Answers to Number Seventeen

The answers are:

1. Big Brother (From top left in clockwise manner: Arshad Warsi who hosted Indian version of Big Brother series, Big Boss; 1984 movie poster based on George Orwell's classic which gave rise to the term 'Big Brother'; Sunny Deol who starred in the movie Big Brother; Shilpa Shetty who overnight became an international celebrity after winning the UK Celebrity Big Brother edition and also being involved in a racism row; Oasis band whose music was sold in UK and Ireland through Big Brother Recording Labels)

2. Kamalahasan in the movie Kalathur Kannamma when he debuted at the age of 6 and that was enough for him to win his first National Award for best child artiste. He later went on to take 3 more National awards for the best actor, the most by anyone till date.

The Truth Seekers for this round are:

Sriram Gopalaswamy - 3 (early bird)
Priya Kamala - 2
Shubhendu Saha - 2
Sylvian Patrick - 2
Preshanth Sampath - 2
Sharath Bhagavan - 2
Raji Muthukrishnan - 2
Sabarish Senthil - 2
Nitin Nair - 1
Batty Bryant - 1
Uttam Padukone - 1
barb rose - 1
Dwarkanath - 1
Santoshv - 1
Bhargav Shastry - 1
Jitaditya Narzary - 1
Arun Arumugham - 1
S Srinath - 1
Amit Singh - 1
Anand Babu - 1
Sayantan Bose - 1
Sandipan Chakravarty - 1

Congratulations to all of you and thanks for this overwhelming response to this quiz. Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link. I will be back with the next round next week.

Number Seventeen

Sorry for being away for some time. Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 21st May, 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 21st May.

Here we go...

1. Connect these.

2. Identify this actor who debuted as a child artist but later went on to become a legendary actor.

Answers to Thank You for the Music

The answers are as follows:

1. Vande Mataram by A R Rahman

2. Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers

3. Self Portrait by Bob Dylan

4. Nine Lives by Aerosmith

5. Sifar by Lucky Ali

6. Standing on the Shoulder of Giants by Oasis (it is a photo of New York skyline taken from the rooftop of Rockfeller Centre with Empire State Building in the view)

7. Hotel California by Eagles

8. Hybrid Theory by Linkin Park

9. Trafalgar by Bee Gees

10. Bridges to Babylon by Rolling Stones.

11. Kandisa by Indian Ocean

12. Ghost in the Machine by The Police (The cover art features an LED-inspired graphic that depicts the heads of the three band members each with a distinctive hair style (from left to right, Andy Summers, Sting spiky hair, and Stewart Copeland a fringe))

13. News of the World by Queen (The album's cover was a painting by award-winning American sci fi artist Frank Kelly Feas)

14. Full Circle by The Doors.

15. St. Anger by Metallica.

16. Natural Elements by Shakti with John McLaughlin (Shakti comprises of musicians such as L Shankar, Zakri Hussain and T H Vinayakaram)

The Truth Seekers for this round are:

Srinivas Rajagopal - 14
Sandipan Chakravarty - 10
Nikhil Lasrado - 7
Sabarish Senthil - 7
Siddharth Jain - 7
Sucharit Katyal - 5
Arun Thulasi - 4
Priya Kamala - 3
Anubhav Chatterjee - 2

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 soon.

Thank You For the Music...

Well the wait is finally over. Here are the questions for my first special features quiz which this time is the Album Covers Quiz. There are 16 album covers in total that needs to be identified and time frame is 2 weeks. Each identification will fetch 1 point and a total of 16 points can be scored. However only 0.25 points will added to the cumulative scores for each correct answer in this round and this is being done so as to maintain a level of consistency in the blog and not let any single round drastically change the cumulative score scenario. Anyways let me also tell you that only the band/singer name won't fetch you any points as I need the name of the album. Do let me know how you feel regarding this new initiative taken and your advices regarding the blog are welcome. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 16th April, 6:00 AM (GMT). I will be back with the scores and answers on the same date.

Here we go...

1. Identify the Album. (clue: An Indian album, sitter)

2. Identify the Album.

3. Identify the Album.

4. Identify the Album. (clue: This was the original cover for the album but was later changed due to opposition)

5. Identify the Album. (clue: Another Indian Album)

6. Identify the Album.

7. Identify the Album.

8. Identify the Album.

9. Identify the Album.

10. Identify the Album.

11. Identify the Album. (clue: Another Indian Album)

12. Identify the Album.

13. Identify the Album.

14. Identify the Album.

15. Identify the Album.

16. Identify the Album. (clue: This isn't by a band/singer rather a group of highly established musicians, a work of fusion and spirituality)

P.S: I regret the quality of certain images but this is the best I could get.

Answers to 16 Blocks

The answers are:

1. Munich/Bavaria, both will fetch full points whereas Germany fetches you only 0.5 poins. (From top left in clockwise manner: Oktoberfest, probably world's largest fair is held in Munich;Sir Matthew Busby,former Manager of Manchester United team whose illustrious team was nicknamed busby babes. The busby babes including the manager were involved in the Munich Air Disaster in 1958 in which eight of them died;Steven Spielberg, director of the movie Munich based on the killings of the Israeli Olympic team during the 1972 Munich Olympics, an incident famously known as Black September; BMW, is headquartered in Munich.)

2. This weird guitarist is Duke, the mascot of Java programming language.

3. The only teams to have won the FA Premier League now better known as Barclays Premier League or English Premier League(EPL) since its inception in 1992. For those of you who aren't sports fanatic type, EPL is the main club football league of England and is one of the most watched sports leagues ever in the world. The clubs insignias shown are (from top left in clockwise manner) Arsenal(1997-98, 2001-02,2003-04), Chelsea(2004-05,2005-06), my favourite Manchester United(1992-93, 1993-94, 1995-96, 1996-97, 1998-99, 1999-00, 2000-01, 2002-03, 2006-07) and Blackburn Rovers(1994-95).

The Truth Seekers for this round are:

Chetan Prusty - 4 (early bird)
Siddharth Jain - 3
Sundari - 2.5
Tathagat - 2
R.Varun Krishna - 2
Rishabh Kaul - 2
Bhavin Vora - 2
VIAC - 2
Ninad W - 2
Kshira Saagar - 1
Sandipan Chakravarty - 1
Jagadish Mahendran - 1

Congratulations to all of you. Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link wherein I have done some changes to the feel of it. Thank you very much for the tremendous response you have shown to my quizzes. Hence as a special treat from my side, I will be coming up with certain special quizzes every 1.5 - 2 months. The first one will be out this week and will be an identify the album covers quiz. These special quizzes will be special i.e., they will be topic oriented, won't be like my normal visual quizzes, will have a different scoring pattern but points gained will reflect in the cumulative scores section and will have more number of questions while giving you a greater time period to answer. So keep waiting for it. Do tell me how I can improve the blog and if any special quizzes you are interested in.

16 Blocks

Sorry people for the delay in posting the next set of questions. And after getting lot of requests to get back to quizzing, I think I couldn't delay any further. So here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 31st March, 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 31st Mar.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. Identify this mascot. (clue: Again from the world for computers and Information Technology)

3. An easy bonus question for sports lovers. Connect.(Please be specific)

Answers to 15 Minutes

The answers are:

1. The one and only my favourite, A R Rahman (From top left in clockwise manner: Trinity College of Music from where he graduated with a degree in Western Classical Music; Panchathan Record Inn, his recording studio in Chennai; The Lord Of the Rings, Rahman composed the music for the LOTR theatre production with Finnish group Varttina; Padma Shri, Rahman is a padma shri recipient ; Save the Children Foundation, one of the charities that Rahman supports.)

2. Kosovo or Republic of Kosovo which recently announced its independence from Serbia.

The Truth Seekers for this round are:

Chetan Prusty - 3 (early bird)
Saket Ranjan - 2
Thomas Mathew - 2
Varun - 1
Venkatasubramanian Ramachandran - 1
Vipul Dassani - 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 soon.

The Winner Takes It All...

Most of you have known me as a quiz blogger for the past 4-5 months. But before these blogs happened, I was involved with a quiz group(I am still involved with it now though less physically) with a bunch of enthusiastic beings who were up for almost any challenge in the field of quizzing. At the time of its inception, we had set a time frame of 5 years to get the group to the forefront of quizzing in eastern India. But it is thanks to their commitment that we are a force to reckon in less than the targeted time frame. In fact I am writing all this to congratulate two of my group mates Manjit Mohanty and Nishit Ganatra for winning the Tata Crucible Campus Quiz, Kolkata Edition and thus becoming the first ever team from Bhubaneswar to qualify for the National finals. If you are not aware of the level of quizzing/competition in these events check out Tathagata's blog or the Tata Crucible site for more details. And don't go by the podium standing of these two guys on my blog; you can safely put your money on them. Well I'll speak for myself, congrats Nishit and Manjit ... you guys have made me proud and justified my faith in our quizzing club/culture.

15 Minutes

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 28 February, 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 28th Feb.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. Identify this country/region whose flag is shown below. (clue: It was very much in news recently)

Answers to Saturday the 14th

The answers are:

1. Dream Team (From top left in clockwise manner: The Dream Team Movie starring Michael Keaton and Christopher Llyod; The Dream Team WWF tag team comprising of Brutus 'The Barber' Beefcake and Greg 'The Hammer' Valentine; The Marvel Comics Dream Team comprising of American Dream, FreeBooter, Crimson Curse and BlueStreak; The US Basketball Team at 1992 Olympics nicknamed Dream Team consisting of legends like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Larry Bird etc.)

2. Maitri, India's second permanent research station in Antartica built after Dakshin Gangotri got buried under ice.(I have awarded points to those who have mentioned either of the two names or Antartica)

The Truth Seekers for this round are:

Sudarshan Mohan - 3 (early bird)
Brian D'Souza - 2
Varun Agarwal - 2
Sandipan Chakravarty - 2
Mathew Vargese - 2
Karan S - 2
Pratik Shukla - 1
Shishir Shivhare - 1
Mohammed Zuber - 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 next Tuesday.

Saturday the 14th

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 12th February, 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 12th Feb.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. Identify this building/place, even mentioning its importance would do. (clue: Think India)

Answers to Thir13en Ghosts

The answers are:

1. Satyajit Ray (From top left in clockwise manner: Byomkesh Bakshi, Satyajit Ray had made a movie Chiriyakhana based on one of Byomkesh's stories with Uttam Kumar portraying the master detective; Ray Bizarre Font developed by Satyajit Ray; Columbia Pictures, which was supposed to produce the Ray movie The Alien with Marlon Brando and Peter Sellers in the lead, however the movie was never made and the script is rumoured to have inspired Steven Spielberg into making E.T.; the cover of the Sandesh magazine that was revived by Ray; Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from The Simpsons which was a tribute to Ray's character from the Apu trilogy.)

2. PEdestrian LIght COntrolled Crossing (PELICON Crossing), also known as Pelican crossing. ( I got a variety of answers for this but I needed this specific answer so points to only Sabarish and Sandi for this answer)

The Truth Seekers for this round are:

Sabarish Senthil - 3 (early bird)
Sandipan Chakravarty - 2
Prateek Vijayavargia - 1
Santanu Dey - 1
Brian D'Souza - 1
Tathagata - 1
Karan S - 1
Nishanth Raman - 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 soon.

Thir13en Ghosts

Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 23rd January, 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 Jan.

Here we go...

1. Connect.

2. Name this device/equipment which I think is extensively used in foreign countries but not in India (correct me if I am wrong).

Answers to 12 Angry Men

The answers are:

1. Coca Cola (From top left in clockwise manner: SunTrust Bank in Atlanta which holds the original copy for the formula of Coca Cola; John Pemberton, creator of Coca Cola; Taal which showcased Coca Cola in a in-film branding mold; Pizza-Hut which has a tie up with Coca Cola [this clue was a bit ambiguous because Pizza-Hut also has a tie up with Coke's rivals Pepsico, so sorry for this clue]; Olympic games, Coca Cola was its first ever sponsor and has been sponsoring it till date)

2. Iron Maiden, a historical torture device. The photo shown is the most famous one of Nuremberg.

3. This is a map showing the penetration/maximum usage of social networking sites across the globes. The actual map is shown below. No points have been awarded for answers such as orkut users or orkut density.

The TRUTH-SEEKERs for this round are :-

Pranesh Prakash - 4 (early bird)
Bhavin Vora - 2
Mit Chowdhury - 2
Rajiv D'Silva - 2
Prahlad S - 2
Nishanth Raman - 2
Sabarish Senthil - 2
Sandipan Chakravarty - 2
Sayantan Bose - 1
Sylvian Patrick - 1
Rajkamal Vasu - 1
Anubhav Chatterjee - 1
Niranjan Salimath - 1
Pratik Shukla - 1
Nikhil - 1
Dhruv Mangal - 1

Congratulations to all of you. Check out the updated cumulative scores in the The Cumulative Scores link. The total number of challengers on the podium has gone past 50, so the game is really heating up. I will be back with the next round soon.

12 Angry Men

Well I am back and hopefully this year we will see even better quizzes than last year. Here are the questions for this episode of Retinal Cerebrations. Send your answers to hookonthedot@gmail.com before 16th January, 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 16th Jan.

Here we go...

1. Connect these.

2. Identify this structure. A generic answer would do. (Clue: Think of a band)

3. Here's a bonus question to start off the new year. What is the map depicting? (Clue: Its got something to do with internet, lookout for some pattern)