Good Job, Brain! - 306: Geology Rocks

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Hello Spring 2026! We got some solid rock trivia about clean slates and gneiss buttes! Try your hand at Karen's stone quiz, and meet some of Colin's favorite weird history rocks. Get your internal IMDB rolodex ready for a rockin' movies challenge. And Chris celebrates a weird anniversary about a weird occurrence with a tale about a weird souvenir. ALSO: Eggcorn Watch, Trivial Pursuit 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. Homological pompadorn, Pomeranians, pommeling pomegranates with pomp. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 306. And of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your tremendous trivia triad triumphantly trying the trifecta of tri-tip, triple sec, and triscuits. I'm Colin. And I'm Chris. Sounds like a good time. Triple second Triscuits.

Yeah. Like are you dipping them in there like Oreos and milk? We've talked about this before, but I think it's worth stating again. Triscuits. Yes. You might think, oh, it's named after maybe there's like three main ingredients. Right. It's like tri-skits.

Well, there's like a biskit, you know. Sure. It's a bismit. The trisket. Right. The world eagerly awaiting the quad stit. But it's not. But it's not.

It's not. Triscuit named after electricity biscuit. Electric biscuit. Electric in the olden days, Triscuit was the first early snacks that was made from a manufacturing plant that was powered by electricity. Well, anyways, welcome to our spring 26 season, everybody. Yeah, 300 in the rear view, charging ahead. Not knowing when to stop. Yep.

If you're a new listener, welcome. We hear we're a quiz-y, fun facts trivia podcast. Colin and Chris and I used to play together at Pub Trivia quite passionately for many, many, many, many years. And the idea of the show is to bring that like pub quiz hang hang experience to you as if you're sitting with us at the table, chatting, answering questions, playing games. And almost every episode has a random topic. And we make quizzes and challenges and find out weird facts about that topic. I say it's spring. I live in Seattle. It's snowing.

It's like a huge snow day. Nice. Nice. All the roofs are white. Oh, wow. Cool. Oh, it's the middle of March. Just to refresh everybody's memory, Seattle, the city is in the northwest corner of the United States.

So three hours below us is Portland. Three hours above us is Vancouver. We cross the Canadian border along the way. And I'm so happy that I'm so happy that I'm. I'm here today because there is a trivia fact I heard. I have to share with you guys. Before we even do any of the show stuff, I need to get it off my chest. And it's related to Seattle.

So I think at work, somebody said, somebody said, well, we already live further north than most Canadians. Ah. And I'm like, at that moment, my brain did a double take. Yeah. Pulsed very quickly and was like, what? But in my eyes, it's like, oh, Vancouver is above us. It's like, how is this possible? How is this possible?

On the east coast of America and of Canada, the border kind of dips down once we hit the Great Lakes and we hit the east coast. And 70% of the Canadian population live in Toronto and Montreal. That's really. Both cities south of Seattle. In terms of latitude. In terms of latitude, they live technically south of Seattle. And it blew my mind.

That is a good one. I like texted people after I heard that. All right. Well, we took our break. We haven't been recording for a while, which means that I've been able to build up my stock of eggorns. So it's time for the spring 2026 inaugural egg corn watch. You're like a squirrel harvesting them away there.

Harvest it, yes. I've been stuffing my egg corn. into a hollowed out metaphorical tree trunk all this time growing fat on on eggorns. And now I can now I can start removing them and de-shelling them. Regurgitate, yes, yes, exactly. Chewing them up and spitting them out to your mouths like so many little squirrel babies. Yeah. So an egg corn, if you are just joining us here on Good Job Brain,

Egg corn is when you use the wrong word, but it makes like a weird kind of sense and named after the woman who called acorns eggorns, because like, sure, they kind of look like an egg. They kind of look like a kernel of corn. Eggorns, go with that, right? Yeah. So, you know, Colin, you know how sometimes people are so confused by something that they just sort of stop in their tracks and they're just sort of frozen, staring at it, uncompetable? comprehending and are just they can't even, they're so unable to process what they're looking at, like they can't even move, almost as if they were like wildlife attempting to read a newspaper. You know what I mean? Like a deer staring at a headline. Like the deer, deer staring at the headline. I see it. I see it, right? He's just looking at the newspaper going like, I don't know what to tell you.

eyes eyes wide open pupils dilated in front of like the Wall Street Journal and it's like deer staring at a headline yes the actual idiom is like a deer in the headlights you're driving your car and headlight on you come across a deer and the deer instead of getting out of the way your car seems to be transfixed by the car staring at the car you know and doesn't get out of the way of the of the car but however it is now time for a very special segment here on egg corn watch which is eggorns in the news. Oh! Eggcorn in the news.

Topical. USA today. January 19th, 2026. The Buffalo Bills set the NFL world on fire Monday morning by firing headcoats Sean McDermott. But the bills also made headlines for the wrong reason. Oh no. Buffalo's statement about firing McDermott had this from owner Terry Pagula.

Sean has done an admiral job of leading our football team for the past nine seasons. This was a written statement. Sean has done an admiral job. An admiral job, Karen. A job befitting the office of a naval fleet commander. An admiral job. Because it's a leader. It makes total sense.

However, admirable, as in able to be admired, and a thing you can admire, admirable job. And this was a written statement. This wasn't like at a press conference, like through speech. Written statement, written statement. Yep, yeah. Pass a spell check. Yeah, had to have at least you hope two people looking at that before it goes out.

Yes, whenever I see, we see the, we see the, we see the end corn's getting bandied about. It's always a good time. But we see them actually making news. Well, that's, that's just on another. level. So keep sharing your egg corns with us in the good job brain lobe-trotters Facebook group. We love to see them. I will occasionally pop into the comments and judge whether it is or is not an egg corn as the official egg-corn decider. My favorite one is still living by curiously. Living by curiously. Exactly. I just feel like you do all these wonderful things and it's like I'm sort of half

experiencing them so I'm living vicariously through you. It's great. It's great. You're right. It is so far. So far, that is the slam dunk best egg corn. We're two people. We're two people and I'm curious

about what you're doing. Oh boy. Good times. It's a window into the miracle of the human brain. Yeah. And speaking of brain, I think it's time for our first general trivia segment, Pop quiz, hot shot.

So what we do here is I have a 12-pound box of random trivial pursuit cards from different editions. I'm going to choose two random ones from the box, and you guys have your Barnyard Buzzers. Chris is the rooster. Colin is the horse. And listeners, you guys have your car horn. Your voice.

If you want to buzz in, just slam that sucker. Yeah. I know this. Let's answer some questions. Here we have Trivial Pursuit Genus 4, no year. And then we also have Pop Culture 2, Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture 2. All right.

So satisfy all of your academic pursuits and your pop culture pursuits. Here we go. Let's do Genus 4. First question, Blue Edge for People in Places. What U.S. City is home to the Sunday paper? with the largest circulation. Oh, boy. Who knows if it's still accurate, but Colin buzzed in.

I mean, I'd feel silly if it was not New York City. Incorrect. Oh, okay. Sunday paper. Sunday paper. Okay, well, all right, then number two. Washington, D.C. Incorrect.

Oh, I was thinking Los Angeles, L.A. Times, maybe. It is, Los Angeles. It is population. Day time. Population, circulation. Yeah, yeah. There we go. Okay.

All right. All right, Pink Wedge, Arts and Entertainment. Who starred in the movie version of Hamlet that grossed the most? Oh, nice. Who knows? So, like, as of the year, this card was written. Okay, go ahead, Chris. All right, okay, sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know when this card was written, but I will say Mel Gibson. I would agree with that, too, yeah. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. All right. It is. Mel Gibson. a Kenneth Branagh.

Yeah. Like later on. Mel Gibson, I think, was early 90s. Okay. But it was, it was like, you know, the highest grossing films, they don't do like, they do constant dollars, right? Or they don't do that. So it's like they don't adjust for inflation.

You know what I mean? Oh, I see. So it's just, it's just amount of money. So, you know, Sir Lawrence Olivier's might have made more, you know, adjusting for inflation, but I don't know. But yeah, yeah, I was guessing the age of the card, the popularity of that one. Well, and there's also. Hamnet, which is a recent movie, but that's less, that's not really like an adaptation of, yeah, of Hamlet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Okay, yellow wedge for history. What entitlement program is called, quote, the third rail of American politics, end quote, because if politicians touch it, they're dead.

Colin. That is this. Social Security. Yes. Incorrect. What, really? Social security is not the third rail of American politics. Touch it. What did they did? Wait a minute. Okay. Let me just think about it. I'll reread the question. Yeah.

Okay. What entitlement program is called the third rail of American politics because if politicians touch it, they're dead. That's funny to call it the third rail. I feel like that's an analogy. Chris. Okay. How about Medicare? Yeah.

It is Medicare. Okay. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Next question. This is Brown for Science of Nature. what do insects do through their spiracles?

Spiricles? Spiricles? Colin? Is it breathing or respiration? Yes, it is. It is breathing. Greenwich for Sports and Leisure. What quarterback spent 46 days in 1996 at the Meninger Clinic to kick an addiction to the painkiller,

Vicodin? Oh, my gosh. Colin? Weird question, but was that Brett Favre? Yes, Brett Favra. And if you want to call him Brett Favre, that's fine too. That's totally cool.

Last question on this card, wild card, orange wedge. How many eighth notes will fill up a measure in three, four times? Oh, my God. Chris Kohler, over to you. Okay, eighth notes and a measure in three, four time.

Yeah, it is math, right? So if the, I think that's like what there's, it's, there's three beats per. No, it is six. You're going the other way. Division, division. Oh, it's division. Okay, all right. Here we go.

Next card, pop culture two, trivial pursuit, blue wed for TV. What showgirls actor played a heart surgeon with an impotence problem on sex in the city? Hmm. Showgirls actor. Who else was in showgirls? Meaning the movie, the famous. Yes. All right.

Karen, do you know? Of course. Oh, okay. You could just answer this. Dr. Trey McDougall. Okay. No. Charlotte's husband.

Uh-huh. All the Trades. Kyle McLaughlin. Kyle McLaughlin. Wow, I guess I haven't watched showgirls in a while. All right. Pink Wedge for Fad. What trendy exercise regimen did a German gymnast named Joseph concoct

while languishing in a British World War I internment camp. Wow. Hmm. Okay. One more time? Wow. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. What trendy exercise? And I would say it's still on trend. What trendy exercise regimen did a German gymnast named Joseph concoct while languishing in a British World War I internment camp? Oh, boy. Trendy regimen. Okay.

Chris? Kettle bells? Yeah, that's good guess. I guess. But yeah, you're in the work. Because it's like not a lot of equipment. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I was thinking not a lot of equipment.

It is Pilates. Oh. Oh, interesting. How interesting. You're doing like prisoner of war. Doing prisoner. Prisoner workouts. Hey, you know, whatever works.

Huh. All right. Yellow Wedge for Buzz. Who did Forbes magazine determined to be the world's first billionaire novelist? Oh. Oh. Chris. J.K. Rolling.

J.K. Rowling. Yeah. Purple Wedge music. What 2004 Broadway musical was hyped with the lines, quote, six generations have read this story. This one will sing it. 2004. Interesting. Six generations have read this story.

Okay. So 100 years or more old. Right. Right. This is almost. This is tough. Okay. If Karen says it's tough.

A book. Okay. The book is famous. Okay, sure. I don't think I've heard much about it. It is little women. I was going to say that. I was going to say that.

I know this. Hong Kong. Hong Kong. Hong Kong. All right. Moving on, Greenwich for movies. What movie required Robert Downey Jr.'s character to age from 18 to 83? This is like.

Super pre. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a biopic. Oh. Colin. Was it the chaplain biopic? Chaplain. Oh, right. Okay.

Yeah. Sure. That is one I have not thought about in a long time. Yeah. Yep. All right. This last one is very hard. Sports and games.

Orange Wedge. What Caribbean nation nickname its soccer team the Spice Boyss. Uh. The Spice Boys. Spice Boys. Caribbean Nation. Caribbean Nation. I will donate $100

to the charity of your choice if you get this right. Okay. Which one get an answer. All right. St. Kitts and Nevis. Colin? Jamaica.

The answer is Granada. Oh my gosh. Wow. Spice Boats. All right. Good job, Braids. Well, speaking of Trivial Pursuit, something happened during the break. Cats out of the bag.

I was on the game show Trivial Pursuit. Oh, yeah. And it aired just only a couple weeks ago. I taped last summer. And so you can check out my episode. I'm in the second half of episode 206, season two of Trivial Pursuit. I did pretty good. I didn't win any money.

You did great. You did great. proud of you. You were super close, acquitted yourself well on television next to one LeVar Burton. Yes. I do want to show you guys something here. This was my secret weapon. Oh. Oh, is that a practice buzzer? No, it is a drag racing timing tester. Wow. A low-tech LED box that's attached to the driving stick of a car. And this is a, is a thing my husband bought me. It was like, oh, maybe this will help with timing or buzzer.

Yeah. Looks like a buzzer. You drag racers use it to anticipate, you know, you know, when like the race is about to start, it's like the lights go like, the, the, yeah, truly, truly appreciate your level of dedication and preparation. That's great. All right. On with the show.

Today's episode, I saw another piece of trivia and that inspired the topic of the show. I found out something that is called. Chatuite. Chituite. Chituite. It's spelled not like it sounds, K-Y-A-W-T-H-U-I-T-E, but pronounced Chituite, is considered the rarest mineral on earth. In the span of human existence, only one tiny carrot about 1.6 carrot was ever discovered.

Oh, wow. Wow, okay. Extremely rare. Wow. Okay. Blood orangey looking gem. It's discovered in Myanmar, and it is the rarest at the same time because it's so rare, it is priceless. Sure.

Currently housed in the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles County. So if you're in the L.A. area, go check out this one little tiny carrot, a 1.6 carrot of the Earth's rarest mineral. And that inspired me to set the topic for today's show. We're going to talk about rocks, minerals, geology, things that are nice. Oh, boy. Oh, gosh. And so this week, geology rocks. Well, it's good to be back with you guys.

Karen, you told us once upon a time that you have bookmarked on your computer the list of sandwiches. Yes. On, yes, on Wikipedia, I believe, right? And that, you know, periodically you'll return to this list and kind of just, you know, you know, keeps you happy. And I love that. I love that. I love that spirit.

It's a serotonin boost. Yeah. Yes. You're like, wow, there's just so many sandwiches in the world. They all have little Wikipedia pictures and like a little description. They all have their own little lives aside from. Yeah, exactly. I kept coming back to something I found very early on in my noodling and poking and researching.

And that is the Wikipedia entry for list of individual rocks. And this page, Karen, is truly a delight. Just dozens and dozens of famous rocks. Famous and or interesting rocks of note. I mean, yes, you have your famous rocks there. Like the Rosetta Stone is there. You know, Plymouth Rock is on the list. Yeah, all the big names, the rock stars, if you will.

And I learned some, you know, I learned some trivia, of course. I learned, you guys know Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock in Australia. I learned it is the largest single piece of rock, basically, in the world. Is considered the largest single rock monolith. Now, it's not freestanding, but it's a giant, giant single chunk of, you know, sandstone. But I also found story upon story of many other interesting rocks, some lesser known, some famous in certain circles, you know, cult favorite rocks and stones, but maybe not mainstream rocks. The indie rocks. Yes, the indie rocks, if you will.

Thank you, Karen. And they all have like proper names. Yes, yes. They all, it's a great. I mean, if you want to pause here, you know, dear listener and load up this page on Wikipedia. I'm not exaggerating. Dozens and dozens and dozens of rocks on this page. I selected just a few of what just tickled some area of my brain to share with you guys here.

We got some art, we got some science, a little sport. We're going to cover some ground here. Sport rocks. Sport rocks. Art rocks. Sport rocks. Art rocks, exactly. All right.

The first rock that I want to share with you guys. You guys know that I love art. I did major in art history. I talk about that without provocation on the show all the time. Are you guys familiar with the work of art called Levitated Mass? Have you heard of this one? It is rather well known in the art world. It was unveiled in 2012, and it is a large, very large piece of public art by artist Michael Heiser.

And it's in the collection and on the grounds of the L.A. County Museum of Art. And what levitated mass is a 340 ton boulder, a 340 ton single rock that has been placed very precisely above a walkway that you can walk below and under and you can, you know, regard this rock from every angle. So just to give you some sense of the scale, right, because that's just the weight there. This rock is 21 and a half feet tall. Okay, so this is a boulder the size of a two-story house, basically. But it's like sitting on top of a hallway. It is, it's outside. It's an outdoor artwork.

And there is a sloped down pathway that basically begins at, you know, ground level and then descends underneath the rock, which has been suspended on either edge of like the walls above you. Yeah, the hallway, if you will, right. Michael Heiser, he first had the idea for what turned into this work as far back as the late 60s. He had identified a 120-ton boulder that he wanted to use for this idea. And they couldn't do it because the crane broke. The boom on the crane that they hired to try and move this 120-ton rock broke. So he kind of shelved the idea. In 2006, while working on a.

totally unrelated project. He came across a 340 ton rock and he's like, all right, this time with enough money and enough technology, we're going to make this thing happen. And indeed, with the help of LACMA, the LA County Museum of Art, they got the funds together. So now the quarry where the rock came from was less than 60 miles away from the installation site. But this thing, because it is so big, so just mass, They had to custom design, custom build a 295 foot long,

196 wheel transport device, basically this massive flatbed device that would move it from the quarry into the museum grounds. Now, because this was so big, so long, so heavy, the permitting they got, they were only allowed to move it at night. They could not move it during the day and like clog up the roadways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they had to, they could only go seven miles an hour. That was the top speed, seven miles an hour.

They also had to rule out any overpass that couldn't handle the weight of the transporter. Any road that was too narrow or, you know, too twisty or would just otherwise block too much traffic. So they ended up planning a 106 mile route covering more than 20 cities, four counties to avoid. anything that would pose a problem. They had to cut down trees along the route. They had to remove traffic lights. Because it was too tall?

11 days later, they got it there. They installed it. It was a big art world, hoo-ha. And it's still there. It's not going to move. If you want to go see it, you can get yourself down to the LA County Museum of Art and see it.

That is levitated mass. All right, moving right along. Our second rock, my second rock, is Big Bertha. The name grabbed me right away. Big Bertha is more formally known as Lunar Sample 14321. Oh. It is one of many space rocks, specifically moon rocks,

collected and brought back here to Earth. This particular rock was collected in 1971 on the Apollo 14 mission. Big Bertha, she is the third largest individual rock brought back from those missions. The scientists believe. when they got Big Bertha back and really had a chance to look at it, that Big Bertha might contain an embedded chunk of granite

from Earth, meaning that this rock would have been ejected from a meteorite impact from Earth shot so far that it landed on the moon where it's been chilling for, you know, billions of years until, We sent people up there to harvest it and bring it back to Earth to study it again.

And the theory is that if indeed this, this granite came from Earth, it would be the oldest known chunk of Earth rock ever. And the first meteorite from Earth found somewhere else on another body, you know, another celestial body. That's great. They've brought back many, many, you know, hundreds of pounds of rocks from the moon over the various missions that they were. up there. At one point, scientists started noticing in some of the rocks chunks of asteroids in the moon rocks. And so it kind of just became a logical step as like, okay, well, if there's chunks of asteroids here on the moon that didn't start on the moon, maybe there's something from Earth. The scientist studying it said, studying rocks from Earth on the moon is actually

easier than rocks from Earth on Earth because there's no weathering processes. There's no ocean or wind or, you know, erosion. Yeah, that is actually amazingly well preserved. So this was the story, basically, of Big Bertha for a long time. Unfortunately, I have to say, some party poopers came along in 2020, and there's a study that now is maybe casting some doubt on the theory that it was an earth-born rock. They think that it might be the case that this rock is consistent with lunar origin, which is not nearly as fun and not nearly as cool,

but it does totally blow my mind to think that it is possible that there are chunks of earth outside of earth. Yes, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, all right, we've had a little art, little science. I will close us out with these sport stones here. I promised a sport stone. I learned about lifting stones, a world I knew nothing about, but in particular I learned about the Hussafel stone.

The Hussafel stone is maybe the most famous of what is considered a lifting stone. Okay. This stone is a 410 pound rock, all right? It is roughly shaped, kind of like a heart, 410 pounds. It is in Hussafel, Iceland, in the western part of the country. And it lives at a sheep and goat pen, okay, and sort of out in the, the rural area on a farming area. Yep. It is kept in the sheep and goat pen. And the story, the history goes that this pen was built from natural stones by the Reverend Snorri Bjornson

in the 1750s. This stone has been a test of strength for hundreds of years. All right. So the challenge, the challenge with the Hussafel stone, there's three parts of this challenge. And if you want to do the original, you've got to go to this sheep and goat pen in Hussafel, Iceland, to do this. So there are no sheep and goats there anymore. I can't vouch that there are no sheep and goats hanging around. There are three levels of strength test that you can do with the Hustafel stone. Level one, okay, is in Icelandic is Amlothi, which means lazy bones. So now this 410 pound rock, if you can just lift it off the ground, like if you can just put daylight between the stone and the ground, that is level one of the strength challenge.

And you are called the Amlothi, lazy bones. Yeah. Level two, which is called the half-sterker, half-streaker, half-strength. Half-strength is if you can lift it off the ground, hoist it into your waist, and stand up with it, you have exhibited half strength. You're like, all right, good, good job. Okay. Deadlift, yeah.

You got our attention now. Half sterker, right. The level three, the ultimate achievement is to full sterker, full strength. Level three. Level three is to not only get it off the ground, not only get it to your waist level and hoist it up, but to get it up onto your chest and walk. the stone around the perimeter of the sheep and goat pen back to where you started. And this is about 112 feet, 34 meters.

You got to do the whole thing and hope you don't drop it in the process. And if you do, hope you don't drop it on your foot. It is extremely tough, as you might imagine. Yes, obviously because the thing freaking weighs 410 pounds. But I was reading that the- It might be hard to grab. It's, it's so awkward. It's such a weird shape, Karen.

It is. It's kind of like I say. There's no handle like a kettlebell. Yeah, it's sort of V-shaped heart shape. There's no, there's, you can't quite hug it. There's no ledges. You now have 410 pounds compressing on your chest, meaning it's hard to breathe. It's, it's affecting your, you know, your lung capacity.

Yeah, you can't see over this thing. There have been confirmed, many confirmed people doing this over the years. And official. record says there are a little over 40 men who have done this, one woman. That's not a lot. It's not a lot. Have people gotten injured? There have been injuries.

I mean, it's... They don't want to talk about it. Well, it's kind of self-selecting in that to even be able to approach this challenge. We're not going to show up. No. Yeah. Right, right, right. Exactly.

There are replicas of the Hussifel Stone in wide distribution for use in strong-man, competitions. Oh. And there are businesses that exist to supply Hussafel Stone challengers. They sell a roughly generically Hussafel Stone shaped insert that you can buy and put your own weights inside, you know, if you want to train for this at a home. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. They're rather designy looking. What are some honorable mentions of named rocks? Oh, man. Right. I just want to hear some of the names. There's Wolf Rock. There is tripod rock, Sunday rock. You'll like this one, Karen.

There is hippos yawn, which is a rock in Western Australia. It looks like a yawning hippo. Yeah. Do you guys over here the edit of Roxanne, but they cut it off? So it's just rocks. Rocks and like rocks Rocks Rocks Rocks Rocks Rocks

All right Little Palat Cleanzer here I have a Rockin movies Quiz Yeah Every answer

is a movie title with rock in the title So you can start pregenerating Some movie titles in your head now And the structure of

this game is, I'm going to provide you with actors in this movie. I'm going to give you five actors. We're going to start from smaller parts or more obscure. And then we move through each actor, maybe like third billing, second billing, first billing. Okay. So as we get down there, we're talking about the actors that probably played the lead role in the film. Yes. You buzz in whenever you feel like you know what the movie is. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. And we, get extra points for buzzing and early. Busing and early, right. Maybe some are tricky.

Unspecified. Sure. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

I expect nothing less. All right. And then you guys have your buzzers ready. Let's go to the movies. Here we go. Movie number one. And sometimes, you know, I'll tell you where these actors are from if the names don't sound familiar.

All right. All right. Movie number one. Miranda Cosgrove. Hmm Doesn't that sound familiar? Yes, it does. Sarah Silverman.

Chris. School of Rock. Yes. Of course. Of course, Miranda Cosgrove. And then down the list, Joan Cusack. Mike White, who wrote the movie, is in the movie, also now of a White Lotus fame. And of course, Jack Black.

Jack Black. All right. Next one, and I apologize in advance. Oh, good. Thank you. Here we go. Joan Collins. Okay.

Kristen Johnston. Okay. All right. Sounds familiar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Next one. Jane Krakowski.

Okay. These are movies? These are movies, not TV. Okay. Thank you. Famously Genimo Ron from Thurr Rock. It's not Roldger. All right.

So we have Joan Collins, Kristen Johnston, from Third Rock, from the Sun. Oh, right. Yes, yes,

yeah. Jane Krakowski, Stephen Baldwin. Okay. And then title character played by Mark Addy, a. Robert Barathean.

What a hodgepodge. Yes. Indeed. Wow. Wow, that's a real stew you got there. So I would say Mark Addy and Kristen Johnston are the title characters. Okay. It is not what I was thinking then.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. You got something. Chris Kohler, full name of the movie, please. He's got something. It's, I do, and I have to think about the, I think I have this. I just, no, okay, all right, ready? the Flintstones Viva Rock Vegas It just took me

I just had to figure out I had to put it together But yeah, yes, yes The Flintstones Viva Rock Vegas Wow It's a prequel Yes Kristen Johnson is Wilma It's young Wilma, young Fred

They fall in love Joan Collins plays her mother Yep Next one David Morris Who's in A lot of things, including Dancer in the Dark

Feel Good movie of the year. Yeah, yeah, he's a lot of stuff. Amelie. Yeah. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Claire Forlani. Ooh, okay. Ed Harris.

Colin. Is this the rock? This is the rock. I was waiting on it. You know, I was like, uh, should we for one more name? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That was the right play. David Morris, Claire Falani. Ed Harris. Nicholas Cage. And Sean Connery. Yes. This is more of a, is this the most recent one on this list?

I think so. I think this is probably the most recent movie of this list. Here we go. Kid O'Connor, Gen Z actor, now rising star. Kit O'Connor from the show Heartstopper. Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard's daughter. Also, Jurassic World. Another Game of Thrones person, Richard Madden.

Okay. We're getting to second billing. Jamie Bell I'm just gonna was this a band movie Chris is this like I don't know I don't know all right okay

Bryce Dallas Howard oh duh duh I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I really I really should have this is Rocket Man yes

Rocket Man you guys were going to say Tarrant Egerton I never saw that one as the Rocketman John. Yep, yep. All right. Next movie, here we go. Talia Shire. Okay, please let me know which movie this is. Oh, yeah. Did I walk into her trap, Chris? I'm committed. I have it. She's only said one name so far.

All right. All right. Well, if I walked into the trap, then so be it. Is it Rocky? Incorrect. All right. Incorrect. Yeah. Let's wait. Carl Weathers. Not narrowing it down? No, not yet. Hulk Hogan. Okay. Chris. Oh, God.

Is that Rocky four? Incorrect. Which one? Mr. T. Yeah. And Sylvester Stallone. It's Rocky three. Three.

Rocky three. Well done, Taryn. You caught me. You ensnared me in your rocky trap. As I was buzzing, like, this feels too easy. I'm like, you know, I'm taking the bait as I'm wondering if I should, but. All right.

Next movie, here we go. Timothy Spall might sound familiar. He's Peter Pedigrew from Harry Potter movies. Timothy Spall. Another Timothy Olafont. Okay. All right. Another person with lots of credits.

And part of the Vanderbilt family. Dominic West. McNulty from the Wire. Second billing. Jennifer. Aniston. Oh, I'm narrowing it on the era here at least. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here we go. Last name, top billing. Mark Wahlberg. Oh, Timothy Spall. Timothy O'Man. Dominic West, Jennifer Aniston and Mark Wahlberg. Huh. This is a movie called, if you remember, rock star.

Nope. Rock star. No, I don't remember. Yes, I do. Where Mark Wahlberg gets recruited. to be the front man of an existing band. That's right. That's right.

Yeah. It kind of had the feel of like a fake biopic, right? You know what I mean? Yes. Yes. Like, yeah. Okay. Wow. Man.

Okay. That one was very deep in there. Last movie here. And let me say it is, to me, terrible. Terrible movie. So let me just say that. Okay. Lots of random names.

Paul Giamatti. Oh, Paul Giamati. Okay. Brian Cranston. Mm. Breaking Bad. Alec Baldwin. Catherine Zeta Jones.

Ooh. Okay. This is starting to, uh, starting to feel familiar. This is not really first billing. This is more like a and, you know,

at the end of the Christmas. And this star, because this star is the biggest star. Uh-huh. Tom Cruise. Wow. Paul Giannotti, Brian Cranston, Alec Baldwin, Catherine Zeta Jones, Tom Cruise in the movie adaptation of the Broadway show Rock of Ages. Oh my gosh.

What? They made one? They made one. There's also Russell Brand. What year was this? This was. Mary J. Blige and Rush and Ray J. Brand. Is that what you just threw it?

Yes. Wow. Okay. Malin Ackermins in there. It was like a fever. dream. There you go. Thank you for playing rock and movies. Well done. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by I-XL Learning, which is not only my kid's latest obsession, but it's also an award-winning online learning platform that

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Smooth puzzles. Smart trivia. Good job brain. Back this week, we're talking about how geology rocks. Chris, what do you have for us? So I, again, bring us some news. We have recently, just over a month ago, as of this recording, we recently passed a very interesting 50-year anniversary.

Now, we have all spent a lot of time living in the Bay Area. We are generally familiar with the weather of the San Francisco Bay Area. Well, on February 5, 1976, San Francisco and other Bay Area residents woke up to find that something very interesting weather-related had happened overnight. It had snowed. It had snowed about two inches across San Francisco, San Jose. Snowed that stayed. That stayed on the ground. Just a little bit of snowed.

So, you know, a couple inches of snow. But kids all over the Bay Area ran out. I mean, some for the first and only time in their lives. Yeah. Played in the snow. And they took advantage of it and made some snowmen. You know, small, dirty snowmen. You know what I mean?

and they had snowman done the last. They made snowballs and they had snowball fights with each other that morning. And some of them, they just, you know, the schools just let them out because, like, how could they keep them in? And one of the snowman makers that day was a 14-year-old boy. His name was Jeff Seamus. And Jeff thought, well, this is incredible. I'll never see this again. I, the sun's going to melt the snow.

I want to preserve this. this moment. So he just sort of, he took one of the snowballs that he made, then he stuck it in the freezer. Okay. And he put it in the freezer, put it in the freezer so I can always have the snowball, right? Yeah. Surprise the heck out of somebody you smack him in the head in the middle of summer with a snowball. With a snowball. Well, fortunately, he did not because I'm here to tell you that amazingly 50 years later, the world's oldest snowball. No. Is still intact. Now, before I go any further, Oh my God.

The world's oldest snowball, Carrie. Can you believe it? 50 years old. Now, I'm sure there's some people out there saying, wait, subject of this episode is rocks and minerals. Does this snowball count? Now, I myself had to check to be sure about this, but yes, snow is a mineral. Oh. Let's go ahead and check in with the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder appropriately.

Because snow is composed of frozen water, comma, or ice, comma. It can also. Your science jargon. It can also be classified as a mineral. A mineral is a naturally occurring homogenous solid. inorganically formed with a definite chemical composition and an ordered atomic arrangement. Ice is naturally occurring given a temperature below zero degrees Celsius. It is homogenous.

It is made of one material. It is inorganic. It's formed inorganically, importantly. It's not created by an organic life form. It's formed inorganically. And it has an ordered atomic structure. Ice has a definite chemical composition. H2O.

Therefore, ice, naturally occurring ice, is a mineral. If you fill up your ice tray and put it in the freezer, that is not a mineral because it does not naturally occur in nature. Ice is found in nature. That is a mineral. Ice you made in the freezer is like the cubic zirconium of ice. It's like the rhinestone of ice. Yes, but if you find it in nature, it's a mineral with. a just with a really, really volatile melting point.

Okay, all right. It's the same thing as a rock, but the rock just doesn't melt in the sun. Yeah, you can melt rock, sure. You can give it enough temperature. So what kind of journey has this snowball been on in the last 50 years, you might ask? Yeah. So first, it was just in there loose. Jeff just took the snowball and put it in the freezer, like on the tray, just closed the door.

Jeff's mother, it was really actually Jeff's mother, Betty Chabas, who ended up really being the keeper and preserver of the snowball. So first she put it in a Dixie cup. Good first step. Then she put it into a Skippy peanut butter jar. And it has been there to this day. So it lives in a 1970s skippy peanut butter jar. Amazing.

Wow. They put it in the back of the family freezer and it stayed there for years and years. Without moving. Nobody moved. No, nobody moved. They didn't have any. catastrophic power failures. The freezer held the snowball state of the state of snowball.

As the snowball was approaching its 20th anniversary in 1996, the San Jose Mercury News found out about it and wrote about it. And this brought it to national attention. For the 25th anniversary, you know, Betty Seamus was doing TV hits and it was on radio and lots of attention on the still intact snowball. They would take it out. out of the freezer and she would pose with it. Like at one point, there was one TV shoot that went on for like hours, you know?

It's like we got to get a little nervous. Yeah, like you can take the snowball out in the jar and it would stay a snowball, but like, you know, not for that long, right? So in 2017, Betty Seamus passed away and her husband moved from San Jose to Reno, Nevada. So the family packed the snowball in dry ice and took it, like packed it in dry ice and sealed it up and everything like that. Like it's like an organ for transplant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

And drove it to Reno. And it survived the trip. So the world's oldest snowball is now lives in the family freezer in Reno Nevada. So yeah, happy 50th anniversary. Wow. Please check out world's oldest snowball.com. Learn more. It has its own webpage.

Isn't that amazing? Isn't that great? I honestly am impressed that they had 50 plus years of uninterrupted freetting ability. I mean, they really wanted to save the snowball. And, you know, obviously, you know, again, once it hit like 25 years old, they were, you know, I'm not saying making bank off of it, but, you know, people, they were famous because of the snowball. So I wouldn't be too surprised if they didn't, like, you know, upgrade their freezer and then, like, have the new one running. You know what I mean?

Yeah. But, yeah, ice. Ice is a mineral. Snow. That's a good one. Ice is a mineral. I like that. Could AI help you do more of what you love?

Workday is the AI platform for HR and finance that actually knows your business. We help you handle the have-to-dos so you can focus on the can't-we. wait to do. It's a new workday. All right. I have one last segment. The end of this episode is just a stones throw away. How is that? I have here a write-down quiz about stones. Stone-related write-down quiz.

So get your pens, paper, pads, whiteboards, ready. And let's answer some questions. All right, about stones. Here we go. First question. Elsa Craig is an uninhabited island off of Scotland. It's known for its puffin population. They're so cute.

And this island is known for its highly special export to what sport? Hmm. Oh. Elsa Craig, spelled A-I-L-S-A. Elsa Craig is an uninhabited island off of Scotland. It's known for its puffin population and its highly special export to what sport? Why are puffins so cute? I know.

It's their eyes. It's their little like squishy eyes. Yeah. They give me like cute aggression. I just want to just like squish them. Yeah. They look like little cartoons. All right.

We all got answers. Answers up. Colin has put curling and Chris also put curling. Correct. Not right. Curling. We're at the end of curling fever because it was the one. Winter Olympics that just happened. And I'm sure people probably saw this fact about curling is

70% of all curling stones come from this island. And it has been right for decades, if not hundreds of years, right? Decades and decades and decades. Yes. Why this place? Yeah. What's so special about it? What's up with this special type of granite? Well, it's very dense and it's resistant to impact, right? You have this rock that hits all these things and it doesn't ship. It also has very low water absorption. Right. And so it's going to be on ice. You don't want it to... It's gliding on ice. It's dealing with ice and water again and again and again. It doesn't erode the stone. A bonus fact. Bonus question. What is the curling tournament called?

Ooh. As a cool name. As a cool name. A bond spiel. Yes. A bond spiel. That's right. Speaking of games, have you guys ever skipped stones like at a lake? Oh, yeah. I used to. Successfully, successfully. Oh, yeah, yeah. Really?

Yeah, I used to practice it actually a lot. At the camp I would go to every summer, they had this lake there. Probably not as successful as this guy based on Guinness World Records. Okay, you have to write down a number here. What is the world record number of most consecutive skips of a stone on water ever achieved? Wow. All right. verified verified documented at that that that that that that that at that at that at that at that at

at that at that at at at at at at what point oh my gosh all right all right closest to okay all right I'm just I'm just gonna I'm gonna think of a to me comically large but maybe plausible number all right like I think 10 is an impossible number do you know to be clear if I could get 10 or 12 I would like you know high five one yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah All right. And answers up. Colin has put down 31. Chris has put 102.

Chris is closer. What? The number is 88. No way. Well, here's the thing. I mean, if Colin, if Colin said that he in his life

has achieved double digits. Okay? You've got to figure that there's probably somebody out there that is done triple digits. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Amazing. Achieved by American Kurt Steiner, you know, most of the records are from him.

And he also hoards rocks. Oh, sure. He's got like 10,000 good rocks. I believe that. That I absolutely believe. He's doing the Billy Mitchell, like somebody beat my record. Now I'm just going to take out old Betsy. Like I'm going to take out the best rock that I have.

Yeah. We're going to beat the record with that. Yeah, I get it. Also, in the world of competitive stone. skipping. There are two camps. In America, you measure skip count, like this world record holder, right? It's how many skips, how many times the stone bounces off the water. In British tournaments, in the British camp, they measure distance. And more accurately so, they don't call it stone skipping. They call it stone skimming. The priority is not the skip. It's the distance cover. They just care about

The last contact with the water, right? Where does it go under? It's like, does it at least have to just bounce once or something like that? Or what's the... You can't just take it. You can't just chuck it. Done. All right.

Next question. In human prehistory, the time period is divided into three ages. Please name the three ages in chronological order, please. in human prehistory the time period is divided into three ages please name the three ages in chronological order I feel like this is a very are you smarter than a fifth grader question right okay all right I'm just okay yeah I'm like I'm just writing down three things I've heard I'm just I'm just trying to keep with the theme of the show here all right so Chris has put stone age iron age bronze age Colin has put stone age iron age bronze age wow the same answer.

Sorry, it is Stone Age, bronze age, and then iron. Oh, really? Yeah. Iron comes after bronze. I did not know that. I figured iron was like simpler because it was like one element, whereas bronze was an alloy.

I think it might be that the iron requires higher heat to work with, perhaps requires more advanced technology. That's that's my guess here. Stone Age is way longer than any of the other age. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Between Stone Age and Bronze Age, there is a little tiny age, which is the Copper Age. But then quickly...

The age lit. The age lends itself to... Oh, I see, I see. Use of copper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see. Okay, cool. And then, you know, FYI, following the Iron Age is what we call the classical era.

That's where the Greek and Roman civilizations, you know, started flourishing. But yeah, that's how we kind of place. of times. Good job. Next question in this stones quiz. What is the name of a turn-based strategy board game where two players must put stones one by one across two long rows of holes in order to capture their opponent's pieces? What is the name of a turn-based strategy board game where two players must take turns, putting stones one by one into the holes of two long rows in order to capture their opponent pieces. You've seen it before. Probably usually it's like a wood board.

Oh, well, I already wrote something down. All right. That doesn't sound like what you're describing. Answers up. Chris put Mancala. Colin has put also Mancala. That is correct. Moncala is the game.

You've seen it probably before. Okay. On a wooden board. Doubted myself, but all right. Yep. Also featured in Nintendo Switch's Clubhouse Games. Where you can play a video game version of it. That's how I learned the rules.

Public domain. The WRPSA is the governing body for competitive international events surrounding what? Hmm. The WRP. S.A is the governing body for competitive international events

around what? Maybe there's rules involved. Maybe it's setting up events. Sanctioned World. Yeah, world something association. I don't know.

It's what's in the middle of that sandwich. All right. All right. Colin has put rock climbing. And Chris has put rock paper Of course. I was like

World RPS Association World Rock Yeah okay The governing body for all competitive official tournaments Rock paper scissors tournaments

that do exist Yes That completely exist There is a governing body You can be good at it or bad at it It is yes Okay last question here

Where in the human body would you find microscopic calcium carbonate crystals called otoconia? Where in the human body would you find microscopic calcium carbonate crystals? It's good alliteration. Microscopic calcium carbonate crystals called otoconia. All right, answers up. Kahn has put ears. Chris has put ear.

Yes, you're correct. Otoscope. O-O-O. Yeah, yeah. Yep, yep. ear-related colloquially called ear stones or ear crystals. Why do you have rocks in your ears? Does anybody know? There are little rocks in your ears. I learned this once from my wife who specializes in knowing these things and I do not recall. They help us with balance.

They tell our body what is up, what is down. Because these little tiny, tiny rocks, they live on top of jelly, furry, hairy, layer, and depending on where the rocks are located, it signals to your brain where's up and wears down. And when you feel dizzy or you have vertigo, that means there's some

loose rocks that's somewhere where it's not supposed to be. You've got to get your ear rocks sorted out. Yeah, yeah, you got to get your, you got, well, they call it resetting your ear crystals. If you have vertigo, there's like... That sounds like the title of like a self-published book you've got on Amazon.

You said in your ear crystals. I love that this is the actual science. And I also love that you just sound like an absolute crazy person describing those, too. Yeah. When you're dizzy, the rocks are spinning around. You have to have the rocks to settle again. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

And just sort of backing away from you. Yeah. All right. Good job, Brins. And that is our show. Thank you all for joining me. Thank you listeners for Litsian. Get ready for another season of trivia.

and facts on Good Job Brain and hope you learned stuff today about old snowballs in freezers about rocks with names, about space rocks, sport rocks, about ear rocks, and you can find us on all major podcast apps and on our website,

good job, brand.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media podcast network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like What should I read next? Triviality.

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