Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
The elderly church lady who almost hit me asked if I wanted to recover from the bike accident while sitting in her car. I told her that I didn’t want to bleed all over the seats of her Mazda. She blessed me several times after being assured that I was OK, and then drove away.
I can barely blame her for not being sure where to drive in Davis. The lane markings that had helped bicyclists and drivers alike keep from entering each other’s space had been paved over by CalTrans during the previous summer, so the overcrossing was a free-for-all. Almost every morning during my bike commute I wrote a letter in my head demanding that the bike lanes be repainted, but the letter was never written. While lying under my bike in the highway access road, I thought of the phrase “The life you save may be your own.” I have spoken these words on the radio dozens of times while reading blood drive public service announcements, but I never thought they would refer to my own procrastination with public-minded correspondence. It was my turn to donate blood, but not in the way that anyone would have wanted. Messy.
I took a day off to recover from the “road rash” on my palms, left knee, and left elbow. My helmet and MacBook Pro – my two priorities – remained unscratched. The next day I phoned David Kemp, the staff liaison to our city’s Bicycle Advisory Commission to complain about the safety lapse. He didn’t sound hopeful when he phoned me back, saying that the city wasn’t in charge of highway overcrossings, but then a week later the bike lanes are back. Thanks to David’s work, all South Davis residents can cross Richards Boulevard a little more safely now, though I recommend the bike tunnel under I-80 for that purpose (as well as leaving for your commute ten minutes earlier).
When I reported a problem, nobody blamed me, called me a troublemaker, or had me detained (as might be the case if I were a resident of Sochi this week). As FDR said in 1938, “If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free.” I hope you have found some free time to enjoy the Winter Olympic Games! I wonder what country would earn gold if the Pub Quiz were an Olympic event.
In addition to topics raised thus far, expect questions tonight on bodies of water, short histories, Sam I Am, Montana, long-suffering literary fathers, trips to DC during the Reagan era, salty language, ancient Greeks, time for comparisons to the lower 48, cubic kilometers, Irishwomen, no awards for acting, road works, Neolithic walks, the US Census and the spelling of the word “community,” underground, US cities, a basket full of bread, exhausted pugs, Iceland, 50 years ago today, the joke’s on him, baseball transitions, birdsongs, math geniuses, Star Wars anagrams, Hawaii, surprise residents, reading being fundamental, Facebook, wastes of time, reversals, and Shakespeare.
I hope you can join us for the Pub Quiz tonight. Happy Lincoln’s Birthday!
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans. The New Jersey stadium where Super Bowl 48 took place yesterday was named after what insurance company that uses the slogan “It Pays”?
- Internet Culture. Katy Perry has welcomed her boyfriend back to Twitter. What is his name?
- Cars and Commercials. According to a commercial I saw yesterday, where a bunch of engineers earned their wings, what car company has the most cars on the road with 100,000 miles?
- Four for Four. Which of the following islands, if any, are parts of Polynesia? Guam, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu.
- Pop Culture – Music. One from the Archives. The 1000th issue of Entertainment Weekly dated July 4, 2008 listed the same album at number one on the Top 100 Best albums of the past 25 years that Vanity Fair in 2007 called the greatest soundtrack of all time. Name the album.