1) What is Gelotology?
a) the study of an Italian ice cream alternative
b) the study of Bill Cosby’s career in advertisements
c) the study of what kind of mush old people like to eat
2) What scares David Cronenberg?
a) fluffy bunnies
b) calculating pi to precisely 47 digits (46 and 48 are iffy while 45 and 49 are fine, but 47? Oooooooh!)
c) Justin Bieber behind the wheel
3) What would it take for Mayor Rob Ford to shake the faith of his core supporters?
a) being caught in a love motel with Karl Marx and Kathleen Wynne
b) letting taxes rise for such frivolities as keeping the streets navigable, repelling an alien invasion or keeping the streets navigable during an alien invasion
c) his core supporters getting help for their crack addiction
4) Who says people on the left (outside of Jon Stewart) don’t have a sense of humour?
a) people on the right who don’t have a sense of humour
b) The Plunck Institute of Statistical Improbabilities
c) Kirkwood Kalabash, the world’s foremost expert on mollusk teasing
5) Facebook is considering new buttons, since “like” doesn’t cover the full range of human responses to even its limited set of stimuli. What new button would you suggest they create for their pages?
a) doomed to fail
b) indistinguishable from magic
c) salami
d) other
6) Did US Secretary of State John Kerry really see progress on peace negotiations in the Middle East?
a) yes, but it was just a flashback to 1998, or possibly 1924, or perhaps even 1067 – flashbacks can be hard to read in certain areas of the world
b) no, he misinterpreted hope glinting off the turret of an Israeli tank as actual progress
c) no, but after America had wandered for 40 years in the desert, it’s not hard to imagine why he would want to convince himself that he had
7) Who said, “He’s a very nice man…not a bad influence for youth?” Who was he talking about?
a) Rob Ford said it of Conrad Black
b) Conrad Black said it of Rob Ford
c) Bebe Rebozo said it of Bozo the Clown
8) How paranoid do you have to be to believe that widespread martial law is coming to the United States?
a) “Break out the guns, granpa, the bears are a-comin’ fer yer dentures!” paranoid
b) “The rich are grabbing everything that isn’t nailed down, so I’m going to attack the one organization that might actually be big enough to counterbalance their power” paranoid
c) Travis Bickle paranoid
9) It’s a book that almost everyone has heard of, few have actually read and some want banned altogether. What is it?
a) Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying
b) The Satanic Histories of Time
c) the Bible
10) Ugandan lawmakers passed a law that punishes “aggravated homosexuality” with life imprisonment. What is aggravated homosexuality?
a) homosexuality that gets extremely irate when you don’t follow the colour scheme it has suggested for the decor in its apartment
b) the kind of homosexuality that can’t stay mad at you, sailor, because you have such adorable dimples when you smile
c) threatened heterosexuality’s paranoid wet dream
11) Who said that somebody should “swing from a tall oak tree?” Who was he talking about?
a) Elmer Fudd said it about Bugs Bunny (he has carrot issues)
b) Jughead said it about Archie (he has second fiddle issues)
c) former American Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said it of – well, the fact that it was former American Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton who said it kind of makes anything that comes after irrelevant (we’d need an encyclopedia for all of his issues)
12) After the Lac-Megantic rail disaster, citizens of the town are trying “to find the positive.” How can they do this?
a) with a metal detector and a lot of patience
b) by trying to remember where the positive was the last time they saw it
c) with the application of the Commit, Remember, Affirm, Positivity method
13) According to Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak, if his party wins the next election, he will create one million new jobs in the province. Whose ass did he pull that number out of?
a) his own
b) one of his economic advisers (which is gross, but that’s what they get paid for)
c) Rob Ford (which is gross without any qualifiers)
14) Has Kate Middleton’s dog left the royal life?
a) yes
b) no
c) this is the very definition of a slow news day
15) What is scrumptious times infinity?
a) the square root of delicious divided by stomach cramps
b) the most irrational of numbers
c) zero
d) other
16) Why is the North a major focus of the Harper Government of Canada’s domestic policy?
a) there aren’t a lot of people there (modern Conservatives aren’t good with people…)
b) it’s cold and harsh and inhospitable to life – most Cabinet members see themselves reflected in it
c) they took a wrong turn at Tuktoyaktuk
17) Do you need a smart TV?
a) like a fish needs a…a…woman on a man’s…umm…bicycle…
b) how smart we talking, here, fella? If we’re talking get my slippers, lick my face while I’m sleeping puppy dog smart, I could live with that. If we’re talking nuke major population centres and send terminators in to finish off the human population…well, I suppose I could live with that, too, if I had enough warning…
c) no, but I could use a few more smart TV producers
18) The last Winter Olympics – Vancouver, 2010 – cost around $8.7 billion. The 2014 Olympics in Sochi are estimated to cost $50 billion. Why do the current Olympics Games cost so much?
a) Sochi has important security costs that Vancouver didn’t have, especially testing every athlete and attendee to ensure that they aren’t gay
b) I, uhh, could tell you, but what would be in it for me? If you really want to know, it’ll cost ya! And, not in worthless rubles, either – I want a cool mil in small, unmarked, non-consecutive American dollar bills. Leave them in a brown paper bag in the garbage can at the corner of Gorky and Simonovich. Once I have recovered that, you’ll get your answer…
c) do you have any idea how expensive it is to import caviar from Venus?
19) Is it worse to be single or a childless couple?
a) rutabaga
b) that was inappropriate…I meant cauliflower
c) aww, gimme a break! This question is more loaded than Rob Ford in a Steak King video! Besides, everybody knows that there is no heartbreak like the heartbreak of a couple that cannot have children
20) Under high enough pressure, peanut butter can be turned into diamonds. Why would anybody want to turn peanut butter into diamonds?
a) to teach a lesson to that jerk who keeps stealing the sandwiches you bring for lunch out of the fridge at work. Jerk!
b) to show those African mining companies who’s boss, boy!
c) people with food allergies have their own warped logic