1. Absolutely Fabulous
2. Snake oil?
Answers to Tuesday, July 8, 2025
1. Comedians Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders were the title characters in “Modern Mother and Daughter,” a 1990 sketch that inspired what classic Britcom?
“Absolutely Fabulous”
(AbFab)
2. In the 17th century, the Dutch word “quacksalver” became popular English slang for a person who sold what kind of frequently fraudulent product?
Medicine
(That’s why doctors are called “quacks”)
3. A jobs program to hire people as panhandlers and legalizing squatting were two tenets of punk singer Jello Biafra’s platform in a 1979 race against incumbent Mayor Dianne Feinstein in what city, where Biafra and East Bay Ray founded the band Dead Kennedys?
San Francisco
4. Finish this long-running ad slogan: “Everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody… BLANK.”
“Doesn’t Like Sara Lee”
5. Reflecting its original use as administrative offices for the Medici family, the Uffizi Gallery is a world-famous art museum in what Italian city?
Florence (Firenze)
Questions for
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in tomorrow’s email.
1. What company’s logo is based on a 15th-century German woodcut of a topless siren?
2. What does a philatelist collect?
3. Far more enduring than the 1996 Pauly Shore movie of the same name, what giant, closed ecosystem in Montreal is home to 2,500 animals and 800 plants?
4. Spurred by a massively popular TV miniseries from 1977, and bolstered by scientific advancements over the last 20 years, what hobby is the focal point of the TV show “Who Do You Think You Are?”
5. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson drew online mockery in 2019 after confusing the property term “REO” with the cookie term “Oreo.” What does REO actually stand for?
2. Stamps
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
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1: Starbucks
3. Biodome
4. Genealogy
Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes - Harry S Truman
5. Real Estate Owned
Answers to Wednesday, July 9, 2025
1. What company’s logo is based on a 15th-century German woodcut of a topless siren?
Starbucks
2. What does a philatelist collect?
Stamps
3. Far more enduring than the 1996 Pauly Shore movie of the same name, what giant, closed ecosystem in Montreal is home to 2,500 animals and 800 plants?
Biodome
(Montreal Biodome)
4. Spurred by a massively popular TV miniseries from 1977, and bolstered by scientific advancements over the last 20 years, what hobby is the focal point of the TV show “Who Do You Think You Are?”
Genealogy
("Roots" is the miniseries)
5. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson drew online mockery in 2019 after confusing the property term “REO” with the cookie term “Oreo.” What does REO actually stand for?
“Real estate owned”
Questions for
Theme Thursday, July 10, 2025
Movie Titles Anagrammed: I’ll take one word from the title of a movie and change it to an anagram. Then I’ll describe what the plot of that new movie might be. You name the new movie title (with the anagrammed word). For example: If I said, "2004: Returning home for his mother’s funeral after years away, Zach Braff finds New Jersey to be extremely unsafe," you would answer, “Danger State," because "Danger" is an anagram of "Garden."
Answers in tomorrow’s email.
1. 2015: A tiny, mustachioed New World monkey grows potatoes in its own poop after getting stranded 133 million miles from Earth.
2. 2013: Jordan Belfort would probably make a fortune as an unscrupulous stock broker if he weren’t such a chicken.
3. 2012: By day, Bruce Wayne is a billionaire entrepreneur. By night, he gets people pregnant.
4. 2017: The daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta helps defeat Germany in WWI using her greatest super power: totally bumming everybody out.
5. 2003: This film documents various soirees and social shindigs throughout the Greater and Lesser Antilles.
4. Downer woman. 😂
2. The Fowl of Wall Street
3. The Dark Knight Sires
1. The Tamarin
#5 just dawned on me.
Answers to Thursday, July 10, 2025
Movie Titles Anagrammed: I’ll take one word from the title of a movie and change it to an anagram. Then I’ll describe what the plot of that new movie might be. You name the new movie title (with the anagrammed word).
1. 2015: A tiny, mustachioed New World monkey grows potatoes in its own poop after getting stranded 133 million miles from Earth.
“The Tamarin”
("The Martian")
2. 2013: Jordan Belfort would probably make a fortune as an unscrupulous stock broker if he weren’t such a chicken.
“The Fowl of Wall Street”
(“The Wolf of Wall Street”)
3. 2012: By day, Bruce Wayne is a billionaire entrepreneur. By night, he gets people pregnant.
“The Dark Knight Sires”
(“The Dark Knight Rises”)
4. 2017: The daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta helps defeat Germany in WWI using her greatest super power: totally bumming everybody out.
“Downer Woman”
("Wonder Woman")
5. 2003: This film documents various soirees and social shindigs throughout the Greater and Lesser Antilles.
“Parties of the Caribbean”
(“Pirates of the Caribbean”)
Questions for
Friday, July 11, 2025
Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in Monday’s email.
1. Quit While You’re Ahead: Four actors appeared on the poster for the 1997 movie “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Name as many of those actors as you can for one point each. Zero points total if you get any incorrect.
2. According to Time magazine’s review, what 2020s HBO Max series is “the star vehicle Jean Smart deserves”?
3. Watering down a local stew in India to better suit the tastes of British colonists is said to be the origin of what soup, whose name comes from Tamil words for “pepper” and “water”?
4. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explores the shock of encountering racism in the United States after growing up in Nigeria in what critically acclaimed 2013 novel?
5. Today is July 11. On this day in 1979, President Jimmy Carter had to issue an apology to the people of Australia because of the raining debris coming from what space station?
5. Skylab
Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes - Harry S Truman
1. Jennifer Love Hewitt
2. Hacks
3. Watering down a local stew in India to better suit the tastes of British colonists is said to be the origin of what soup, whose name comes from Tamil words for “pepper” and “water”?
I had to look this one up. 😆
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
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3. Mulligatawny
1. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr.
Answers to Friday, July 11, 2025
1. Quit While You’re Ahead: Four actors appeared on the poster for the 1997 movie “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Name as many of those actors as you can for one point each. Zero points total if you get any incorrect.
Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr.
2. According to Time magazine’s review, what 2020s HBO Max series is “the star vehicle Jean Smart deserves”?
“Hacks”
3. Watering down a local stew in India to better suit the tastes of British colonists is said to be the origin of what soup, whose name comes from Tamil words for “pepper” and “water”?
Mulligatawny
4. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explores the shock of encountering racism in the United States after growing up in Nigeria in what critically acclaimed 2013 novel?
“Americanah”
5. Today is July 11. On this day in 1979, President Jimmy Carter had to issue an apology to the people of Australia because of the raining debris coming from what space station?
Skylab
Questions for
Monday, July 14, 2025
Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in tomorrow’s email.
1. “My dream date. Cute. And he knows that” is a salty response from Huda, a contestant on a recent season of what tropical reality TV show?
2. What star of “The Sound of Music” and “Star Trek VI” is the only Canadian to win the Triple Crown of Acting, as the recipient of an Oscar, two Tony Awards, and two Emmy Awards?
3. The Mariinsky Ballet is the most famous company of St. Petersburg, Russia. What ballet company, whose name translates as “big” or “grand,” is the corresponding flagship troupe of Moscow?
4. Though the family’s patriarch was noted for his co-invention of the X-ray microscope, the daughter achieved greater fame as a folk singer of protest songs, often performing with her then-boyfriend Bob Dylan. What is their shared surname?
5. In 2029, NASA is expected to land a probe on a precious metals-filled asteroid that Newsweek breathlessly said could make everyone in the world rich. Appropriately, it’s named after which Greek goddess of the soul?
4. Baez
Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes - Harry S Truman
2. Christopher Plummer
3. Bolshoi
5. Psyche
Answers to Monday, July 14, 2025
1. “My dream date. Cute. And he knows that” is a salty response from Huda, a contestant on a recent season of what tropical reality TV show?
“Love Island”
2. What star of “The Sound of Music” and “Star Trek VI” is the only Canadian to win the Triple Crown of Acting, as the recipient of an Oscar, two Tony Awards, and two Emmy Awards?
Christopher Plummer
3. The Mariinsky Ballet is the most famous company of St. Petersburg, Russia. What ballet company, whose name translates as “big” or “grand,” is the corresponding flagship troupe of Moscow?
Bolshoi Ballet
4. Though the family’s patriarch was noted for his co-invention of the X-ray microscope, the daughter achieved greater fame as a folk singer of protest songs, often performing with her then-boyfriend Bob Dylan. What is their shared surname?
Baez
(Albert and Joan)
5. In 2029, NASA is expected to land a probe on a precious metals-filled asteroid that Newsweek breathlessly said could make everyone in the world rich. Appropriately, it’s named after which Greek goddess of the soul?
Psyche
(16 Psyche)
Questions for
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in tomorrow’s email.
1. While selling fax machines door-to-door in Florida in 1993, Sara Blakely couldn’t find pantyhose that she could wear with sandals and didn’t roll up her legs. That led her to launch what Oprah-endorsed line of shapewear in 2000?
2. Germany borders two seas. It calls one of them the “North Sea,” which is also what we call it. It calls the other one the “East Sea.” What do we call that sea?
3. Before they were sentenced to prison, Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, George Ryan, and Rod Blagojevich each served as governor of which U.S. state?
4. If you study etymology, you study word origins. If you study entomology, you study… what?
5. In 1998, two years before he passed away, Christopher Lee Rios became the first solo Latino rapper to go platinum with his album “Capital Punishment.” What was his stage name?
2 Baltic?
3 Illinois
4. Illinois
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
1) Spanx... thank you Shark Tank.
4. Bugs/Insects
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
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4. Illinois
Because law enforcement placed listening devises? 🤩
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Big Pun
Answers to Tuesday, July 15, 2025
1. While selling fax machines door-to-door in Florida in 1993, Sara Blakely couldn’t find pantyhose that she could wear with sandals and didn’t roll up her legs. That led her to launch what Oprah-endorsed line of shapewear in 2000?
Spanx
2. Germany borders two seas. It calls one of them the “North Sea,” which is also what we call it. It calls the other one the “East Sea.” What do we call that sea?
Baltic Sea
3. Before they were sentenced to prison, Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, George Ryan, and Rod Blagojevich each served as governor of which U.S. state?
Illinois
4. If you study etymology, you study word origins. If you study entomology, you study… what?
Insects
5. In 1998, two years before he passed away, Christopher Lee Rios became the first solo Latino rapper to go platinum with his album “Capital Punishment.” What was his stage name?
Big Pun
(or Big Punisher)
Questions for
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in tomorrow’s email.
1. Agnes the Donut Lady gets a single appearance in a series of Gerard Way comic books, but a much larger role when the comics were adapted into what Netflix superhero series?
2. “World Gone Sour” was a 2011 video game launched for the PlayStation and Xbox game stores, in which the player controls a lost gummy from a bag of what brand-name candy owned by Mondelez since the ’90s?
3. Literally meaning “day of wrath,” what Latin sequence describes the Last Judgment, and is often included in musical settings of a Requiem mass?
4. Examples of sour beers include the Gose and Berliner Weisse beers, which come from Germany, and lambics and Flanders red ale, which come from what bordering nation?
5. Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker are both founding members of what iconic Olympia, Washington riot grrrl band named after a highway sign near one of their early practice spaces?
4. Belgium
Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes - Harry S Truman
5. Sleater-Kinney
2) Sour Patch Kids
3. Dies irae
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
3. Dies Irae
1. The Umbrella Academy
Answers to Wednesday, July 16, 2025
1. Agnes the Donut Lady gets a single appearance in a series of Gerard Way comic books, but a much larger role when the comics were adapted into what Netflix superhero series?
“The Umbrella Academy”
2. “World Gone Sour” was a 2011 video game launched for the PlayStation and Xbox game stores, in which the player controls a lost gummy from a bag of what brand-name candy owned by Mondelez since the ’90s?
Sour Patch Kids
3. Literally meaning “day of wrath,” what Latin sequence describes the Last Judgment, and is often included in musical settings of a Requiem mass?
Dies irae
4. Examples of sour beers include the Gose and Berliner Weisse beers, which come from Germany, and lambics and Flanders red ale, which come from what bordering nation?
Belgium
5. Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker are both founding members of what iconic Olympia, Washington riot grrrl band named after a highway sign near one of their early practice spaces?
Sleater-Kinney
Questions for
Theme Thursday, July 17, 2025
Remember the Toonies: While it’s still the off-season in American football, let’s talk Canadian football!
Answers in tomorrow’s email.
1. After being picked out on the Jumbotron for wearing a Labatt’s shirt to a BC Lions game, the beer company hired her on the spot. Who’s that actor, who got Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations for 2024’s “The Last Showgirl”?
2. What “Sonic” character shares a name with a single-point score exclusive to Canadian Football?
3. The Canadian Football League trophy is named after what former governor general of Canada, who shared his title with the namesake of a bergamot-flavored drink?
4. Just three years before his death, what former “SCTV” cast member purchased the Argonauts with NHL legend Wayne Gretzky and L.A. Kings owner Bruce McNall in 1991?
5. The nine teams of the CFL are spread across six provinces. Which province has the most teams?
1. Pamela Anderson
4. John Candy?
Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes - Harry S Truman
3. Earl Grey
5. Ontario
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
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2. Rouge the Bat
Answers to Thursday, July 17, 2025
Remember the Toonies: While it’s still the off-season in American football, let’s talk Canadian football!
1. After being picked out on the Jumbotron for wearing a Labatt’s shirt to a BC Lions game, the beer company hired her on the spot. Who’s that actor, who got Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations for 2024’s “The Last Showgirl”?
Pamela Anderson
2. What “Sonic” character shares a name with a single-point score exclusive to Canadian Football?
Rouge (the bat)
3. The Canadian Football League trophy is named after what former governor general of Canada, who shared his title with the namesake of a bergamot-flavored drink?
Earl Grey (Albert Grey)
(Grey Cup, named for the grandson of Charles Grey)
4. Just three years before his death, what former “SCTV” cast member purchased the Argonauts with NHL legend Wayne Gretzky and L.A. Kings owner Bruce McNall in 1991?
John Candy
5. The nine teams of the CFL are spread across six provinces. Which province has the most teams?
Ontario
(Toronto, Ottawa, and Hamilton)