117 New Beginnings Trivia

Bob Smith 0:00
What beauty contest has contestants with curves? long eyelashes and four feet?

Marcia Smith 0:08
Okay, and why do sea otters hold hands while they sleep?

Bob Smith 0:15
answers to those another burning question burning coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith

Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steered clear of crazy and take a side road to sanity to get some perspective Well New Year here Marcia New Year so here’s my question is a new perspective on the new year. What beauty contest has contestants with curves long eyelashes and four feet? This is a multimillion dollar contest going on. Are the world’s gotta

Marcia Smith 1:03
be dogs?

Bob Smith 1:05
No it’s not dog.

Marcia Smith 1:06
Oh they don’t necessarily have who has long I asked you just have long eyelashes they do.

Bob Smith 1:10
Okay name another animal that has long eye lashes in fun cartoons and things. Who are legs

Marcia Smith 1:18
four legs

Bob Smith 1:19
shapely.

Marcia Smith 1:20
Tell me. camels. Really?

Bob Smith 1:23
Yes, there are – there are camel beauty contests in the Middle East. They are huge. They go from week long events to 40 day events. And they’re meant to celebrate the traditions of Bedouin tribes. But because Bedouins aren’t doing much these days in the desert they in many have become incredibly rich. They conduct a huge contest to see who’s got the most beautiful camels. And it one such contest a two hour drive southwest of your favorite city, Abu Dhabi. 24,000 camels from all over the Middle East compete.

Marcia Smith 1:54
Oh my god, it’s a it’s a camo show.

Bob Smith 1:57
It’s amazing. vast sums of money change hands as camels are sold. But guess what? scandal has entered the picture Marsha Oh, just in December, organizers of a popular camel beauty contest in Saudi Arabia had to disqualify 43 contestants after cracking down on Botox injections, and other forms of tampering by breeders. Can you believe that? Oh man, listen to this. This is the 40 day King Abu la-z Camel festival 60 miles northeast of Riyadh. Starting at the beginning of December breeders there compete for more than $66 million in prize money. That’s why there’s tampering so the stakes are high. While unscrupulous breeders have injected Botox, silicone and other fillers and inflating body parts using rubber bands all kinds of things to enhance the appearance of their camels.

Marcia Smith 2:50
Sounds like Miss America. Oh my god.

Bob Smith 2:53
This year, organizers dealt with 147 cases of tampering No kidding. The largest number since the festival began. Oh, that’s

Marcia Smith 3:01
that’s truly amazing.

Bob Smith 3:03
That’s just awful, isn’t it?

Marcia Smith 3:04
It is. Okay, let’s go on to something more fun Bob. Why do sea otters hold hands when they sleep?

Bob Smith 3:12
I didn’t even know they did. Of course.

Marcia Smith 3:15
I didn’t know they had hand common knowledge bomb. I

Bob Smith 3:17
thought they had paws sea otters. Pause I don’t know they hold pause the pause and hold pause. Please hold class while they sleep. Yes. I do not know why.

Marcia Smith 3:28
Well think about it. Why would you if you’re a sea otter? They

Bob Smith 3:31
do it to stay together while they’re sleeping so they don’t drift apart.

Marcia Smith 3:34
That’s exactly right. You’re kidding. Oh, that’s exactly. Good for you. To prevent themselves from floating away in the swirling sea while they sleep. Sea otters often entangle themselves in forests, or kelp or giant sea wind to provide Anchorage and then they hold hands. That’s why they hold hands that in order to prevent themselves from drifting away from the group, so it’s a double prevention. They hold hands and case themselves and seaweed and stuff so they don’t drift off to be eaten by predators or to get the off to see Geez

Bob Smith 4:12Yes, it

Marcia Smith 4:16

That sounds like a really harrowing existence. Does sound a little tense but okay, I have another sea otter thing you probably Whoa. Waiting for another one.

Bob Smith 4:21
He went to a deli wiki pedia rathole

Marcia Smith 4:25
and this is even they keep things tidy. Bob scatters. Okay.

Bob Smith 4:29
All right.

Marcia Smith 4:31
Stu stupid.

Bob Smith 4:34
You’re overcome Marcia.

Marcia Smith 4:35
Yes. Humans have developed special rooms and solitary rituals for shall we say pooping? Well why don’t we just say doing their business doing their business in a bathroom so it could be business one your business two. This is business two, okay. Okay. But for some animals doing their business number two is a social event.

Bob Smith 4:59
It’s a social event for sea otters? Yes, it is. They are US strange creatures, aren’t they though?

Marcia Smith 5:03
Instead of water closets i This is more of a I could ask you a question out of this, but it’s so weird. I don’t even want to ask. North American river otters like to do their business in piles near the water called wait for it. latrines. These are their social hubs, like going to the driving or the mall? Oh, dear, oh, animals must figure out if it’s worth hanging out together. And they go there to find out. On the upside. When auditors are in groups, they like to chat in real time and exchange information, groom each other build bonds and they play and they do this all at that special place where they go to do their business. So there you go. I’ve got another paragraph, but I think that’s enough. You’re self imploding. Already.

Bob Smith 5:56
Otters doing their business and talking to their friends. Okay. Okay. I have a religious question. I think it’s best to get to someplace of substance. This is a combination of two of my favorite things religion and history. And me I thought I was wondering, I mean, no, you’re their first favorite thing, but of the three. I’m talking about the other two good auto correct. Okay. Okay. How did a religious movement delay construction of the Washington monument for 26 years? I religious movement, religious movement, the

Marcia Smith 6:27
Washington was it? Well, it was some kind of sacred ground for some kind of sect. Was it the must have been very early people? Was it Indians? No,

Bob Smith 6:36
it was you could see that happening today. Yeah, this was the sacred hunting grounds or, or something like that. But no, no, it was an anti Catholic group, Catholic group. Yeah, they took direct action to suspend the building of the monument in Washington DC. They were the no nothing movement and they were offended by the pope Pope Pius the ninth gift of a block of marble from Rome’s temple of Concord. The marble block like blocks from many foreign nations were to be used in building the Tower if you go there, they point out in the monument you can see this stone was from Francis stone was from whatever. Well, these people were very upset. The group stole the block and threw it into the Potomac. The suspension lasted 26 years until construction resumed in 18th. At the monument was completed in 1888. But for 26 years because of this controversy about the Catholics and the stone and the Pope, isn’t that strange?

Marcia Smith 7:34
It is very odd. Okay, so here’s something I know you’ve been waiting for hockey questions? Okay.

Bob Smith 7:39
We’re in the winter season and hockey is here. Yes,

Marcia Smith 7:42
Mr. sportsmen. Today, Bob. We tend to think of hockey as a national game as in the National Hockey League, right? It’s what they’re called NHL. So tell me, how many NHL players are from the United States? Give me the number. Give me the number of percent.

Bob Smith 8:01
I think it’s like 60% are from the United States. Oh,

Marcia Smith 8:04
you are so wrong. What is it? It’s 26.4%. Oh, really? Okay. Were born in the US. This is despite the fact that there are 25 NHL teams in the US and only seven in Canada.

Bob Smith 8:17
Yeah, yeah. It’s it was originally a Canadian League.

Marcia Smith 8:21
Yeah. Oh, there it goes. Another question. But 43% of NHL players were born in Canada, and the other 30% from other parts of the world. Yes. If you can believe this. More NHL players were born in Sweden than quarterback. Isn’t

Bob Smith 8:39
that amazing? It’s crazy. More in Sweden than in Quebec, Canada. Wow. That’s a good one.

Marcia Smith 8:44
Okay. What does the word national mean in the National Hockey League?

Bob Smith 8:51
It means North American actually doesn’t know what it means Canada. Originally, it was a National Hockey League, meaning Canada.

Marcia Smith 8:59
Yes, that’s right. And what was the first US hockey team?

Bob Smith 9:03
I think it was the Boston Bruins.

Marcia Smith 9:05
Very good Bob, isn’t it? Yeah, I don’t give you credit. For sports. You actually don’t give me much accidentally read things sometimes in return about sports. Okay, but what’s the very oldest national hockey league team?

Bob Smith 9:18
The one I remember is the Montreal Canadiens.

Marcia Smith 9:21
You remember that? Yes. Okay. You’re right. I absolutely. Remember

Bob Smith 9:24
I spent like six formative years living in Michigan, just across the river from Canada. So hockey was a big deal. Okay.

Marcia Smith 9:32
They’re the oldest and the winning is that Canadians have won the most titles, how many? As of 2021 25. Wow. So they did well. All

Bob Smith 9:42
right. I have another religious question. This is kind of interesting. Why did the church at one time kill any followers who promoted a life of poverty? Christ taught his followers to give up all their worldly possessions but the church once punished those who followed that doctrine. After 1226 When St. Francis died, his followers who tried to live a life of poverty were burned at the stake. Oh, good time as heretics.

Marcia Smith 10:08
Oh my God, the church

Bob Smith 10:09
did not want to encourage poverty because it had become committed to supporting Europe’s financial structure, the power structure in Europe, it’s

Marcia Smith 10:17
why so many people don’t want to know history. It’s, it’s, it’s cognitive dissonance. It is it is. That’s

Bob Smith 10:24
that really did happen. That’s according to Isaac Asimov’s book of

Marcia Smith 10:28
Isaac. What lie? Okay, ready, Bob? Have you ever heard the expression? Your name is mud? You know, it kind of means the person is disgraced around popular right out of favor.

Bob Smith 10:39
I know the answer. You do? Yeah. Go ahead was Dr. Mudd Yeah, he was a surgeon who helped John Wilkes Booth who came to him immediately after he was after he did what after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Why did he Well, he had his he hurt his leg. He broke his leg. Yeah. So mod helped set it and then mod was later he was rounded up even though he just took care of somebody. He wasn’t as part of the conspiracy. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 11:03
they called him for a while a co conspirator kind of ruined his life and his reputation. Now

Bob Smith 11:08
here’s a question a follow up question to that. Who was one of his you can’t

Marcia Smith 11:11
do follow. Mike,

Bob Smith 11:15
who was one of his descendants, who became a national newscast. Roger mind, Roger muddy. CBS said that as a joke. No, he was he was related to him.

Marcia Smith 11:24
Really? Yeah. Wow. His name was Mike. That’s right. Okay.

Bob Smith 11:30
Okay, here’s some new perspective. Okay. Okay. One of London’s newest luxury apartment buildings originally served a far different purpose. What was

Marcia Smith 11:39
it the original I know, nuclear bomb site? Well,

Bob Smith 11:42
I’ll give you a hint. It has to do with Charles Dickens. Was

Marcia Smith 11:46
it going to be an orphanage? It was

Bob Smith 11:48
a workhouse. Yeah. the workhouse that inspired Oliver Twist. Wow. will now be home to luxury condominiums. The Strand union workhouse This was built in the 1770s it’s a place that inspired the scene where Oliver Twist says please, sir, can I have some more? Well, apparently the strand actually had a rule prohibiting second helpings of food for poppers who were there. Yeah. So it was very cruel.

Marcia Smith 12:15
Apartment Building is where the strand was.

Bob Smith 12:18
The building is the original workhouse that inspired Charles Dickens. And the location of this workhouse had been lost to history. But some detective work by scholar Ruth Richardson identified it and her work led to the building getting Historic Preservation status in 2011. And that led to the National Health Service which had used it for an old hospital they were trying to tear it down to make room for luxury condominium, so they abandon that and they hired a developer so now the workhouse itself is going to be luxury apartments

Marcia Smith 12:51
somehow that doesn’t seem quite right. Yeah, same street should be our food pantry or something useful. The

Bob Smith 12:58
building that was once home to a cruel infamous institution will be home to affluent Londoners if they can afford the $1.3 million starting price

Marcia Smith 13:08
or their Oliver Twist would have loved that twist.

Bob Smith 13:12
And here’s an irony that Charles Dickens would have liked. The first step in rehabbing the building was rather grisly they had to remove remains from the onsite poppers grave High God in heaven there were grave pits some with coffin stacked eight deep, so I had to remove all that with dignity for them. Now even though it’s gotta be called the Cleveland court apartment, some people may be calling them the Charles Dickens luxury apartments, which is what the New York Times christened did with an article in December of 2021.

Marcia Smith 13:42
I would call it Oliver’s luxury apartment. Oliver’s

Bob Smith 13:45
twist. Yeah, that is the twist. I would have a hard time staying there. If I knew that’s what happened. I couldn’t

Marcia Smith 13:51
I could stay in a luxury apartment. No problem. Okay, I think it’s time for a break.

Bob Smith 13:55
All right, you’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. We’ll be back in just a moment. We’re back. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. camels. Charles Dickens. We’re covering a lot of ground today. Okay.

Marcia Smith 14:10
Are you ready for this? Yeah. Recently, Sesame Street became a political football when anti Vaxxer critics condemn Big Bird for endorsing COVID 19 vaccine. Oh, that’s right. Yes, yes. But the show has been politically controversial from the start. What happened with the show and Mississippi in the early 1970s.

Bob Smith 14:34
Alright, don’t know what happened with the show when they come on. Mondays. I’m trying to think about it. Oh, do they have something to do with them a multiracial casters.

Marcia Smith 14:45
Good for you. Mississippi State TV commission refused to air Sesame Street after it heard complaints about the show’s racially integrated cast. Wow. Local Commercial affiliates picked up the show and began running it. Eventually the board reversed its vote.

Bob Smith 15:02
Oh, because the local affiliates said we’re going to run this. Yeah, that’s a great.

Marcia Smith 15:06
Just shut the hell up. Alright, this is this is our show, eventually. Wow. So it’s always been a bit of a

Bob Smith 15:14
little bit controversial. Okay, you don’t know these islands as the Danish West Indies what islands were once called the Danish West Indies. I’ll give you four choices. Okay. The Falklands, the gallops Lagos islands, the US Virgin Islands or the Bahamas. Which ones were known as the Danish West Indies.

Marcia Smith 15:35
What was the first one?

Bob Smith 15:36
The Falklands?

Marcia Smith 15:39
I’ll say that. No, no,

Bob Smith 15:41
no, it’s the US Virgin Islands. Oh, it is St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix. They weren’t always American territory. They were originally home to indigenous peoples, such as the Caribbean, the ARO ox, but they were later colonized by the Spanish and the French and eventually the Danes and they gained full control of these islands in the 1700s. But eventually, they wanted to sell them off. That’s how we bought those islands in the became US territory. They were firmly transferred from Denmark in 1917. Okay. $25 million in gold coin. Okay.

Marcia Smith 16:13
Yeah. Can I go? Yeah. All right. What popular electronic device Bob has fallen in price nearly 30% Since December 2019. In

Bob Smith 16:25
electronic device, yeah. You know, I’m gonna say the Peloton. You know, those Yeah, the bikes. Yeah. Exercise units.

Marcia Smith 16:32
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good, but you’re wrong. As of November 27 2021, that cell phone has dropped 30% in price. Wow. In less than two.

Bob Smith 16:43
Tell that to somebody who buys those $1,000 iPhone. Yeah, not us. Overall. Cell phones have dropped in price by 30%.

Marcia Smith 16:51
I think those have dropped off in the past several years.

Bob Smith 16:53
Wow. That’s amazing. Okay. All right. Anything else?

Marcia Smith 16:58
I got another question. Okay, Bob. hot pots are a big thing. Now, Bob. In fact, you use them when you went to Hong Kong? Yes. Patent you’d like it?

Bob Smith 17:09
Yeah, it was a hot pot dish. Yeah, yeah. Just everybody’s work. Well, a bunch of people sit around kind of a it was a horseshoe shaped or a round table and in the middle of it is a scalding cauldron of water and you dip your food into that actually you drop your food into that and fish it out later hotpot.

Marcia Smith 17:29
It’s a water based stock. So and it’s a very big thing here in America now for in done in different ways. But can you tell me how hot pots got their start?

Bob Smith 17:39
No, I can’t.

Marcia Smith 17:43
Good now this is from the Milwaukee Journal, and they wouldn’t lie. Their creation of the hotpot can be summed up in a few words. Necessity is the mother of invention. In the Three Kingdom period, the years ad 220 to two ad. There were a lot of wars were in China. Okay, people were always conquering each other. The soldiers wore copper helmets. And the soldiers use those helmets as their pots to cook them food in for themselves. That’s how it all started. No kidding. Yeah, they just took their hats off and put their food in there and boil it.

Bob Smith 18:21
And so that was the beginning. Yeah, they must have been big hats.

Marcia Smith 18:24
A helmet? You know, you just put that in there.

Bob Smith 18:27
Okay, what did Babylonians consider to be the wisest of all of their love customs?

Marcia Smith 18:33
The wisest of their loved customs. Yes. I have a few amusing thoughts about that. But I’ll let those go. And I will say, I don’t know. Did they invent marriage?

Bob Smith 18:45
Well, it had to do with marriage. They would auction off marriageable girls every year and men had to bid high for the most attractive girls. That money provided a  dowry. So the ugly girls, that no one would bid for, could find husbands.

Marcia Smith 19:01
Really? So it was some equanimity there.

Bob Smith 19:05
If you want to say it that way. Yes. I could barely say, Oh, my goodness.

Marcia Smith 19:09
Well, that must make you feel real proud. If you’re one of the girls to get the leftover.

Bob Smith 19:14
At least you got married. Did you?

Marcia Smith 19:16
Did the ugly guys know?

Bob Smith 19:20
Okay, I’ve got a question. One more question. Sure. Almost every country has national parks. Right. We have a lot of them here in this country and other countries have their own national parks. But what is the only country whose capital contains a national

Marcia Smith 19:34
park? Really? I didn’t know there was only one. Yes. And

Bob Smith 19:38
I’ll give you some ideas here. Nairobi, Kenya, Seoul, South Korea, Washington DC or Bangkok, Thailand, Seoul. No, it’s not Seoul. What is the second guest? Not

Marcia Smith 19:50
Thailand because I know something about that not DC because that’s Arlington.

Bob Smith 19:56
Okay, so that leaves Bangkok and Nairobi. So I’ll say Bangkok? No. Oh, it’s Nairobi. Sorry, March. Well, I’m helping you out here with clues. I

Marcia Smith 20:06
gosh, I got three out of four wrong.

Bob Smith 20:09
Nairobi, Kenya. It’s the only world capital that contains its own national park is Nairobi National Park. It’s also the oldest national park in Kenya. Yes, it’s established in 1946. Although it’s smaller than many other national parks, it is teeming with wildlife. You are right when you were thinking that might be a wildlife rarely seen elsewhere. Zebras, black rhinoceroses, lions and giraffes are in the Nairobi National Park in Nairobi, Kenya.

Marcia Smith 20:37
I’ll be danke Okay, how are American calendars different from international standards?

Bob Smith 20:44
American calendars different from international? Is it that the week starts on Sunday? How did you know I just thought that would be a different thing. I could see that be a different thing for people know the day starts on Yeah.

Marcia Smith 20:54
And doesn’t it make you crazy? How many times have you screwed up the calendar? Because you’re thinking that’s not Sunday that it should Monday on the calendar, and it’s actually Sunday?

Bob Smith 21:02
You know, never for me, really? For me? It’s always Sunday is the first day of the week. Well see if you grew up in a religious home.

Marcia Smith 21:12
My heathen family, okay. All right. So according to ask Maryland, American calendars are out of sync with Americans, our calendars do not follow international standards, ISO standards, you know, which start the week with Monday and end on Sunday. Our country’s practice of starting the week on Sunday dates back to the Romans, who named the day starting with the Sunday and the moon Monday. So that’s it’s a Roman thing. And that makes sense. And that’s why our calendars aren’t don’t look like everybody else’s calendar.

Bob Smith 21:53
Well, how about that I that bothers you still to this day?

Marcia Smith 21:56
It bothers me when I screw up the dates when I’m planning something.

Bob Smith 22:00
Okay, I’ve got to let’s just think to the summer months Okay, let’s these are two facts I thought was interesting. Plants have a way of communicating with each other the scent of freshly cut grass is equivalent to a cry for help. Oh,

Marcia Smith 22:14
no. Isn’t that awful? Yes. Who?

Bob Smith 22:17
Well, this is from Mental Floss. I’ve got the story if you want it. And then what is a lawn mullet along the lawn mower

Marcia Smith 22:25
is that when you your blades don’t cut evenly.

Bob Smith 22:29
No, it means having a neatly manicured front yard but an unmowed mess in the back. Well, that’s one bullet.

Marcia Smith 22:36
All right. All right. Before I get to my quote of the to end the show, I have one quick question for you, Bob. Okay, who was Winnie the Pooh named after?

Bob Smith 22:47
Winnie the Pooh? Who was a mill and had something to do with that, of course, because he wrote Winnie the Pooh. That is correct. But who was it named after? Was it a teddy bear?

Marcia Smith 22:59
No. Okay. It was a real bear. A famous black bear in the London Zoo. And his name was Winnie because he that name rather was short for Winnipeg. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. In the London Zoo.

Bob Smith 23:13
So that’s, that’s where A. A. Milne got the idea for stories that he wrote for his young son. Right? Yeah. Christopher Robin. Okay. I have a couple of interesting facts here. Yeah. Now you tell me you know, you always hear about people unfriending people on Facebook.

Marcia Smith 23:29
Did you Did you notice that? No. Did you unfriend

Bob Smith 23:33
Unfriend – how far back does the term unfriend go? You’ll be surprised really? Yeah,

Marcia Smith 23:37
I wouldn’t have said long but obviously I’m wrong. So I’ll say 1859. So you think

Bob Smith 23:43
it goes back about 100? And, okay, yeah, okay. 50 years? No, no, it goes back to 1659. Can you believe that? I don’t know what the context is. But in 1659, the term unfriend first appeared. So that goes back a long, long way to social media and their day apparently, I’ll be done. And one more thing okay. What did the BBC do a Good Friday 1930 Good Friday 1930 The BBC did something I assume tongue in cheek but it’s funny. BBC Radio 1938 Wasn’t

Marcia Smith 24:19
that was before the What’s his name’s scary radio show.

Unknown Speaker 24:24
Oh, yeah. Okay for

Bob Smith 24:26
Orson Welles. Yeah. Okay, on Good Friday in 1930. The BBC reported there is no news. And instead they played piano music. Really? Good newscast. That

Marcia Smith 24:36
sounds like April 1 kind of thing. It does sound like that. Not good Friday. Yeah, well, that’s interesting, huh?

Bob Smith 24:44
And just for the record Barbies, full name is Barbie, Millicent Roberts and Ella sent you know, you really learn things when you listen to the off ramp. I can learn a lot of stuff. I just wanted to make sure poo

Marcia Smith 24:56
Millison Barbie Yes. All right. It’s a new year. And a new day and I’m going to finish with George Washington not a guy quoted a lot like Abe Lincoln or anybody. He said, We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

Bob Smith 25:20
So keep your eye on the future. Well,

Marcia Smith 25:22
yeah, and learn from your mistakes.

Bob Smith 25:24
Okay, I’m trying, I’m trying too hard. That’s it as we start a whole new year here. We hope you’ve enjoyed this first episode of the new year. I’m Bob Smith.

Marcia Smith 25:36
I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again

Bob Smith 25:37
next time when we return with more trivia on the off ramp.

The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarbrook Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai