'Pig in a poke' comes from a con involving selling a cat in a bag

We won this week! But you could have done even better?

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

The ones that got away
1) Which US state is known as the 'Mountain State'? Hint: it's not in the Rockies.
2) In the Rihanna song 'Work', how many times is the word 'work' said? If you're within 10% of the answer you get the point.
3) If you invested $1,000 in Apple stock when it first went public, how much would it be worth today? The answer starts with 25 followed by some number of zeros.
4) Identify the fake Friends episode title: a) The one with the chat room; b) The one with the East German laundry detergent; c) The one with the mix tape; d) The one with free porn; e) The one with the race car bed
5) The character Harry Mudd is a con artist in which TV series?
6) The character Templteon Peck is a con artist in which TV series?
7) 2 point question: the arena that plays host to the NHL'S Ottawa Senators formerly shared a name with what chemical element?

The answers

1) West Virginia
2) 79 (so 71.1 to 86.9 gets you the point)
3) $250,000
4) The one with the chat room
5) Star Trek
6) The A-Team
7) Palladium

My excuses

1) State nicknames should be bread and butter, but I've never found them interesting enough to study (and don't seem to pick them up passively all that well). Here we initially thought Vermont, but then (correctly) guessed that was the 'Green Mountain' state, so put West Virginia, then at the last minute I persuaded us to go back to Vermont. Good work, me.
2) One person knew how the song went, and from that we did some arithmetic and came up with 173. It only occurred to me shortly after handing in that this would mean 1 'work' almost every second, which perhaps should have seemed optimistic.
3) I really had no idea how to go about this one, and we ended up on $25,000,000. This, it turned out, was quite bad, but not as bad as my first instinct ($250,000,000) or the doctor's ($2.5 billion).
4) Having been Netflixing Friends of late, we knew we'd seen the detergent, race car, and free porn episodes, leaving us with two to choose from. Unfortunately, we mis-remembered an episode featuring a chat room (I think it just featured an instant messenger equivalent?).
5) It looks like this was mainly an The Original Series guy, so we don't feel too bad, but nevertheless must forfeit some geek points. (We thought maybe it was something to do with Mad Men, 'cos it sounded a bit 'old timey'.)
6) This rang a really strong bell but we couldn't work out why. We went with 'Firefly' hoping it rang a bell there.
7) Frustratingly, we assumed this would be some super hard sports question, in fact it was a very work-outable (and quite elegant) 'what are common names for places where sports happen?' question. Sad times.

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more point)? 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

Question 3

1) If you take the two-word state nickname of Missouri and repeat it, you get the four-word name of what CBeebies show? On air since 2009, it's hosted by Chris Jarvis and Pui Fan Lee (the latter being best known for playing Po in Teletubbies).
2) The only thing I know about Rihanna is that she's from Barbados, so on that note: the flag of Barbados features the head of a trident, symbolically 'broken' from one held by whom on its previous colonial flag?
3) According to its designer, the Apple logo has a 'bite' taken out of it to show scale, so it would not be confused with what other fruit?
4) No-one really uses chat rooms any more, but what popular instant messaging service takes its name ultimately from the Greek for 'to write at a distance'?
5) Harry Mudd's middle name is, as I'm sure you know, Fenton - a name shared with what type of animal in a 2011 viral Internet video?
6) After explaining how to carry out the Three-card Monte scam on a BBC show, John Lenahan became the first person in 85 years to be expelled from what organization?
7) The only 3-letter element, tin, can be spelled using the symbols for titanium (Ti) and nitrogen (N). Only 2 four-letter chemical elements can be spelled using the symbols of chemical elements. For one point each: which two?

The answers

1) Show Me Show Me
2) Britannia
3) A cherry
4) Telegram
5) A dog (chasing deer)
6) The Magic Circle
7) Neon and Iron (Neon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Iridium, Oxygen, Nitrogen)

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

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