The over 35 Trivia Quiz

Because I am surrounded by people who were born so recently that I’m feeling allot older than I really am, because I don’t want to refer to shows and movies that went off the air a decade before most of my co-workers were born, and most of all, because I had some free time and wanted to kill an hour, I came up with the over 35 TV quiz.

Very few people under 35 should be able to get most of these (no fair looking it up!).

And if nothing else, maybe it’ll spur some memories for the rest of us.

Anyway – have fun with it.

1. Who did Dietrich replace?

a. Yemana
b. Fish
c. Amenguale
d. A and B
e. None of the above
f. Who’s that?

2. Les Nessman reported the Pinedale shopping mall was being bombed with

a. Dynamite
b. Live turkeys
c. Water balloons
d. Hand Grenades
e. Who?

3. Fred Willard was in two spin-offs from Mary Hartman Mary Hartman. Name one

4. Burt Campbell:

a. Was abducted by aliens
b. Killed his wife’s first husband
c. Thought he was invisible
d. Became sheriff
e. All of the above

5. Moonbase Alpha was near a nuclear waste dump in

a. UFO
b. Space 1999
c. Thunderbirds
d. Silent Running

6. Jerry Robinson’s receptionist was named

a. Jenny
b. Carol
c. Linda
d. Jennifer
e. He didn’t have one

7. Jim Rockford’s father’s nickname was:

a. “Angel”
b. “Bear”
c. “Rocky”
d. “Marty”

8. Baretta’s "street connection" (ie snitch) was named:

a. Huggy Bear
b. Brubaker
c. Billy
d. Rooster
e. Sam

9. Name the show:

a. “Book ‘em Danno”
b. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”
c. “God'll getcha for that”
d. “Mom liked you best”
e. “Sock it to me”

BONUS
10. Where is it “Where nothing can possibly go worng”? *NOTE THE SPELLING*

Information in ever diminishing circles

Some time ago, my wife bought me a wireless keyboard-mouse combination. They’re quite nice, made by Hewlett-Packard and they work wonderfully.

Being no stranger to computer peripherals, I hooked them up and started playing with them, disregarding the instruction booklet as just more packaging material.

I happened to page through it in a moment of complete boredom while waiting for a large application to load, reboot, load, reboot and so on.

I came across this. (I added the circles).



















This is why I don’t read instructions.

WARNING: I’m on my soapbox

I found this picture in the news section of Yahoo. I had to keep it and post it here, as it seemed to me to be the iconic memorial to the victims and losses we’ve all had since 9/11.

Sadness, shock, grief, all of these emotions still linger, even after five years, but there’s a resilience too. As a nation, we are willing to continue, to do what we need to do, to keep working, to keep living – even in the teeth of such trauma.

I know I sound pompous, and New York might as well be Africa or England for all I know about the place, or the chance that I might actually go there, but on this, the fifth anniversary of 9/11, there is a sense of determined nationalism that for a single day unites us all. Tomorrow we’ll go back to being Democrats and Republicans, anti- war, anti-Bush, pro-war, pro-Bush and we’ll cuss each other out for being too stupid to be on the “right” side.

But not today.

Today is a day of tragedy. Today is a day of loss. Today is a day of pride and self-respect.

Never forget.

Reduce heat, simmer until golden brown

It’s September. Sure, it’s still hot, yes, there’s enough humidity in the air to make someone from the Pacific Northwest break into a sweat. Sure, the monsoon storms still rage across the desert throwing bolts of lighting at whatever’s tallest (usually it’s me), but that’s not the point. It’s September.

September is the Friday of summer. September is the promise of fall. The difference between August 31st and September 1st is HUGE. It’s also a holiday.

August 31^st was too hot to move, too hot breath. Summer was never going to end, there was never going to be relief and we were all condemned to burn. September 1^st was THE END OF SUMMER – even though summer doesn’t actually end until about Halloween. Still, if it’s not actually THE END, you can see it from there.

I started planning for Thanksgiving on Monday. (For those of you tuning in from the great white north, this year it’s November 23^rd. I am planting new grass and deciding how I want the yard setup as once again we’ll be picnicking Thanksgiving.

We’re pulling out the fall décor, we’re planning vacations (more later) and slowly – ever so slowly, life is beginning to reassert itself. In Minnesota, when the snows finally gave way and the sun was substantially brighter than a 50 bulb, life began to bloom. Here life starts in the winter and I am holding my breath with anticipation.

I am turning just a little blue, but I’ll make it.

Gently into that goodnight:Life in the middle ages

Where I work, there is a security team. Welcome to post 9/11. The head of this team is a gentleman in his early thirties (or so). This particular individual came up to me this morning and asked me if I had a son and daughter.

No, sure don’t

“Well,” he said, “I went to school with a couple of kids with the same last name and just wondered.”

Gak? Uhm…. Gak? You think I’m old enough to have fathered children YOUR age? I haven’t been dealt such a deadly blow since the first time a kid called me “sir”.

Of course, I did just have a birthday. That doesn’t help but, I mean … gak? Ok, I do have a great deal of gray in my beard, and ok, to me, hip-hop is what happens when I sit too long. Yes, it’s true that I’m starting to do the arm-slide-focus for most of what I read now, and yes, I probably couldn’t name more than six musicians that started after 1990 and yes, I do remember who Barney Miller was.

Gak.

Excuse me, I think I’m going to slip quietly into a mid-life crises.

‘night.

Sign of the times

Tuesday, August 29

In the mail I received a flyer for a moving company. Usually, this is not remarkable; it just gets tossed without a second thought. What made this noteworthy was that there were four others in the box along with it. I’ve never gotten FIVE different companies desperately crawling over each other in an attempt to move my furniture.

Having decided to sell at the end of the year (after I’ve had a chance to fix up a bit), we thought it rather funny and threw all five cards into the recycle.

Wednesday, August 30

In the mail today – two more. OK, this is getting just a little bit spooky. If this is a sign, I’m missing the point. We’ve already decided to move, it’s just been too hot to work on the house. Humph. Well, if this is a sign, then I’m gonna need something more substantial, something a little more obvious. I need a sign even I can’t miss.

Thursday, August 31

Be careful what you ask for. I called my wife as I was leaving work today and she told me there was something new. There was a for sale sign in our front yard. Century 21 had placed our house on the market. We had contacted an agent but she was NOT from Century 21.

I called the number on the sign and expressed my surprise at finding out I was selling my house. She assured me that the error was in the service they use to plant the signs and the sign should have gone to XXXXX North XXth Avenue. Yep, that’s me. No, I haven’t spoken to Agent Bob, no I’m not selling, no I’m not renting either.

After some research, the girl calls me back and explains that the address is correct, but the street is off by one number. Within an hour the sign is gone, and my wife and I are – I suppose bemused is the proper description.

OK, I get the idea now. Thanks.

I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have tossed those flyers.