Vern's 3rd Annual Advent Calendar Quiz - Q#10

For today's question, I had to switch back to Blogger for a video post. The good news is that today's question will be easy because, ...... ................wait for it .....tomorrow's will not be :).

All you have to do is watch the video, and answer the question. Clearly there will be no Academy Awards for me, but the scene was most awkward. A crowd was gathering, people were taking pictures of me, and I was trying to think of good clues based on a 4 minute movie that I had just seen.

Anyway, enjoy!

And if you have no clue, throw out a WAG

Do Stephen Harper and Barrack Obama Get Paid Fairly?

Hi All,

I want your opinion!

Recently, the money paid to Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper was disclosed in the media. In total, he makes $315,462, split evenly between a Basic Sessional Indemnity + his salary.

The supporting reference can be found here: http://money.ca.msn.com/savings-debt/gallery/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=23577097&page=1

Similarly, Barrack Obama appears to make $400,000 with a $50,000 expense account.

The supporting reference for this figure is as follows: http://www.zimbio.com/India/articles/1078/Salary+President+Obama+Lesser+corporate+Executives

So, my learned friends, my question for you is as follows. Do you think that this level of compensation is fair for what they are expected to do - namely lead countries with populations on the order of ~33 million and ~310 million, respectively.

The question brings into play many factors including, public/private sector parity, careers before and after office, etc., so feel free to use whatever rationale you feel relevant to form your opinion.

To best collect the information, I will be pointing you to a survey so that I can easily compile the results and share them with the group at large afterward. So, please visit the following URL and answer the questions you will find there - thanks kindly in advance.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BW6WVHB

The link will be active until the end of March and soon thereafter I will compile the results.

Drinks Redeemed - Jan / Feb 2010

Hi All,

Well, 2010 is in full effect and so far, so very good. Things have been quite busy for me so I have been a little slow on the blogging - my apologies.

The 2010 Olympics have come and gone, and rest assured, I will be penning my thoughts on that spectable in the near term. Right now, though, I would like to update the status of the drinks owed from the 2009 Advent Calendar Quiz. For the uninitated, I run an online advent calendar quiz every December and award daily prizes (drinks) for every correct entry (see historic posts for all the questions used this year). It then becomes my goal to pay back these drinks over the course of the following 11 months, ideally visiting the winners in their home city. Last year, drinks were redeemed in Toronto, Vancouver, Las Vegas, and San Franciso. This year, who knows! If you wanna sign up this year and haven't played before, just let me know.

The Olympics presented the perfect opportunity to redeem drinks for those in town, as well as for any people visiting. In this case, Rob, Chris H., Kim, and Andy each redeemed a drink. For Andy and Rob, sadly, the drink was at an Olympic hockey game and the shortest drink line was one offering up Molson Canadian. Sorry boys, it still counts! Chris and Kim got the better end of the deal as Yaletown Earl's accomodated a more discerning beer palate. I am off to a poor start with the photo, however, as I only snapped one photo from of the two opportunities. Nonetheless, see below for the photo marking the occassion. With these drinks redeemed, Andy and Kim have been fully paid out, Chris H. is due another, and Rob, this year's winner, is still owed a very discouraging 9 drinks.

With a trip booked out east this summer, I hope to knock off some of the eastern folk, and with Cali/Vegas never far the US folks should be good, but those in Germany will require some special arrangements to be sure.

At any time throughout the year, see the image to the right for a snapshot of how many drinks each player is owed. It will be updated each and every time a drink is awarded.

2009 Advent Caledar Quiz Wrap Up

Hi All,

Well, it's official - the 2009 Advent Calendar Quiz has wrapped.

Thanks for playing!

2009 Advent Calendar Quiz - Day 25

Hi All,

Merry Christmas and welcome to the last question! Hope you are all enjoying your time with your family!

Before we toss out the last question, we have to tidy up two small details … question #19 and #24.

-------------------------------- Question #19 ---------------------------------------------------

After a bit of comparison, Hannah wins question #19. It was close, but Hannah offered up the most extensive list of words, with over 50 words.

--------------------------------- Question #24 --------------------------------------------------

So with last night’s question, I made a bit of an error in that my time ranges were not correct. I meant to have the final housekeeper stay until just shy of 1am.

Anyway, the time of death was actually 12:35am, and th

e rationale is in the attached document. In a nutshell, we have to use Newton's Law of Cooling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_cooling#Newton.27s_law_of_cooling). It is a bit of math, but I couldn’t resist the Santa / CSI angle J.

So, given my error, Aaron gets a drink for guessing the last housekeeper and Chris F. gets three drinks for getting the exact answer with a provided proof.

With the win, Chris pulls dead even with Rob for overall win and the gift certificate.

----------------------------------- Question #25 ----------------------------------------------

As everyone is spending time with his or her family, today’

s question will be most easy. Tell me what the most common response is to the attached Greeting.

Winner gets a drink and the first of Rob or Chris to answer correctly will win the overall quiz challenge and the gift certificate.

Best of luck all!

2009 Advent Calendar Quiz - Day 24

Hi All,

Hope you enjoyed the video last night! The winner was Rob who guessed all the songs correctly. They were as follows:

· Rihanna - Shut Up and Drive

· Sisqo featuring Lil Kim - How Many Licks

· Quiet Riot - Bang Your Head

· Neil Diamond - September Morn

· Goo Goo Dolls - Iris

· Cat Stevens - Peace Train

· The Police - Message in a bottle

· Nelly Furtado - On the Radio

--------------------------- Question #23 ---------------------------------------------

As promised, a brief bio for Teresa, last night's winner and attached is a pic as well.

• Wow, Can't believe I actually beat out Rob on a question. I'm local to the Vancouver area, I grew up in Richmond and made the big move to Delta (it's 12 minutes away for those you who don't know the area) this past summer. I have known Vern for quite a few years now and was very excited to see he was doing his advent calendar again this year. Accountant by day, learning to be a salsa dancer by night. I'm looking forward to have a Christmas duck tonight, and Christmas turkey on the 26th - is that wrong? Merry Christmas to all!

Now, for the second to last question……..

--------------------------------------- Question #24 --------------------------------

Folks, tragedy has struck tonight!

Little Johnny returned home at 1am (after a crazy Christmas Eve elementary school party) to find Santa Claus laying in a pool of his own blood. Protruding from his back, a transformer toy no doubt destined to be Johnny’s favourite toy of the year.

An avid CSI fan, Johnny immediately took Santa’s temperature and found it to be 85 degrees Fahrenheit. One hour later, he again took the temperature and found it to be 73 degrees Fahrenheit. The living room thermostat had been set at 70 degrees Fahrenheit since Johnny left his house at 7am the day before.

Being a wealthy boy, Johnny has three housekeepers, Elizabeth, Judy, and Emma. Their work schedule for the day was as follows:

· Elizabeth: 6pm – 8pm

· Judy: 8pm – 10pm

· Emma: 10pm – 12pm

One of them is responsible for Santa’s demise, which one?

A drink will be awarded for the first correct guess, however, any answer with a full solution will be worth three drinks. There are no tricks to this, just a bit of math.

Enjoy!!!!

2009 Advent Calendar Quiz - Day 23 Video

Hi all,

Please watch the video below to get today's challenge. Enjoy....