These questions were written to be asked in Toronto on the dates
indicated, and should be interpreted accordingly. If any answers
have changed due to newer news, you are still expected to give
the answers that were correct on that date.

On each question you may give up to two answers, but if you give
both a right answer and a wrong answer, there is a small penalty.
Please post all your answers in a single followup to the newsgroup,
based only on your own knowledge. (In your answer posting, quote
the questions and place your answer below each one.) I will reveal
the correct answers in about 3 days.

All questions were written by members of Bloor St. Irregulars and
are used here by permission, but have been reformatted and may have
been retyped and/or edited by me. The posting and tabulation of
current-events questions is independent of the concurrent posting
of other rounds. For further information please see my 2023-05-24
companion posting on "Questions from the Canadian Inquisition
(QFTCI*)".

* Game 9 (2023-07-17), Round 1 - Current Events

1. On Sunday the 9th, the Calgary Stampede set the new world
record for most pancakes served in an 8-hour period. Guinness
World Records adjudicator Brittany Dunn observed the attempt,
and she disqualified 15 pancakes. However, they made more
than enough to beat the previous record of 14,208. Within 250,
what is the new world record?

2. At a press conference Thursday afternoon, it was announced
that SAG-AFTRA, the entertainment industry's largest union,
representing 160,000 actors and performers, would officially be
on strike at midnight PST. What fine actress is the SAG-AFTRA
president?

3. According to the results of a 2-year study, the air quality
in *what Ontario municipality* is like smoking a cigarette a
day, when it comes to inhaling cancer-causing benzo(a)pyrene?
U of T professor, and air contaminants researcher, Matthew
Adams also said that in Dundas or on the West Mountain it's "not
quite as bad -- maybe 1/3 of a cigarette or 1/2 a cigarette".

4. A blockade at a Winnipeg landfill is still standing -- as of this
writing -- in protest of the Province of Manitoba's announcement
that it would not support the search of another landfill for
the remains of two missing First Nations women. An injunction
went into effect Friday at 6 pm authorizing the Winnipeg Police
Service to remove the blockade. Name *either* landfill.

5. On Saturday, Markéta Vondrousová won the Ladies' Singles
Wimbledon championship, and set a first in doing so. What makes
her victory unique in the Open Era? Be sufficiently specific.

6. Attributed to crop failures after heat waves and heavy rains,
the price of what culinary staple has risen by 400% in India?
It's a key ingredient in many dishes, including butter chicken
and paneer makhni, and McDonald's has temporarily stopped
serving it as a burger topping. What is it?

7. Nothing sad about the news that Hillary Simms, from Torbay, NL,
has been appointed as a professor at Juilliard, and its first
female professor of her chosen brass instrument -- which is what?

8. On Thursday, Google announced it is expanding access to its
AI chatbot to 230 countries and territories, but not to such
places as Russia, China, North Korea, Afghanistan, and, oh,
Canada. What is Google's chatbot called?

9. On Tuesday, a group of scientists announced the bottom of
Crawford Lake in Ontario has been selected as the "golden spike"
-- the marker of a new proposed geological epoch, which would
start in the 1950s. What was considered our current epoch
is the Holocene, which started at the end of the last ice age
11,700 years ago. What is the name of new epoch?

10. Last week, Lithuania was the host country for the 2023 NATO
Summit, held in its capital -- which is what city?

After completing the round, please decode the rot13: Vs lbh fnvq
gur graavf cynlre jnf hafrrqrq, tb onpx naq or zber fcrpvsvp.

* Final (2023-07-24), Round 1 - Current Events

1. It's summer movie season (despite the strikes). Two dramatically
different movies, which both opened Friday, have gone viral due
to people planning to watch them back-to-back... and of course
there are memes and a portmanteau word for this double-feature
extravaganza. What is the portmanteau?

2. The North American Indigenous Games is the largest Indigenous
gathering and multi-sport event hosted in the history of
Atlantic Canada. What two-word name, in English, is used by
some Indigenous peoples -- such as many Algonquian and Iroquoian
speakers -- to refer to the continent of North America?

3. On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he
had received *which official document* -- with a two-word name --
indicating that he would soon be subject to new indictments from
Special Counsel Jack Smith relating to the events of 2021-01-06?

4. "Cheek to Cheek" (2014) and "Love For Sale" (2021) are
collaborative albums between a woman born with the name Stefani
Germanotta and a recently-deceased man born with the name
Anthony Benedetto. By what better-known names are these two
people credited on these albums? Two answers required.

5. On Wednesday, the South African government announced that Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be attending the upcoming
BRICS summit in place of President Vladimir Putin. Why was
Putin's attendance at the summit a problem for the South
African government?

6. On Friday, four men were arrested after a video surfaced of a
mob assaulting two naked women in which troubled Indian state?

7. The FIFA Women's World Cup is under way. Canada's women's soccer
team started the group stage with a 0-0 draw against Nigeria's
Super Falcons. Name *either* of the other two teams who share
Group B.

8. Following a 17-month investigation into workplace harassment,
the NFL levied a record $60,000,000 (US) fine against which
former owner of the Washington Redskins -- er, Commanders?

9. On Thursday, this country singer's video for "Try That in a
Small Town" was pulled by Country Music Television after
accusations that it called for racist violence. It didn't help
that the video was filmed on the site of a 1927 lynching and
a 1946 race riot. Name the artist, who denies any racist intent.

10. Taylor Swift currently occupies 11 spaces on the Billboard
200 Albums chart. While she is the first woman to dominate
that many spots at once, two other acts have achieved this
feat before. Name *either* of them.

--
Mark Brader, Toronto "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
msb@vex.net --Walt Disney

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Mark Brader <msb@vex.net> wrote:

> * Game 9 (2023-07-17), Round 1 - Current Events

> 2. At a press conference Thursday afternoon, it was announced
> that SAG-AFTRA, the entertainment industry's largest union,
> representing 160,000 actors and performers, would officially be
> on strike at midnight PST. What fine actress is the SAG-AFTRA
> president?

Fran Drescher

> 7. Nothing sad about the news that Hillary Simms, from Torbay, NL,
> has been appointed as a professor at Juilliard, and its first
> female professor of her chosen brass instrument -- which is what?

tuba; double bassoon

> 8. On Thursday, Google announced it is expanding access to its
> AI chatbot to 230 countries and territories, but not to such
> places as Russia, China, North Korea, Afghanistan, and, oh,
> Canada. What is Google's chatbot called?

Bard

> 10. Last week, Lithuania was the host country for the 2023 NATO
> Summit, held in its capital -- which is what city?

Vilnius

> * Final (2023-07-24), Round 1 - Current Events

> 1. It's summer movie season (despite the strikes). Two dramatically
> different movies, which both opened Friday, have gone viral due
> to people planning to watch them back-to-back... and of course
> there are memes and a portmanteau word for this double-feature
> extravaganza. What is the portmanteau?

Barbenheimer

(I have seen multiple portmanteaus.)

> 4. "Cheek to Cheek" (2014) and "Love For Sale" (2021) are
> collaborative albums between a woman born with the name Stefani
> Germanotta and a recently-deceased man born with the name
> Anthony Benedetto. By what better-known names are these two
> people credited on these albums? Two answers required.

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett

> 6. On Friday, four men were arrested after a video surfaced of a
> mob assaulting two naked women in which troubled Indian state?

Jammu and Kashmir

--
_______________________________________________________________________
Dan Blum tool@panix.com
"I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't just made it up."

On Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 11:09:35 PM UTC-5, Mark Brader wrote:
>
> * Game 9 (2023-07-17), Round 1 - Current Events
>
> 1. On Sunday the 9th, the Calgary Stampede set the new world
> record for most pancakes served in an 8-hour period. Guinness
> World Records adjudicator Brittany Dunn observed the attempt,
> and she disqualified 15 pancakes. However, they made more
> than enough to beat the previous record of 14,208. Within 250,
> what is the new world record?

15,000; 15,501

> 2. At a press conference Thursday afternoon, it was announced
> that SAG-AFTRA, the entertainment industry's largest union,
> representing 160,000 actors and performers, would officially be
> on strike at midnight PST. What fine actress is the SAG-AFTRA
> president?

Drescher

> 6. Attributed to crop failures after heat waves and heavy rains,
> the price of what culinary staple has risen by 400% in India?
> It's a key ingredient in many dishes, including butter chicken
> and paneer makhni, and McDonald's has temporarily stopped
> serving it as a burger topping. What is it?

rice
> 7. Nothing sad about the news that Hillary Simms, from Torbay, NL,
> has been appointed as a professor at Juilliard, and its first
> female professor of her chosen brass instrument -- which is what?

trombone

> 10. Last week, Lithuania was the host country for the 2023 NATO
> Summit, held in its capital -- which is what city?

Vilnius

> * Final (2023-07-24), Round 1 - Current Events
>
> 1. It's summer movie season (despite the strikes). Two dramatically
> different movies, which both opened Friday, have gone viral due
> to people planning to watch them back-to-back... and of course
> there are memes and a portmanteau word for this double-feature
> extravaganza. What is the portmanteau?

Barbenheimer
> 2. The North American Indigenous Games is the largest Indigenous
> gathering and multi-sport event hosted in the history of
> Atlantic Canada. What two-word name, in English, is used by
> some Indigenous peoples -- such as many Algonquian and Iroquoian
> speakers -- to refer to the continent of North America?

Turtle Island

> 4. "Cheek to Cheek" (2014) and "Love For Sale" (2021) are
> collaborative albums between a woman born with the name Stefani
> Germanotta and a recently-deceased man born with the name
> Anthony Benedetto. By what better-known names are these two
> people credited on these albums? Two answers required.

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett
> 5. On Wednesday, the South African government announced that Russian
> Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be attending the upcoming
> BRICS summit in place of President Vladimir Putin. Why was
> Putin's attendance at the summit a problem for the South
> African government?

the ongoing invasion of Ukraine (?)

> 6. On Friday, four men were arrested after a video surfaced of a
> mob assaulting two naked women in which troubled Indian state?

Punjab (?)

> 8. Following a 17-month investigation into workplace harassment,
> the NFL levied a record $60,000,000 (US) fine against which
> former owner of the Washington Redskins -- er, Commanders?

Snyder
> 9. On Thursday, this country singer's video for "Try That in a
> Small Town" was pulled by Country Music Television after
> accusations that it called for racist violence. It didn't help
> that the video was filmed on the site of a 1927 lynching and
> a 1946 race riot. Name the artist, who denies any racist intent.

Aldean

> 10. Taylor Swift currently occupies 11 spaces on the Billboard
> 200 Albums chart. While she is the first woman to dominate
> that many spots at once, two other acts have achieved this
> feat before. Name *either* of them.

Prince

--
Joshua Kreitzer
gromit82@hotmail.com

On 7/26/23 21:09, Mark Brader wrote:
>
>
> * Game 9 (2023-07-17), Round 1 - Current Events
>
> 1. On Sunday the 9th, the Calgary Stampede set the new world
> record for most pancakes served in an 8-hour period. Guinness
> World Records adjudicator Brittany Dunn observed the attempt,
> and she disqualified 15 pancakes. However, they made more
> than enough to beat the previous record of 14,208. Within 250,
> what is the new world record?
>
> 2. At a press conference Thursday afternoon, it was announced
> that SAG-AFTRA, the entertainment industry's largest union,
> representing 160,000 actors and performers, would officially be
> on strike at midnight PST. What fine actress is the SAG-AFTRA
> president?

Fran Drescher

>
> 3. According to the results of a 2-year study, the air quality
> in *what Ontario municipality* is like smoking a cigarette a
> day, when it comes to inhaling cancer-causing benzo(a)pyrene?
> U of T professor, and air contaminants researcher, Matthew
> Adams also said that in Dundas or on the West Mountain it's "not
> quite as bad -- maybe 1/3 of a cigarette or 1/2 a cigarette".

Toronto

>
> 4. A blockade at a Winnipeg landfill is still standing -- as of this
> writing -- in protest of the Province of Manitoba's announcement
> that it would not support the search of another landfill for
> the remains of two missing First Nations women. An injunction
> went into effect Friday at 6 pm authorizing the Winnipeg Police
> Service to remove the blockade. Name *either* landfill.
>
> 5. On Saturday, Markéta Vondrousová won the Ladies' Singles
> Wimbledon championship, and set a first in doing so. What makes
> her victory unique in the Open Era? Be sufficiently specific.

first unseeded woman singles

>
> 6. Attributed to crop failures after heat waves and heavy rains,
> the price of what culinary staple has risen by 400% in India?
> It's a key ingredient in many dishes, including butter chicken
> and paneer makhni, and McDonald's has temporarily stopped
> serving it as a burger topping. What is it?

rice

>
> 7. Nothing sad about the news that Hillary Simms, from Torbay, NL,
> has been appointed as a professor at Juilliard, and its first
> female professor of her chosen brass instrument -- which is what?

trombone

>
> 8. On Thursday, Google announced it is expanding access to its
> AI chatbot to 230 countries and territories, but not to such
> places as Russia, China, North Korea, Afghanistan, and, oh,
> Canada. What is Google's chatbot called?
>
> 9. On Tuesday, a group of scientists announced the bottom of
> Crawford Lake in Ontario has been selected as the "golden spike"
> -- the marker of a new proposed geological epoch, which would
> start in the 1950s. What was considered our current epoch
> is the Holocene, which started at the end of the last ice age
> 11,700 years ago. What is the name of new epoch?

Anthropocene

>
> 10. Last week, Lithuania was the host country for the 2023 NATO
> Summit, held in its capital -- which is what city?

Vilnius

>
> After completing the round, please decode the rot13: Vs lbh fnvq
> gur graavf cynlre jnf hafrrqrq, tb onpx naq or zber fcrpvsvp.
>
>
> * Final (2023-07-24), Round 1 - Current Events
>
> 1. It's summer movie season (despite the strikes). Two dramatically
> different movies, which both opened Friday, have gone viral due
> to people planning to watch them back-to-back... and of course
> there are memes and a portmanteau word for this double-feature
> extravaganza. What is the portmanteau?

Barbenheimer

>
> 2. The North American Indigenous Games is the largest Indigenous
> gathering and multi-sport event hosted in the history of
> Atlantic Canada. What two-word name, in English, is used by
> some Indigenous peoples -- such as many Algonquian and Iroquoian
> speakers -- to refer to the continent of North America?
>
> 3. On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he
> had received *which official document* -- with a two-word name --
> indicating that he would soon be subject to new indictments from
> Special Counsel Jack Smith relating to the events of 2021-01-06?
>
> 4. "Cheek to Cheek" (2014) and "Love For Sale" (2021) are
> collaborative albums between a woman born with the name Stefani
> Germanotta and a recently-deceased man born with the name
> Anthony Benedetto. By what better-known names are these two
> people credited on these albums? Two answers required.
>
> 5. On Wednesday, the South African government announced that Russian
> Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be attending the upcoming
> BRICS summit in place of President Vladimir Putin. Why was
> Putin's attendance at the summit a problem for the South
> African government?

There's an international arrest warrant for Putin

>
> 6. On Friday, four men were arrested after a video surfaced of a
> mob assaulting two naked women in which troubled Indian state?
>
> 7. The FIFA Women's World Cup is under way. Canada's women's soccer
> team started the group stage with a 0-0 draw against Nigeria's
> Super Falcons. Name *either* of the other two teams who share
> Group B.
>
> 8. Following a 17-month investigation into workplace harassment,
> the NFL levied a record $60,000,000 (US) fine against which
> former owner of the Washington Redskins -- er, Commanders?
>
> 9. On Thursday, this country singer's video for "Try That in a
> Small Town" was pulled by Country Music Television after
> accusations that it called for racist violence. It didn't help
> that the video was filmed on the site of a 1927 lynching and
> a 1946 race riot. Name the artist, who denies any racist intent.
>
> 10. Taylor Swift currently occupies 11 spaces on the Billboard
> 200 Albums chart. While she is the first woman to dominate
> that many spots at once, two other acts have achieved this
> feat before. Name *either* of them.

The Beatles

--
Dan Tilque

Mark Brader (msb@vex.net) writes:

> * Game 9 (2023-07-17), Round 1 - Current Events
>
> 1. On Sunday the 9th, the Calgary Stampede set the new world
> record for most pancakes served in an 8-hour period. Guinness
> World Records adjudicator Brittany Dunn observed the attempt,
> and she disqualified 15 pancakes. However, they made more
> than enough to beat the previous record of 14,208. Within 250,
> what is the new world record?

16350
> 5. On Saturday, Markéta Vondrousová won the Ladies' Singles
> Wimbledon championship, and set a first in doing so. What makes
> her victory unique in the Open Era? Be sufficiently specific.

She was the first unseeded female player to win the tournament
> 7. Nothing sad about the news that Hillary Simms, from Torbay, NL,
> has been appointed as a professor at Juilliard, and its first
> female professor of her chosen brass instrument -- which is what?

Trombone
> 9. On Tuesday, a group of scientists announced the bottom of
> Crawford Lake in Ontario has been selected as the "golden spike"
> -- the marker of a new proposed geological epoch, which would
> start in the 1950s. What was considered our current epoch
> is the Holocene, which started at the end of the last ice age
> 11,700 years ago. What is the name of new epoch?

Antropocene
> 10. Last week, Lithuania was the host country for the 2023 NATO
> Summit, held in its capital -- which is what city?

Vilnius
> * Final (2023-07-24), Round 1 - Current Events
>
> 1. It's summer movie season (despite the strikes). Two dramatically
> different movies, which both opened Friday, have gone viral due
> to people planning to watch them back-to-back... and of course
> there are memes and a portmanteau word for this double-feature
> extravaganza. What is the portmanteau?

Barbenheimer
> 5. On Wednesday, the South African government announced that Russian
> Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be attending the upcoming
> BRICS summit in place of President Vladimir Putin. Why was
> Putin's attendance at the summit a problem for the South
> African government?

They would have to arrest him in accordance with their obligations
to the ICC.
> 6. On Friday, four men were arrested after a video surfaced of a
> mob assaulting two naked women in which troubled Indian state?

Manipur
> 7. The FIFA Women's World Cup is under way. Canada's women's soccer
> team started the group stage with a 0-0 draw against Nigeria's
> Super Falcons. Name *either* of the other two teams who share
> Group B.

Australia and Ireland

> 10. Taylor Swift currently occupies 11 spaces on the Billboard
> 200 Albums chart. While she is the first woman to dominate
> that many spots at once, two other acts have achieved this
> feat before. Name *either* of them.
>

The Rolling Stones

Mark Brader wrote:
> These questions were written to be asked in Toronto on the dates
> indicated, and should be interpreted accordingly. If any answers
> have changed due to newer news, you are still expected to give
> the answers that were correct on that date.
>
> On each question you may give up to two answers, but if you give
> both a right answer and a wrong answer, there is a small penalty.
> Please post all your answers in a single followup to the newsgroup,
> based only on your own knowledge. (In your answer posting, quote
> the questions and place your answer below each one.) I will reveal
> the correct answers in about 3 days.
>
> All questions were written by members of Bloor St. Irregulars and
> are used here by permission, but have been reformatted and may have
> been retyped and/or edited by me. The posting and tabulation of
> current-events questions is independent of the concurrent posting
> of other rounds. For further information please see my 2023-05-24
> companion posting on "Questions from the Canadian Inquisition
> (QFTCI*)".
>
>
> * Game 9 (2023-07-17), Round 1 - Current Events
>
> 1. On Sunday the 9th, the Calgary Stampede set the new world
> record for most pancakes served in an 8-hour period. Guinness
> World Records adjudicator Brittany Dunn observed the attempt,
> and she disqualified 15 pancakes. However, they made more
> than enough to beat the previous record of 14,208. Within 250,
> what is the new world record?

20,000; 22,000

>
> 2. At a press conference Thursday afternoon, it was announced
> that SAG-AFTRA, the entertainment industry's largest union,
> representing 160,000 actors and performers, would officially be
> on strike at midnight PST. What fine actress is the SAG-AFTRA
> president?

Fran Drescher

>
> 3. According to the results of a 2-year study, the air quality
> in *what Ontario municipality* is like smoking a cigarette a
> day, when it comes to inhaling cancer-causing benzo(a)pyrene?
> U of T professor, and air contaminants researcher, Matthew
> Adams also said that in Dundas or on the West Mountain it's "not
> quite as bad -- maybe 1/3 of a cigarette or 1/2 a cigarette".

Hamilton

>
> 4. A blockade at a Winnipeg landfill is still standing -- as of this
> writing -- in protest of the Province of Manitoba's announcement
> that it would not support the search of another landfill for
> the remains of two missing First Nations women. An injunction
> went into effect Friday at 6 pm authorizing the Winnipeg Police
> Service to remove the blockade. Name *either* landfill.
>
> 5. On Saturday, Markéta Vondrousová won the Ladies' Singles
> Wimbledon championship, and set a first in doing so. What makes
> her victory unique in the Open Era? Be sufficiently specific.

First non-seeded woman to win.

>
> 6. Attributed to crop failures after heat waves and heavy rains,
> the price of what culinary staple has risen by 400% in India?
> It's a key ingredient in many dishes, including butter chicken
> and paneer makhni, and McDonald's has temporarily stopped
> serving it as a burger topping. What is it?
>
> 7. Nothing sad about the news that Hillary Simms, from Torbay, NL,
> has been appointed as a professor at Juilliard, and its first
> female professor of her chosen brass instrument -- which is what?

Trombone

>
> 8. On Thursday, Google announced it is expanding access to its
> AI chatbot to 230 countries and territories, but not to such
> places as Russia, China, North Korea, Afghanistan, and, oh,
> Canada. What is Google's chatbot called?
>
> 9. On Tuesday, a group of scientists announced the bottom of
> Crawford Lake in Ontario has been selected as the "golden spike"
> -- the marker of a new proposed geological epoch, which would
> start in the 1950s. What was considered our current epoch
> is the Holocene, which started at the end of the last ice age
> 11,700 years ago. What is the name of new epoch?
>
> 10. Last week, Lithuania was the host country for the 2023 NATO
> Summit, held in its capital -- which is what city?

Vilnius

>
> After completing the round, please decode the rot13: Vs lbh fnvq
> gur graavf cynlre jnf hafrrqrq, tb onpx naq or zber fcrpvsvp.
>
>
> * Final (2023-07-24), Round 1 - Current Events
>
> 1. It's summer movie season (despite the strikes). Two dramatically
> different movies, which both opened Friday, have gone viral due
> to people planning to watch them back-to-back... and of course
> there are memes and a portmanteau word for this double-feature
> extravaganza. What is the portmanteau?

Barbenheimer

>
> 2. The North American Indigenous Games is the largest Indigenous
> gathering and multi-sport event hosted in the history of
> Atlantic Canada. What two-word name, in English, is used by
> some Indigenous peoples -- such as many Algonquian and Iroquoian
> speakers -- to refer to the continent of North America?
>
> 3. On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he
> had received *which official document* -- with a two-word name --
> indicating that he would soon be subject to new indictments from
> Special Counsel Jack Smith relating to the events of 2021-01-06?

Target letter

>
> 4. "Cheek to Cheek" (2014) and "Love For Sale" (2021) are
> collaborative albums between a woman born with the name Stefani
> Germanotta and a recently-deceased man born with the name
> Anthony Benedetto. By what better-known names are these two
> people credited on these albums? Two answers required.

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett

>
> 5. On Wednesday, the South African government announced that Russian
> Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be attending the upcoming
> BRICS summit in place of President Vladimir Putin. Why was
> Putin's attendance at the summit a problem for the South
> African government?

There is an arrest warrant out for Putin

>
> 6. On Friday, four men were arrested after a video surfaced of a
> mob assaulting two naked women in which troubled Indian state?
>
> 7. The FIFA Women's World Cup is under way. Canada's women's soccer
> team started the group stage with a 0-0 draw against Nigeria's
> Super Falcons. Name *either* of the other two teams who share
> Group B.

Australia

>
> 8. Following a 17-month investigation into workplace harassment,
> the NFL levied a record $60,000,000 (US) fine against which
> former owner of the Washington Redskins -- er, Commanders?

Snyder

>
> 9. On Thursday, this country singer's video for "Try That in a
> Small Town" was pulled by Country Music Television after
> accusations that it called for racist violence. It didn't help
> that the video was filmed on the site of a 1927 lynching and
> a 1946 race riot. Name the artist, who denies any racist intent.

Jason Aldean

>
> 10. Taylor Swift currently occupies 11 spaces on the Billboard
> 200 Albums chart. While she is the first woman to dominate
> that many spots at once, two other acts have achieved this
> feat before. Name *either* of them.

The Beatles

>

Pete Gayde

Mark Brader:
> These questions were written to be asked in Toronto on the dates
> indicated, and should be interpreted accordingly. If any answers
> have changed due to newer news, you are still expected to give the
> answers that were correct on that date... For further information
> please see my 2023-05-24 companion posting on "Questions from the
> Canadian Inquisition (QFTCI*)".

The Summer 2023 season is over, so this completes the Current Events
game for it. And the winner is STEPHEN PERRY in a walk -- he only
responded to 4 of the 10 rounds, but beat everyone else's totals
based on their 8 best scores.

*Hearty* congratulations, sir! Well done indeed!

> * Game 9 (2023-07-17), Round 1 - Current Events

> 1. On Sunday the 9th, the Calgary Stampede set the new world
> record for most pancakes served in an 8-hour period. Guinness
> World Records adjudicator Brittany Dunn observed the attempt,
> and she disqualified 15 pancakes. However, they made more
> than enough to beat the previous record of 14,208. Within 250,
> what is the new world record?

17,182 (accepting 16,932-17,432).

> 2. At a press conference Thursday afternoon, it was announced
> that SAG-AFTRA, the entertainment industry's largest union,
> representing 160,000 actors and performers, would officially be
> on strike at midnight PST. What fine actress is the SAG-AFTRA
> president?

Fran Drescher (from "The Nanny", and "Fran Fine"). 4 for Dan Blum,
Joshua, Dan Tilque, and Pete.

> 3. According to the results of a 2-year study, the air quality
> in *what Ontario municipality* is like smoking a cigarette a
> day, when it comes to inhaling cancer-causing benzo(a)pyrene?
> U of T professor, and air contaminants researcher, Matthew
> Adams also said that in Dundas or on the West Mountain it's "not
> quite as bad -- maybe 1/3 of a cigarette or 1/2 a cigarette".

Hamilton. 4 for Pete.

> 4. A blockade at a Winnipeg landfill is still standing -- as of this
> writing -- in protest of the Province of Manitoba's announcement
> that it would not support the search of another landfill for
> the remains of two missing First Nations women. An injunction
> went into effect Friday at 6 pm authorizing the Winnipeg Police
> Service to remove the blockade. Name *either* landfill.

Brady Road Landfill, Prairie Green Landfill (respectively).

The blockade was forcibly removed the day after the original game.

> 5. On Saturday, Markéta Vondrousová won the Ladies' Singles
> Wimbledon championship, and set a first in doing so. What makes
> her victory unique in the Open Era? Be sufficiently specific.

First *unseeded woman* to become champion (both key words needed).
4 for Dan Tilque, Erland, and Pete.

Boris Becker was the first unseeded player to become Wimbledon champion.
in 1985.

> 6. Attributed to crop failures after heat waves and heavy rains,
> the price of what culinary staple has risen by 400% in India?
> It's a key ingredient in many dishes, including butter chicken
> and paneer makhni, and McDonald's has temporarily stopped
> serving it as a burger topping. What is it?

Tomatoes.

> 7. Nothing sad about the news that Hillary Simms, from Torbay, NL,
> has been appointed as a professor at Juilliard, and its first
> female professor of her chosen brass instrument -- which is what?

Trombone. 4 for Joshua, Dan Tilque, Erland, and Pete.

> 8. On Thursday, Google announced it is expanding access to its
> AI chatbot to 230 countries and territories, but not to such
> places as Russia, China, North Korea, Afghanistan, and, oh,
> Canada. What is Google's chatbot called?

Bard (AI). 4 for Dan Blum.

> 9. On Tuesday, a group of scientists announced the bottom of
> Crawford Lake in Ontario has been selected as the "golden spike"
> -- the marker of a new proposed geological epoch, which would
> start in the 1950s. What was considered our current epoch
> is the Holocene, which started at the end of the last ice age
> 11,700 years ago. What is the name of new epoch?

Anthropocene. 4 for Dan Tilque and Erland.

> 10. Last week, Lithuania was the host country for the 2023 NATO
> Summit, held in its capital -- which is what city?

Vilnius. 4 for everyone -- Dan Blum, Joshua, Dan Tilque, Erland,
and Pete.

> * Final (2023-07-24), Round 1 - Current Events

> 1. It's summer movie season (despite the strikes). Two dramatically
> different movies, which both opened Friday, have gone viral due
> to people planning to watch them back-to-back... and of course
> there are memes and a portmanteau word for this double-feature
> extravaganza. What is the portmanteau?

Barbenheimer or Barbieheimer. 4 for everyone.

And, of course, there's a Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbenheimer

> 2. The North American Indigenous Games is the largest Indigenous
> gathering and multi-sport event hosted in the history of
> Atlantic Canada. What two-word name, in English, is used by
> some Indigenous peoples -- such as many Algonquian and Iroquoian
> speakers -- to refer to the continent of North America?

Turtle Island. 4 for Joshua.

> 3. On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he
> had received *which official document* -- with a two-word name --
> indicating that he would soon be subject to new indictments from
> Special Counsel Jack Smith relating to the events of 2021-01-06?

Target letter. 4 for Pete.

> 4. "Cheek to Cheek" (2014) and "Love For Sale" (2021) are
> collaborative albums between a woman born with the name Stefani
> Germanotta and a recently-deceased man born with the name
> Anthony Benedetto. By what better-known names are these two
> people credited on these albums? Two answers required.

Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett. 4 for Dan Blum, Joshua, and Pete.

> 5. On Wednesday, the South African government announced that Russian
> Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be attending the upcoming
> BRICS summit in place of President Vladimir Putin. Why was
> Putin's attendance at the summit a problem for the South
> African government?

As signatories to the Rome Statute establishing the International
Criminal Court, South Africa would be required to arrest Putin.
4 for Dan Tilque, Erland, and Pete.

> 6. On Friday, four men were arrested after a video surfaced of a
> mob assaulting two naked women in which troubled Indian state?

Manipur. 4 for Erland.

> 7. The FIFA Women's World Cup is under way. Canada's women's soccer
> team started the group stage with a 0-0 draw against Nigeria's
> Super Falcons. Name *either* of the other two teams who share
> Group B.

Australia, Ireland. 4 for Erland (the hard way) and Pete.

> 8. Following a 17-month investigation into workplace harassment,
> the NFL levied a record $60,000,000 (US) fine against which
> former owner of the Washington Redskins -- er, Commanders?

Daniel Snyder. 4 for Joshua and Pete.

> 9. On Thursday, this country singer's video for "Try That in a
> Small Town" was pulled by Country Music Television after
> accusations that it called for racist violence. It didn't help
> that the video was filmed on the site of a 1927 lynching and
> a 1946 race riot. Name the artist, who denies any racist intent.

Jason Aldean. 4 for Joshua and Pete.

> 10. Taylor Swift currently occupies 11 spaces on the Billboard
> 200 Albums chart. While she is the first woman to dominate
> that many spots at once, two other acts have achieved this
> feat before. Name *either* of them.

The Beatles, Prince. 4 for Joshua, Dan Tilque, and Pete.

Scores, if there are no errors:

GAME 6 ROUNDS-> 2 3 TOTALS
TOPICS-> Geo Sci
Joshua Kreitzer 40 40 80
Dan Blum 36 40 76
Dan Tilque 40 24 64
Erland Sommarskog 40 4 44
Pete Gayde 28 8 36

--
Mark Brader | No programming language is Perfect. Perl comes very close.
msb@vex.net | P! e! r! *l?* :-( Not quite "Perfect".
Toronto | -- Brian Ingerson

My text in this article is in the public domain.

On 7/29/23 22:34, Mark Brader wrote:
> Mark Brader:
>
> The Summer 2023 season is over, so this completes the Current Events
> game for it. And the winner is STEPHEN PERRY in a walk -- he only
> responded to 4 of the 10 rounds, but beat everyone else's totals
> based on their 8 best scores.
>

>
>
> Scores, if there are no errors:
>
> GAME 6 ROUNDS-> 2 3 TOTALS
> TOPICS-> Geo Sci
> Joshua Kreitzer 40 40 80
> Dan Blum 36 40 76
> Dan Tilque 40 24 64
> Erland Sommarskog 40 4 44
> Pete Gayde 28 8 36
>

I believe you have the wrong scoring table here. This is the table for
the other game that was going on at the same time.

--
Dan Tilque

Mark Brader:
> > The Summer 2023 season is over, so this completes the Current Events
> > game for it. And the winner is STEPHEN PERRY in a walk -- he only
> > responded to 4 of the 10 rounds, but beat everyone else's totals
> > based on their 8 best scores.
...
> > Scores, if there are no errors:

Dan Tilque:
> I believe you have the wrong scoring table here.

Oops, I guess that would be an error. A failed optimization, in fact.

Scores, if there are *now* no errors:

GAMES-> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 F BEST EIGHT
Stephen Perry 40 40 -- -- 36 36 -- -- -- -- 152
Dan Tilque 16 4 20 20 4 16 20 20 20 12 144
Joshua Kreitzer 8 12 16 16 4 12 20 16 12 24 128
Pete Gayde 16 4 -- -- 4 16 24 8 20 32 124
Erland Sommarskog 8 4 4 8 12 12 19 8 16 16 99
Dan Blum 11 8 16 16 0 12 15 8 12 8 98

--
Mark Brader | "And don't forget there were five separate computers
msb@vex.net | in those days."
Toronto | -- Bob NE20G3018 (Ira Levin, "This Perfect Day")

My text in this article is in the public domain.

On Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 6:39:48 PM UTC-4, Mark Brader wrote:
> Mark Brader:
> > > The Summer 2023 season is over, so this completes the Current Events
> > > game for it. And the winner is STEPHEN PERRY in a walk -- he only
> > > responded to 4 of the 10 rounds, but beat everyone else's totals
> > > based on their 8 best scores.

thank you. I did not intend to miss any but life seemed to keep getting in the way.

I do play along at home for fun each game, however late I am.
> ...
> > > Scores, if there are no errors:
> Dan Tilque:
> > I believe you have the wrong scoring table here.
> Oops, I guess that would be an error. A failed optimization, in fact.
>
> Scores, if there are *now* no errors:
>
> GAMES-> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 F BEST EIGHT
> Stephen Perry 40 40 -- -- 36 36 -- -- -- -- 152
> Dan Tilque 16 4 20 20 4 16 20 20 20 12 144
> Joshua Kreitzer 8 12 16 16 4 12 20 16 12 24 128
> Pete Gayde 16 4 -- -- 4 16 24 8 20 32 124
> Erland Sommarskog 8 4 4 8 12 12 19 8 16 16 99
> Dan Blum 11 8 16 16 0 12 15 8 12 8 98
>
> --
> Mark Brader | "And don't forget there were five separate computers
> m...@vex.net | in those days."
> Toronto | -- Bob NE20G3018 (Ira Levin, "This Perfect Day")
> My text in this article is in the public domain.

swp