In Star Wars, the name AT-AT stands for All Terrain Armored Transport

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 14: Well done, you beat us!
4+ out of 14: We'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The metallurgist
4) The secret German
5) The rich-person otherkin

The ones that got away
1) To within 50 centimetres, how tall was the tallest ever sunflower?
2) In Casper the Friendly Ghost, what are the three main uncle ghosts called? (You need all three for the point.)
3) Which of these is not a real professional baseball team in the Philippines? Alpha Aces, Blackwater Elite, Manila OJ Drinkers, Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, Talk N' Text Tropang Texters.
4) Which WWE wrestler's gimmick is that they are followed around by a party, with supports called 'rosebuds'?
5) 3 point question: "Never send a human to do a machine's job" - for two points, name the movie this quote is from, for a third point, name the character who said it.
6) 3 point question: "Who's the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?" - for two points, name the movie this quote is from, for a third point, name the character who said it.
7) 2 point question: What is the most abundant element in pewter?
8) 2 point question: Which singer, born with the surname Sarkisian, is usually known simply by an abbreviation of her first name?

The answers

1) 9.17 metres (so 8.67m to 9.67m gets you the point)
2) Fatso, Stinkie, and Stretch
3) Manila OJ Drinkers
4) Adam Rose
5) The Matrix, said by Agent Smith
6) Star Wars (Episode IV), said by Obi-Wan Kenobi
7) Tin
8) Cher

The doctor's excuses

1) The problem with division of labour in a regular quiz team, is that you end up like the eukaryote cell, and I am one of the organelles that doesn't give even a little bit of a damn about "number estimation" questions. I'm like a sexy mitochondrion that doesn't care about mathematically quantifying stuff. A German did it, btw. The sunflower thing, that is... vorsprung durch sonnenlicht, I guess.
2) Casper's Wikipedia page is a real treasure trove of the kind of undeliberate humour of someone taking something very silly ULTRA-seriously. "As his name indicates, he is a ghost, yet he is quite personable". FOLLOWED BY A CITATION. Further hilarity can be found in the disquisition on whether Casper is an actual dead human child, or if he is just a ghost "because his parents were already ghosts when they were married".
3) Having played the Metal Gear Solid games, I am highly distrustful/enamoured with PMCs (private military corporations), of which Blackwater is one (although they changed name now). Knowing this, and knowing that the Quizmaster had recently been playing MGSV, I thought Blackwater was the fake. It wasn't though. *Fart Noises*.
4) Don't know much about wrestling. Someone suggested that Ric Flair was also known as "Nature Boy" and so having party people known as "rosebuds" seemed reasonably on-theme.
5) Me and The Statistican have tried to watch Blade Runner about 4 times, and fallen asleep in the attempt 4 times. We've both read (and enjoyed) the original novel though, so screw you with your "oooh but it's a sci-fi classic oooh oooh". Anyway I dunno... this seems like an OK question where we just didn't even consider the right answer, so I ain't even mad. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
6) This is a horrendously generic quote and I hate it. What I hate even worse is the fact that I've seen this movie approximately 50 times (we had the original trilogy on VHS before the remasters came out... I had a blessed childhood) and still missed it. Anyway, I gotta stop typing and go punch something now.
7) Apparently pewter is basically just tin with some other metals (antimony, bismuth, copper, sometimes lead) thrown in to make it harder, which is nice to know (no sarcasm). Unfortunately none of us knew this but I'd had some Warhammer 40k dudes who were tiny little pewter statues, and thought they seemed quite heavy and leady. So that's that excuse.
8) Top Fact: In 2014 Sia was the 97th richest Australian under the age of 40. I think Cher would have been a better guess (especially given that it was the right answer), but I'm not sure anyone even suggested her sadface.

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more points)? Would you have helped us win (4 or more points)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


Our alternative questions
1) According to Guinness World Records, the longest-standing unsolved maths problem is Goldbach's Conjecture from 1742, which states that every positive even number (except for 2) can be written as the sum of two of what type of number?
2) Fatso is the 'proper' name of a cat who features in a viral Internet meme appearing to play what type of instrument, after which the cat is more commonly known?
3) Despite being the 12th most populous country in the world, the Philippines are yet to claim a gold medal at any Olympic Games. There is one country more populous who hasn't won any Olympic medal - which?
4) For 1 point each, name the two four-letter body parts that describe, respectively, a 'good guy' and a 'bad guy' in professional wrestling.
5) By a shocking coincidence, main character 'Neo' in the Matrix has a name which is an anagram of 'one', because he is 'the one', or something. Here are three anagrams from a famous (terrible) book by Dan Brown. For 1 point each, provide the intended solution to the (somewhat related) anagrams:
(a) O, Draconian devil!
(b) Oh, lame saint!
(c) So dark the con of Man
6) John Williams won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work ont he first Star Wars movie. For 1 point each, give the three other movies for which he won either a Best Original Score or Best Original Dramatic Score Oscar. (And just to avoid frustration, he won neither for Fiddler on the Roof.)
7) In the Harry Potter novels, first year students are instructed to bring what piece of equipment, specified as "pewter, standard size 2"?
8) Identifying celebrities from their real names is seldom fun, so I'm spicing it up with some Pokemon. For 1 point each:

Question 8: (a) on the left and (b) on the right

(a) Born Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel, how is this musician better known? His name sounds like that of the first Pokemon pictured.
(b) Born Thomas DeCarlo Callaway, how is this musician better known? To get his name combine the (slightly slurred) name of the second Pokemon with a colour.

The answers

1) Prime numbers (so 4 = 2+2, which are both prime, 6 = 3+3, 8 = 3+5, 10 = 3+7, etc. etc.)
2) Keyboard [VIDEO]
3) Bangladesh
4) Face and heel
5) (a) Leonardo da Vinci, (b) The Mona Lisa, (c) Madonna of the Rocks
6) Jaws, E.T., Schindler's List
7) A cauldron
8) (a) Seal (the Pokemon is Seel) and (b) CeeLo Green (the Pokemon is Sealeo)

How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

The Starbucks logo features (maybe) a melusine

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 6: Well done, you beat us and we'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The left-fielder
4) The rich-person otherkin


The ones that got away
1) Until recently, the Starbucks pumpkin spice latte didn't contain any pumpkin, but did contain what three autumn spices instead? You need all three for the point.
2) In A Song Of Ice And Fire (Game of Thrones), which vile family is in charge of The Twins, two castles that span a river crossing?
3) Which actor plays both Winklevoss twins in the movie The Social Network? (Surname suffices.)
4) The four primary ingredients of beer are water, hops, malt, and what?
5) Which actor plays the title character in The Man with the Golden Gun? (Again, surname suffices.)
6) The letters in SACRAMENTO can be rearranged to form two words which are synonyms of one another. what are the two words? (You have at most about 5 minutes for this question.)

The answers

1) Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves
2) House Frey
3) (Armie) Hammer
4) Yeast
5) (Christopher) Lee
6) SCENT and AROMA

The doctor's excuses

1) If it was an Apple Spice Latte, then the PSL-style abbreviation would make this the coffee equivalent of "Netflix and Chill". Other than that stark realisation I know basically nothing about this drink. I effectively hate all "seasonal" spices.
2) I've not read any, but as far as I can tell, the point of Game Of Thrones is that it's like history, only with more boobs and willies and swearing. I've not watched it though because *actual* history has a bunch of that stuff in it if you look closely enough. We put Baratheon because I'd at least heard of it, and I thought Joffrey was maybe a Baratheon (my understanding is that he's a bit of a turd and thought maybe thence "vile").
3) This guy is actually pretty hot in a kind of "Westworld" definitely-has-a-detachable-robot-penis kind of way. Not the kind of guy whose name you remember, since you're gone before he wakes up though.
4) The excuse for this is that there is no excuse, we've got it wrong before and it's exactly the sort of thing that "proper" quiz nerds know. Wikipedia seems to indicate that whilst yeast *is* a key part of the beer making process, it is decanted off at some point and thus doesn't count as an ingredient? I basically can't be bothered to look into it further, beer is rubbish, cocktails are where it's at, mang! The statistician adds: At first this was a bit annoying because we'd been asked a similar question about the Reinheitsgebot (German beer purity law) a few months ago and got it wrong. It seems that time we did remember yeast, which isn't included according to those pesky Germans.
5) Just a brainfart really, I knew it was Lee but got confused thinking about "that other Hammer Horror guy who was also in Star Wars" - In fact this was a *double* brainfart (a brainshart?) because I was actually thinking of Peter Cushing (the inimitable Grand Moff Tarkin), not Vincent Price.
6) I am so bad at anagram/letter rearrangement questions. As such, they just tend to make me furious. I'm angry right now, just typing this. Furious.

How did you do? Would you have beaten us and helped us win (1 or more correct)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


Our alternative questions
1) Equal to its size in (US) fluid ounces, the Starbucks coffee size 'venti' comes from the Italian for what number?
2) What word links the star sign bridging May and June, NASA's second human spaceflight program (between Mercury and Apollo) and, with one letter changed, the UK's 2003 Eurovision Song Contest entry?
3) Twitter recently caused a minor online furore by changing its star-shaped 'Favorite' button into a Facebook-like, er, 'Like'. Raising concerns about professionalism, sexual harassment, and even sexuality, what shape did they choose for the new button?
4) Which beer brand is marketed under a three-letter abbreviated name in most European Union countries owing to an ongoing trademark dispute with a Czech beer maker?
5) Christopher Lee played Frankenstein a lot, and before you get arsey about Frankenstein being the name of the scientist, Wikipedia says common use has made it ok. Anyway, what biblical name did Shelley use to refer to Dr Frankenstein's creation?
6) If you take California's 2-letter state abbreviation and follow it by its capital, you get CA Sacramento, which isn't really anything. However, with which state can you follow this process and end up with the title of an OutKast song? As a bonus hint, the city is also mentioned in the lyrics of Mark Ronson's Uptown Funk.

The answers

1) 20 (there is also the Trenta, which is Italian for 30 and is - you guessed it - 31 fluid ounces)
2) Gemini (or Jemini for the ESC entry)
3) A heart
4) Budweiser (or Bud, as it's known in the EU except for the UK, Ireland, and Spain; the Czech beer maker is Budweiser Budvar)
5) Adam
6) Mississippi (MS Jackson and the song "Ms. Jackson")

How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

No-one knows exactly why Babe Ruth is called Babe Ruth

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 6: Well done, you beat us!
3+ out of 6: We'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The rich-person otherkin
4) The secret German
5) The metallurgist

The ones that got away
1) How tall was Robert Wadlow, the world's tallest ever man? (Margin of error of +/-3in or +/-10cm)
2) How many walking legs does a lobster have?
3) Not counting movies explicitly about/focused around swearing, such as Swearnet (it's Canadian, don't worry about it, but you get the idea - The Editor), which Scorsese movie posesses the highest "fuck count", i.e. most uses of the word?
4) Spot the fake from this list of historic Major League Baseball teams: Brooklyn Bridegrooms, Chicago Orphans, Houston Colt 45s, NY Highlanders, Philadelphia Widowers
5) 2 point question! What does the ancient Greek letter "eta" look like in upper case?

The answers

1) 2.72m or 8ft 11.1in (so 2.62m to 2.82m, or 8ft 8.1in to 9ft 2.1in gets you the point)
2) 10
3) The Wolf of Wall Street
4) Philadelphia Widowers
5) H

The doctor's excuses

1) In reading up on this it turns out that Wikipedia describes him as "the tallest person in recorded history for whom there is irrefutable evidence"... I assume this is to rule out allegations that Galactus, Michael Jordan, or God were the *actually* tallest person.
2) I tend to try not to think about lobsters because i find the whole human-lobster relationship a bit sad, thus i am recusing myself from continuing with this excuse
3) We watched this movie recently (well, I watched all of this movie and the statistician watched half of it and then fell asleep... it is a very long movie mainly about being on drugs, with some bits which are like The Apprentice a bit, I guess.... in common with this sentence I thought it was *overly* long and didn't really go anywhere, so I think this was a pretty legit choice).
4) We tend to check-out pretty early on these sorts of "spot the fake" questions but on this occasion we thought there was meta-gaming to be done. With 3 teams having a connection to familial relationships (Bridegrooms, Orphans, Widowers), it seemed the odd one out would be somehow work-outable from which seemed most "constructed" of the three. Half the team argued that Orphans and Widowers both seemed like things there might be charity teams constructed for. The other half of the team argued that widowers were arguably the conceptual confluence of orphans and bridegrooms and thus more likely made up. The latter was correct, but not gone with, much to the chagrin of the pro-widower camp.
5) The statistician wrestled with this for a long time, writing out almost all of the Greek letters in both their upper and lower case forms, but eventually got it down to 3 and zagged the wrong way. He has told me to point out that there's not much use knowing about upper case Greek letters that look identical to Roman letters, which is probably an excuse or something.

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 point or more)? Would you have helped us win (3 points or more)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


My alternative questions
1) The tallest (note: not necessarily highest) statue in the world depicts which person or deity?
2) The oxygen-containing organic compound in lobster blood is haemocyanin rather than haemoglobin. Haemoglobin contains iron, making human blood red, haemocyanin contains what metallic element, giving lobster blood its distinctive blue colour?
3) Gadzooks is a somewhat archaic example of a "minced oath" (like saying "sugar" instead of "shit"... everyone knows what you meant and now everyone thinks you're a loser as well as short-tempered). The phrase it's trying to obscure is "God's Hooks". But to what biblical items did this refer?
4) Meaning "a convenient way of resolving a plot issue" (especially in a theatrical context) give an alternate translation of the phrase Apò mēkhanês Theós in either English or Latin.
5) The nicknames of two current Major League Baseball teams contain words from the NATO phonetic alphabet. For one point each, name the word (or the team).

The answers

1) Buddha
2) Copper
3) The nails supposedly stuck into Jesus when he was crucified (I say supposedly because apparently it was pretty common to just tie people up there rather than using nails, but it doesn't make for such a sexy gory story, I assume).
4) "Deus ex machina" or "God from the machine"
5) Yankee and India (New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians)

How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

A sumo wrestler automatically loses if his belt becomes completely undone

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 10: Well done, you beat us!
4+ out of 10: We'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The metallurgist
4) The secret German
5) The rich-person otherkin

The ones that got away
1) Vodka, Galliano and orange juice are the ingredients of what classic cocktail?
2) In Japan it is supposedly good luck to have sumo wrestlers do what to your baby?
3) During the 1800s in Britain what drug, known as 'quietness', was given to children?
4) In days, how long does a cat usually stay in heat?
5) Who was the first non-human to testify before the US Congress, doing so in defence of music education programs?
6) What is the most shoplifted item in the United States?
7) 2 point question: What was bubble wrap's original intended purpose?
8) 2 point question: The designer of the current United States flag submitted it as an assignment at school. What letter grade did they receive for it?

The answers

1) Harvey Wallbanger
2) Make it cry
3) Opium
4) 5
5) Elmo
6) Candy (anything along those lines, like sweets or conficetionery, etc., gets you the point)
7) Three-dimensional wallpaper
8) B-minus

The doctor's excuses

1) It's rare to have a cocktail question that isn't basically completely uninteresting, and this one fails to buck the trend. I guess maybe we should have known this because it's so simple. But no.
2) We knew that there was something to do with salt being used to keep away evil spirits in sumo and so thought that the idea of fat men lightly seasoning infants could also be a thing. It's not.
3) Complicated one this. I knew that 19th century Brits were all about the laudanum (tincture of opium) but didn't know *exactly* what opium actually was, buuuuuut I was almost certain it contained either heroin or morphine. Thinking that the quizmaster wouldn't know much about the difference between the two. Turns out that opium's effects are almost entirely due to the 10-ish percent morphine that it contains. So I'd expect us to have gotten away with this.
4) I really hope the usual quizmaster is back next week.
5) Fire up the Ones That Got Away klaxon as a near-identical came up over a year ago here and we got it wrong again. The statistician's immediate thought was the correct answer of Elmo, but then everyone seemed to think it was Kermit. The statistician was pretty sure we'd got this wrong before, and at the last minute had a memory of reading the correct answer in fact being the puppet Lamb Chop. Turns out Lamb Chop was granted permission to speak in front of Congress back in 1993, which makes this question seem a little bit iffy (but does at least almost vindicate the statistician's blog-based memory).
6) We were trying to think what might be needed in a hurry and so were thinking of tampons or condoms. I think we eventually settled on baby formula because of it (allegedly) being sold for drugs. I guess it's just candy because sweets are small but tasty!?
7) Bubble wrap would probably make awesome insulation, we thought. But then again, I'm not an insulation expert. Also, apparently every team in the bar put the same wrong answer as us, which I always think tells you something about a question.
8) We were too taken with the idea i) that it had gotten an F, and ii) that the F stood for flag (it had been a pretty terrible quiz, so I think we were just trying to put *something*. B minus is almost a laughably uninteresting and specific answer...

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more points)? Would you have helped us win (4 or more points)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


Our alternative questions

Question 6

1) Clearly the only way to make cocktail questions even vaguely not terrible is to include a cryptic clue alongside the ingredients, so what cocktail of vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice might make you doubly happy?
2) The Street Fighter videogames feature a sumo wrestler with the first name Edomondo (Edmond) and a surname which is shared by a Japanese automobile company. Give that name.
3) "[blank] is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." - For one point, fill in the blank. For a second point, name the author of the original German.
4) Since 2006, Heat Magazine has run an annual poll to find the nation's 'oddest celebrity crush'. The first three winners of this dubious accolade were the hosts of what TV show?

Question 8

5) To within 4 inches or 10 centimetres, how big (tall) is Big Bird?
6) If the Ones That Got Away had a chocolate bar, and its logo was made entirely of other chocolate logos, it might look like this. For 1 point name 3 of the chocolate products whose letters I have 'borrowed', for 2 points, name all 4.
7) The Taiwanese drink bubble tea typically features chewy balls made of either jelly or what cassava root extract?
8) Getting the public to submit designs is a common strategy when a country wants a new flag. Which nation's competition saw these two entries alongisde more reasonable contenders?

The answers

1) Woo Woo
2) E. Honda
3) Religion and Karl Marx
4) Top Gear (at time of writing their new show doesn't have an official name, but if you came up with a different show hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, then you can have the point)
5) 8 foot 2 inches or 249 centimetres (so 7'10'' to 8'6'' or 239cm-259cm gets you the point)
6) Rolo, Turkish Delight, Galaxy, Wispa
7) Tapioca
8) New Zealand

How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!