Retinal Cerebrations

SpringSpree'10 Alert!!!

2010-02-23T13:50:00.000+05:30

Well as I have been mentioning all along, just over a week is left for this year's one of the most happening quizzes to begin. Springspree is the annual cultural fest of NIT Warangal and this year's edition (though delayed due to unforeseen circumstances) promises to be a unforgettable one. This year's "SPREE" boasts of a plethora of quizzing events with a prize money of over 90K up for grabs. Starting from 5th March, the event features a General Quiz, a Biz Quiz, a SpEnt (Sports & Entertainment) Quiz, an India Quiz, a Back to School lone wolf Quiz and a local flavoured Tollywood Quiz. For more details do check out SpringSpree website and also the unofficial NITW quizzing blog . So folks don't miss out on this great quizzing fest (though it will back again next year but who knows their may not be a next year :P). In the meanwhile drool over this year's posters.

Road To SpringSpree '10 - part III...

2010-02-18T13:30:00.001+05:30

Leave your answers as comments. Answers in 5 days.
1. Connect.

2. Identify this celebrity. (clue: You definitely know him)

Again few answers this time with Chetan getting the first one...

1. Connection is Ocean's Eleven. (Lennox Lewis and Wladimir Klistchko were involved in a bout during the heist in the movie; The Rat Pack comprising of Frank Sinatra and co. which starred in the original; Steven Soderberg who directed the George Clooney and Brad Pitt starrer)

2. Believe it or Not... It's Michael Jackson as the Mayor from the music video Ghosts.

I'll be back with new questions in a day or two...

Road To SpringSpree '10 - part II...

2010-02-08T12:03:00.001+05:30

I am back with a fresh set of questions...

1. Connect

2. Identify the comic book character who shares his/her name with this creature.

Got a better set of reply than last time...Sandi and Kaushik got the second one while Chetan got the first one.

1. Connection is Laloo Prasad Yadav (from top right: Delhi Daredevils IPL team mascot - his son Tejaswinini Yadav is in the team; Fodder Scaml; RJD symbol; Mahesh Manjrekar who directed the movie Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav.)

2. Wolverine (the animal is Gulo Gulo also called the same)

I'll be back with new questions in 2 days time.

Road To SpringSpree '10 - part I...

2010-01-29T16:55:00.001+05:30

Well I am back to quizzing again after a pretty enormous layoff (please don't read it as "company layoff")... and in time for NIT Warangal's spring fest. Considering the fact that this time around the event is being considered to be a big crowd puller with its tempting prize money (check out the site for the details), claims of an innovative take on quizzing of best quality possible and an expected participation from some of the country's quizzing powerhouses. Nevertheless I dedicate my questions for the coming month to Spring Spree 2010. Leave your answers as comments.
1. Connect

2. Identify this flag (clue: Think about Indian Independence Struggle)

Didn't get too many replies this time around except for old warhorse Chetan springing in a reply... Anyways here are the answers:

1. Connections is the part game/part social network virtual world Second Life designed by Linden Labs (logo) and the 4 indian companies/organisation having their virtual offices in it.

2. Ghadar Party

Answers to Number Seventeen

2008-05-22T13:10:00.002+05:30

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

2008-05-14T00:58:00.003+05:30

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

2008-04-16T16:16:00.004+05:30

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...

2008-04-02T13:26:00.003+05:30

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

2008-03-31T19:01:00.003+05:30

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

2008-03-24T12:35:00.002+05:30

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

2008-02-29T17:54:00.000+05:30

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...

2008-02-28T10:28:00.003+05:30

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

2008-02-21T17:43:00.003+05:30

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

2008-02-12T14:55:00.000+05:30

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

2008-02-05T18:19:00.000+05:30

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

2008-01-23T16:23:00.000+05:30

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

2008-01-17T11:30:00.000+05:30

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

2008-01-16T14:51:00.000+05:30

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

2008-01-09T12:53:00.000+05:30

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)

Roman Holiday

2007-12-18T16:30:00.000+05:30

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

2007-12-11T14:11:00.000+05:30

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

2007-12-07T01:24:00.000+05:30

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

2007-12-04T18:03:00.001+05:30

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

2007-12-03T18:29:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-27T15:44:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-27T15:09:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-23T16:12:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-23T15:59:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-20T16:24:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-19T19:06:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-14T02:30:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-13T17:54:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-11T01:41:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-11T01:06:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-07T01:17:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-06T22:52:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-06T22:44:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-03T03:19:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-03T03:14:00.009+05:30

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

2007-11-03T02:14:00.000+05:30

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

2007-10-31T01:18:00.000+05:30

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

2007-10-29T02:24:00.000+05:30

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!!!

Answers to Part Deux

2006-11-05T20:49:00.000+05:30

The answers are :-

1. The connection is Adolf Hitler.
( From top left: Charlie Chaplin whose character in The Great Dictator was a parody of Hitler, Eva Braun who was Hitler's girlfriend and Yertle the Turtle, a cartoon character based on Hitler)

2. The connection is only three Indians featuring in the 20 most influential Asians of the 20th century declared by TIME magazine.
( From left: Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and M.S. Swaminathan, the person behind the Green Revolution)

3. The connection is the only Indians to take all the 10 wickets in an innings on Indian soil.
( From left : Anil Kumble, Debashish Mohanty and Subhas Gupte)

The truth-seeker for this quiz -
Golak Bihari Sarangi - 2.

Part Deux

2006-10-13T21:24:00.000+05:30

"What is common to Taurus, the famous nickname of the subordinate of many Fictional villains, magic number in science, helium, Ten Commandments and @ symbol?"

Two... Not only the essence of phrases such as "Two to Tango", "Two is company" etc but also symbolising the truth that an individual is always alone and he needs company to survive. ( Ans - second sign of zodiac, Number Two, first magic number, atomic mass, Ten Commandments were given in the form of two tablets and @ symbol and 2 are present in the same key in a keyboard )

This week's questions are comparitively easier than last time (aimed at getting more replies :D ). Send your mails to hookonthedot@gmail.com . Answers will be out on 4th November. At the end of the month I will also announce the month's cumulative score which will be carried forward to next month.
So what are you waiting for ? Get Rolling...

1. Connect these with a single person.

2. Connect these three persons. (Hint: Think of some achievement)

3. Connect these three cricketers.

Answers to Numero Uno !!!

2006-10-13T21:12:00.000+05:30

Phew!!! Got lot of hits on my page after the First quiz but only 4 replies. Well if that's how every great thing begins then I am OK with it... :)

Here are the answers:

1. Connection - Popeye
(From bottom left in clockwise manner) - Elzie Crisler Segar, creator of Popeye the sailor; King Features Comic where Popeye the sailor appeared in the thimble theatre strip for the first time; Paramount Pictures , Popeye cartoons appeared for the first time on TV adapted by Fleischer Studios for Paramount Pictures; and Gene Hackman whose oscar winning character in The French Connection was famously nicknamed Popeye.

2. Connection - George Lucas
(From top left in clockwise manner) - THX , rade name of a high-fidelity sound reproduction system which was develeped at George Lucas' Lucas Films and also the name of Lucas film THX 1138; Skywalker Sound owned by Lucas(sound division); Industrial Light and Magic owned by Lucas(visual effects division); and the Golden Guy logo of Lucas Arts owned by Lucas(gaming division).

3. Connection - These were the Nominees for the wax statue dedicated to Bollywood at the Madame Tussauds in London. Finally Amitabh Bachchan won.
(From top left clockwise manner) - Aishwarya Rai, Amitabh Bachchan, Raj Kapoor, Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit.(This turned out to be a RIPPER!!!)

And the successful TRUTH-SEEKERS with their scores are :

Priyambad Pattanayak - 2 (well I wanted to put Robin Williams in here too but didnt and outstanding guessing for the Amitabh Connect though incorrect)
Nishad Musthafa - 2
Sai Ganesh - 1
karthik Narayan - 2

Numero Uno

2006-10-05T13:03:00.000+05:30

" What is common to 'The Magician', Aries, Car of previous champion in Formula One racing, the saviour in the series 'The Matrix' , Hydrogen and God? "

One ... Not just a symbol of brilliance and extraordinaire but also the answer to the above question ( Ans - first one in tarot card, first sign of zodiac, number inscribed on the car, Neo was referred as this in the series, atomic number and there is only one God )

So with this we start the first quiz of Retinal Cerebrations. The pictures aren't of excellent quality this time but I'll try to improve upon it for the next quiz. There are three visual treats to be decrypted within 7 days. The truth-seekers' names will be out on 13th Oct. Reach me before that on this id hookonthedot@gmail.com . So here we go...

1. Connect these images.

2. Connect these logos with a single person.

3. Connect these persons by something unique.

Here We Go !!!

2006-10-02T01:42:00.000+05:30

Quizzing is not just about competition, it is more about sharing the enormous amount of knowledge spread across the living and non living world around us. It is more about putting your knowledge to practical use through calculative guesses and innovative co-relations. It is my humble attempt to share with all of you my passion for quizzing and instantiate the dream of a world where knowledge knows no boundaries and knowledge is free.

So charge up your batteries and get your grey cells to work because we are ready to blast off this series of connections that can be decrypted by only those who have a proper synchronisation between their cerebral and occular armory. The goal is to decrypt the images in each of the questions and to find out how each of them is related to the invisible answer. You have seven days to search for the truth and if you succeed your name will be glorified by finding a place among the greatest truth seekers for the whole world to see.

So what are we waiting for ? Let the questions roll and here we go !!!