Results tagged “trivia” from The official blog of Vat19.com

Have you ever said the word "eyeball"? Told someone they had a "heart of gold"? Had "too much of a good thing"? If so, take a moment of silence and pay your respects to Mr. William Shakespeare, as without him, these words and phrases would not be in the English language.

OK, that's probably an overstatement, as I'm sure someone else would have eventually thought of "eyeball". But in truth, The Bard is credited with making popular, if not coining, over 1500 words and phrases that are common in today's English language. So even if you hated studying Shakespeare in high school, you've got to give the guy credit for giving us some of the coolest and most common words we use today.

• Aerial

• Bandit

• Bedazzled

• Dawn

• Disgraceful

• Droplet

• Fashionable

• Gloomy

• Glow

• Gnarled

• Gossip (as a verb)

• Hurry (as a verb)

• Lackluster

• Mimic

• Moonbeam

• Obsequiously

• Perplex

• Puke

• Radiance

• Rant

• Scuffle (as a noun)

• Shooting star

• Tranquil

• Watchdog

• Zany

Click over to the next page to see a few of the many well-known phrases that Shakespeare coined.

While at a trivia night, one of the questions was "Who is on the $500 bill". I didn't know the answer (if you don't know either, keep reading to find out who is on each bill) seeing how I've never possessed a $500 bill and denominations that large are pretty rare.

Who can afford $500, $1,000, $5,000, $10,000, and $100,000 bills? What if you lost it or it was destroyed somehow? What business can handle making change from a $500 bill or larger?

Large denomination bills ($500 and larger) were meant for transactions between banks and were not necessarily intended for circulation. Obviously, back in the day they couldn't electronically transfer funds like we can now. These big bills were last printed in 1945 and the Federal Bank Reserve stopped distributing them in 1969. However, these bills are still legal tender.

The $100,000 bill (or more appropriately called a bank transfer note) was only made from December 18, 1934 to January 9, 1935. They were only for transactions between Federal Reserve Banks and were not circulated to the general public. According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, all 42,000 of the $100,000 bills that were printed have been accounted for. They are mostly in museums or collections. To make a long story short, any $100,000 that you might find is a fake.

Now it's time for a little trivia. Who is on the:

1.) $1 bill?
2.) $2 bill?
3.) $5 bill?
4.) $10 bill?
5.) $20 bill?
6.) $50 bill?
7.) $100 bill?
8.) $500 bill?
9.) $1,000 bill?
10.) $5,000 bill?
11.) $10,000 bill?
12.) $100,000 bill?

Continue reading to see the answers.

Driving is one of those things, I think, that people take for granted. It's as though once you pass the written and driving tests at age 16, you're good to go and you never really have to worry about all those rules you learned as long as you get to your destination safely. I know this is not true of all drivers, but it seems many of us out there on the roads aren't entirely sure what we're doing. In fact, a 2008 poll by GMAC concluded that 1 in 6 US drivers (that's 33 million) would fail the written driving test if they took it today. Scary stuff!

With this stat in mind, I pulled out a copy of our new Rules of the Road DVD Set and checked out the quizzes that come with it. Would you pass the written driving test if you took it today? Answer the questions below and then click over to the next page to find out!

1. When traveling on a two-lane road in normal conditions, you should maintain a following distance of at least:
a. One second
b. Three seconds
c. Five seconds
d. Seven seconds

2. While one car signals to enter an expressway, another car signals to exit using the same weave lane. Which car has the right-of-way?
a. The car exiting the expressway.
b. The car entering the expressway.
c. The first car to reach the merge point.
d. Neither car has the right of way.

3. When approaching an uncontrolled railroad crossing, the speed limit is:
a. 10 miles per hour
b. 15 miles per hour
c. 20 miles per hour
d. 25 miles per hour

4. If two vehicles come to a stop at a T-intersection simultaneously, who has the right-of-way?
a. The vehicle on the right
b. The vehicle on the left
c. The vehicle on the through road
d. The larger of the two vehicles

5. It is illegal to drive a car in a bicycle lane:
a. For more than 200 feet
b. Without activating your hazard lights beforehand
c. At all times
d. It is never illegal to drive a car in a bicycle lane

6. When traveling on a high-speed expressway in normal conditions, you should maintain a following distance of at least:
a. Two seconds
b. Four seconds
c. Six seconds
d. Eight seconds

7. What's an appropriate way to respond to a traffic sign with a green light that turns to yellow?
a. Increase your speed to make it through the intersection before the light becomes red
b. Stop before the intersection if you can do so safely
c. Proceed through the intersection cautiously before the light turns red, only if you can't stop safely
d. Both b and c

8. You should increase your following distance under all of the following circumstances, except:
a. When the roads are wet from rain or snow
b. When being followed too closely by trailing cars
c. When traveling behind large trucks
d. When traveling on rural roads

9. If a curb is painted yellow, it designates an area:
a. Used for the loading and unloading of passengers or for mail deliveries by the post office
b. Used for passenger and freight loading
c. Where parking is limited to a certain amount of time
d. Where parking is prohibited, unless you're driving a bus

10. Unless otherwise posted, what is the speed limit in a school zone in most states?
a. 10 miles per hour
b. 15 miles per hour
c. 25 miles per hour
d. 35 miles per hour

Click over to the next page to check your answers!

Ever think about how important your eyebrows are? They may seem like the most useless thing on your face, but in fact, eyebrows can be one of your most defining characteristics. Each of the following celebrities is (or was) well-known for their distinctive eyebrows. Can you guess the celebrity just by looking at their eyebrows? Find the answers after the jump. No peeking!!!

Celebrity Eyebrow Set #1:

Celebrity Eyebrow Set #2:

Celebrity Eyebrow Set #3:

Celebrity Eyebrow Set #4:

Celebrity Eyebrow Set #5:

Celebrity Eyebrow Set #6:

Celebrity Eyebrow Set #7:

Celebrity Eyebrow Set #8:

Celebrity Eyebrow Set #9:

Continue reading to see the answers.

This question has nothing to do with the horrible economy or having to cut back on expenses. It's just a hypothetical situation, like a "Would you rather..." or "What if..." game.

What if you could only use electricity to power 5 things in your house? What 5 things would you choose? To make it more interesting, let's pretend you have to remain in your house for one month (this isn't for just a day!), the month is January, and your utilities are all electric, not gas.

That's a pretty tough one. There are definitely more than 5 things I use every single day which require electricity.

Here are my picks:

1. Hot water heater

I cannot tolerate taking a cold shower in the winter. Heck no. I'm not going to power the heater because I have a real fireplace. And I'm not going to power the air conditioner because it is January in St. Louis! However, during the summer, the water heater would go bye-bye and I'd power the A/C. I can't stay in a cold, dark basement.

2. TV

Call me a lazy TV-addict, but I'm putting my TV on the list. There are shows I really like to watch, and I'm not a big fan of watching TV shows on my computer. Plus, I like to have the news on while I get ready in the morning. I don't have the time to check traffic online. Sorry Netflix, the DVD player isn't making it on the list. I can get movies right on the TV if I really want to watch them at home.

After conducting a brief study among Vat19.com's employees, I've compiled a list of the 5 most difficult two-word tongue twisters. It's unlikely that you'll ever say some of these word combinations, but it's fun to try to say them and even more fun to listen to others try to say them!

Try to say each combination of words 5 times fast.

5. Request report
I had a friend that could not even say this one time, at normal speed.

4. Girl gargoyle
"Gargoyle" isn't a very common word, and it is even less common to specify that the gargoyle is a girl.

3. Toy boat
OK, this is one that you might actually say, although you probably wouldn't say it 5 times in a row unless you were a little kid whining that you wanted a toy boat.

2. Rural juror
Some people can't even say "rural" or "juror" separately!

1. Irish wristwatch
Neither myself nor any of my co-workers could say this 5 times fast. Heck, once is hard enough!

If you know some really difficult tongue twisters, feel free to leave them in the comments so we can all give them a try.

Have you ever watched the Jaywalking segment on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno? The people he finds seem to be the stupidest humans roaming the earth. They don't know anything about history or identifying political figures. Sitting at home on my couch, I always thought I was much more intelligent than these people...and then I tried to take the State Capitals Quiz.

I will admit there were state capitals that I could not recall from my grade school days. I could have sat around all day trying to remember the capital of South Dakota. Sounds pretty pathetic, but how well do you know your state capitals? Go ahead and give it a try. You have 60 seconds to fill in 10 state capitals.

If you get a high score, you can save your name to the Top Scores of All Time list or feel free to brag about your high score in the comments (or let us all get a laugh at how poorly you did). You can also put a nifty badge of completion on your blog, website, MySpace, or Facebook page.

A high score will earn you one of these two badges:

A low score will earn you this badge:

This State Capitals Quiz is part of a new section of Vat19 called BrainCandy. Here, you'll find all kinds of interesting trivia about topics such as inventions, math, words, science, and even boogers.

Hot air balloons have been around for hundreds of years, and they've amazed and entertained onlookers for just as long. Even still, most of us know surprisingly little about this unique form of transportation. Below, we've gathered a few fun facts to fill you in.

• The first recorded instance of a hot air balloon carrying passengers was in 1783 in France.
• Some speculate, though, that the ancient Nazca culture of Peru used some form of hot air balloons to help them design the famous Nazca lines.
• Ascent and descent are controlled by adjusting heat and sealing or opening the flap on top of the envelope (that's the part that looks like a balloon).
• Most modern hot air balloons are made of nylon or Dacron and use propane for power.
• Hot air balloons have been featured in a variety of popular movies including The Wizard of Oz, The Great Muppet Caper, Around the World in 80 Days, The Great Race, Octopussy, and Superman II.

If I gave you a list of product names, without photos or descriptions, would you be able to correctly determine which ones are children's toys and which ones are sex toys?

Let's find out:

• Wet Head


• Hot Spot


• Wizard Stick


• Little Taps


• Round Beaver


• Screaming Octopus


• Wormie


• Rev 'N Ride


• Red Hot Idol Costume


• Kitty In My Pocket

Continue below to see the answers.

Attention, IMDB.com junkies - This quiz is definitely for you. We've assembled some odd celebrity facts to see if you can piece together the celebrity identity based on the facts given. To get the answers, click the "Continue Reading..."

1. Many people would say that I bear striking resemblance to the 1970s singer Gilbert O'Sullivan. Like Mr. O'Sullivan, I also go by a name that's different from my birth name, Ronald. Despite having a Hollywood career that spans decades, I've been married to the same woman since 1969. I have danced with Judy Garland, and I was present the night Natalie Wood died. I once worked as a lion tamer.

2. My godfather is Timothy Leary, and my parents were friends with Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Junior high bullies once mistook me for a scrawny boy.

3. My father came out of the closet after I was born. I am extremely private, and Los Angeles cab drivers make a play on my name to describe my tipping habits.

4. I was born in St. Louis and, unlike many actors, I've had just one wife. My daughter's name is Molly. I bought a home from Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.

5. My first granddaughter was born on my 34th birthday. I spent time working in a funeral home and as a bricklayer before I became a successful actress. My stage name came from the fact that I was known for being overly flatulent.

There are lots of beverages available that contain insane amounts of caffeine. I'm personally not much of an energy drink drinker, unless it's the classic vodka and Red Bull. Obviously, too much alcohol can kill me, but how many cans of Red Bull would it take to kill me?

100.67 cans.

It is beyond unrealistic that I would ever drink that many cans of anything. But, it would only take 16.11 bottles of Fixx to kill me.

If you want to see how much caffeine is in a drink or how many cans of something it would take to kill you, check out the Death by Caffeine calculator at Energy Fiend. Simply pick your poison, enter your weight, and find out your lethal dosage.

In a time where many people are lucky to string together coherent sentences, the semicolon is almost never used correctly outside of professional publications. Many consider its correct use to be the mark of a well-educated individual, while others consider it a sign of snobbery.

For all the fuss, though, it’s actually not that difficult to master. Two simple scenarios can sum up the vast majority of acceptable uses.

1. You’re dealing with two sentences that can’t keep their hands off each other. Turning them into one long sentence doesn’t seem quite right, but you don’t want to put a period between them, either. Very often, it replaces words like but and and.

Examples:

Ethel and Floyd never talk; words are unnecessary.

Bertha eventually left her McDonald’s fry cook boyfriend for a cashier at Taco Bell; the steak taquitos were just too tempting.

2. Your commas are working overtime. The most common example of this situation is when you’re writing a list and one or more items in the list have their own commas.

Examples:

When Slash wants to impress the ladies, he puts on a mix tape with Crosby, Stills & Nash; Harry Connick, Jr.; Air Supply; and Loverboy.

As a traveling magician, The Magnificent Zoltok found it easy to simultaneously woo girlfriends in Tupelo, Mississippi; Salem, Massachusetts; and Phoenix, Arizona.

Of course, you can also use a semicolon when you’re dividing up a two-chunk sentence that’s already using commas in one of the chunks.

Examples:

Boris the Big enjoyed a satisfying meal of fresh greens, beef burgundy, and buttered bread; but when the dessert tray came out, he ordered a slice of each confection.

Katya found Alexander pompous, rude, and consistently disappointing; however, she was quite fond of his v-neck sweaters and family connections.

1.) "He also never acted like anything I was doing was weird. In one scene we did together I had no underwear on, just a shirt, and later he told me he'd been really shocked by that. But he acted, God bless him, like it was totally normal what I was doing, so that was sweet of him."

Which celebrity said that? Was it a) Tara Reid, b) Christina Ricci, or c) Jessica Simpson?

2.) "The 'male Paris Hilton' thing really upset me. Not the sexual aspect of it, because people can do whatever they want. But I'm an articulate, intelligent, thinking human being. The fact that some people consider me to be vapid and ridiculous upsets me. People make judgments about my character that they really don't know."

Which guy is a player whose talent is under appreciated? Is it a) Adam Levine, b) Colin Farrell, or c) Nick Lachey?

3.) "I kind of made up my mind I did not want to go back into the news division after watching the Anna Nicole Smith frenzy. I was just flabbergasted by that. How it was across the board, all encompassing, and I just thought to myself, this is not where I want to work."

Which lady is sick of celebrity news taking priority over "real" news? Is it a) Joan Lunden, b) Elizabeth Vargas, c) Maria Shriver?

Answers:

1.)

2.)

3.)

Slang 101 is back in session for a second semester.

Kangaroo - A female who has a large lower half of the body but a regular-sized top half. Example: Her butt takes up two seats on the bus, but she wears size small shirts! What a kangaroo!

Hamwich - Ham and sandwich combined to make one word. Example: My mom packed me a hamwich and Snack Pack for lunch!

Webmerized - Being mesmerized and totally submersed in the Internet. Example: John is so webmerized that he passed up World Series tickets to stay home and play World of Warcraft.

Crop Dusting - A stealth tactic of farting while walking past a person or group, leaving behind a stench and the blame on someone else; a walk-by-farting. Example: Joseph ate at Chipotle and then went crop dusting around the mall.

Pregzilla - An unpleasant and angry pregnant female. Similar to bridezilla, the term for a heinously mean and bossy bride-to-be. Example: Janet is constantly whining about getting fat and she has hoarded all of the cookies in the house. She's such a pregzilla.

Did you know that if you were to spell out numbers, you would have to go all the way to one thousand until you would find the letter "A"? Here's the proof:

zero
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
thirty
forty
fifty
sixty
seventy
eighty
ninety
hundred
thousand

Sure, I could've typed out every single number from zero to one thousand for you, but that would be incredibly long and boring. But as you can see, none of the numbers that would be included on that list would have an "A" until you reach one thousand.