WWTBAM Bored

Lisa Lawton
San Diego, CA

Lisa and her husband, Dan, both came to take the audition test, but only she passed. Lisa has the bragging rights, but Dan has been doing most of the bragging about her.

Question Topics:
* World Records
* Womankind
* Painters
* Gunpowder
* The Minimum Wage
* Presidential Quotes
* U.S. Cities
* The Beatles
* Evolution
* Kid Lit
* Common Illnesses
* Words & Phrases
* Same Name
* Hard to Say
* Top Billing


$500 * Top Billing
Baskin-Robbins bills itself as "America's Favorite Neighborhood" what?

A: Furniture Shop B: Ice Cream Shop
C: Hardware Shop D: Olde Bubble Butt Shoppe

Answer

B: Ice Cream Shop ( 9 )

$1,000 * Hard to Say
A hard-to-define situation is often called what?

A: Gold area B: Pink area
C: Gray area D: Orange area

Answer

C: Gray area ( 10 )

$2,000 * Same Name
Which of these Elton John songs shares its name with a book of the Old Testament?

A: Levon B: Daniel
C: Nikita D: Chloe

Answer

B: Daniel ( 9 )

$3,000 * Words & Phrases
The phrase "In like Flynn" is often said to derive from a classic movie actor with what first name?

A: Montgomery B: Errol
C: Clark D: Orson

Answer

B: Errol ( 10 )

$5,000 * Common Illnesses
A frustrating but common ailment among infants, croup is characterized by which of these symptoms?

A: Earache B: Skin rash
C: Coughing D: Eye infection

Answer

C: Coughing ( 9 )

$7,500 * Kid Lit
Children's writer Shel Silverstein spent more than three years on the bestseller lists with his 1981 book "A Light in the" what?

A: Basement B: Bathroom
C: Kitchen D: Attic

Answer

D: Attic ( 26 )

$10,000 * Evolution
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was supported by observations of which of these birds on the Galápagos Islands?

A: Finches B: Vultures
C: Ospreys D: Hummingbirds

Answer

A: Finches ( 24 )

$12,500 * The Beatles
A few notes of the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise," plays at the beginning of what Beatles song?

A: All You Need Is Love B: Hello Goodbye
C: Let It Be D: Here Comes the Sun

Answer

A: All You Need Is Love ( 23 )

-- Commercial Break --

$15,000 * U.S. Cities
Which of these west coast U.S. cities is actually located east of Reno, Nevada?

A: Seattle, WA B: Portland, OR
C: San Francisco, CA D: Los Angeles, CA

With 17 seconds left, Lisa decides to Ask The Audience.

ATA: A: 17% B: 40% C: 11% D: 32%

Lisa: You know, I don't think it's the Cal--it's not the California cities. I know Seattle's on the water. I think it's Portland, as well, so I'm going to go B: Portland, final.

Answer

D: Los Angeles, CA ( 8 )

Lisa falls to $5,000.

Obvious trick question, IMO - at least three of those cities are known by many to be on the coast, leaving Portland, so it's a question of longitude.
Trick everybody in the room, and save $7,500 to waste later on advertising the next 'limited time only' DVD release.

Brit Canuck wrote:Obvious trick question, IMO - at least three of those cities are known by many to be on the coast, leaving Portland, so it's a question of longitude.
Trick everybody in the room, and save $7,500 to waste later on advertising the next 'limited time only' DVD release.

All you have to know is that the California coast slopes from northwest to southeast. The question is really asking simply which of the four cities is farthest east.

Also, this is a well known question in trivia circles. I first saw it on Jeopardy! a number of years back. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:All you have to know is that the California coast slopes from northwest to southeast.

You also need to know that the width of Northern CA is the same as both OR and WA and that L.A. is so far south that, because of the NW to SE slope of the coast, it is east of the huge notch cut out for NV.

Estonut wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:All you have to know is that the California coast slopes from northwest to southeast.

You also need to know that the width of Northern CA is the same as both OR and WA and that L.A. is so far south that, because of the NW to SE slope of the coast, it is east of the huge notch cut out for NV.

Just don't tell the people who live in the eastern third of Washington and Oregon.

Brit Canuck wrote:Obvious trick question, IMO - at least three of those cities are known by many to be on the coast, leaving Portland, so it's a question of longitude.
Trick everybody in the room, and save $7,500 to waste later on advertising the next 'limited time only' DVD release.

It might have been more of a trick question for a contestant from Where Else (as the ATA results showed) than it should have been for Lisa, considering that she lives in San Diego (even further east than L.A.).

Brit Canuck wrote:Obvious trick question, IMO - at least three of those cities are known by many to be on the coast, leaving Portland, so it's a question of longitude.
Trick everybody in the room, and save $7,500 to waste later on advertising the next 'limited time only' DVD release.

Not to pick specifically on BritCanuck and I know a lot of people think of it that way but I would not describe Seattle as being "on the coast" with the implication that it is on the Pacific coast in the way San Francisco and LA are. Seattle is well to the east of the main coastline on Puget Sound and is in fact farther east than Portland by a hair. They are essentially the same longitude, as is San Francisco which is roughly in between Seattle and Portland by a matter of a few minutes. Portland is the farthest west of the four despite not being on the coast.

To me it would be a bit like saying Baltimore is on the Atlantic coast. I suppose some people would say so and geographically speaking I suppose it is on the coastline depending on where one determines the ocean coastline ends and bay shoreline begins but I don't think of either Baltimore or Seattle as being on the coast in the same way as a Boston or a San Francisco.

But the real key as noted is that this is a long standing trivia question and anybody with more than a passing interest in trivia would likely have heard it before. So it should not have posed a problem.

TheConfessor wrote:

Estonut wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:All you have to know is that the California coast slopes from northwest to southeast.

You also need to know that the width of Northern CA is the same as both OR and WA and that L.A. is so far south that, because of the NW to SE slope of the coast, it is east of the huge notch cut out for NV.

Just don't tell the people who live in the eastern third of Washington and Oregon.

Great map to illustrate the point!

I think this should be counted as a question of simple observation. My very first book, the Big Book of Maps, which I started looking at before I knew how to read very well, provided all kinds of surprises, like "Oh, look, Maine is a lot farther east than Florida!"; "Wow! Look how far south Hawaii is, compared to the rest of the states!"; "What's that funny little bump at the top of Minnesota?"; and "Golly, California really curves in a long, long way at the bottom."

Don't two-footers have to observe things too?

/ \

AnnieCamaro wrote:Don't two-footers have to observe things too?

Alas, too many of us don't.

MarleysGh0st wrote:

AnnieCamaro wrote:Don't two-footers have to observe things too?

Alas, too many of us don't.

You said it, brother. --Bob

7.5K: "Attic" makes sense poetically, but Silverstein was a clown when he wanted to be; ATA "to be sure" here

15K:

Despite the creepy intro (I'd bet her husband passed the written test, but flunked the American Idol part) I was rooting for this contestant, as she seemed to really know her stuff & was confident about it.

However, she must have never played the good old phone game, or she would have gotten one of those "Reno is really west of LA, ha ha" questions & never forgotten it, like the rest of us have.

So sad.

for me, so far, so good

TheConfessor wrote:

Estonut wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:All you have to know is that the California coast slopes from northwest to southeast.

You also need to know that the width of Northern CA is the same as both OR and WA and that L.A. is so far south that, because of the NW to SE slope of the coast, it is east of the huge notch cut out for NV.

Just don't tell the people who live in the eastern third of Washington and Oregon.

D'oh! When I was writing that, I knew I should have checked my memory against an actual map.

tanstaafl2 wrote:Not to pick specifically on BritCanuck and I know a lot of people think of it that way but I would not describe Seattle as being "on the coast" with the implication that it is on the Pacific coast in the way San Francisco and LA are. Seattle is well to the east of the main coastline on Puget Sound and is in fact farther east than Portland by a hair. They are essentially the same longitude, as is San Francisco which is roughly in between Seattle and Portland by a matter of a few minutes. Portland is the farthest west of the four despite not being on the coast.

To me it would be a bit like saying Baltimore is on the Atlantic coast. I suppose some people would say so and geographically speaking I suppose it is on the coastline depending on where one determines the ocean coastline ends and bay shoreline begins but I don't think of either Baltimore or Seattle as being on the coast in the same way as a Boston or a San Francisco.

What a shame to realize that all the shooting deaths that defined the East Coast versus West Coast rapper wars could have been prevented by a simple geography lesson.

TheConfessor wrote:

tanstaafl2 wrote:Not to pick specifically on BritCanuck and I know a lot of people think of it that way but I would not describe Seattle as being "on the coast" with the implication that it is on the Pacific coast in the way San Francisco and LA are. Seattle is well to the east of the main coastline on Puget Sound and is in fact farther east than Portland by a hair. They are essentially the same longitude, as is San Francisco which is roughly in between Seattle and Portland by a matter of a few minutes. Portland is the farthest west of the four despite not being on the coast.

To me it would be a bit like saying Baltimore is on the Atlantic coast. I suppose some people would say so and geographically speaking I suppose it is on the coastline depending on where one determines the ocean coastline ends and bay shoreline begins but I don't think of either Baltimore or Seattle as being on the coast in the same way as a Boston or a San Francisco.

What a shame to realize that all the shooting deaths that defined the East Coast versus West Coast rapper wars could have been prevented by a simple geography lesson.

Indeed, had they only paid attention in school all the rappers from Baltimore and Seattle could have been spared the ignominy of being gunned down in a rapper war that didn't even involve them...

tanstaafl2 wrote:

TheConfessor wrote:

tanstaafl2 wrote:Not to pick specifically on BritCanuck and I know a lot of people think of it that way but I would not describe Seattle as being "on the coast" with the implication that it is on the Pacific coast in the way San Francisco and LA are. Seattle is well to the east of the main coastline on Puget Sound and is in fact farther east than Portland by a hair. They are essentially the same longitude, as is San Francisco which is roughly in between Seattle and Portland by a matter of a few minutes. Portland is the farthest west of the four despite not being on the coast.

To me it would be a bit like saying Baltimore is on the Atlantic coast. I suppose some people would say so and geographically speaking I suppose it is on the coastline depending on where one determines the ocean coastline ends and bay shoreline begins but I don't think of either Baltimore or Seattle as being on the coast in the same way as a Boston or a San Francisco.

What a shame to realize that all the shooting deaths that defined the East Coast versus West Coast rapper wars could have been prevented by a simple geography lesson.

Indeed, had they only paid attention in school all the rappers from Baltimore and Seattle could have been spared the ignominy of being gunned down in a rapper war that didn't even involve them...

Yep, Miss South Carolina was right after all -- the rapper wars were caused by a map shortage! The East Coast Mappers and West Coast Mappers could have prevented all the feuding.

TheConfessor wrote:

tanstaafl2 wrote:

TheConfessor wrote: What a shame to realize that all the shooting deaths that defined the East Coast versus West Coast rapper wars could have been prevented by a simple geography lesson.

Indeed, had they only paid attention in school all the rappers from Baltimore and Seattle could have been spared the ignominy of being gunned down in a rapper war that didn't even involve them...

Yep, Miss South Carolina was right after all -- the rapper wars were caused by a map shortage! The East Coast Mappers and West Coast Mappers could have prevented all the feuding.

Well, now they know and don't have any further excuse thanks to those eloquent insights from Miss South Carolina. She should know being from a state on the East Coast!

Although the coast does get rather bendy around South Carolina rather like a bay or a sound so perhaps it isn't really on the East Coast after all...

BBTranscriptTeam wrote:$7,500 * Kid Lit
Children's writer Shel Silverstein spent more than three years on the bestseller lists with his 1981 book "A Light in the" what?

A: Basement B: Bathroom
C: Kitchen D: Attic

I must've missed this Silverstein book as a child because I've never heard of it. ATA.

BBTranscriptTeam wrote:$10,000 * Evolution
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was supported by observations of which of these birds on the Galápagos Islands?

A: Finches B: Vultures
C: Ospreys D: Hummingbirds

Oh, brother. This is not going well for me. Double Dip on C and A.