I’ve never had a six-pack, I’m a little embarrassed to say. Well, I had one today — six correct answers in six different blanks! — but apparently it doesn’t count until you actually submit them. Unfortunately, I changed one of those answers just before I hit the submit button. That’s gonna sting for a while. At least I earned my second victory, defeating the previously undefeated Mike Sylvia.
1. The common financial metric EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and what?
For a while I had everything but the word itself: I knew what the word meant, and I knew it was something I occasionally accounted for in my own spreadsheets. But my brain had frozen out the actual word, so I had to sit around a while, waiting for the thaw. This eventually happened, and I was able to punch in the right answer: amortization.
2. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is located in the California city of La Cañada Flintridge, is managed by what university?
Is “La Cañada Flintridge” supposed to be some sort of hint? Please. Not helpful at all. I guess I’ll have to try to name a few California universities–
Oh! What about Caltech? The California Institute of Technology? That’s gotta be it, I thought, and I was right.
3. A national commission formed by a South American government estimates that, during a period from 1976 to 1983 in what has come to be known as the Dirty War (Guerra Sucia), 13,000 individuals in the country were killed or disappeared. Name the country.
Sheesh, take your pick. What country down thataway hasn’t had a Dirty War? The first thing I wrote in the blank was Argentina. Then I wrote Colombia. Then I wrote Argentina again. Then, just before I turned in my answers, I wrote Paraguay. The correct answer: Argentina. Arrrrgggghhhh.
4. Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, Mary Mapes, and Lucy Ramirez are all names associated with a 2004 controversy regarding what television series?
Mary Mapes rang a series of bells, but it took me a little while to recognize the tune. Finally the penny dropped: 60 Minutes and Rathergate.
5. A fictional venue known as the Kit Kat Klub provides the setting for much of what Broadway musical?
Gimme. Cabaret. Though I admit Chicago flittered briefly through my brain before I came to my senses.
6. Of the 38 plays written by William Shakespeare, five have titles which include the name of a city/town. One is Venice (The Merchant of Venice); name any two of the other four cities.
Two theater questions! Excellent. All right then: Two Gentleman of Verona and…
…and apparently I’ve grown a little rusty at Shakespeare.
Come on! I yelled at myself. This is a slam-dunk! I rattled off a whole lotta Shakespeare plays, but none of them had cities in the titles. I couldn’t believe it. There were three others? What was wrong with me?
Finally, in the shower, I had the brainstorm that the titles would surely be in the form of “___ of ___,” with the city in the second blank. That loosened the screws, and Timon of Athens finally arrived. Thank goodness we didn’t need three of the remaining four. Maybe I would have come up with The Merry Wives of Windsor, or maybe not. My guess is Pericles, Prince of Tyre won’t be in anybody’s answer list.
Hi Eric,
So close. I’m pretty sure I’ve never gotten the vaunted sixpack. Come close but something always throws me off. It’s an interesting day in that all the questions were Middle of the Road in difficulty. The average defenses ranged from 1.2 – 1.6, so there were no obviously easy or obviously hard ones yesterday. I was able to read my opponent well enough to defend perfectly against her and took the win 4(3) – 2(3).
1) I’m a Chartered Accountant, Director of Finance for my company. If I got this wrong I’m pretty sure I’d have my order dropping by to revoke my membership. Plus EBITDA is something I’ve been dealing with in my company forever.
2) Should have thought about this harder. I rushed and put down USC.
3) I went with Chile because I knew Pinochet disappeared thousands of people there. I guess it’s pretty common for South America.
4) 60 Minutes. Knew it right away
5) I convinced myself that this was the either the Stripper club or the nightclub from Rock of Ages. I didn’t open my mind to other possibilities or I would have probably come across Cabaret at some point.
6) Verona right away, Windsor 30 seconds later. Never read either of them, but I used to scan the back pages of my Shakespeare books in High School that always listed the other plays you could buy.
1) no idea. Since interest and taxes seemed to represent a positive and negative adjustment, I balanced depreciation with “appreciation”. Is that even an accounting term?
2) figured it had to be a tech school. My first thought was Stanford, but wait – that’s in Stanford. Caltech seemed like a good plan B.
3) no idea; went with war-torn Colombia.
4) the question and cast if characters made me think it had to be a news magazine. Of 60 Minutes and 20/20, the former seemed to have more gravitas. Mapes rang a bell, buy I wouldnt have placed her out of context.
5) a gimme
6) Verona quickly, Athens shortly after. Dunno if I’d have come up with Tyre.
Opponent Adam Cohen missed the same two, and we defended predictably and correctly based on each others stats, the result being a 4(4)-4(4) tie.
1: I told myself that this was going to be a financial-type word, but it took the longest time for “amortization” to come to me.
2: If I had thought of Caltech, I bet I would’ve said it, but I said Stanford instead.
3: While they don’t have a trademark on it or anything, I believe the key hint in this question was “disappeared”, as that’s become a proper noun to describe those specific individuals who were … well, disappeared in that war. Knowing that didn’t help me remember what country it was, though! But I was fortunate enough to guess correctly.
4: As soon as I saw the answer, I knew what the controversy was, but I’d never have gotten this in a million years. I guessed 24.
5: … is a Cabaret, my friend …
6: Pretty much your thought process, Eric, but with a little less agony. Verona came right away, then I made myself think of “Person of Place” titles, and had both Athens and Tyre. I said the former, since I was a lot more confident that Athens was a city.
8(4)-1(1) victory! Wooooooo.
1. Not sure where I picked this up, but I came up with amortization pretty quickly.
2. Thought of Stanford and UC Berkeley, and neither one seemed quite right, but Caltech never crossed my mind.
3. No idea. Colombia?
4. Embarrassingly, I couldn’t even decide if the names were real or fictional people. Ended up putting NCIS.
5. Easy enough – I saw Cabaret a couple of years ago when a friend played Cliff in a summer stock production.
6. Thought of Two Gentlemen of Verona right away, but then my brain tried to convince me that maybe it was Genoa, so I forced myself to abandon that one and come up with two other options. Ended up going with Athens and Windsor.
3(3)-5(4) loss. Congratudolences on the almost six-pack – I’m still trying to nab one myself.
1. I’ve been proofreading accounting worksheets for my colleague at work for the last year or so, off and on, but I don’t think our students are at this level yet. “Assets” is wrong.
2. I was about 80% sure of this one, and it helped raise my flagging Science score.
3. So many options. I too said Colombia.
4. “60 Minutes” occurred to me, but it didn’t jump up and down among the other shows I thought of. I somewhat randomly guessed “Dateline”.
5. A musical set at a club… that would be Cabaret, right? If you had asked me what my worst culture category would be before I started LL, I probably would have told you Theatre, yet here I sit with a 100% score in it. And Film is high too. It’s a world gone mad.
6. This question seemed familiar, as though I’d encountered it elsewhere, though I couldn’t tell you where. I must have seen it somewhere since it’s the only reason I can give why I came up with (yes, 2GoV first, and then) Timon of Athens so fast.
And somehow I managed to tie again. (But at least we tied at 4 points each; I’m getting bored of tying at 3.) Those single points are adding up, and this match nudged me up into the C-zone of my Rookie rundle, which frankly scares the bananas out of me.
1. Guessed appreciation since I had nothing.
2. Gimme.
3. I think I guessed Colombia here.
4. Had no idea, so guessed something random in an attempt to get to best wrong answers.
5. Guessed Rent since I had nothing, despite knowing that’s the Cat Scratch Club. Obviously never thought of Cabaret.
6. Gimme, although I would have had significant trouble thinking of the other two.
1. Depreciation and…appreciation? I could have named the other 3 letters… =/
2. Caltech with 95% confidence
3. I studied political science. There are a lot of similar phenomena in Latin America, and the “disappearance” phenomenon is far from unique, but if you study this stuff I promise that Argentina is the one that originated the ‘guerra sucia’ phrasing.
4. I had to think about this for a year and a half but then I realized that the second name was the name OF the scandal and then I still had to remember which show was on CBS (because of Rather). Got there eventually.
5. Yep, Cabaret was the best guess. I suppose I saw that movie once but there wasn’t another good guess around.
6. Oh right Timon of Athens. I thought Windsor was not a town myself.
I 6(5)ed it – people play good defense against me!
1. Didn’t know it, but amortization seemed like a good guess.
2. Once a year, JPL does an open house weekend, which is really awesome–lots of exhibits, and the actual scientists available to talk to you on whatever level of rigor you can handle. Anyway, I’ve been, and that’s how I knew it was Cal Tech.
3. I said Chile, thinking of the Jack Lemmon movie Missing. At the last second, I thought to myself, “Maybe Argentina? Nah.” Oops.
4. Didn’t remember the scandal, but the names vaguely evoked 60 Minutes for me.
5. Gimme.
6. Thought of Verona and Windsor pretty quickly, and then worried that maybe Windsor referred to the castle or something of that ilk. Since I couldn’t dredge up any other options, I went with it.
So a solid 7(5)-4(4) victory, leaving me at 3-3-1, perched exactly in the middle of my rundle.
Another day where I have no one to blame but myself.
Got Amortization and Cabaret. Both were gimmes for me.
Picked Chile (but thought about Argentina). Should have given more thought to Cal Tech as I just guessed blindly.
On the Shakespeare titles I immediately got Verona and then thought of Windsor. Unfortunately I convinced myself that Windsor might be the name of a character and so I decided to go with something else that was completely wrong. This is a variation on the Pizzeria Uno mistake mentioned the other day.
On the Scandal I had no difficulty at all remembering the Bush National Guard Story. The problem was that I remembered it so well that I knew that it didn’t air in the Sunday 60 Minutes timeslot. It didn’t take me very long to convince myself that the story aired as a 48 Hours expose (often hosted by Rather in the late 90s and early 2000s). The answer to my confusion was that there was a short lived 60 Minutes Wednesday. Of course there was.
Oh, you slippery little 6-pack! The South America question seems to be the skate left on the stairs that everyone tripped over.
1) Amortization. Gimme. Even more so since my wife just finished her MBA classes in financial reporting. But I’d have gotten it easily without that refresher.
2) Ooohh… well, shoot, I should know this — I just spent the past year teaching debaters about NASA. I went on to other questions still feeling confident about the 6-pack after an easy 1st question. Then came back and dropped Cal Tech, knowing Stanford & USC weren’t right, and it probably wasn’t connected to any of the UCs.
3) Columbia? Timing is right. But that was all drug wars and people aren’t ‘disappeared’ usually. So… Chile! Yeah, Pinochet! As I typed the answer in, my fingers actually wrote “Chilentina” and I looked at it for a moment, considered changing to Argentina, but stuck with Pinochet. Well, when you put your money on an evil dictator, you should be prepared to suffer the consequences. Goodbye, 6-pack!
4) Tricky one here. I jumped on TailGate as the theme (right or wrong, didn’t matter) and went through television “series” that might cover it. Law & Order? No, wrong city. NCIS? Yeah…. but…. no….. E-Ring! Timing? Short-lived, killed off for some reason, was it a controversy? Almost gave up, then said “wait a minute! What about shows that *cover* scandals?” Duh, 60 Minutes!
5) Cabaret. No other thought. Actually, Chicago crept in after I typed Cabaret, but I remembered the prison and other venues and figured the Club wasn’t prominent enough.
6) “Two Gentlemen from Verona”. Easy! Oh, a second one? Hmm… none of the named histories, none of the tragedies, focus on comedies. Swum through cities in my mind, then thought about “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and, for some reason, “The Merry Wives of Windsor” popped into mind.
5 correct should give a win, right? Especially in this tough season? Nope. 7(5)-7(5) tie! The worst of the tie was that I flip-floped a 2/3 on the final question!
1. Business is one of my worst categories. This one took me a long time to get to. In past seasons, I would have just let it go, but in the Champ Rundle, there’s pretty much no room for error, so I gave it time, and it paid off. My opponent appropriately defended with a 3, and it was appreciated.
2. Knew Cal Tech right off the bat.
3. I went with Pinochet’s Chile as well. This blew my perfect record at World History. My opponent appropriately defended with a zero, and it was appreciated.
4. Poor Dan Rather.
5. I have seen Cabaret on stage twice. Gimme.
6. Verona was immediate, Athens took maybe a minute. Windsor would likely have come at some point, but Tyre would never have happened.
Grabbed the best possible 5-4 win with a 9(5)-4(4) result and have landed in third place to this point.
1 — I am involved with a case involving EBITDA and have probably written the word 20 times in the past week. Yayy me.
2 — I live two miles away from Caltech (and last year I set up the L.A. incarnation of DASH 3 to run past part of it). Yayy me again.
3 — Wait, geography *and* history in a single question? I call shenanigans! I decided that I would choose between Argentina and Venezuela (neither for any great reason), and then decided that the dates were post-Evita, so everything was probably just peachy in Argentina, and went with Venezuela. Ohhh, you history and geography, you.
4 — Mark Halpin hit on a very good idea above: if there’s a question about what show was some newsy-sounding thing associated with and you don’t know, say 60 Minutes. I must say, 60 Minutes did not even occur to me, since for some reason I was mentally skipping over news programs because they’d be reporting on scandals, and *surely* not being part of them. I won’t embarrass myself by revealing that I finally went with the reality competition show Boot Camp.
5 — A few years ago at the NPL Con, Maso ran a Doubles Jeopardy in which the responses were all names of candy bars. The non-blindfolded guy read the question and stuffed a candy bar into the mouth of the blindfolded guy (who did not get to know the question). One of the questions was “What is the name of the nightclub in the musical Cabaret?” I’d like to say that I was the reader/stuffer, and that we were the first to ring in and get the question right — and I even think that was the case — but I’m far from sure of any of that. (My cohort for the game was LLama Eric Prestemon, aka Veep.)
6 — Verona before I finished reading the question, then about 20 seconds of panic when I didn’t immediately have another one, then blessed relief when the Windsor neuron fired. (I did not have a Tyre neuron, though suppose I do now, at least for a while.)
Result, 5(4)-5(4) tie.
Dart, we had a similar question (though not identical if I’m not mistaken) in Bluff’s trivia game this past Con in which each person in the team of three had to write in a different answer. That’s what I thought of when I saw this question.
Aha. That must have been it. The National Puzzler’s League is indeed an educational organization! :-)
Thanks, d, whoever you may be.
Along those lines, I have (spoiler alert!) Split Second, The Second ready to go for OreCon. It was successfully playtested 2 weeks ago, with another playtest (after revisions) to follow. With so many LLamas, I live in fear of questions coming out that are “too close” to what I have that I’ll feel duty-bound to change things. Come on, Con, get here already!
Welcome back, a week late! I am a Rookie, and having a Meh season.
Anyway, my biggest issue with this day is the word “Series.” 60 Minutes is and always has been a News Magazine. I have never heard of it being called a Series. I do understand the common usage, and as an entity, there have been a series of shows. But in TV, it has a specific meaning. And I do not believe any New Magazine fits that metric.
I guessed Cop Rock, for no good reason other than it was talked about a lot, but whimpered off into history.
Cabaret was my only Correct.