UPDATE - Top Ten and Quiz Results

July 12

Top Ten Reasons You Know South Africa doesn’t have Central Heating

10. It’s often colder inside the house than outside.

9. Inside the house, my towel won’t dry (showering towel).

8. When I take a warm shower, my toes hurt due to thawing.

7. When I breathe in the house I can see my breath.

6. When I urinate in the bathroom, I can see “steam.” (and I’m holding my breath)

4. I went to a birthday party last week, and the two girls who were dancing the MOST, had the largest coats on (NYish style).

3. My church uses outdoor heaters indoors.

2. When you sit on the toilet, the cold of the seat makes the waste rush back into your body. The waste then speaks. “It’s too cold to come out.”

1. When my refrigerator and freezer had broken and stopped working for TWO days while I was in Stellenbosch, upon my return, I asked my housemates if I should throw some food away. They told me, “No, nothing defrosted!!” WHAT??!!

QUIZ TIME!!!!!

1. What is the one vegetable that is always sold as is and is never sold sliced, diced, minced, cubed, pressed, cooked, sautéed, pureed, etc.?

Lettuce (MKDauria)

2. What is the only North American landmark that is moving backwards?

Niagara Falls

3. What is the only fruit with its seeds on the outside?

Strawberries (Valerie)

Someone said berries but that is a category of fruit, not a specific fruit itself.

4. The spirit called pear brandy is usually sold in a bottle that contains a pear in it. The pear adds to the flavor of the drink. How do they get the pear in the brandy bottle?

Funny answers include:

They put in dehydrated pair

They blew the bottle around the pear (glass blowing).

5. What are the only 3 words in the English language that begin with the letters “dw”?

Dwell (any form of it)

Dwarf (any form)

Dwindle (any form, Valerie)

Someone has brought to my attention the word dweeb, but I was not looking at this as it requires a modern dictionary (maybe 1990s+) reflecting the linguistic dynamics of our time.

6. What are the two vegetables that continue to grow perennially without having to replant, reseed, or sow them again into the ground?

Asparagus (Valerie), rhubarb

The trouble with this question was the definition of the word vegetable and the definition of growing without replanting which might be different than accidentally reseeding or regerminating in the ground. So people have mentioned onions, garlic, Thai peppers, Swiss chard, spinach (good answer, I like this one), etc.

7. McDonald’s is involved in two world affairs measures. One is called the Big Mac Index which is an index of the big Mac’s price in countries around the world in order to compare aspects of the economies. The other is Golden Arches Theory which states that no two countries with a McDonald’s have ever gone to war with each other. This theory was violated for the first time in recent history (let’s say past 50 years). What two countries battles or war violated this?

Israel and Lebanon

Someone said Iraq and the US, but I’m still confirming whether McDonalds is in Iraq.

I’ve only found MaDonalds (imitation) in northern Iraq. So for now it’s just Israel and Lebanon, but I’ve read (on the internet) a possible part of a Bush-Iraqi infrastructure rebuilding is a McDonald’s but I do not believe it was built before I left to SA.

Someone else thought I was joking, so here is an article talking about the Big Mac Index and burgernomics.

http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11793125&fsrc=nwlptwfree

I will leave it up to you to find the Golden Arches Theory.

UPDATE

Hello, this is Victor. Good to hear from you and see you. It seems that the quiz last time drew much interest. I hope the answers helped. Usually when it involved a fruit or a vegetable there were more answers than my questions suggested due to the biodiversity of fruits and vegetables around the world. In the tropics, for instance, there are fruits that are not found anywhere else in the world, even, I’m told, a tropical fruit that has seeds on its outside. Secondly was the definition of words like vegetable and war. Sometimes people suggested tubers or roots or someone suggested NATO going into a country constituted war. Hopefully those questions are cleared now including the MaDonalds in Iraq.

This has been a quiet week for me full of many laughs. My good friend Adrianne (grew up with me) flew into Cape Town. I admire the woman she has become and is becoming. She is currently a missionary outside Johannesburg doing child development work. She’s here for two years, roughly, and plans to go back to the States and do a sociology masters degree at the University of Kansas. She contacted me and asked if she should submit a paper on the realignment of an interstate highway in Oklahoma, its effects, and its implications to the South African Sociological Association 2008 Conference. I encouraged her to do so, and it was accepted!! South Africans listening about Oklahoma City!! The conference was held in Stellenbosch a proper suburb (what you call suburb; we don’t call it that here) of Cape Town only 30 minutes from the airport. The University of Stellenbosch is, in my estimation, perhaps one of the top four universities in the country along with UCT (where Jeannie is), Rhodes (where Haley is in Grahamstown), and Wits (short for University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg).

The University of Stellenbosch is very white and it actually has signs and notes in the town and in the university completely in Afrikaans with no English translation for foreigners or non-coloured and non-Afrikaans peoples. I didn’t like that. The university also has classes taught in Afrikaans. I believe most to all of the graduate classes are in English.