WWTBAM Bored

Chris Isozaki
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Chris invented an earthquake-proof desk in the 6th grade. He got the inspiration from several earthquakes that took place that year (in Haiti and Japan). A video is shown of a car being hauled up by a crane and then released over a desk. The car was dropped from different heights and the desk survived. Chris has banked $18,000 but has only his Ask the Audience lifeline available.

Question #5:
Born Peter Hernandez, what singer of "Locked Out of Heaven" shares part of his stage name with the fourth planet from the Sun?
A - Jackie Venus
B - Bruno Mars
C - Levi Jupiter
D - Kenny Neptune

Chris is a big fan so he knows this one.

Spoiler

Answer: B (Bruno Mars)
Value: $100
Bank: $18,100

Question #6:
According to OxfordDictionaries.com, there aren't any legitimate English words that have what?
A - over 12 letters
B - more than 9 syllables
C - more than 6 total vowels
D - the same letter 3 times in a row

Chris says this is a hard one but he thinks that there is no word

Spoiler

with the same letter three times in a row

. He decides to ask the audience, saying that they better know what's going on.

Ask the Audience results

A - 4%
B - 15%
C - 6%
D - 74%

He might get it wrong but he's going with the audience.

Spoiler

Answer: D (the same letter 3 times in a row)
Value: $5,000
Bank: $23,100

Question #7:
Based upon how its elements are physically linked, chemists often use what letter string to refer to a molecule of water?
A - OOH
B - HOHO
C - HOH
D - HOOH

Chris knows the formula for water and knows that it has

Spoiler

one hydrogen and two oxygens, so it can't be B or D

. He then says that it can't be

Spoiler

A because there aren't two oxygens

.

Spoiler

Answer: C (HOH)
Value: $500
Bank: $23,600

[transcriber's note - I went back and checked and he did say that the formula for water was H2O but did actually say "one hydrogen and two oxygens" despite his later statement.]

Question #8:
Though scrunched up neatly in the human body, the large and small intestines of an adult actually have a combined length of about what?
A - two feet
B - six feet
C - twelve feet
D - twenty-five feet

Chris knows that

Spoiler

if the small intestine is stretched out it would be larger than a human, and the large intestine would be big also, so he eliminates A and B. Adding the two together he makes his final answer

.

Spoiler

Answer: D (twenty-five feet)
Value: $15,000
Bank: $38,600

commercial break

Question #9:
Alluding to the "cradle of civilization," what pun did the Economist use to describe a region where agriculture began at least 10,000 years ago?
A - Sahara Dessert
B - Fertile Croissant
C - Shaved Iceland
D - Honey Baked Hamalayas

Chris says it can't be

Spoiler

the Sahara Dessert because there's not a lot of growing going on there even today and it can't be Shaved Iceland because it's really cold there. Nor can it be Honey Baked Hamalayas because they still aren't populated

.

Spoiler

Answer: B (Fertile Croissant)
Value: $2,000
Bank: $40,600

Question #10:
In the year she turned 114, the world's oldest person, Misao Okawa of Japan, accomplished the rare feat of having lived for how long?
A - 50,000 days
B - 10,000 weeks
C - 2,000 months
D - 1 million hours

"Mental math!" Chris exclaims. He's going to have to use his brain. He says there are 365 days in a year.

Spoiler

50,000 days is too short. He decides to work from the number of months and decides that 2,000 months is too big. He then evaluates the number of weeks, rounding the number of weeks in a year to 50, and makes the calculation, concluding that the only answer is D

.

Spoiler

Answer: D (1 million hours)
Value: $25,000
Bank: $65,600

commercial break

CLASSIC MILLIONAIRE:

$100K - In 1885, Thomas Edison proposed to his fiancée by tapping letters into her hand. Lucky for him, she said "yes," which in Int'l Morse Code, is what?
A - -- . ...
B - -- ...- .-.
C - .-. - .
D - -.-- . ...

Chris wishes he was about 100 years older. He knows those are the two different symbols but he doesn't know the combinations. This isn't one that he expected. Chris is going to have to walk away.

Spoiler

Answer: D (-.-- . ...)

Chris walks away with $65,600.

commercial break

MILLIONAIRE "QUESTION OF THE DAY":
What Egyptian "boy king" ascended the throne at about age nine and made a media splash 3,255 years later when his tomb was discovered?
A - Romulus
B - Alexander the Great
C - Hammurabi
D - King Tut

Question of the Day answer

D (King Tut)

BBTranscriptTeam wrote:Question #10:
In the year she turned 114, the world's oldest person, Misao Okawa of Japan, accomplished the rare feat of having lived for how long?
A - 50,000 days
B - 10,000 weeks
C - 2,000 months
D - 1 million hours

"Mental math!" Chris exclaims. He's going to have to use his brain. He says there are 365 days in a year.

Spoiler

50,000 days is too short. He decides to work from the number of months and decides that 2,000 months is too big. He then evaluates the number of weeks, rounding the number of weeks in a year to 50, and makes the calculation, concluding that the only answer is D

.

Spoiler

Answer: D (1 million hours)
Value: $25,000
Bank: $65,600

Chris struggled with all that math and made a couple of errors, but eventually he eliminated

Spoiler

the first three answers

. He didn't even try to compute

Spoiler

1 million hours

.

BBTranscriptTeam wrote:Chris Isozaki
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Chris invented an earthquake-proof desk in the 6th grade. He got the inspiration from several earthquakes that took place that year (in Haiti and Japan). A video is shown of a car being hauled up by a crane and then released over a desk. The car was dropped from different heights and the desk survived. Chris has banked $18,000 but has only his Ask the Audience lifeline available.

BBTranscriptTeam wrote:Question #7:
Based upon how its elements are physically linked, chemists often use what letter string to refer to a molecule of water?
A - OOH
B - HOHO
C - HOH
D - HOOH

Chris knows the formula for water and knows that it has

Spoiler

one hydrogen and two oxygens, so it can't be B or D

. He then says that it can't be

Spoiler

A because there aren't two oxygens

.

Spoiler

Answer: C (HOH)
Value: $500
Bank: $23,600

[transcriber's note - I went back and checked and he did say that the formula for water was H2O but did actually say "one hydrogen and two oxygens" despite his later statement.]

I was a little surprised when Chris said that water had one hydrogen and two oxygens, but then ruled out "A" as a possible answer.

BBTranscriptTeam wrote:Question #10:
In the year she turned 114, the world's oldest person, Misao Okawa of Japan, accomplished the rare feat of having lived for how long?
A - 50,000 days
B - 10,000 weeks
C - 2,000 months
D - 1 million hours

"Mental math!" Chris exclaims. He's going to have to use his brain. He says there are 365 days in a year.

Spoiler

50,000 days is too short. He decides to work from the number of months and decides that 2,000 months is too big. He then evaluates the number of weeks, rounding the number of weeks in a year to 50, and makes the calculation, concluding that the only answer is D

.

Spoiler

Answer: D (1 million hours)
Value: $25,000
Bank: $65,600

Good for Chris for taking the time to work this out.

BBTranscriptTeam wrote:$100K - In 1885, Thomas Edison proposed to his fiancée by tapping letters into her hand. Lucky for him, she said "yes," which in Int'l Morse Code, is what?
A - -- . ...
B - -- ...- .-.
C - .-. - .
D - -.-- . ...

Chris wishes he was about 100 years older. He knows those are the two different symbols but he doesn't know the combinations. This isn't one that he expected. Chris is going to have to walk away.

Spoiler

Answer: D (-.-- . ...)

Chris walks away with $65,600.

Talk about a WWOQ! However it is possible to narrow the options. "E" is a single dot and "S" is three dots (as in ...---... for "SOS"), so it comes down to whether "Y" is -- or -.-- . I'd suspect it would be the latter, since it's less common, but since I have all my lifelines remaining, I'll jump this one.

$100K - In 1885, Thomas Edison proposed to his fiancée by tapping letters into her hand. Lucky for him, she said "yes," which in Int'l Morse Code, is what?
A - -- . ...
B - -- ...- .-.
C - .-. - .
D - -.-- . ...

Chris wishes he was about 100 years older. He knows those are the two different symbols but he doesn't know the combinations. This isn't one that he expected. Chris is going to have to walk away.

Spoiler

Answer: D (-.-- . ...)

Chris walks away with $65,600.

Since SOS is ...-- -- -- ..., it has to be A or D. Since Y is at the end of the alphabet, I would have picked D, assuming that the farther you get into the alphabet, the more complicated the code. . . . OK, I looked it up -- the least common letters have the most complicated code. J and Q are just as complicated as Y.

SportsFan68 wrote:Since SOS is ...-- -- -- ..., it has to be A or D. Since Y is at the end of the alphabet, I would have picked D, assuming that the farther you get into the alphabet, the more complicated the code. . . . OK, I looked it up -- the least common letters have the most complicated code. J and Q are just as complicated as Y.

Just so!

I learned morse code in college, when I got my ham radio license, so even the rare WWOQ in this week's stacks was right in my wheelhouse.

<sigh>