Good Job, Brain! - 282: Spiking It To Ya

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Spiky trivia that will poke your brain! Baby hedgehogs vs baby porcupines, and more prodding facts in Karen's spiny quiz. Colin lays down the tracks to make way for the (embarrassing) legend of the golden railroad spike. Get saucy with some spiked drinks in the alcohol ingredient quiz. And boy, there sure are a lot of people nicknamed Spike, aren't there? ALSO: zeugma, state quarters, and this episode's homemade cryptic For advertising inquiries, please contact [e-mail]! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, passionate, Poshes and Pashminas eating passion fruit. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode 282, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and who We are your armadas of barracudas eating enchiladas in verandas. Woo! I am Colin. And I'm Chris.

Well, we survived another week. Here we are Friday night after a long week of work and kids. Time to unwind by recording a podcast. Yeah, unwind by chugging some Diet Coke and firing up the whole laptop. I have something from a listener, Caroline, shared. Something called a Zygma. Ooh. Zygma.

Okay. How do you spell that? Z-E-U-G-M-A. All right. Okay. Is this like up dog? Because I've been burned before I can. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's Zugma?

Zugma balls. Any idea what this could be. Zugma. Okay. It could be anything. It could be anything. All right. So what a ZUMA? Well, let's take a trip. Audio trip. I'm going to play a clip. We're going to listen to it. And maybe you can identify, not what a Zugma is, but like maybe you can identify where the clip is from. You're prepared for what?

It's when Jeremy Irons is singing. So that clip is obviously from one of the best movies on Earth, The Lion King. Yes. 1994 from the song Be Prepared when the Hyenas and the Evil Jeremy Iron's Lion's Lion are singing. He says something in the lyrics that I just played. Your teeth and ambitions are bared. be prepared that is a zygma there are many different types of zygma it's like kind of a big family but one of them is this it's a figure speech that combines both the literal and the metaphorical use

of the word together okay okay all right your teeth are literally exposed yeah and then your ambitions are metaphorically exposed another example is I lost my house and my mind. I literally lost my house. And then it made me go crazy. You know, I lost my mind. And so it's that pairing, that kind of word play. Okay.

Yes, taking the two meanings, double meaning, kind of build it into one. So where does the word literally come from? Like is it named after a person or is it like a... No, it's like Greek meaning yoking together, roping together. I like it. So important. Karen, I need to know, is Zugma in the official Scrabble Dictionary? Oh, whoa.

That's a good one. Let's see. Because that could be very handy, a little five letter. It shows up. Hey, now, we are in business. Not only Zugma, but you can build off of it and spell Zugmas. Okay. Starting with that ass off the way.

No one loved that move more than my mom. Shoot, just such an expert at that. Oh, yeah. Let me just pluralize your word. You have to. That's how you play the game. Yep, yep. All right.

Zugma, that is a fantastic word. So, over the last couple episodes, we've been doing cryptic crossword clues. I wasn't going to do one for this episode. But then, actually, as I was putting together my quiz, I saw something, and it inspired me, and I had to do another cryptic clue. Just one this time. Just one this time. That's okay.

We got a fever. And the only cure is more cryptics. So here is my cryptic crossword clue that I wrote for you guys this episode. Stabler destroyed lemon in front of me. Enumeration 6. Stabler destroyed lemon in front of me. Okay. So what we're doing, Colin, we should.

Yeah. Trying to find out what the word play trigger word is, the indicator. We'll go from there. So I see one at the end. I see in front of me, right? And destroyed. So destroyed maybe anagram, messing it up. And then in front means placing.

I think so. Stabler. Elliot Stabler from Law and Order, SBU. Am I right about Law and Order? Elliot Stabler is the name of a character. You are absolutely correct. You were absolutely correct about that. Or something that's like a horse stable.

Yeah, something related to stables, right? Okay, okay, all right. Destroyed, meaning like, broke up the letters of lemon, you think? Or like, okay. Well, there's only six letters, right? Yes, that's right. But then in front of me, so if it's six letters, and let's just say it's literally like ends in the letter M.E., right? So maybe it's-I, I, okay, could be.

That makes sense. That's six letters, right? So anagram of lemon and then ends with I. Yep. Meloni, Christopher. Meloni. Meloni. Oh, Karen, you got it there with the Elliott Stabler.

I'm like, I'm picturing his face this whole time we're doing this. I'm like, maybe, maybe not. Maybe, maybe not. But wow. Okay. So lemon. So just to spell it out, I mean, literally. So lemon anagramed into melon.

In front of me. So melon plus I, Melon, I, Meloni, as in the actor, Christopher Meloni. Indeed. Wow. So we know what you were doing when you came up with this one, Chris, in other words. Yeah, was Law & Order playing on TV? No, no, no, no. No, I was looking at actors.

And it turns out that Christopher Maloney actually played a character with a certain name that is relevant to the topic of this show. I see. All right. Well, without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment pop quiz, hot shot. And when I say general, I do have a general trivial pursuit card, random from the box, and you guys have your barnyard buzzers. So we got buzz on the right answer. And I got a stack of some mystery cards afterwards that we're going to answer some trivia

question, kind of celebrating Chris and Chris's achievements this week. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. All right. Here we go. Well, first trivial pursuit card, get your barnyard buzzers ready. Listeners, let's answer some questions. See if you can be faster or better than it doesn't call. Or both. Or both. All right, here we go. Blue Wedge for geography. Which British territory is adjacent to Spain? which British territory is adjacent to Spain the next to as in touching I feel like we should know this Chris I know like we should know this I can't think of it though you know my first thought was Ibiza Ibiza I was like oh a lot of British people go party there but then I was like that's an

island yeah I was like again the ones I could think of were the tiny little islands but That's not adjacent. Is the gateway to the Mediterranean, Gibraltar. The Gibraltar. Wow. Chabraltar, yes, of course. I am not going to pretend that I knew that. All right.

Okay. Pink Wedge for Pop Culture, which long-running paranormal TV series sparked fans' interest in and desire to own a black 1967 Chevy Impala Hart Top. Chris. Night Ryan. Incorrect. No. Paranormal.

Oh, I thought that was paranormal because the car. Oh, okay, maybe the car doesn't have a ghost in it. It was high-tech, yeah, it wasn't a good. Night Rider, what long-running paranormal series inspired people to want to own a what? Black, 1967, Chevy Impala Harttop. Black? To figure into the long-running. Paranormal.

Oh. Let's think a little bit more recent. Okay, more recent than X-Files? Paranormal. That was just the other day that show was on. I mean, I have no idea when these cards are printed either is the thing. It's like this card could be... Oh, okay, all right, all right, all right.

Is this a reality show or... No, no, it's not ghost hunters. It's okay, okay, it's a scripted... Two Hunky Brothers. Really? It is supernatural. Never heard of it in my life. What?

The Winchester Brothers. I don't know. So, okay, so... they drove, so they drove this car in the show, I assume. Okay, all right. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. Car was not a talking character in the show. Here we go, Yellow Edge. The United States does not have a central bank. True or false? Colin. True. The United States does not have a central bank. I don't think so. The answer is false.

Oh, why? What's the? The Federal Reserve System is the Central Bank. I'm like, we have a federal reserve. It's like... It's confusing. It's like we don't call it a central bank. That was really what I was going by. That was really all I was going on. Okay.

Lousy, lousy. All right. Shake it off. Shake it off. Purple Wedge, which Jillian Flynn bestseller was adapted to a blockbuster thriller starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. Chris. Gone girl.

Gone girl. All right, here we go. Green Wedge. What is the sum? of the interior angles of a pentagon. Oh, geez. Some of the interior angles. Interior angles.

Okay, well, okay, so a square is 360 degrees. Correct. Okay, a pentagon is more than that. How many is a triangle? The interior angles open up a little bit more. How many is a triangle? Yeah. One 180, right?

Yep. Like an equal... 180. Mm-hmm. Right, right. 360. Classic example. Mm-hmm.

So, so what is it? You think it's 360 plus 180? Whatever that may be. 540. Ding, ding, ding, ding. You got there. Interesting. Very nice.

I was not told there would be mass. Yeah. All right. Last question on this card. Orange Wedge, name three of the four chest pieces that can move diagonally on the board. You know what? Name all four, please. All right, so we can do this together, right?

Green? Yes. Bishop? Yes. Are we saying the knight? Oh, no, the king can move diagonally. Correct. Yes.

The pawn can also move diagonally. Yes. The knight is, um, pass on. Yeah. L-shaped. L-shaped. It ends up being, it ends up being diagonal, though. But I get by directly diagonal.

Yeah. Project the premise. Yes. What a good point. Point A and point B. It is diagonal. It's not 45 degrees diagonal. No one said that. Exactly. Yeah. We know what they matter. To be fair. Okay. All right. So, speaking of L-shaped, Chris had a bit of achievement this week. Tetris Forever. Came out. You can go play Tetris and explore the histories. This is the good job brain fans, Tetris game. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Because it is a, it's a virtual museum of Tetris history. We've got the, you've got the Tetris games, but then there's also the full-on story of the history of Tetris, how Tetris was made, lots of Tetris trivia. It's like reading the plaque, but you play it. Exactly. Right. To celebrate your achievement, here I have a stack of, here you go, video game trivia card. Let me just say it's not very efficient. It's like two questions on a card.

Okay. So this is why I grab a stack. So let's play everybody. Let's just see. Let's just see how good our video game trivia knowledge is. You have not looked at these. They don't do the flippy thing. So the answer is like right under the card.

So you can't help this. Okay. Buzz in with the answer. Here we go. Question after leaving LucasArts, which video game studio did acclaim game developer Tim Schaefer form in the year 2000? my friend. Yeah, right.

Chris? Double fine. On which handheld console did the Pokemon games first appear in 1996. Over to you, Chris. Game Boy. Correct. Which 2007 video game was released as the sequel to the 1992 film Hard Boiled. Chow Yong's a John Wu movie.

Wow. Oh, it's a John Mu movie. I think this starred Chow Young Fat, too, like as a video game version of it. Hmm. Chris. Stranglehole. Yes. I have set down my buzzer at this point, ladies and gentlemen, and I am cheering on my friend Chris. I love seeing people be competent.

Yes, it's so extremely satisfying. All right. What was the final home console released by Sega? Dreamcast. Correct. You know what? This will just be a let's stump Chris. You know, at Penny Arcade Expo 1, we did win Chris' video games, like win Ben Stein's money.

or you had to go up against me in video game trivia questions if it's not pretty. A race of cat-like creatures, the char, C-H-A-R-R, first became playable in which 2012 M-M-O-R-P-G. Final Fantasy 14. It is Guild Wars 2. Early models of which console were plagued by a hardware fault commonly referred to as the Red Ring of Death. Xbox, Xbox 360. Uh, okay. It happened to me.

The last two cards, what are the names of the three playable characters in the first Streets of Rage? Axel, Blaze, and, oh, God, it's Axel and Blaze and... Adam. Oh, I was never going to get that. Incredible. Uh, before it's released by what code name was the Xbox OneX called? Uh, Scarlet?

Oh, you're close. Xbox one was Scarlet. Xbox one, Durango? No, Durango. Oh, Scorpio. So close. He goes Scarlet. It was in there.

Wow. If you're getting in there for video game trivia, it's got to be, it's got to be a little card. Yeah, exactly, because it can't just be right. Yeah. Who's Mario's brother? Yeah. All right.

Good job. Woo! all right folks this week our topic Colin did not pick it I suggested it no yeah you suggested a great one because I recently went to an Asian supermarket and they were selling durian durian and jackfruits you know some produce that you don't see at normal supermarkets but you do see at Asian supermarkets and I was like wow smells like home I'm looking at all this produce I was like man they all look so freaky and weird and spiky. Yeah.

And that's when the inspiration hit. And I was like, oh, spiky things. What a weird topic that I can suggest. I don't know what you guys are doing. I know I have my segments. So this week, we're spiking it to you. So I discover it. in looking at the word

Spike and what I might try to come up with is that Christopher Maloney well known as Detective Elliot Stabler from Law and Order SVU actually played a character once on a television show whose name was Spike that television show was that's right

dinosaurs what Oh, wow. And there was a punk dinosaur named Spike, played by Christopher Maloney. Oh, my God. Dinosaurs, as in the puppet, the puppet sitcom, the American sitcom. That's the one. That's the one, dinosaur puppets, yep.

I really really love that show. I don't know if, like, did people make fun of it, or is it bad? Like, I really thought it was a good show. I think you can unironically like it. Oh, okay, good, good. Oh, my God, it's the, the team. teenage punk friend. Yep, the teenage punk friend.

Was Christopher Maloney in the suit or just the voice? That's a good question. I don't, were they in suits? I don't know. Maybe he was. I think he had at least a shirt, maybe. I think it was a voice role. I think it was a voice role.

No, but he played Spike. And, you know, the thing is, there's, gosh, there sure are a lot of different characters and people out there named Spike. Just that great go-to name. I didn't even think about that when I suggested this. So I have a quiz about people named Spike. There sure are a lot of them. Christopher Maloney's, you know,

tragic comic hero character from dinosaurs does not figure into this quiz. Just a bunch of other people and a whole lot of dogs. A whole lot of dogs. Named Spike. Oh, I didn't realize we were including dogs. Okay. All right. Yeah. All right. So get your barnyard buzzers ready because here is the people that are named Spike Quiz. First question. Spike Spiegel is the protagonist of this 1998 anime series. Karen. Cowboy Bebop. Cowboy Bebop. Just to get our brains a little loose there. Kind of an easy one. All right. Second question. William Pratt, aka.

Spike was played by James Marsters in what two television series? Karen. That is Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. And Angel. Great work. A certain comic strip character first introduced on August 13, 1975, named Spike, has seven siblings who are named Andy Marbles. Olaf, Bell, Molly, Rover, and Blank.

Whoa, everybody. Colin? That is, of course, Snoopy. Snoopy. Jerkara was going to say that too. Yes, Snoopy's Seven Siblings. Yes, Snoopy is the answer. We've talked about that once.

Our former co-host, Dana, describes Spike as hard-living. Yeah. He's got like droopy eyes, a big mustache. Yes, he lives in Arizona, right? No, actually near Needles, California. Oh, okay. All right. In fact, in the real town of Needles, California, there is a statue of Spike.

Hard living Snoopy. Hard living dog. All right. Another dog named Spike. In the 1952 Looney Tunes short, tree for two, Spike the Bulldog pals around with a little terrier named Blank. Looney Tunes Terrier

This is the classic Sylvester The Cat cartoon Where you have Spike the Bulldog And you have a little terrier going You and me as friends, Frank Spick? You want to do Spike? Anybody know the name of that dog? No.

Oh, that dog's name. Who was that? All right. Well, if you, the listeners, have got it, you are the trivia mastermind of the day Because that little dog is named Chester. Oh, that's your dog name too. No way. Yep, yep, yep.

What I have Chester and Spike Oh Chester and Spike Classic If you haven't seen it Go watch it Classic

Now I don't want you to confuse Spike the Bulldog from Looney Tunes with the similar but completely different Spike the Bulldog

from Tom and Jerry Oh wow Different dogs This one This spike the bulldog from Tom and Jerry doesn't pal around With a little terrier

But he does hang around with his rhymingly named son, whose name is blank. Hmm. Colin? Ike. Not, no, it's not Ike. It's his little son.

Tike. The word meaning, what? Tike. It is indeed Tike. Spike and Tyke. Love those Tom of Jerry with the dog. Yeah. So I guess everybody loves naming their dog Spike, because there's another dog named Spike and

another cartoon TV show, RugRug, Rugg, Ruggrats. In the 2003 movie Rugrats Go Wild, Spike was voiced by this Hollywood icon, who also let his voice talents to The Baby and Look Who's Talking, who is not named Spike. Oh, Karen. Bruce Willis. It's Bruce Willis. I need that. Look who's talking. Yeah. Yeah. The anchor.

Not dog. Spike is also the name of the protagonist of this 1999. PlayStation game about time-traveling monkeys. Not a monkey, not a dog. Name of the protagonist of this 1999 PlayStation game about time-traveling monkeys. Time-traveling monkeys. It's not super monkey ball. It is not. It is a rhyming name. PlayStation 1. Yeah, 99. Time-traveling monkeys. Many listeners are tearing in their hair right now, waiting

Pounding the dashboard. Not Rayman. Somebody to say Ape Escape. Ape escape. Ape is the name of that. In the world of the W.W.E.

A wrestler named Spike joined his half-brothers Bubba Ray and Devon in this tag team. Oh. Karen. It's not like Bash Brothers. It's like.

This is a you know it or you don't. Okay. That is the Dudley Boys. The Dudley Boys. Devon, Dudley, Bubba Ray Dudley. None of them are actually related. None of them are actually related.

And Spike Dudley. All right. Well, let's shake it off. Let's move on. In the 1984 arcade game wrecking crew, Foreman Spike attempts to interfere with these two construction workers. Oh, right. Wrecking Crew.

In the 1984 arcade game Wrecking Crew, Borman Spike attempts to interfere with these two construction workers. Mario Luigi? It's Mario. Oh, nice. Nice work, Karen.

Yes. Christine Nelson, aka Spike, was played by Amanda Stepto from 1987 until 2000, and 10 across three different series in this teen drama franchise. Whoa.

That's a long time. It sure is, Karen. It sure is. Christine Spike Nelson was played by Amanda Stepto from 1987 until 2010 across 307. different series in this teen drama franchise in this need it even be said long running is it teen drama franchise Colin is it the digressy franchise it is the digressy verse yes digressy she played she played spike who had massively spiked hair in digressy degrassy junior high yeah and then in digressy high and now in digressy the next generation

as the mom of one of the kids going to be a teenage. Amazing. I was like she's a teenager for the whole time. No, it's not like a grease situation where there's a 40-year-old plane. Finally, last question. A real-life yellow Mastodor, that's a Mastiff-Labrador Retroreder. Oh, cute. Named Spike was a famous dog actor of the 1950s, appearing in films.

like a dog of Flanders and the she creature. But Spike was best known for his title role in this 1957 smash hit from Disney. I was going to say old Yeller, but I was like, man, that's real sad. Ninety of his smash hit. But that would fit, right? Old Yeller. I mean, if that would be his best. And Labrador. I mean, yeah, that's like kind of a golden retriever doggy.

I'll read the question again. a real-life yellow mastador All right. Old Yeller. Old Yeller. Yes, it's, nobody's buzzing in. Oh, sorry. Everybody's still like, is it this? Holland? Old Yeller. It's Old Yeller, as previously suggested by Karen. That was a smash hit.

Oh, God, yes. Oh, my gosh. One of like the highest grossing films of that year. I mean, it was huge, huge, huge. I have a question. Yeah. Like, is Spike short for something? Spike Tholomew. Really?

No. No, it's like a spike. Like a pointy thing. Why do people call people spike? It's such a random. Because they, you know, they put a spiked collar on like the pit bull's neck and they call them Spike. Or, you know, somebody has spiky hair. So they call them Spikey hair.

It's a nickname. Yeah. Got it, got it. All right. Great job knowing your fictional spikes. I did not ask about the character Spike from Super Mario Brothers 3, who. pulls a giant spiked ball out of his own mouth to throw at Mario. Yeah.

He doesn't spit it. He doesn't spit it. He reaches in with his hand. Yeah. And actively, yeah. It feels more disrespectful that way, to be honest. If I were on the other side. Real intent behind that.

Exactly. That's a measured action. Who does that? Who does that? Did he have it ready to go? just doesn't produce it on demand? That octopus poops his own children at me, and

I feel better about that than what you're doing right now. All right, here I have a grab-back quiz of spiky things, things that are spiky, sharp, pointy. Let's buzz in for this, all right?

Here we go. Question number one, what bleached hairstyle came into popularity in the 2000s, thanks to the era of boy bands. Ooh. Chris. This is like frosted tips.

It is. Oh, wow. Okay. Yes. Frosted chips. The Rachel? A lot of dudes looking like porcupines. Yeah.

With a. Like albino porcupines. Beach ends. Yeah. You know, and we all thought it was like the most attractive thing ever. All right. Next question. Check hedgehogs and dragon teeth were widely used during World War II to do what?

What? Check hedgehogs? Yes, check as in from... D-C-E-C-H-H-H-E-C-H-E-C-H-E-H-E-H-E-H-E-Teth were widely used during World War II to do what? Colin. They were anti-tank, right, to stop tanks from moving? Bing, bing-b-b-bing. They were anti-tank.

obstacles. Check hedgehog. Sounds so nutty, but you've seen, I swear you've seen them before. All the pictures of like Normandy beaches, you see these big like metal giant like jacks, big kind of 3D asterisk of like a metal thing. And they're just placed along the beach and they're huge and they're designed to stop tanks. And dragon teeth are made out of concrete and They're concrete pyramids. So there's these spiky concrete pyramids that would just sit on the ground, basically deter tanks from moving. In Switzerland, they call dragon teeth. They call them Tolberones.

Oh, no way. They literally look like a big line of toll barones. Speaking of hedgehog, let's talk about some spiking animals, huh? What are the spikes on a porcupine called versus what are the spikes on a porcupine called versus what are the spikes on? on a hedgehog calls. Oh, I buzzed in a little prematurely. Well, Colin, take a stab. Well, I, so to speak.

I believe that on a porcupine, I believe they're called quills. Correct. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay, I know, I think I know hedgehog. Okay, all right, well, tag team over to you here, Chris. Are they spines? Yes, you're correct.

Porcupines have quills, hedgehogs have spines. Okay. colloquially, we'll use them kind of interchangeably. Quills and spines are different. They're both made of keratin, but quills, porcupines can eject quills. They can pop them out. And quills are structured kind of like arrows where it's like barbed and angled. So it's really hard to pull them out without like some real damage. Hedgehogs have spines. The ends of them are, they're a little bit rounder. The spines are part of their body. They can't pop them out. Both animals are born. with their quills and spines as babies. Baby porcupines, their quills are really, really soft. So they're able to not hurt the mother when they come out. Okay. And then baby hedgehogs, they actually have this kind of membrane,

this fluid membrane padding and lubrication, I guess, when they come out of their moms. And then within a day, that membrane dissolves and dries away. And that's how they're born. They're actually born with their quills and their spines. Wow. One fact, a baby porcupine is called a porcupet. Aw.

Oh, I think that's cute. Baby hedgehogs are called hoglets. Porcupet and hoglet. You're right. That's pretty, that's pretty dang cute. It is pretty dang cute. Okay, next question. Okay, this is German.

So I listen to the German pronunciation. Here we go. The Picklehow. is a spiky what, usually associated, oh, with the Prussian army. Colin, throwback from the old Prussian of yours. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is ringing a bell. I believe this is the spiky helmet, just like the classic, right, spiky helmet. The Kaiser, German, Prussian, spiky helmets, looks real cool, looks real badass.

Yeah, it does. Turns out it's terrible. It's terrible for warfare. Wildly impractical for day-to-day, warfare. During World War I where there was a lot of trench warfare. Who wants a big metal spike on the end of your helmet while you're in the trenches? You poke people. They say that they caused some real damage to horses. Their horses because they have this big, yeah, a giant seriously thing on top of their heads. High on form, low on function. Here we go. Next question. Well,

spiking is a move in volleyball, where you forcefully hit the ball, slamming it to the other side. Did you know that volleyball was derived from badminton? I think you not know that. Don't let it touch the ground. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. Funnily enough, William Morgan, the inventor of volleyball, was a student of whom, the inventor of basketball.

Colin? James Naismith? Yes. Really? You know, William Morgan invented volleyball as a less physically taxing option than basketball. I think they're men of a certain age. Maybe basketball is a little bit,

full court press is a little bit too much. So let's have some exciting sport, but just without a lot of moving. That's funny. You know, I, as you may know, Karen, I played volleyball in high school, and I don't think I was aware of this connection. All right. Next question.

So, like I said, I was inspired by tropical fruits. I saw jackfruit and durian. There are so many tropical fruits with hard spikes and soft spikes, including the durian, the jackfruit, the rambutan, and the pitaia, commonly known as what? Oh. Pitaya, P-I-T-A-Y-A. Huh. It's commonly known as what? commonly know.

So like, have I, have I had this item, Karen? A hundred percent. Is it a fruit? Is it a fruit? It's a fruit. Tropical fruit. Is it the fruit? It is.

Dragon fruit. Dragon fruit. Maybe that's what I was thinking of. Okay. Taitia. Dragon fruit, one of the freakyest fruits out there. Oh, man. It totally is a doctor's juice.

It's like an alien. It is. Yes. Wow, this bright pink thing. And you open it, you're like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Yeah. What's in here?

Last question here. Hope you know your fairy tales. Name two classic fairy tales where the spindle spinning wheel plays a big part of the plot. Oh. Rumble stilt skin and sleeping beauty. The same. Correct. Yeah, nice.

Turns out the spindle not actually that sharp. So it's kind of like, oh. Yeah, right. It's like a, yeah, like wood. It's a big wood. wooden spool, right? In most versions of Sleeping Beauty, she gets pricked.

She pricks herself off of the spindle, and then that's when she falls asleep. And Rumpelstilskin basically shows up because a woman was trapped, challenged to spin straw into gold, and she couldn't do it. So Rumpelstilskin appears and helps her in exchange for something. Exchange for her child.

Oh, I thought you were going to leave it open. You know, if we're like, you know, as an exercise to the listener, yeah. All right, that's my grab bag, spiky things quiz. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. It feels really good to be productive, but a lot of the time it's easier said than done, especially when you need to make time to learn about productivity so you can actually, you know, be productive. But you can start your morning off right and be ready to get stuff done in just a few minutes

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You guys remember back in the day when we were hitting pub quiz every single week. I mean, like, we didn't miss. Every single week. Yeah, pre-kids, this is, you know, and sometimes even twice a week, you know, sometimes we would manage to, oh, we just dropped in, we dropped in for a beer and turned out his pub quiz, so we had to stay. And, oh, and, you know, we do a week. Oh, we have first place. Yeah, you know, another deal, twice if we were feeling crazy. But this was like right in the period when we were getting a lot of a very specific type of trivia question that I loved.

I feel like we as a team liked these, which were trivia about the state question. Quarters program. Do you remember, we used to get these a lot in pub quiz. And just to briefly recap, what I'm talking about was from 1999 over a period of 10 years, the U.S. Mint was issuing special commemorative quarters where the front was normal, you know, George Washington. And on the back was a different design, one for each of the 50 states. And it was a, do they not make you? them anymore? Well, I mean, they still issue them, but this was the big program. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they have then gone on to do other special editions of U.S. territories and, you know, all kinds of commemorative things in part because this was such a big hit. The 50 states, 50 quarters program, it was just, it was, it was so well conceived, like five a year for 10 years. And they released the coins, as you may recall, in order that the states effectively were admitted to the union, right? Or, you know, formally ratified the right hold hold on calling when you said it's a hit like what is their

measurement for success like just like people were talking yeah i mean both i mean so no surprise that there are coin nerds right you know there are numismatics nerds who who will happily excitedly buy the special sets that the u.s. meant puts out every year and the u.s. meant you know makes a fair amount of revenue putting out special edition commemorative editions yeah i mean people were writing news articles about it and it got a lot of coverage and it bled into pub quiz. I think the fact that this one really crossed over into the general public consciousness in a way that a lot of the other special coins, you know, maybe didn't. This could show up in pub quiz in any number of ways, right? It could be, you know, here are five designs of the different state quarters. You match

them to the state. So for example, the design on the back of the California quarter that was issued in 2005. It's a picture of John Muir and the California Condor and Half Dome from Yosemite. Like really, really crammed a lot in there on the very tiny little canvas, right? Obviously, they focused on this kind of like nature, natural wonder angle. No bears? No, no. You know what? I mean, I'm sure the bears were on the shortlist somewhere. Yeah. Chris, like, you know, your great home state of Connecticut, do you know what's on the Connecticut quarter? it is the i had to look up what this was it is the charter oak i was not familiar with the charter

oh was it yeah i do remember yeah like it's a tree it's like a cool it's like a tree with like sunglasses on it that's like hey yeah i mean it's not the california raisins no it's it's a tree but should have been on the california coins the california raisins should have been on the California coin. No, so Karen, your adoptive home state now of Washington. Do you know what? Do you know what's on the Washington state? Is it like a bunch of stuff? It's, it's another one that has a couple of things. Okay. Is there, uh, uh, uh, Mount Rainier? Yes, you got it. You got Mount Rainier. That's, that's like basically 50% of it. You're halfway there. Yeah. If you had to pick an animal, let's say, an animal to go along with Mount Rainier. Like an orca. I like the way you're thinking.

It's actually a salmon. It is a salmon leaping out of the water against a backdrop of Mount Rainier and then the caption on there says The Evergreen State. They ran through all 50. Every state has their own design. Some, I have, you know, some personal favorites. I'm not going to name them here.

I don't want to get any hate mail from States. I don't list. Do you guys, do you happen to know what is the design, the official state quarter design for the great state? state of Utah. Do you know or can you guess what it might be?

Your go-to is going to be Salt Lake, but then I feel like that's really hard to portray a lot of national parks. There's a lot to choose from Abernapple. I don't know. What is on the Utah State coin issued in 2007, essentially is a picture of two locomotives, nose-to-nose practically. Oh, kissing. Kissing, basically touching the cowcatchers touching against a,

mountain backdrop and depicted hovering majestically between them is a giant railroad spike. Oh. Knew we were going to get there eventually. The slogan across it, the crossroads of the West. I see. So this coin commemorates a very famous event that happened in Utah, but with, was not necessarily part of Utah's natural beauty or Utah's indigenous history or anything like that.

So this incident depicted there of the two railroad engines touching giant railroad spike signifying, commemorating the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Sure. We hear about this as kids. Just like in that Will Smith movie and Wild Wild West. Yes. Yes. Yes.

That's my frame of reference. Yep. Yep. But no, look, like any great, you know, semi-historical fiction care, you've got to have some basis in fact, right? So let's talk very briefly about railroad construction here for just a moment, all right? Especially as it was practiced in the mid to late 1800s, it is hard work. No, not to not to undersell it, but it is hard work building the railroads. Broadly speaking, once you have cleared the right of way, you've got your path, you've graded it out to the right. angle, you know, the trains have got to be able to get up it with enough power. They've been able

to get down it safely. You've got your bed down, you know, maybe some crushed rock, you know, whatever, whatever you're laying down. And then you're laying down railroad ties, big chunks of timber, eight feet long, eight inches squared, big chunks of timber. You're laying those down crossways. And then the rails are going to come along perpendicular to those, right? Yeah. Okay. When you put the rails down on the ties, the wooden chunks, back in those days, almost exclusively, you have to spike them in. You have to make sure that they stay in place. And so on each side of the tie, you've got a railroad spike, you know, maybe around six inches long. You've got to do one or two things. You either hammer it in manually the whole way,

just bang, banging it in there until it's in there. Maybe if you're lucky, you've got a machine that might help you. And you might just need to set it in there. And the machine might help you hammer it out the rest of the way right but but either way every tie spikes every tie spikes all the way down right all right so that's a very short kind of little background there growing up just in the west in california i've heard about like oh the completion of the transcontinental railroad is the golden spike i heard that the last spike that they that they drove in was was made of gold and i was like is this true is that terrible yeah wouldn't it melt malleable yeah like like one of the defining characteristics of gold, right?

Exactly is how malleable and how ductile it is. It seems like it would just like squish. So anyway, back to the event. So this was on May 10th, 1869, near Promontory Summit, Utah, north of Great Salt Lake. This was an event that had been years in the making. It was a major milestone in the development of the U.S. I mean, you know, hard to, hard to overstate how big a deal this was because it was joining up the Central Pacific Railway out on the West Coast and the Union Pacific Railways coming

out west from the east. For the first time, you would, in theory, be able to travel all the way from coast to coast by rail in a matter of days, right? So before the railroad was completed, you know, you could travel cross-country by wagon in like six months if you wanted to get out to San Francisco from the East Coast or stage coach you're lucky maybe maybe a little over three weeks you could do it and after the railroad was completed the goal was under two weeks and if you could afford it the high class first class travel the whole way you know as as short as five days so this is huge so like it opened up economy and

trade and exploration this was a huge event like people were waiting to hear about this there was a telegraph station set up there to capture this event, just ready, literally ready to let the rest of the country know the moment that it was completed, like just hanging on, hanging on every moment. The story of this day has a lot. It's like it's almost like one of these like microcosm of, you know, American history in a way. I mean, you've got like the wealthy industrialists, the robber barons, the railroads. You've got almost exclusively immigrant crews of workers building the rails. Yeah, I mean, to be very clear, backbreaking labor. The crew working out from California East was overwhelmingly Chinese workers. The crews working west out from

Nebraska area were overwhelmingly Irish. And, you know, of course, it had a lot of negative impacts too on a lot of the native peoples who lived out in the area where they were building these railroad tracks, snapshot of what it meant to be an American at that time. So I've heard the story before, at least the broadstrokes, the golden spike, the hammer, all this. The other part of the story that always stuck with me is that as I heard the story, the last spike, you know, hammered in here was driven by none other than Leland Stanford himself. So Leland Stanford, among other things, was a very wealthy industrialist. He was the eighth governor of California.

Importantly, as it relates to this story, he was a Big Wig executive of the Central Pacific Railway. He also, of course, Karen, as you know, along with his wife, Jane, established a well-known university here in the Bay Area.

Strictly speaking, Stanford University is not named after Lee Lynn Stanford himself, but after their son, Lee Lynn Stanford Jr. Died at 15 from Typhoid. They wanted to name the university

in a way of honoring him. Yeah, as a cow bear, as Karen and I are. It's our rival school. All right, the golden spike. Okay, Stanford, he was given the honor of driving the last spike because he was, you know, very instrumental in making it happen. He was to be provided with, indeed, a silver hammer. Oh.

A silver hammer to drive in this spike. And now, when I say hammer, it's not your toolbox hammer. There's a very specific hammer. used in driving railroad spikes. It's called a Spike Mall, M-A-U-L, Mall. Yeah, great Star Wars character name, Spike Mall. Yeah, maybe Darth Mall's cousin from, you know, outside needles. A Spike Mall has, is a hammer with a pretty long handle

and a very elongated business end, hammer end, the steel end of it. Oh, my God. I'd be so scared to me. miss. Yes. And you had to be fairly precise. So it turns out they did not hammer this thing in in any meaningful sense. Did they like set it up? So first of all, I learned not only was there a special hammer, not only was there a golden spike, there was a special tie made just for this event, special California Laurel Wood tie with an inscription on it and a plaque and all that that that was laid in place

and they had drilled a hole under where the spike was going to go. It's like IKEA. Yeah, and the spike was to be gently placed into the hole and tapped with the ceremonial hammer.

Turns out there were several commemorative spikes made. There wasn't just the one golden spike. Everyone, yeah, there were multiple spikes made. So let me ask. you guys, even if it was a ceremonial spike, and even if you didn't really have to swing the hammer to drive it in, if you were standing there on the scene as Leland Stanford, hundreds of people watching, a telegraph person waiting live, what would be the most embarrassing thing you could do when you went to hammer that thing in? What would it be? A fart. Okay, fair. What would the second most embarrassing thing be? If you miss.

Yes. If you miss the spike. If you miss the spike, he missed it. He's standing there. He had one job. One job. Just tap this thing in. In my mind now, it's gone from Leland Stanford, Robert Barron, Superman, swinging this hammer, like John Henry himself, right, smashing a golden spike to a genteel man in his coat with a silver hammer.

her being asked to tap something into place and missing his the second guy there also missed also missed tapping the son of spike so now luckily the telegraph operator did what i think honestly most of us would do in that scenario which is we just went ahead and sent the signal anyway we just tapped out done we just said done yeah it's like it's done it's good enough it's like what are we do in here what is this yeah exactly close enough boss you got it boss great job we're so happy you came down here to shows how it's done boss yeah so then even as a kid even as a grown up your next most immediate thought i'm sure it has to be someone's going to steal it someone's going to steal it someone's going to steal it karen exactly someone's going to steal it so the plan

never was and was not to leave it there. So they tapped it in, they sent the telegraph line, they very swiftly popped the golden spike right back out of its slot. They took up the special California Laurel Wood Tye as well because they were worried that souvenir hunters, I mean, rightly, they weren't worried, it would happen. It would just, I mean, it's not even a question.

It absolutely would happen, right? It might even happen that day. Ten minutes out. Yeah, yeah. They took out the laurel wood tie. They took out all of the commemorative spike. Took that out, safe for posterity. In its place, they put in a normal railroad tie of the time

and hammered in a normal railroad spike. Yes, much, much safer try to save. So where's all the ceremonial stuff now, however? The beam, the railroad tie, sadly, burned up in the, fire after the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. Yes, it had been preserved, but like a great

great many artifacts that was lost and was lost in the fire being made of wood and all. The spikes, a couple of been sold to private collectors is fundraising the actual, actual golden spike, the one hammered, air quotes, by Stanford himself.

You can find it in the Stanford Museum. It's at the Cantor Arts Museum on Stanford campus so you can go take a look at it if you happen to be in the neighborhood yeah you know this is one of those like one of those things like for me about american history where the more you dig into it it's a lot of yes and no like yes there was a golden spike no it wasn't really hammered into place and it was immediately removed from its pre-drilled hole and now lives a very cushy life in an arch museum in stanford university i was quickly looking at weird quarter coin designs sometimes

things happen at the mint as they're making these coins and then you release coins that like have a weird error or a crack or something like a weird flaw and then becomes a collector's edition including the 1999 spitting horse quarter for the our dear state uh Delaware the very first one the very first one that's a guy riding a horse and just at the horse's mouth is where a crack happened in the, in the mold, in the dye. Oh, no. And so it looks like the horse is spitting. Like saliva, like a, like horse spit.

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Shop now at no-frails.ca. All right, I got one last segment here. I have a lightning round for all of you. Of course, one of the meanings of Spike is to add some alcohol to a beverage. Oh, yeah. Yep, yep, yep. You take orange juice, put a little alcohol in there. Mm-mm, you got a screwdriver.

So here, I have a list of alcohol, fermented drinks, spirits, liquor. liqueurs and your mission is to buzz in and tell me what is the primary ingredient or a signature main ingredient made of or flavored with but yes okay primary ingredient all right hey people make alcohol out of everything and anything as discussed uh rather awkwardly in our first ever episode of Good Job Rain back in 2012. Yes, people made alcohol out of potatoes, sure. Dead Seagulls, sure. But the ones I have here are alcohols that you would encounter at a bar or a restaurant. And if you're like me and don't really drink, don't worry, I feel like I've seen most of these on Great British Bake Off. British people love putting alcohol in your baked goods.

It's so here we go. I'm going to name the beverage, and you're going to tell me what is the primary ingredient. We're going to start off pretty easy, and it's going to kick it up a notch. Okay. All right. Here we go. Cider. Chris.

Apples. Mead. Colin. Honey. Honey. Rum. Chris. Sugar.

Sugar cane. Sugar cane. Oh, okay. Correct. Kyrsh. Oh, holl it. Cherries? Cherries in a black forest gatto, as they call it.

You use some Kyrsch to have that cherry flavor with some chocolate. Mmm, delicious. All right. Calvados. Whoa. Calvados. That's how they say it in break. Great British Bake-off.

Calvedos, Calvedos. Calvedos. Calvados. It's from the Normandy part of France. I'm just going to take a guess. Colin? Apricot. Apple.

Apple. Oh, okay. All right. Tequila. Colin. From the agave plant. Can be more specific. A mescal is also made from agave.

Oh, okay. It's made from the, from the pear part of the agave, right? It is the blue agave. Oh, okay. That's the difference between mescal and tequila. Got it. More specific, blue agave. All right.

Got it. Tapace. Ooh. Tapace. Oh, Colin. Is this the one from corn? No, this is pineapple. Oh.

But you ferment pineapple rines. Oh. Leftover pineapple bits, yeah, and then tapace. All right. I'm getting harder. Pisco. Pisco, like a Pisco sour. A Pisco sour.

From South America. Yeah. What is that from? What is Piscco made out of? Peru and Chile. All right, Chris. Hears. Grapes.

Grapes. Distilled grapes. All right. Roe de V. Oh, as in French. water de v of life oh devit there are a couple different flavors but the kind of usually when you say this this is the primary and i said it a lot the same as like aquavit right chris no it's not the same oh davy it is pear oh it's pear we knew pair was gonna make it appearance you might have

seen these crazy bottles where it's like a bottle and it's this alcohol o da v and there's a whole ass entire pair in the bottle. That's O'Divie. That's O'Divie. Oh, okay. How do they get the pair in the bottle? A perfect pair with its skin.

They grow it on there. They grow it in the bottle. I saw this as a kid once on, I don't know, like Sesame Street or something. And it has stuck with me, Karen. But what did not stick with me was the type of... Alcohol it was. I don't know. Those ships in the bottle you're like constructing, using tweezers.

through, you're making the ship in the bottle. I thought maybe it was something like they did some like weird dehydration and then they slot it through the bottle and then they rehydrated and just kind of pops back up. Right, right, right. Into a nice full figure pair. No, it's like they just stick a bottle in the flour, you know, right in there, tape it up and just wait for the pair to grow and then cut it off. You're like, oh, that's how they did it.

All right. Next one. Kaffir. K-E-F-I-R. Oh, yes. Fermanent drink made out of milk. I was going to say that.

I was going to say that. Okay. Shambord. Oh, I've had shamboard. Is that? Beautiful orb-ish, orbish bottle. Yeah. Colin.

Is that from, you're flavored with Or. Orange. Raspberry. Raspberry. It's a deep red color. Mm. Okay. Mirren.

Chris. Rice. Rice. Yes. The cooking rice alcohol of Asia. Next one. It's spelled like Cynar, but it's pronounced Chinar. Chinar.

C-Y-N-A-R. C-K. Chinar. What country is that from? Or what region? This is from Italy. It's like one of those like kind of bitters, aprietyp where like there's a lot of different ingredients, but there is one main ingredient. Okay. Okay. All right. All right.

It is artichoke. Whoa. Really? Yes. It's right there on the label. It says chenar and then there's an artichoke. You can really taste the artichoke. Yeah. Uh-huh. I'm going to have to try and hunt that down.

There's an Italian deli not too far from me. a lot of imports. I'll see if maybe they have it. I think a lot of these approtees all taste like, like, bitters or like herbie and stuff. It's like, I don't think you're going to drink. You're like, mm, that's the show's an artichoke. I'm not pouring a big glass of Chinar, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A couple more, frangelico, shape like a monk.

Yeah. Yeah. Delicious. Colin. This one, orange. No. Dang it. Orange is not in this quiz.

Okay, thank you for a ruling out. Stop guessing orange. All right. Yeah, knock it off with the orange, Colin. Hazelnut. Oh, that's right. Oh, I was, okay. We got the three hard ones, unless you're from Chicago.

Malort, Malort. People joke as the grossest alcohol out there. Yeah. It's not great. It's, this is from, oh, no, go ahead. No, go ahead. Is it like plum or something? What is it, Chris?

Nope. When I tried this recently, it had kind of a botanical kind of hit to it. Yes. Similar to absinth. Oh, like mint or something? Wormwood. Oh, okay. So very similar. Very similar.

Yes. It's crazy because, like, at first, at first, you taste it, and it's like a gin or something like that with the botanical. And it's like, oh, this is not bad. And then it turned bad. Oh, no. The initial hit of fun is gone. Yeah.

And the only thing to do is to drink more malort, you know, to cover it up. All right. Last two. Crem de Cassees or Crem de Cassees. Oh, Crem de Cassees. Yeah. Crem de Cassee. This feels like some kind of, is it raisins?

Close. Black currants. Yeah. Cassee, Paceaece. Yeah. Always French for black currants. And then the last one, Jerkum, Jerkum, J-E-R-K-U-M. I've heard this before.

This is made of Robitussin and Skittles. And you inhale it. And a balloon. A mix in a balloon. This is plum. Okay. Plum jerkum. It is plum jerkum.

Plum jerkum. I was thinking maybe prune, but yeah, Plum. Prune is just a dried version of plum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I don't really drink anymore, but I just love reading about the ingredients. Yeah. And the locality and the, you know, how they describe flavor.

I love, like, reading stuff about it. It's like you say, Karen, like people will ferment anything. Anything. Anything. We hear about the successes, right? But, you know, there's, yeah. I mean, if it can be fermented, it has been fermented. And the only question is, did people like it enough to keep?

keep doing it. All right. And that's our show. Thank you all for joining me. And thank you listeners for listening in. Hope you learned stuff about dogs named Spike, about railroad spikes, about spiky animals, and spiky alcohol. You can find us on all major podcast apps and on our website, good job brain.com.

This podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like Rainbow Puppie science lab, unspookable and wiser world. And we'll see you next week. Bye. or what Queen Victoria's nine children got up to. On the History Tea Time podcast, I profile remarkable queens and LGBTQ plus royals, explore royal family trees, and delve into women's medical history and other fascinating topics. Join me every Tuesday for History Tea Time, wherever fine podcasts are enjoyed.