Yet More Totally Random Useless Knowledge Quiz

Answer: Crushed to death by a giant umbrella

According to http://www.theapesheet.com/archivethree/newart.html: "On October 26, 1991, Lori Rae Keevil-Matthews was visiting Christo's umbrella project in Tejon Pass, California. The piece was an environmental project consisting of 1,760, 485-pound yellow umbrellas planted throughout the pass.

As part of the project, Christo had also installed 1,340, 485-pound blue umbrellas in Ibaraki, Japan. Keevil-Matthews was killed by the piece after a 40 M.P.H. wind pulled up an umbrella and smashed her against a boulder. "Out of respect to her memory" Christo had both pieces taken down. On October 31, during the de-installation of the project in Japan, Masaaki Nakamura was electrocuted to death when the crane he was operating, which was in the process of removing a sculpture, touched a 65,000 volt high-tension line".

Answer: Hurricane Ginger (1971)

According to www.aoml.noaa.gov: "Ginger in 1971 holds the record for most days as a hurricane (20)".

Andrew is regarded as the most costly in U.S. history in terms of damage ($25 billion). Iniki was the most powerful storm to strike Hawaii in recorded history, causing $3 billion damage. Although Juan was merely a Category One hurricane, it ranks as the 8th costliest in U.S. history.

Answer: Stephen Stills

According to www.musicweb-international.com: "Pop group formed in 1966 when NBC-TV decided to create homegrown heroes in the wake of the British Invasion, especially Beatles' films A Hard Day's Night and Help; they auditioned the Lovin' Spoonful and decided that a manufactured group would be less trouble. Musical talent was an asset (though Stephen Stills was rejected: bad teeth) but members would not have to play on records".

Not to be disheartened, Stills ultimately benefited from the rejection. From www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/1014/Band/Buffalo.html:

"(Buffalo Springfield) were formed when Stephen Stills headed to Los Angeles from New York to form a new group. Having failed to form a group with Van Dyke Parks and been rejected for The Monkees because of his crooked teeth he persuaded Ritchie Furay, originally from Dayton, Ohio to join him and he introduced Stephen Stills who he had earlier played with in the Au Go Go Singers. It was in Dayton that by chance they met Young, a Canadian from Ontario, who had backed the Au Go Go Singers, and recruited him to their ranks too. Dewey Martin joined at Young's insistence".

Answer: Goggomobil Microcar

According to www.wikipedia.com: "The first known timing belt was used in 1945. The German Goggomobil microcar was the first mass produced vehicle to use a timing belt in 1950. The first American vehicle to use a timing belt was the 1966 Pontiac Tempest".

"A timing belt, timing chain or cam belt is a part of an internal combustion engine that controls the timing of the engine's valves. Some engines use timing gears.

It connects the crankshaft to the camshaft(s) which in turn controls the opening and closing of the engine's valves. In a four-stroke engine requires that the valves open and close once every other turn of the crankshaft. The timing belt does this. It has custom teeth to turn the camshaft(s) synchronised with the crankshaft and is specifically designed for a particular engine. In some engine designs, the timing belt may also be used to drive other engine components such as the water pump and oil pump.

A gearing system can be used to connect the crankshaft to the camshaft at the correct timing. However gears and shafts constrain the relative location of the crankshaft and camshafts. A belt or chain allows much more flexibility in the relative locations of the crankshaft and camshafts. Furthermore, belts are cheaper than a gearing system. While chains may be more robust, rubber belts are quieter. A timing belt is a specific application of a synchronous belt used to transmit rotational power synchronously".

There! Much more than you either wanted or needed to know about them!

Answer: Cycling

Cycling! Robbie McEwen was named 2002 Australian Cyclist of the Year, 2002 Male Road Cyclist of the Year and 1999 Australia Male Road Cyclist of the Year. He is a triple Olympian and has competed in the Tour De France since 1997.

Eddy Merckx is a Belgian considered by many to be the greatest cyclist of the 20th Century. He is the five-time champion of the two most important races in professional cycling, the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia, is one of only four cyclists to have won all three of the Grand Tours (Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espaņa) in a career, and one of only two men to have won the Triple Crown of Cycling (Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, and the World Cycling Championship).

Miguel Indurain is a retired Spanish cyclist. He is best known for having won the Tour de France from 1991 to 1995, becoming the first person to win the event five consecutive times (Jacques Anquetil was the first to win the event five times non-consecutively)' Indurain's ability and physical size - 1.88m (6 ft 2 in) and 80 kg (176lbs) - earned him the nickname "Big Mig".

Jan Ullrich is a German professional road bicycle racer. He has finished second in the Tour de France five times and won the race in 1997. He was the first German to do so, which led to a bicycle sports boom in Germany. He won a gold medal in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and the Vuelta a Espana as well.

(All information from www.wikipedia.com)

Answer: Cain grows envious of the favour found by his brother before God

Hmmmm, I hope you got this one! I tried to make it easy! Original story from www.bible.originalsin.not.ok.

I do have some sympathy for Cain's possible views about his parents, after all, who takes advice from a talking snake? To quote the wonderful and recently deceased Irish comedian, Dave Allen: "If I had a snake offer me an apple, I'd be stunned. If it then talked to me I'd crap myself".

Answer: A railway line

Lithgow is a town located in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The Zig Zag railway is so named due to it's construction technique of reversing back on itself in a 'Z' shape, in order to ascend the range. This construction method was used when the NSW Government decided the three kilometre tunnel required would be too expensive.

From www.zigzagrailway.com.au: "The Zig Zag Railway was built between 1866 and 1869, and acclaimed a major engineering feat of it's time. It was constructed to enable produce to be taken to Sydney from the prosperous farming areas beyond the Blue Mountains and to develop the coal and iron ore deposits found in the Lithgow Valley.

The prodigious feat of bringing the railway from the top of the mountains to the valley below was accomplished by John Whitton, Chief Engineer of the NSW Government Railways. At the time The Great Zig Zag was regarded as one of the engineering wonders of the Victorian age.

A by-product of such construction was the development of locomotive boilers which could cope with steep slopes and this led to the construction of mountain railways in other parts of the world, particularly the Americas.

The Zig Zag consists of a series of sloping tracks forming the letter "Z" with reversing stations at Top and Bottom Points. The Top part of the 'Z' is Top Road, the middle part is Middle Road. Bottom Road is now only a short section leading to the Depot; the rest remains part of the NSW State Rail network.

The track passes over three magnificent sandstone viaducts, through two tunnels. There are striking views over the surrounding countryside.

By the end of the 19th century rail traffic over the Blue Mountains was heavy and the single track had become a bottleneck. This was relieved by the construction of a ten tunnel deviation through the escarpment, completed in 1910. Soon after the track on the formation was removed and the land reverted to bush. During the Second World War Clarence Tunnel was used as an ammunition store and after for growing mushrooms".

A zig zag transformer has primary windings but no secondary winding. "Zig Zag" is an album by The Hooters. It was released in 1989. Zig zag may well also be a clothing pattern, but I simply made that one up, though it reminds me of Houndstooth.

Answer: Nancy Lopez (Golfer)

Denver, Smith and Moore were all born in Roswell. Nancy Lopez however, was born in California, but subsequently raised in Roswell.

Answer: Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs wrote "Small Circle Of Friends" as his own protest at the anonymity/apathy of modern day society. Based on a news report of the day where a woman's abduction was witnessed by a number of people but ignored, Ochs penned the following lyrics:

"Look outside the window, there's a woman being grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes and now she's being stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun, I'd hate to blow the game
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends"

I have always found it interesting that the final episode of Seinfeld drew some very interesting parallels to the behaviours outlined in this song (not the stabbing part, the apathy part)!

From www.answers.com: "He described himself as a "singing journalist," saying he built his songs from stories he read in Newsweek.

"Small Circle of Friends" received airplay before being banned from many radio stations for suggesting (perhaps ironically) that "smoking marijuana is more fun than drinking beer". It was the closest Ochs ever came to the Top 40.

Intensely disappointed by his lack of commercial success, and haunted by other personal demons - namely alcoholism, writer's block and depression - Phil Ochs hanged himself in 1976. After his death, it was revealed that the FBI had a 410 page file on Ochs. Many believe that an attack by an unknown assailant on Ochs in Africa, in which his vocal chords where partially damaged, was an act of the FBI".

Answer: New Coke

According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_that_have_been_considered_great_blunders: "The New Coke formula actually beat the old Coke in taste tests, but Coca-Cola's blunder was in failing to realize the immensity of the Coke legacy that they had built up over nearly a century. This legacy was so strong that the mere idea of changing Coke, by this time considered an American icon, - even "for the better" - met with intense, passionate resistance. People felt as if Coke was turning its back on their drinking preferences, their childhood, and even their way of life. "Coke is as basic as the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence." "Next week, they'll be chiselling Teddy Roosevelt off the side of Mount Rushmore." Coca-Cola eventually re-released the original Coke formula as "Coca-Cola Classic".

As far as this author is concerned, I am not sure where their data about it being better in the taste tests comes from, "Crap Coke" would have been a better name for it. The concept was so reviled in Australia, there remains no such thing. The original Coke is still marketed as "Coke" - no "Classic" in the name.

What in the name of hell's bells could they have been thinking? I can just imagine the boardroom when they hatched the idea: "Here's a great idea, let's take the world's most popular product which virtually sells itself, and change it, and tell everyone they will be better off for what we've done". "Good idea, we've all taken our stupid pills today, we'll do it". Idiots.