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.

My very classy French computer

Along with losing both my job (oh, yeah FYI that happened) and my self-esteem, I recently suffered another blow that only confirms for me how much the last few months can go kiss it – the loss of my laptop.

To confirm, I did not actually lose or misplace my laptop. But it pretty much died. To spend money on repairing it as opposed to just buying a new laptop would be so ridiculous that the computer people I took it to flat out refused to fix it.

I was telling my brother about having to buy a new computer, when he told me, in a magical, life-and-wallet-saving way, that he had a laptop I could take. Apparently, one of my brother’s old roommates, a French girl who was only living in NYC for the summer, left her laptop in the apartment when she moved back to France. On purpose. “I don’t need it anymore.” Who knows. My brother had a friend check it out and clean it up and was debating selling it when I came along. So he gave it to me. And I was elated.

And then I learned about this thing called the European keyboard. Specifically, the French keyboard. Look closely:

RIGHT?

Here’s the deal. I have long since ceased needing to look at the keyboard in order to type. I type at around 95 words a minute and definitely don’t do it via the hunt-and-peck method. And my brother reconfigured the laptop so that the keyboard actually corresponds to an American keyboard, even though what is actually listed on some of the keys suggests otherwise. So while the keyboard above shows an “A” in the upper left corner, when I press it it shows up as “Q,” as it does for most of you.

The main issues are the enter key, which you’ll notice is a completely different shape, and the left shift key, which is about half the size of the American shift key (and is also, I suppose, not called the shift key). I apparently hit the shift key all the way on the right side, because NOW when I try to type a capital letter it comes out looking like “/arielle” instead of “Arielle.” The enter key also does something wonky but I’m currently composing this post on my work computer to save my sanity, so I can’t replicate it.

You know what else is crazy? Trying to set a new password for a website. Because while I type quickly the rest of the time, when I set a new password I do it very slowly and very deliberately so that I make sure I’m doing it correctly. To look at the keyboard and slowly press keys that are mislabeled is a CRAZY TRICK TO TRY AND PULL OVER ON YOUR BRAIN.

But I can’t really complain, because….free laptop! It’s just completing adding a new element of ridiculous to my life.