Quiz of Knowledge VII

[Niemand]

In your heart of hearts, you know that it is Tuesday.

 

1. In order to jump from the top of the river, you must secure a permit. The clerk is unimpressed by your pleas concerning your hopes, dreams, and aspirations. He explains that it will take six weeks for the forms to be processed, that you do not have enough bribe money, that one of your grandfathers was a polar bear, and that you are a member of the party, and this activity is forbidden to party members without authorization from the central commissioner for peoples' efficiency. How can you win through the red tape to accomplish your goal?

a. Explain that 'advisor' is just a fancy word for shoe

b. Expound about how you glorious adventure will push the bounds of human knowledge

c. Pretend to break down and cry, then knife the clerk and fill out the forms yourself

d. Pretend to go insane and threaten to eat the desk unless your request is processed

e. Stage a commando raid and steal the necessary forms in the dark of night

 

2. Barbarian Olaf demands tribute in the form of dollies. Unfortunately, you have none, and all of the toy stores are empty after the St. Swithen's day sales. What can you give the barbarian instead to placate him?

a. Wigs, for the vain sort of barbarian

b. Carrots, for the nutrition-conscious sort of barbarian

c. Gift cards to barber shops, for the shaggy sort of barbarian

d. A tractor, for the sort of barbarian who's always wanted to be a farmer

e. Digital clocks, for the perpetually late sort of barbarian

 

3. Your clam has been clam-jacked. The clam-jackers laugh derisively at you as they speed away. What can you do to give vent to your blinding rage?

a. Cry a lament and end your suffering with a fatal dose of SPAM™

b. Cackle madly and activate the clam's self-destruct charges

c. Shrug and buy a new clam with even more chrome from the dealership

d. Devote the rest of your life to hunting down and spitting on the clam-jackers

e. Devise a new engineering breakthrough which renders all clams obsolete

 

4. You have caught George attempting to cross the Rubicon. What should you do with him?

a. Charge him with an offense of the 8th magnitude

b. Throw him to the clams, so that he dies a slow and boring death

c. Hurl skyscrapers at him, if you can manage to lift any

d. Pretend you don't see him, and hope that he goes away

e. Draw your Atomic Blast Clobbering Decimator™ and do your level best kill him

 

5. Your clam trap is almost complete. Only one component is missing to make it inescapably deadly. What do you still need?

a. All new Super-Glo Ultra Polyphosphate Paste™

b. Electro-spikes

c. More gizmos with hyphenated names

d. The Lutz diagram

e. A dutch made transmission

 

6. The malodaxian raiders are lost. You have been dispatched to resupply them with rum and bananas, and must find them before it is too late. Where should you begin your search?

a. The lofty heights

b. The gloominous caves

c. The fetid swamps

d. The vaults of dusty records

e. The briny seas

f. The local ice-cream shop

g. The mysterious dunes

h. The abandoned industrial park

i. The suspicious gardens

 

7. You have come down with the blight and are now unable to differentiate between shrubs and bushes. The lampshade factory lies deep in the dark forest, and no man has seen it for the last two weeks. Unfortunately, the quilting tournament finals are being held there in only five minutes, and you can't afford to lose. How can you get there in time?

a. Attempt the ritual of teleportation at the new temple

b. Hire a friendly native guide to lead you

c. Shape-shift into a tree to pass unnoticed through the forest

d. Contact the knights hospitallars for assistance

e. Try to burn down the forest so you can see where you're going

 

8. The battle of Thimbleford is going poorly for you; for the last two hours your army has been being pushed back. However, you've spotted a weakness in the enemy lines (between the bakery and the Klunkenfeldt's Realty building) that may enable you to win. Which of your units do you send into the key position?

a. The Insufficiently Loyal 17th Pikemen

b. The 9th Dysfunctional Cavalry Brigade

c. The 12th Whiny Infantry

d. The 6th Elite Pastry Chefs

e. The 10th Off-Key Marching Band

 

9. Your snare drum has acquired a mind of its own (likely on the black market) and is trying to bite you. It has already devoured your drumsticks. You cannot escape from the tiny shack you are in because it is surrounded by snow—and you know what lurks in snow. The only items close to hand are your bedsheets, a broken pencil sharpener, an out-of-date telephone book, twelve gallons of glycerol in several jugs, and your notes for your new novel ("The Small, Wooden Emperor"). How can you calm down the drum so that you can get back to work?

 

10. You must steal the formula for your rival company's pyrochemical baking fluid. You are outfitted with super advanced equipment, consisting of a vector force rifle that you aren't sure how to use, a laser rangefinder accurate to picometers, three dimensional maps of the moons of Saturn, a state-of-the-art gorilla detector, clothing that blends in invisibly in the tundra, and a backpack with twelve pockets and nineteen zippers. The security guards in the lab have been warned that burglars may be coming, and they have called in robotic samurais for backup. The building computer has been programmed to detect intruders by smell and vaporize them without warning. In addition the recipe is kept in a safe armored and shielded with handwavium, which is impervious to all known methods of break-in. How do you complete your mission?

 

B. Speculate on the correlation between clams and trademark symbols. In your answer, do not refer to animals, words beginning with the letter 'c', vehicles, money making enterprises, or legal systems.

 

I meant to get this posted yesterday but forgot. Therefore, you will have until the sky melts and runs, the birds cry for justice, or I decide that the rate of answers has declined sufficiently to finish.

[Callie]

1. b

2. a

3. c

4. a

5. d

6. h

7. e

8. e

9. Cover the snare drum in glycerol. Rip the pages from the telephone book and plaster them over the drum. Stuff the novel notes into the pencil sharpener and place on top of the snare drum. Lay the bedsheets over the drum like a tent, and finally, hum "I Am the Walrus" under your breath.

10. Politely ask for the formula, and hand them all of the stuff you took with you.

 

B. Simple, most trademark symbols are your good ol' bivalves.

[Karoka]

1. c

2. a

3. b

4. b

5. a

6. h

7. e

8. b

9. Read aloud the notes for the new novel while smacking the drum with the telephone book.

10. Run through the front door butt-naked and gently hug the robot samurais. Once close enough, press the 'Reset' button on their backs and command them to kill everyone else in the building. Then kill the Big Bad guy so the door to the formula will open.

 

B. Hmmm...(you never asked for an answer)

[Triumph]

1. a. Explain that 'advisor' is just a fancy word for shoe

 

Fight fire with fire, or irrationality with irrationality. The clerk is clearly trained to think nonsensically, so nonsensical approach will actually achieve the best response! Non sequitur FTW!

 

2. b. Carrots, for the nutrition-conscious sort of barbarian

 

Eating the carrots will enhance Olaf's vision (or at least convince him that his vision is enhanced. He will them see with the mind's eye of enlightenment that carrots are superior to dollies.

 

3. b. Cackle madly and activate the clam's self-destruct charges

 

All self-respecting clamowners have self-destruct mechanisms in place. Everybody knows that.

 

4. d. Pretend you don't see him, and hope that he goes away

 

Strictly speaking, "attempting to cross the Rubicon" only became a punishable ex post facto offense retrioactively in the thirteen century, which means at the moment George has done nothing wrong.

 

5. c. More gizmos with hyphenated names

 

It is a little known fact that clams are vulnerable to hyphens. Thus the key to catching is not so much the devices themslves, as it is the hyphens they contain. E.g. "Niemand uses hyphen against clam! It's super effective!!!" just like that.

 

6. a. The lofty heights

 

Not only will you be able to look down from the lofty heights on the other locations, but if you fail to find them, you at least have the moral high ground from which to defend your failure.

 

7. d. Contact the knights hospitallars for assistance

 

Clearly this is only solution could be completed in less than five minutes. The knights are famous for their lightning speed.

 

8. d. The 6th Elite Pastry Chefs

 

Elite troops are obviously the best choice. Your enemy's goose is cooked! In a tasty, tasty, pastry crust.

 

9. Read to the drum the notes from your boring book (since anyone novel with that title is obviously boring). This will lull the drum to sleep. Use the bedsheets to bind up the sleeping drum, then set it atop the phone book so if tries to move once it awakes, it will fall and hit the broken pencil sharpener and hurt itself. But before you do that, use the sharp edge of the broken pencil sharpener to scratch scary faces in all the glycerol jugs and arrange them around the bound-drum-on-the-phone-book in an intimidating fashion. Together these measures will pacify the drum and allow you to return to your novel writing in peace.

 

10. First, the latest research, published in the New York Times and posted to JSTOR, indicates that robotic samurais are all amateur astrophysicists. Leave the 3D maps of Saturn where they will them, and the whole group of robot samurai will be distracted as they gather round and goggle at them. The remaining guards will in be divided, as some try to round up the wayward robots. Secondly, use the laser rangefinder on the eyes of those remaining guards, temporarily blinding them. Thirdaciously, fumble around with the vector force rifle until you inadvertently destroy the building's nose or some other crucial component, which either prevents it from smelling your or prevents it from vaporizing you. Finalemente, challenge the safe to a riddle game, and after several exchanges, ask what the what you have in your twelve pockets with nineteen zippers. Naturally, it will not be able to get it correct after three guesses, and viola, you'll have the formula. Place the gorilla-detector in the safe before you leave, since it will so closely resemble the formula that no one will notice it is missing, giving you extra time to escape.

 

B. Friends, Romans, _ountrymen, lend me De Beers! Your diamonds will be given to the needy, ending their oppression by pirates and the shapeless inverted-hue pictures and making them healthy, wealthy, and wise, and no longer dependent on non-vegetable forms of life.

[Student of Trinity]

1.

e. Stage a commando raid and steal the necessary forms in the dark of night. Since it's really Tuesday, this is bound to succeed. No-one expects a commando raid on Tuesday night.

 

2. Barbarian Olaf demands tribute in the form of dollies. Unfortunately, you have none, and all of the toy stores are empty after the St. Swithen's day sales. What can you give the barbarian instead to placate him?

a. Wigs, for the vain sort of barbarian

Olaf only wants dollies so that he can comb and brush their hair, and tie nice ribbons into it. He can do that even better with a wig.

 

3. Your clam has been clam-jacked. The clam-jackers laugh derisively at you as they speed away. What can you do to give vent to your blinding rage?

b. Cackle madly and activate the clam's self-destruct charges

Jack my clam, will they? HAHAHAHAHAHA! My clam will jack them!

 

4. You have caught George attempting to cross the Rubicon. What should you do with him?

d. Pretend you don't see him, and hope that he goes away

I knew Julius Caesar, George. You're no Julius Caesar.

 

5. Your clam trap is almost complete. Only one component is missing to make it inescapably deadly. What do you still need?

e. A Dutch-made transmission

Dutch transmissions are impossible to sabotage, because the Dutch know exactly how to deal with wooden shoes.

 

6. The malodaxian raiders are lost. You have been dispatched to resupply them with rum and bananas, and must find them before it is too late. Where should you begin your search?

f. The local ice-cream shop

It's Tuesday, right? The Malodaxians obviously expended their initial ration of rum and bananas on Bring-Your-Own-Sundae-Day at Baskin Robbins. The idiots are certainly still there, drunkenly slipping on peels as they try to pronounce flavors 28 through 31.

 

7. You have come down with the blight and are now unable to differentiate between shrubs and bushes. The lampshade factory lies deep in the dark forest, and no man has seen it for the last two weeks. Unfortunately, the quilting tournament finals are being held there in only five minutes, and you can't afford to lose. How can you get there in time?

a. Attempt the ritual of teleportation at the new temple

It's a long shot, but quite a breakthrough if I succeed. Wish me luck!

 

8. The battle of Thimbleford is going poorly for you; for the last two hours your army has been being pushed back. However, you've spotted a weakness in the enemy lines (between the bakery and the Klunkenfeldt's Realty building) that may enable you to win. Which of your units do you send into the key position?

d. The 6th Elite Pastry Chefs

They can infiltrate in small groups through the bakery, and make good tips while doing so.

 

9. Your snare drum has acquired a mind of its own (likely on the black market) and is trying to bite you. It has already devoured your drumsticks. You cannot escape from the tiny shack you are in because it is surrounded by snow—and you know what lurks in snow. The only items close to hand are your bedsheets, a broken pencil sharpener, an out-of-date telephone book, twelve gallons of glycerol in several jugs, and your notes for your new novel ("The Small, Wooden Emperor"). How can you calm down the drum so that you can get back to work?

 

Just beat it.

 

10. You must steal the formula for your rival company's pyrochemical baking fluid. You are outfitted with super advanced equipment, consisting of a vector force rifle that you aren't sure how to use, a laser rangefinder accurate to picometers, three dimensional maps of the moons of Saturn, a state-of-the-art gorilla detector, clothing that blends in invisibly in the tundra, and a backpack with twelve pockets and nineteen zippers. The security guards in the lab have been warned that burglars may be coming, and they have called in robotic samurais for backup. The building computer has been programmed to detect intruders by smell and vaporize them without warning. In addition the recipe is kept in a safe armored and shielded with handwavium, which is impervious to all known methods of break-in. How do you complete your mission?

 

Wear the tundra-cam clothing, but pack everything else except the gorilla detector into the pockets of the backpack, and do up all the zippers. Hiding invisibly, use the gorilla detector to detect gorillas. Use it many times at short intervals. Since there is no fundamental symmetry that forbids the presence of gorillas in the tundra, there must be a small amplitude for a gorilla to be there, and so eventually my observations will project the quantum state of the universe into one with a gorilla near me. Put the backpack on the gorilla, and send him in. He will be vaporized, and the guards and samurais will then deactivate the computer so that they can spend several minutes retrieving and carefully searching his suspicious backpack. While they are thus distracted, I hide the safe under my tundra-cam shirt and walk home. The boffins back at HQ can deal with the handwavium; my job is done.

 

B.

Well, it might just be that they kind of look a bit alike, you know? If you squint just right. Like this. See? Whaddya think? Amirite or amirite?

 

 

[Dantius]

1. c. Pretend to break down and cry, then knife the clerk and fill out the forms yourself

 

Violence is the last refuge of the semi-demi-competent.

 

 

2. a. Wigs, for the vain sort of barbarian

 

Obviously a barbarian demanding doilies can use additional wigs. You can also offer him Whigs, if you find any hanging around Parliament today.

 

3. b. Cackle madly and activate the clam's self-destruct charges

 

I'll show them! I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!

 

4. e. Draw your Atomic Blast Clobbering Decimator™ and do your level best kill him

 

Only Atomic Blast Clobbering Decimators are that precise! In theory, at least. Experimental results may differ.

 

5. c. More gizmos with hyphenated names

 

Put more gizmos with hyphenated names in... the thing more gizmos with hyphenated names go into!

 

6. i. The suspicious gardens

 

Obviously the raiders move from place to place, so it would be unwise to attempt to find them in one place. Instead, you should travel to the farthest location and hope to meet them in a random encounter upon the way.

 

7. a. Attempt the ritual of teleportation at the new temple

 

Only teleportation can get you close enough within the required time period. The risk of summoning an eldritch abomination who destroys the universe is negated, as the temple is brand-new rather then ancient, and would not have sufficient time to attract one.

 

8. d. The 6th Elite Pastry Chefs

 

My team of elite pastry chefs can infiltrate the bakery unnoticed and, by taking command of the upper floors, have a powerful reinforced position to rain dough down upon my enemies. Victory is assured.

 

9. Grab the bedsheets and throw them over the snare drum, and bundle it up to keep it from escaping. Then, using the telephone book to keep h bedsheets closed, fill a four-gallon jug using only the three- and five- gallon glycerol jugs, and then douse the bedsheets and your book notes in the glycerol. Then, threaten to use the sparks generated by the broken pencil sharpener to ignite the sheets and book and immolate the drum to force it to calm down and obey and receive +5 Renegade points.

 

10. First, sell the vector force rifle on eBay, where it will no doubt acquire a price in excess of one hundred biiiilion dollars. Then, use this money to launch a massive publicity campaign about how robot samurais will soon put security guards out of work. Under the cover of darkness, put on the shielded parka and sneak into the lab while the samurai and guards are duking it out. Isolate a guard and show him the maps of the moons of Saturn, but then explain to him that that's no moon, it's a hyperadvanced safecracking device and that you need his soul to power it. He should be so terrified that he gives you the codes, which are obviously known by every low-ranking member of the organization. Then, open the safe and conceal the formula in the backpack. Finally, after using the laser rangefinder to trip the gorilla detector and set off the general alarm, sneak out and return the formula to Q.

 

B. -1<r<1.

[Mod.]

1. c - Its the only one that is somewhat effective.

 

2. c - Shaggy is the one that most closely describes barbarians.

 

3. b - Revenge and a show

 

4. a - duh

 

5. c - the more complex the merrier!

 

6. f - If you don't find them, at least you got ice cream!

 

7. a - Teleportation, its fastest and you need time to sabotage the other participants.

 

8. d - Nothing has gone wrong with pastry around yet...

 

9. It needs a nap - soak the phonebook in glycerol until it becomes soft and pillowlike, cover it with the blankets, and read the novel to it until it falls asleep from boredom. If it does not comply to a nap, hit it with the pencil sharpener until it does.

 

10. Hire a professional and lend him the gear; you are obviously in way over your head.

 

B. No Real Solution

[The Mystic]

1. In order to jump from the top of the river, you must secure a permit. The clerk is unimpressed by your pleas concerning your hopes, dreams, and aspirations. He explains that it will take six weeks for the forms to be processed, that you do not have enough bribe money, that one of your grandfathers was a polar bear, and that you are a member of the party, and this activity is forbidden to party members without authorization from the central commissioner for peoples' efficiency. How can you win through the red tape to accomplish your goal?

c. Pretend to break down and cry, then knife the clerk and fill out the forms yourself

 

2. Barbarian Olaf demands tribute in the form of dollies. Unfortunately, you have none, and all of the toy stores are empty after the St. Swithen's day sales. What can you give the barbarian instead to placate him?

a. Wigs, for the vain sort of barbarian

 

3. Your clam has been clam-jacked. The clam-jackers laugh derisively at you as they speed away. What can you do to give vent to your blinding rage?

e. Devise a new engineering breakthrough which renders all clams obsolete

 

4. You have caught George attempting to cross the Rubicon. What should you do with him?

a. Charge him with an offense of the 8th magnitude

 

5. Your clam trap is almost complete. Only one component is missing to make it inescapably deadly. What do you still need?

c. More gizmos with hyphenated names

 

6. The malodaxian raiders are lost. You have been dispatched to resupply them with rum and bananas, and must find them before it is too late. Where should you begin your search?

f. The local ice-cream shop

 

7. You have come down with the blight and are now unable to differentiate between shrubs and bushes. The lampshade factory lies deep in the dark forest, and no man has seen it for the last two weeks. Unfortunately, the quilting tournament finals are being held there in only five minutes, and you can't afford to lose. How can you get there in time?

c. Shape-shift into a tree to pass unnoticed through the forest

 

8. The battle of Thimbleford is going poorly for you; for the last two hours your army has been being pushed back. However, you've spotted a weakness in the enemy lines (between the bakery and the Klunkenfeldt's Realty building) that may enable you to win. Which of your units do you send into the key position?

d. The 6th Elite Pastry Chefs

 

9. Your snare drum has acquired a mind of its own (likely on the black market) and is trying to bite you. It has already devoured your drumsticks. You cannot escape from the tiny shack you are in because it is surrounded by snow—and you know what lurks in snow. The only items close to hand are your bedsheets, a broken pencil sharpener, an out-of-date telephone book, twelve gallons of glycerol in several jugs, and your notes for your new novel ("The Small, Wooden Emperor"). How can you calm down the drum so that you can get back to work?

 

When a snare drum tries to bite you, it's probably hungry and needs a nap. Make it a snack using the telephone book, and pour a glass or two of glycerol so the drum can wash it down. While the drum is eating, make a hammock with the bedsheets. When the drum is done eating, place it in the hammock and give it the pencil sharpener to make it feel safe & secure. Finally, lull the drum to sleep by reading it excerpts from the notes for your novel.

 

10. You must steal the formula for your rival company's pyrochemical baking fluid. You are outfitted with super advanced equipment, consisting of a vector force rifle that you aren't sure how to use, a laser rangefinder accurate to picometers, three dimensional maps of the moons of Saturn, a state-of-the-art gorilla detector, clothing that blends in invisibly in the tundra, and a backpack with twelve pockets and nineteen zippers. The security guards in the lab have been warned that burglars may be coming, and they have called in robotic samurais for backup. The building computer has been programmed to detect intruders by smell and vaporize them without warning. In addition the recipe is kept in a safe armored and shielded with handwavium, which is impervious to all known methods of break-in. How do you complete your mission?

 

While wearing the clothing that blends in invisibly in the tundra, travel to the rival company's secret lab in the Arctic circle. When you see the robotic samurais, set your gorilla detector to maximum range (10,000 miles) and hide it in a tree; the gorilla detector will go off, easily distracting the robotic samurais.

 

When you approach the guards, pretend to be a tourist who got lost while hitchhiking to the Saturnian system, and ask directions using the 3D map of Titan (one of Saturn's moons). However, insist that the map has been mislabeled and is really Triton, a moon of Neptune. While the guards are arguing (leave them the map), steal a guard's ID badge, and enter the lab.

 

Since the computer is designed to detect intruders by smell, use the laser rangefinder to find the computer's main computer control room, and reprogram it to detect the scent of a new car's interior; since everyone at the lab drives a used car, no intruders will ever be found. You are now free to locate the formula.

 

Again using the laser rangefinder, locate the handwavium safe. Handwavium provides the best possible anti-theft protection for the formula, but it has one fatal flaw: it dissolves by waving your hands at it in a "windshield wiper" motion. Having defeated the safe's security, grab the formula and put it in your backpack; the high number of pockets and zippers will deter anyone from finding where you hid the formula.

 

Now it's time to exit the lab. Put on the guard's ID badge you stole earlier, and carry the vector force rifle in a menacing way so no one will suspect you. When you exit the lab, immediately head for civilization; your special clothing will stop you from being caught.

 

B. Speculate on the correlation between clams and trademark symbols. In your answer, do not refer to animals, words beginning with the letter 'c', vehicles, money making enterprises, or legal systems.

 

This is impossible using the method described.