Roman Holiday

It's been a hectic year of quizzing since this blog got reincarnated into its current form. Having seeing almost 9 quizzes, 18 questions, 49 contenders on the podium and more than 1500 hits, the blog is still asking for more. I have no intentions of disappointing it. However since I'll be on vacation for last part of this year, the quizzing will get restarted in the first week of Jan, '08. Sandi is still enjoying the top spot but he is getting some tough competition from Nishith. But next year do watch out for these dark horses who have risen the ranks pretty swiftly - Ullash, Chetan and VIAC. As for the others, you very well know how a couple of early bird entries can change the podium standings. So there is plenty to watch out for next year. Till then, here's wishing a Happy New Year in advance.
Every beginning has an ending but this ain't the end because soon I'll be back.

Answers to Ocean's Eleven

The answers are:

1. All these movies are based on poems. (From top left in clockwise manner:- The Grinch based on Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole the Christmas; Troy based on Homer's Illiad; Beowulf starring Christopher Lambert and Rhona Mitra based on the Anglo Saxon epic poem Beowulf; Pumpkinhead based on Ed Justin's poem Pumpkinhead.)

2. Vinton Gray Cerf who is famously referred to as "Father of Internet". He was one of the brains behind TCP/IP and currently is the chief internet evangelist for Google.

The TRUTH-SEEKERs for this round are :-

Nishit Ganatra - 1
Ullash Gutgutia - 1
Batty Bryant - 1
Nishanth Jayarajan - 1
Shyam Naren - 1
Manjit Mohanty - 1
VIAC - 1
Sandipan Chakravarty - 1

No early birds this time. Still congratulations to all of truth-seekers. Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link. I am taking a break for a week. So I will be back with the next round on 18th Dec.

Errata - Part Deux

This is a clarification for the answer no. 3 posted in the PART DEUX quiz . The question had three pictures - Anil Kumble, Debashish Mohanty and Subhash Gupte and it was a connect question. The answer that was mentioned by me was that they were the only Indians to have picked up 10 wickets in an entire innings on Indian soil. One of my blog readers, Mit Choudhary points out that they weren't the only ones. In fact considering only first class matches, there two other Indians who have achieved this feat. PM Chatterjee took 10/20 in a Bengal vs Assam match in 1956-57 while P Sunderam repeated the act picking 10/78 in a Rajasthan vs Vidharba match in 1985-86. Thank you, Mit for this great piece of information.

Ocean's Eleven

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 11th December, 6:00 A.M.(GMT). Don't forget to read the RULES POST to see how you score points in this quiz before sending the answers. I will be back with the answers, scores and the next quiz on 11th Dec.

Here we go...

1. Connect the movies.

2. Identify him. (Clue: He is known as father of something)

Answers to Starter for 10

The answers are:

1. The one and only Sachin Tendulkar.(From top left in clockwise manner:- Ferrari 360 Modena, that was presented to Sachin by Ferrari for equaling Don Bradman's feat of 29 Test centuries and which later got into a Tax row with Indian Govt.; Ramakant Achrekar, Sachin's Coach; Lashings World XI with which he made a comeback from his tennis elbow injury with a outstanding average and strike rate above 100; Virgin Comics, who are in talks for creating a superhero based on him)

2. The Color Purple, a critically acclaimed movie by Steven Spielberg and starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. This movie was nominated for 11 Oscars but couldn't win even a single one, a record it shares with The Turning Point.

The TRUTH-SEEKERs for this round are :-

Manish Achuth - 3 (early bird)
Sandipan Chakravarty - 1
Nishanth Jayarajan - 1
Ullash Gutgotia - 1
Vibhash Awasthi - 1
Nishit Ganatra - 1
VIAC - 1
Parag Lokhande - 1
Shrinidhi Rai - 1
Susilkumars Sundaravaradan - 1
Ajay Sahoo -1
Vivek Acharya - 1
Chetan Prusty - 1
Souvik Mandal - 1


Congratulations to all of you. Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link. I will be back with the next round tomorrow.

Starter for 10

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 3rd December, 6:00 A.M.(GMT). Don't forget to read the RULES POST to see how you score points in this quiz before sending the answers. I will be back with the answers, scores and the next quiz on 3rd Dec.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. Identify this movie whose poster is shown below. (Clue: Although critically acclaimed it holds a dubious record w.r.t. awards)

Answers to Ninth Gate

The answers are:

1. Reebok.(From top left in clockwise manner:- Chariots of fire, the running shoes worn by the famous athletes Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddel in the 1924 Summer Olympics, featured in this movie were designed by none other than Reebok Shoes Company; Manish Arora, who has designed the Fish Fry range of shoes for Reebok; Scarlett Johansson, who is the brand ambassador for Reebok and promotes the Hearts range of shoes; Jay-Z, who was the first non-athlete to recieve a signature Reebok shoe - I knowingly didn't include any athletes :))

2. Palk Strait (Other acceptable answers are Adam's Bridge, Rama Bridge, Sethusamudram Project)

The two quiz no-early-bird jinx has been broken and we finally have an early bird winner this time. Thanks for the great response shown. Keep flooding my mailbox the same way. The TRUTH-SEEKERs for this round are :-

Nishit Ganatra - 3 (early bird)
Ullash Gutgutia - 2
Praveen - 2
Sadashiv N - 1
Sandeep Kumar - 1
Anand Shankar - 1
Ais Dev - 1
Neelu Tripathy - 1
Sabarish Senthil - 1
Sandipan Chakravarty - 1

Congratulations to all of you. Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link.

Ninth Gate

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 27th November, 6:00 A.M.(GMT). Don't forget to read the RULES POST to see how you score points in this quiz before sending the answers. I will be back with the answers, scores and the next quiz on 27th Nov.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. Identify what is being shown in this satellite image.(Clue: It's been in news for sometime now)

Answers to 8 MM

The answers are:

1. Catwoman. (From top in clockwise manner:- Bob Kane, who along with Bill Finger created the character; Halle Berry, who portrayed the character in the movie of the same name; Michelle Pfeiffer, who portrayed the character in the movie Batman Returns).

2. Newton's Cradle or Newton's Balls, a device used to demonstrated the conservation of momentum and energy.

This is second time in a row that there have been no all correct replies. So nobody gets the early bird bonus. The TRUTH-SEEKERs for this round are :-

Husain Poonawala - 1
Priya Kamala - 1
VIAC - 1
Anindip Dwari - 1

Congratulations to all of you. Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link.

8 MM

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 23rd November, 6:00 A.M.(GMT). Don't forget to read the RULES POST to see how you score points in this quiz before sending the answers. I will be back with the answers, scores and the next quiz on 23rd Nov.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. Identify this particular device/apparatus. (Clue: Think Scientific laws)

Answers to Seven Samurai

Sorry for the delay in posting the answers. The answers are:

1. Benetton. (From top in clockwise order:- Luciano Benetton, the chairman of the Benetton Group; Oliviero Toscani, who was responsible for designing the controversial Benetton ads from 1982 - 2000; Michael Schumacher who won his first F1 driver championship with Benetton Ford racing team.)

2. Bindeez toy, also known as Aqua dots, which was awarded the Australian Toy of the year in 2007 and among many surveys was named as one of the 12 best toys of 2007. This was in news recently in news after being withdrawn from all global markets after some children took ill because of swallowing the beads.

The questions this time proved to be extremely tough as I got lot of wrong replies. The TRUTH-SEEKER for this round is :-

Anant Singhania - 1

Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link. I will be back with the new questions in a day.

Seven Samurai

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 17th November, 6:00 A.M.(GMT). Don't forget to read the RULES POST to see how you score points in this quiz before sending the answers. I will be back with the answers, scores and the next quiz on 17th Nov.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. Identify. ( An Easy One - Making amends for the tough picture in the last quiz)

Answers to Sixth Sense

The answers are :

1. Dhoni (From top in clockwise direction:- Dhoni is a special type of boat used in Maldives (I have no idea if Dhoni gets his name from there or gives his name to it !!!); MS Dhoni was the MTV youth icon of year 2006; Brylcreem was one of the first ads Dhoni signed for (ala another great indian wicketkeeper Farookh Engineer)).

2. Only one person got it right. This character is Barney Google seen here with his pet Spark Plug. He is one of the 20 comic characters immortalized by the comic strip classic series of commemorative stamps in the US.

Dhoni seems to be probably next most popular cricketer after Sachin as almost everyone cracked the first one easily. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the great response to this series of quizzes and for taking the site hits past 1000. I will try to make these quizzes as interesting as possible. Your suggestions are welcome and do mail them to hookonthedot@gmail.com .

The TRUTH-SEEKERS for this round:-

Sandipan Chakravarty - 3 (early bird)
Shiv Anant Tayal - 1
Aditya Modi - 1
Praveen - 1
Kamal Rathi - 1
Sneha ranjan - 1
Abhishek Sahay - 1
Husain Poonawala - 1
Venkatesh - 1
Sharat Nambissan - 1
Shyam Naren - 1
Nishit Ganatra - 1
Roshan Lal Anand - 1
Vipul Dassani - 1

Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link.

Sixth Sense

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 13th November, 8:00 A.M.(GMT). Don't forget to read the RULES POST to see how you score points in this quiz before sending the answers. I will be back with the answers, scores and the next quiz on 13th Nov.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. Identify this Comic Strip character.(Clue: Think internet)

Answers to Fifth Element

The answers are:

1. Samsonite (From top in clockwise direction:- Alicia Keys dedicated the song Samsonite Man from her album The Diary of Alicia Keys to the luxury brand; American Tourister which was acquired by Samsonite; Lacoste which has given Samsonite the worldwide license to design its bags)

2. Probably the most recognizable person in the world - Charlie Chaplin (though he is pretty unrecognizable here)

The TRUTH-SEEKERS for this round are:-

Nishit Ganatra - 3 (q2: by any chance ? - ofcourse dude)(early bird)
Sandipan Chakravarty - 2
Chetan Prusty - 2
Sadashiv N - 2
Gaurav Jindal - 1
Varun Reddy - 1
Varun - 1
Kamal Rathi - 1
Vivek Venugopalan - 1
Srihari K - 1
Anirudh Venky - 1
K.V.Krishnamurthy - 1
Neethu Ramachandra - 0.5 (you gave me everything except for the connection for q1)

Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link.

Fifth Element

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. After two seemingly tough questions in the last round, this time I have brought in two rather easy ones. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 10th November, 6:00 A.M.(GMT). Don't forget to read the RULES POST to see how you score points in this quiz before sending the answers. I will be back with the answers, scores and the next quiz on 10th Nov.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. Seems familiar??? Who's this famous celebrity?.

How to Score - Changes

Upon requests from several people, I am changing the scoring pattern for the quizzes. For more information check out the RULES link. The previous scores have been accordingly updated as per the new format.

Answers to Fantastic Four

The answers are:

1. The connection is all their respective identities and images are protected by CMG Worldwide.(From top left: Arthur Ashe, Mahatma Gandhi, Ingrid Bergman, Malcolm X, Marilyn Monroe and Mark Twain)

2. Larry King.

The TRUTH-SEEKERS for this round are:-
Tathagata - 1
Chetan Prusty - 1

Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link.

Fantastic Four

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 6th November, 6:00 A.M.(GMT). Don't forget to read the RULES POST to see how you score points in this quiz before sending the answers. I will be back with the answers, scores and the next quiz on 6th Nov.

Here we go...

1. Connect these six people with something particular. Remember they are part of a long list.

2. Identify this person whose mug shot is shown.

Podium Standings

After an overwhelming response, there are lots of new entrants in the podium this week. The Cumulative Scores with scores attained in the previous quiz in brackets:

1.  Sandipan Chakravarty - 23 (1) 
2.  Sabarish Senthil - 11.5 (2)
3.  Chetan Prusty - 11
4.  Nishit Ganatra - 9
5.  Siddharth Jain - 7.5
6.  Tathagata - 7 
     VIAC - 7 
     Srinivas Rajagopal - 7 
7.  Ullash Gutgutia - 4
     Pranesh Prakash - 4
     Bhavin Vora - 4
8.  Priya Kamala - 4.5 (2)
9.  Nikhil Lasrado - 3.5 
10.Sudarshan Mohan - 3
    Abhishek Sahay - 3
    Sadashiv N - 3
    Manish Achuth - 3
    Praveen - 3
    Nishanth Raman - 3
    Brian D'Souza - 3
    Karan S - 3 
    Anubhav chatterjee - 3
  Sriram Gopalaswamy - 3 (3)
    Sylvian Patrick - 3 (3)
11.Sundari - 2.5  
    Sucharit Katyal - 2.5 
12.Varun Agarwal - 2
    Mathew Vargese - 2
    Kamal Rathi - 2
    Tirumal Chamarti - 2
    Husain Poonawala - 2
    Shyam Naren - 2
    Nishanth Jayarajan - 2
    Mit Chowdhury - 2
    Rajiv D'Silva - 2
    Prahlad S - 2
    Pratik Shukla - 2
    Varun - 2
    Saket Ranjan - 2
    Thomas Mathew - 2
    R.Varun Krishna - 2 
    Rishabh Kaul - 2 
    Ninad W - 2 
    Arun Thulasi - 2
    Shubhendu Saha - 2 (2)
    Preshanth Sampath - 2 (2)   
    Sharath Bhagavan - 2 (2)
    Raji Muthukrishnan - 2 (2)
    Batty Bryant - 2 (1)
    Sayantan Bose - 2 (1)
13.Gaurav Jindal - 1
    Varun Reddy - 1
    Vivek Venugopalan - 1
    Srihari K - 1
    Anirudh Venky - 1
    K.V.Krishnamurthy - 1
    Shiv Anant Tayal - 1
    Aditya Modi - 1
    Sneha ranjan - 1
    Venkatesh - 1
    Sharat Nambissan - 1
    Roshan Lal Anand - 1
    Anant Singhania - 1
    Anandip Dwari - 1
    Sandeep Kumar - 1
    Anand Shankar - 1
    Ais Dev - 1
    Neelu Tripathy - 1
    Vibhash Awasthi - 1
    Parag Lokhande - 1
    Shrinidhi Rai - 1
    Susilkumars Sundaravaradan - 1
    Ajay Sahoo -1
    Vivek Acharya - 1
    Souvik Mandal - 1
    Manjit Mohanty - 1
    Rajkamal Vasu - 1
    Niranjan Salimath - 1
    Nikhil - 1
    Dhruv Mangal - 1
    Prateek Vijayavargia - 1
    Santanu Dey - 1
    Shishir Shivhare - 1
    Mohammed Zuber - 1
    Venkatasubramanian Ramachandran - 1
    Kshira Saagar - 1
    Jagadish Mahendran - 1
    Nitin Nair - 1 (1)
    Uttam Padukone - 1 (1)
    barb rose - 1 (1)
    Dwarkanath - 1 (1)
    Santoshv - 1 (1)
    Bhargav Shastry - 1 (1)
    Jitaditya Narzary - 1 (1)
    Arun Arumugham - 1 (1)
    S Srinath - 1 (1)
    Amit Singh - 1 (1)
    Anand Babu - 1 (1)
14.Neethu Ramachandra - 0.5

Answers to Three Musketeers

The answers are :

1. The connection is Sherlock Holmes. (From top left: Lord Swaraj Paul who is famously called Baron of Baker Street, Baker Street being the place where the fictitious Holmes lived; Scotland Yard whose criminal database is known as Home Office Large Major Enquiry System(HOLMES); Royal Society of Chemistry, Holmes was the first and probably only fictional character to be inducted; Strand Magazine where it was published for the first time.)

2. Lady Kalla, a single edition watch designed by Vacheron Constantin, given as special wedding gift to the late Princess Diana. Carved from 18-carat white gold, the watch was made of 108 emerald-cut, perfectly matched diamonds, with 26 more on the dial, adding up to 30 carats of diamonds with 3,172 facets. It cost $500,000, and it is obviously worth a lot more now. Anyone wants to buy!!!

The TRUTH-SEEKERS for this round are:
Sandipan Chakravarty - 2
Tirumal Chamarti - 2
Anubhav chatterjee - 1
Abhishek Sahay - 2
Tathagata - 3 (Early bird)

Way to go quizzers. Check out the next quiz in my post later today.

Three Musketeers

So, finally, questions are ready to roll. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 2nd November, 6:00 A.M.(GMT). Don't forget to read the RULES POST to see how you score points in this quiz before sending the answers. I will be back with the answers, scores and the next quiz on 2nd Nov.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. For whom was this watch designed and name the brand? (clue: This was a wedding gift for a celebrity and was one of the few things recovered from that person's dead body)

Quizzing Re-incarnated

After a long hiatus, I am back to my quizzing ways. There will be some small changes in the way this quiz will now be run. The new rules for this quiz are:

1. There will be one connection question and a pictorial question in every quiz. Sometimes there might be a bonus question carrying 1 point.
2. Quizzers will have to reply the answers back within the mentioned period to the mail id mentioned.
3. Keep coming for more quizzes every time because apart from individual quiz score count, I would also be maintaining the overall cumulative scores.
4. The point scoring system is as follows: each connection question carries 1 point and the pictorial question carries 1 point. The first all correct reply also gets an additional 1 point.
5. The pictures are normally of 800 x 600 resolution so you can either do a view image (mozilla) or copy the picture (other browsers) to view the bigger image.

The quiz begins today. So get ready for exploiting your gray cells!!!