Inner Circle Quiz 2

Feedback to Quiz 1 a) Questions are too lengthy b) They are too easy to Google !!! c) KISS ... so here's some shorter, simpler trivia :

Acknowledgements : The questions are either sourced from quizzes I've participated in or from those posted on the net.

What was Mark Twain referring to when he said “this day on which are reminded of what we are on the other 364”?

April Fool's day

Which country singer took his name from the capital of Colorado?

John Denver

We have heard of a 'Mexican Wave'.But what is a 'Mexican raise'?

Promotion but without any salary hike !!!

What is the similarity between Levi Strauss and Fevicol?

Fevicol logo has a globe being pulled by elephants and Levis logo is a pair of jeans being pulled apart by horses

This fast-food gets its name from a nobleman's addiction to gambling which resulted in its creation ?

Sandwich. The Earl of Sandwich preferred that one of his hands always be free to hold his hand of cards.

In olden days, the Arabs believed that the entrance to Hell was somewhere in or near which geographical landmark ?

The Dead Sea

In cricket, what does the term spectacles mean?

Duck in both innings

In what way did the Central Bank of Sweden celebrate its 300th anniversary in 1968?

Started the Nobel Prize for Economics

In his last first class innings, W.G.Grace walked off the pitch without being declared out, when his score stood at 93. What was the reason he gave for this?

This was the only score between 0-100 at which he had never been out ever before in his career.

Who said this "Scientific Problems are familiar to me, but I have neither the natural capacity nor the experience to handle human beings" on being offered the presisency of Israel ?

Einstein

Inner Circle Quiz 1

Here's a quiz I conducted @ Inner Circle :

Acknowledgements : The questions are either sourced from quizzes I've participated in or from those posted on the net.

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States of America once took time out for a hunting trip to an area near Little Sunflower River in Mississippi. His hosts captured a bear cub to present to the President who in turn ordered it to be set free.The press gave wide coverage to the incident. A cartoon of the bear cub became Roosevelt's mascot. The name given to this mascot is now a popular English term. ????

Teddy Bear

He was born in France in 1882. An experienced pilot, he was the first Frenchman to cross the Mediterranean by air. On the outbreak of the First World War, he was sent to serve on the Western Front. He invented a gun mechanism which helped french fighter aircraft achieve superiority over german planes.He was shot down and killed at Vouziers on 5th October 1918. He is connected in a BIG way with the French Open. Who?

Roland Garros

Who's the only real life character to ever feature in a Tintin comic book ?

Al Capone

Shipping Billionaire named after a philosopher. Had a long drawn affair with the opera singer Maria Callas. Married another very very famous celebrity. "He married her for her fame , she married him for his money" or so the tabloids screamed. Who are we talking about ?

Aristotle Onnassis

The name of which Japanese company literally means "three diamonds"?

Mitsubishi

His first name, which came to him by mistake, was an abbreviation of his intended name, George, which was misread by hospital officials completing the birth certificate. He was editor of the house magazine of the Cadillac Motor Co. He went on to form his own agency and was in the habit of purchasing 100 shares of stock in every new client. Name this ad guru.

Leo Burnett

This young visualizer at the D.J.Keymer ad agency in Calcutta created several popular ads for brands like ICI's anti malarial tablets. he later became world famous thanks to one of his creations which was subsidized by the West Bengal Roads and Buildings Dept. on a technicality. Name him.

Satyajit Ray

Inspired by their Professor Fred Terman, two people started a small electronics company in an old garage on Jan 1, 1939. Their first product was an audio oscillator which Walt Disney used to produce sound effects in his movie "Fantasia". The name of this company was decided by the toss of a coin. Just name the company.

Hewlett Packard

"Ugly Rumours" a relatively unknown rock band was founded by a future Prime Minister during his college days. Apprently he was inspired by the cover of the Grateful Dead album "Grateful Dead from the Mars Hotel". When held upside down in front of a mirror, the graphic on the front of the album cover appears to say "Ugly Rumors". Who is the Prime Minister we are talking about.

Tony Blair

This was started as a research project at Stanford university, created by Ph.D Candidates. Its staff include a former neurosurgeon, a rocket scientist. Another of them had the job title "Spiderman". Name this company(or institution)?

Google

The missing video

Another attempt to upload the video from the jhaal-moori post !

Mumbai on the roads

Driving on mumbai roads is an art.

I'd learnt driving in cincinnati, on a rented chevy but had to quickly unlearn everything when I started driving my santro in mumbai ... And it is not only about the manual stick gear or driving on the left ... It is all about the right angles and mental time motion estimation ... of cutting lanes to overtake a rickety rickshaw and swerving to avoid bumping into a bummbling bullock.

Of course monsoons are an added constraint in the equation not to forget the potholes, puddles, flyover & metro constructions.

Did I say art ... Make that science !!!

What will it take to set the roads straight (pun?) ? Money ... Not really more than 200 crores are poured into road repairs every year in mumbai city alone. I'd really like to ask mr. Phatak BMC commissioner where exactly does this money go ... Not that I would expect an answer. Taxpayers money going into the coffers of the corrupt nexus of politicians, civic authorities and construction companies.

And we continue to suffer smilingly with the legendary mumbai sangfroid trying to ignore the ironic signs which blatantly proclaim "bear with us for a better tomorrow" !!!

Basket chaat at mumbai

Basket chaat is a pleasant memory from lucknow days ... It was a must-have whenever we managed to go out to the town ie. Hazratganj which was synonymous with 'ganjing', 'chaat' and 'kebaabs'.

Chaat in mumbai is 'sev puri' and 'bhel puri' which are good in themselves but not nearly in the same league as chaat from lucknow or delhi. That for me is the authentic chaat ... with just the right amount of punch and a subtle balance of flavours ...

Anyway after 8 years in mumbai we finally found a chaat which comes close to what I used to love in lucknow - the 'only parathas' outlet @ nirmal lifestyles in mulund makes one mean basket chaat ... Had it for the 3rd time today in as many months and its highly recommended for those yearning for some real chaat.

We washed it down with some sweet lassi which was a reminder of the lassi in benaras - lanka and gadhaulia minus the thick layer of malai on top ... that I'm yet to discover in mumbai !!!

Piya and I attacked the basket chaat before I remembered that it would be good to take a pic for the benefit of those who have never seen one ... a bit too late !!!

Deep into eggs ...

Deep's latest passion is counting "eggs" on my laptop ... religiously every morning and evening :-)

Jhaal-moori : Once upon a rainy evening

Rains in mumbai are a pain. Not that its not in other cities i've stayed in ... Ranchi, jampot, kolkata and to a lesser degree benaras and lucknow have their fair share of rains but it rains hard for sometime and then you are done with it. But the 24X7 drizzle here drives me crazy ... Its something like an incessant chinese torture if you get what I mean.

Jhaal-moori is the perfect antidote to mood swings in such times [ even when the rainsgods take a break ... The demonaic roads forces one to stay depressingly indoors ].

The best jhaal-moori i've had were on trains to and from howrah during my visits from ranchi and jampot. The j-m would usually be mixed in an empty dalda tin can with mustard oil, green chilli slices, chana-choor, assorted powdered spices and topped with coconut wedges and served in newspaper 'thongas' ... Simply awesome !

So here is piya munching home made j-m ... made with haldiram 'mixture' ... Though she is not so passionate about j-m ... Her 'comfort food' is 'phuchka' but that's the subject of another post some other time ... You can also see deep running around oblivious to the rains outside :-)

Well the video just refused to get uploaded ! So will try later ...

UPA wins the trust vote

UPA won the trust vote 275 to 256 with 10 abstaining.

The horse trading over the past few weeks has stripped indian politics of any last remaining vestiges of respectability.

To me what emerges from all this fracas is the coming of age of manmohan singh as a very savvy politician with the ability to take big risks - after all this trust vote could have gone either way ... No one could have predicted the relatively big margin.

Also this gives the congress another ally in SP so it need not look to the left for help come next election - which by the way could come fairly soon. It won't be an easy task to keep the current loose "unholy" alliance together for long.

Another weekend goes by

Weekends have this strange habit of just zipping away in a flash. Friday evenings are a blur and the mornings are strong cups of black tea with the newspapers. Sometimes I wonder if i'm the only paranoid guy who gives in to this strange compulsion to go through each page of the weekend papers AND the supplements. I simply can't put the papers down till i've leaved through each page as if I would miss something of earth-shattering importance if I didn't.

And then there are the liesurely lunches ... Better still if someone is coming over for lunch. I try to catch up on some email between lunch and tea [ the evening cuppa ] but more often than not surrender to a couple hours of snooze. Evenings are for going out, shopping, catching the odd reality show [ currently piya & I are following splitsvilla ] or plain pottering around.

Sunday evenings are the usual post-mortem of what the weekend could have been with slight guilt pangs when all the to-do lists are not ticked off ... Those naturally spill over to yet another weekend which in its own unerring course also goes by.

Testing imap settings on win mobile5

This is a check as I move from pop to imap to access my gmail account fro my mobile ... I was having problems with pop which is also why my blog was neglected over the past few days !

That's my birthday cake :-)