1) What is “masstige?”
a) a hoity-toity term for chewing food (I blame the New Yorker)
b) what an electric toothbrush does to your gums, whether you want it to or not
c) Luis Vuitton luggage on an Alpo budget
2) What is “demographic winter?”
a) what happens when you lay a population growth chart over a picture of snow (also known as: confusion)
b) time to get out the heavy nuclear winter coats
c) Homo neanderthalensis deja vu
3) What is a “Theater Internment Facility Reconciliation Center?”
a) where Alex was conditioned to associate a bit of the old ultraviolence with good old Ludwig von
b) a place where they show you films like The Name of the Rose before they get all medieval on your ass
c) what your home entertainment centre would be if it came with half a dozen naked Iraqis piled on top of each other
4) Is Wilford Brimley still alive?
4a) yes. Why?
a) oh, my god, Cocoon was a documentary!
b) somebody needs to make John McCain feel like a youngster, and it would work better if the person wasn’t dead
c) he’s not so much alive as he is stuffed with oat bran and heavy duty laxatives
5) Toronto has just posted the lowest crime rate of any Canadian city with a population greater than 500,000 people. How is the law and order crowd going to spin this to their advantage?
a) that may be, but once you break the numbers down, you realize that catnappings are up 3,027 per cent, SO WE NEED TO PUT MORE COPS ON THE STREETS IMMEDIATELY!
b) NO IT ISN’T! Statistics from the prestigious non-partisan Out My Ass Institute clearly show that EVERYBODY IN THE CITY IS GOING TO DIE IN THE COMMISSION OF A VIOLENT CRIME IF WE DON’T GIVE EVERY POLICE OFFICER IN THE CITY A HEFTY PAY HIKE IMMEDIATELY!
c) you see? TASERS WORK!
6) Would Jesus walk into a ring and rope a calf?
a) no – his hands were too delicate
b) yes – he was already in big trouble with his father, so, really, why would he give a shit?
c) is it that time of year already?
7) Match the amount of credit-related writedowns and losses to the financial institution it belongs.
a) $46.4 billion
b) $36.8 billion
c) $20.23 billion
d) $11.7 billion
e) $7.35 billion
i) Deutsche Bank
ii) Morgan Stanley
iii) Merrill Lynch
iv) AIG
v) Citigroup
8) What’s funny about that?
a) and, you were worried about whether or not you were going to be able to make your car payments!
b) the funny voice can turn anything into comedy gold
c) nothing…absolutely nothing
9) According to a federal report, Maxime Bernier had classified documents in his unlocked briefcase when he visited Julie Couillard, didn’t remove them at any time during the visit and left without them. So, what happened to them?
a) so-called “smart” paper almost always votes NDP
b) Jean Chretien snuck off with them when nobody was looking (damn him…DAMN HIM!)
c) I could tell you, but then we’d both have to vote Conservative for the rest of our lives…
10) Everybody knows that the name of the plane that dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima was the Enola Gay. (Well, you do now.) What was the name of the plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki?
a) Bockscar
b) Death From Above, 1945
c) Death On Jetskis
11) Which of the following names on the American government’s terrorism watch-list is likely to be an alias?
a) Drew Griffin
b) Edward Kennedy
c) James Robinson
d) Machmoud al-F’thabov
12) How does an individual get his or her name off the no-fly list?
a)
b)
c)
13) What does it mean to be “eating al desko?”
a) somebody has decided to produce a sequel to the film Eating Raoul
b) you were so hungry after a 12 hour shift without a break that you bit off the corner of your desk (which, funnily enough, was more healthy for you than the fast food your colleagues ordered in)
c) you’ve got that humourous desk hat on your head, you know, the one that all of your co-workers laugh politely at because they don’t really know how to respond to you otherwise
14) What would you do if the Presidential election came down to your vote?
a) hide under my bed until the media went away
b) go on some talk shows and make fun of the hosts’ clothes
c) doesn’t it always?
15) What does fun smell like?
a) Robert Downey after 16 hours on set
b) cherries and pomegranates, with a subtle undertone of Napalm
c) ask me when I?ve had some
16) According to the American Government Accountability Office the Iraqi government may end the year with a budget surplus as high as $79 billion. Now, assuming only 10 per cent of that money is going into reconstruction, where is the rest of the money going?
a) President Jalal Talabani needs a lot of protection?no, you don’t understand, we’re talking a lot of protection
b) no, it is part of the Iraqi post-war reconstruction plan: set palettes with $100 million dollars in shrink-wrapped bricks out in the street and see what happens. Keynes would have been proud?
b_i) oh, wait – it’s the Americans who do that…
c) I see what you’re doing – you want to suggest that the Iraqi government is corrupt and that the money is being wasted. Well, hey! Warlords in the countryside don’t bribe themselves!
17) If you had a choice, would you prefer your property to be destroyed in a riot after a cop shot and killed an unarmed man or in a propane tank explosion that levels a city block and destroys property all around?
a) yes
b) blaming my property’s destruction on my least favourite minority group or on big, inefficient government – tough choice
c) that’s the difference between Montreal and Toronto in a nutshell, isn’t it? Montreal’s urban destruction is creative, while Toronto’s is merely corporate
18) THAT’s A CHOICE?
a) uhh…there were two options offered, so I…I believe that’s a choice, yeah
b) I didn’t say it was a good choice
c) I mean, a choice of two bad outcomes is still a choice, right?
19) An arbitrator has awarded the employees of a Quebec Wal-Mart a union contract. How will the union-averse chain respond?
a) shutting the store, saying it is no longer profitable
b) shutting all of its stores in Quebec, saying the province is no longer profitable
c) shutting all of its stores in Canada, saying the country is no longer profitable
20) Is stupidity contagious?
a) yes – you can catch it from television news and talk radio
b) not if you fit the condom snugly over your head
c) sorry, I was shampooing my ferret – what was the question?