something funny about curling.

If we got married and legally changed our last name to woberwifer and then one of us decided to start a curling team, the team name would be Team Woberwifer.

+2 bonus for the awesomeness of that answer

12. The cornucopia is seen as a symbol of ___________. BONUS QUESTION: When reading this wiki article, I skipped over a part of it because it started talking about the cornucopia’s significance in a certain book I happened to be reading at the time. What was that book?

Everyone knew it was a symbol of harvest or plenty. Also, the bonus was clearly The Hunger Games.

13. J. Cole is a protégé of Jay-Z

14. Thomas Alva Edison is most known for the lightbulb!

15. The most prominent feature of the planet Jupiter is called the _____ _____ Spot.

Great red spot

16. Alpacas are related to LLAMAS

17. TWO PARTER. Contrary to popular belief, Sam Adams was not a beer maker. Contrary to Julie’s belief, he was also not a president! 

Obvs my favorite question so far...

18. The person whose picture appears on the wikipedia page for the popped collar is...

ERIK who you hooked up w and who I met at your silly hat party :)

19. The Coca-Cola Company has its headquarters in which city? 

Hotlanta!

20. Jillian Michaels is (choose one) ____ gay ____ straight ____ bisexual ___X__ unclear

21. The Great Sphinx of Gaza is missing 2 features. What are they?

Nose and beard, y'all

22. Describe the role that women had in 18th century French salons.

Women had a predominant and important role in 18th century French salons. It was one of the few places they could participate meaningfully in the socio-political sphere and interact with men in such discussions.

+2. Very elegant answer! BONUS.

23. In Scandinavia, “Saturday” is often referred to as “bathing day.” Why? 

Cuz gross people only bathe once a week. Ew.

Specifically, because the Vikings historically bathed on Saturdays.

24. Margaret Thatcher resigned from her post as the Prime Minster of UK during which term? (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th). 

THIRD!

25. Describe the main difference between Mexican burritos and American burritos. BONUS QUESTION: What does “burritas” mean? 

The fillings! America is fat and shows like the biggest loser exist in the us of a because we-the gorditos- put delicious condiments like guacamole and cheese in ours, while mexicans simply have beans. Which are good for your heart. And make you fart. Burritas, besides being something I'm going to call my future baby daughter in a swaddled blanket, means little girl donkeys.

Julie is weird.

Thanks for playing, everyone!!!

Pop quiz!! And a contest

A few weeks ago I started a tradition, the backstory of which I won’t go into. Each day, I pull up the wikipedia entry on a random thing of my choosing. It could be a person, a place, an event, whatever. I read it and try to learn whatever I can about that subject, and then I synthesize it into a nice summary email and send it off to my friend/wifer Julie so that she too can learn about random things.

To commemorate the milestone of 25 wikipedia lessons, I gave Julie a pop quiz – one question for each lesson. The quiz appears below. If you dare, take the quiz and comment or email me your answers (arielleblogs at gmail). DO NOT CHEAT PLEASE THAT IS NO FUN. If you don’t know something, and I guarantee that you won’t know everything, be creative!

If anyone actually does this (doubtful?), I’ll send whoever scores the highest some kind of prize. Later on I’ll post all the correct answers, and possibly also Julie’s answers because they're awesome, if not always correct. Ready? Go!

1. Who won the Franco-Prussian War? Choose France or Prussia.

2. The person who knew of the Senate’s plan to murder Julius Caesar and unsuccessfully tried to stop them was___________

3. Mata Hari was a Dutch stripper who was arrested for_______________

4. Use one word (any word of your choosing as long as it’s at least remotely accurate) to describe dub-step music.

5. Joe Frazier was temporarily the Heavyweight champion of the world. Name either the boxer from whom he took the title OR the boxer to whom he lost the title. Specify which one you’re naming.

6. Name 2 countries known for exporting blood diamonds. BONUS QUESTION: Name the person who sings a song about blood diamonds.

7. Give me 3 facts about Liechtenstein. Any 3 facts.

8. What is the miracle of Chanukah (ie why do we celebrate this holiday)?

9. Quarks, a form of subatomic particle, come in 6 different what? (Hint: vanilla is not one of them)

10. Levi Strauss sold the first pairs of blue jeans to _____________. (Hint: they were in California)

11. Say something funny about curling.

12. The cornucopia is seen as a symbol of ___________. BONUS QUESTION: When reading this wiki article, I skipped over a part of it because it started talking about the cornucopia’s significance in a certain book I happened to be reading at the time. What was that book?

13. J. Cole is a protégé of which famous rapper?

14. Thomas Alva Edison is most known for which of his inventions?

15. The most prominent feature of the planet Jupiter is called the _____  _____ Spot

16. Alpacas are related to what other animal?

17. TWO PARTER. Contrary to popular belief, Sam Adams was not a _______. Contrary to Julie’s belief, he was also not a ________.

18. The person whose picture appears on the wikipedia page for the popped collar is _________ (note: you, blog readers, can go look at the page for this only because it won’t give you the answer but you can guess anyway and no, you do not need to guess at the person’s actual name).

19. The Coca-Cola Company has its headquarters in which city?

20. Jillian Michaels is (choose one) ____ gay ____ straight ____ bisexual _____ unclear

21. The Great Sphinx of Gaza is missing 2 features. What are they?

22. Describe the role that women had in 18th century French salons.

23. In Scandinavia, “Saturday” is often referred to as “bathing day.” Why?

24. Margaret Thatcher resigned from her post as Prime Minster of the UK during which term? (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th)

25. Describe the main difference between Mexican burritos and American burritos. BONUS QUESTION: What does “burritas” mean?

Answer away! I love this kind of stuff.

Superawesome giveaway!

If you don't subscribe to Fantabulously Frugal, you are probably living under a rock. Through this website I've gotten tons of freebies, coupons, and other glorious cheap and/or free things (and if I had more money, it would have been much, much more).

Well, Fantabulously Frugal is now hosting a RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME GIVEAWAY!


I can't even begin to name how much stuff is being given away. Go check it out for yourselves. And enter, of course (except don't, because I want this stuff for myself). However, if you DO enter, don't forget to say who sent you. =)

Seriously, who doesn't love free things?

Winning is everything

I recently won a giveaway from thatshortchick's blog. Because while I can never win anything in real life, I dominate like crazy in blogland (sort of).

Anyhoo, I won a lovely necklace from Eclectic Orchid, and I wanted to write about it for several reasons:

1 - The necklace is lovely
2 - It was packaged really beautifully
3 - It came with a really sweet note
4 - I actually got it (as some of you know, I have a history of NOT receiving blog contest/swap things that I'm supposed to, ahem scarf swap, sweet treat exchange, Etsy giveaway, and I am still awaiting a letter from my pen pal partner Megan who I don't care if you're getting married soon woman, write me a letter! (kidding. Marriage first, letter second, fine)).

Since this giveaway went off without a hitch and I am currently sporting my fabulous new necklace, I had to give a shout out. Yay.

Contest contest contest

The lovely Lacey is hosting a superfabulous giveaway at her blog.

Go here to enter!

Seriously. Do it. There are some sweet prizes.

Also, if you just found out about the contest through my lovely blog here, please leave the following message in your comment to Lacey:

"Dearest Lacey,

Your wonderful, sexy, all around amazing friend Arielle sent me here. Were it not for her, not only would I not have known about this awesome giveaway, but my life would be pretty much incomplete. Please make sure she gets credit for referring me to your giveaway, because she really wants to win. Winning is everything.

Love always,
-Your Name Here!-"

Seriously. If anyone refers me and I win, I'll totally let you pick something from my winnin's.

Now go!

Winner winner chicken dinner!

Alright friends. The $25 Best Buy gift card contest is officially over.

After assigning numbers to everyone based on the order of their entry and how many entries they received, and using random.org to generate one super lucky number, our winner is..

ELYSE!

I cannot link to Elyse's blog because she doesn't have one. But I will say that Elyse is one of the more enthusiastic real life readers of this blog. Plus, her winning this contest is particularly appropriate (and I swear, not rigged) because a) she was, in fact, listed as someone else's favorite Jew (thanks Lala) and b) I went to a Weezer concert last night (excuse me, Blink concert with Weezer opening but WHATEVS ON THAT HIGHWAY ROBBERY) and Elyse is a fellow Weezer enthusiast.

Send me your address, woman!

And thanks to everyone who participated. If ever I should come across something else I don't want that others would find valuable, perhaps there will be another giveaway. Until then, please enjoy this extra little reward that Elyse gets, which is a photo montage of her 21st birthday weekend (for the record, she's 26 now).

Rebekah presents Elyse with her birthday cake

Pregaming. Rebekah, my soon-to-be ex-roommate Jenny Bon Bon, me, and of course, the birthday girl/super awesome contest winnaaaaa.

Aw, remember the days of non-digital cameras? Elyse is clearly not the center of attention here and she looks horrifically bored by it. Cheer up, Charlie!
Tequila, bitches! This was back in college, of course (when I was not yet 21, shh), and now I live literally around the corner from this bar. Weirddd. PS, check out LizzieB's awesome face way on the right. Someone doesn't love the tequila.
Everyone loves the birthday girl
DONEZO

Hope you all enjoyed this brief flashback. And congratulations to our winner!

Free gift card, yo

Oops. I keep forgetting to remind everyone of my CONTEST.

Win a $25 gift card to Best Buy! Contest ends when we get 10 unique entries (we're at 8, I think).

All you have to do to enter is name your favorite Jew! Super easy.

Do it.

Win a $25 Best Buy gift card!

Okay, here's the deal. I wanted to hold a Jew-themed contest back in December for Chanukah. I dropped the (matzah) ball. Then I wanted to hold a contest back in April when I switched blogs, as a way of getting some of my readers back since I couldn't post on ye olde blog about my new digs. And now I have this $25 gift card to Best Buy lying around because I won it from someone else's blog and I haven't used it for months and don't see a need for it in the immediate future. This situation is bursting at the seams with CONTEST CONTEST CONTEST.

HERE ARE THE RULES:

1) In order to enter the contest at all, you MUST leave a comment here telling me who your favorite Jew is.
1a) Your favorite Jew cannot appear in any of Adam Sandler's 3 Chanukah songs.
1b) Your favorite Jew cannot be me. Ass kissing, while normally appreciated, is frowned upon in these circumstances.

2) To get a total of 3 entries, blog or tweet about this contest, and comment or email me the link.

3) To get ANOTHER 2 entries (for a total of 5), blog AND tweet about this contest.

4) To get another 2 entries, thus having the ULTIMATE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF ENTRIES (7), tell me who your favorite Jew is in haiku form.

5) I am absolutely not giving away this gift card unless I get at least 10 unique entries. Just because...well, this is MY house, and these are MY rules. Biatch.

6) I will NOT be notifying the winner. I will announce the winner here (date TBD) and tell the person to email me. You'll have 48 hours to contact me. You snooze, you lose.

Let the games and Jew-name-dropping begin!