Savvy Minds Entertainment

03/11/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 11/02/25 - 11/08/25:

The Godfather, one of my favorite movies of all-time and rated in the top 3 on both IMDB and the American Film Institute’s list of greatest films. As many times as I’ve seen it however, I never noticed that there is a correlation between tragic events and the appearance of oranges. There are seven instances in the first film where oranges can be seen. One is being held at a wedding reception by Tessio, who ends up later being killed offscreen. Another instance, Don Barzini is seen with an orange on his table shortly before he dies as retaliation from Michael Corleone. Film producer, Jack Woltz, is seen having dinner with Tom Hagen, the Corleone’s consigliere and attorney. On the table is a bowl of oranges. After refusing to give a film role to Vito’s godson, Johnny Fontane, Woltz wakes up in bed with the head of his prized racehorse under the covers. Later, Vito is carrying a bag of oranges from the market when an assassination attempt on his life causes him to spill the bag into the street. Toward the end of the movie, Vito is playing with his grandson while tending his orange garden when he dies of a heart attack. The symbolism of this was not originally intended by the producers of the film, it was coincidental although it did create a motif that was used several times in the subsequent films. It was said the oranges were used simply as a way to brighten up the dreary set, but if you consider the fact that this was a film about the Italian mafia it makes a lot of sense. The Corleones were not only from Sicily, known for their citrus agriculture, particularly lemons and oranges, but they were also a crime family, so deaths were bound to be a major part of The Godfather, maybe not so coincidental after all.

This week’s bonus question:

Worth about $600,000, this was the name of the prized racehorse whose head ended up in Jack Woltz’s bed?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

27/10/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 10/26/25 - 11/01/25:

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a cat guy, no offense to dog people. Cats have been known to be enigmatic creatures, although the ones I’ve had in recent years have been as easy to read as a book. Despite that, the real secret about cats is their purr. They’ve been studied for years and scientists did conclude that cats purr for a variety of reasons. Often considered to be a response for contentment, purring has also been attributed to hunger, fear and as communication between other cats. What has eluded researchers is how cats purr. For a long time, it was a complete mystery as to the physiology of felines that would have this ability to create this internal buzz. Eventually it was thought that there was a “neural oscillator” in the cat’s brain which has not been fully explained in the production of purring, but then its function was coupled with the larynx and the diaphragm which became the accepted theory. Recent studies though have narrowed the purring function specifically to the larynx. Scientists experimented on deceased cats and blew air through their larynxes/vocal cords and were able to recreate the sound of a purr. It’s now believed by many that cats have pads on their vocal cords which add an extra layer of fatty tissue allowing them to create their signature purr. There are those that have doubts about this theory, so we may never actually know how a cat purrs.

This week’s bonus question:

At about how many hertz does a domestic cat purr at?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

20/10/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 10/19/25 - 10/25/25:

Rain. We’re very familiar with it up here in the Pacific Northwest. It can rain all kinds of things besides water. In song, it can rain Pennies from Heaven, Blood, and even Men, but in space it rains diamonds. They can be found in asteroids formed from ancient collisions possibly before the creation of our solar system. On the planets, Uranus and Neptune, diamonds are actually a part of their atmospheric cycles, similar to rain on Earth. Water, ammonia and methane are the three main components in their atmosphere and coupled with the high pressure system and high temperatures, those molecules get squeezed together and break apart. What’s left are carbon atoms that bond together and make crystalline structures, a form of diamonds. The creation of these structures make them fall toward the center of the planet, hence the term “rain”. Unlike Earth and the other rocky planets, Uranus and Neptune are members of the Gas Giants, and these two are also sometimes referred to as the Ice Giants since they differ in composition from Jupiter and Saturn. This means they have no discernible surface, so as the diamonds continue inward the atmosphere gets thicker and hotter and the mantle becomes a slurry of gases. Eventually the temperature becomes so great that the diamonds vaporize and the remaining particles rise back toward the outer atmosphere to begin the cycle again. The question is, how do we know all this? Well, we don’t exactly. Through the help of Voyager II and the Hubble telescope, we know that both planets are a shade of blue. Scientists know that methane absorbs longer wavelengths of light such as red and orange and reflects shorter wavelengths like blue or violet in return. Since the formation of diamonds have been studied extensively on Earth, scientists have postulated that the atmospheres of those planets could have the elements to create them. Based on the theories of those atmospheres, scientists have been able to recreate nano-diamonds in laboratory settings using the same proposed process that occurs in space. Since methane is too unstable to use, scientists have substituted polystyrene (Styrofoam) which has similar qualities. We may never know exactly what happens out there, but scientists seem to have a pretty good understanding of “diamond rain”.

This week’s bonus question:

Scientists have been able to understand the atmospheres of outer planets through the use of this field of study that measures and interprets electromagnetic spectra?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

13/10/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 10/12/25 - 10/18/25:

There is a curious connection between Kurt Russell and the King of Rock ‘n Roll, Elvis Presley. Long before his acting career as an adult, Kurt appeared in several Disney movies as a young man but he got his start in the early 1960’s with TV roles in Dennis the Menace and Gilligan’s Island. His first movie role though was in 1963’s It Happened at the World’s Fair. As an 11-year-old he was tasked with kicking Elvis in the shin, so Elvis’s character could meet the park’s nurse. Kurt later commented that despite his international superstardom, Elvis was a very down-to-earth guy who actually took some time to throw a baseball on set with the young man. He also expressed his admiration of Kurt’s father, Bing, who appeared in several westerns and Elvis said that if he ever did a western, he would wear his hat like Bing, which he did in 1969’s Charro! In 1979, two years after Elvis’s death, Kurt was cast as him in a made-for-TV movie, also starring his father who played Vernon Presley. Russell’s performance earned him critical acclaim and an Emmy nomination. It was also the first of several collaborations with director John Carpenter. Russell did so well at capturing the essence of Elvis, he was asked to voice him in an uncredited role in 1994’s Forrest Gump. Finally, in 2001 Kurt didn’t actually play Elvis, but as criminal Michael Zane, he and his cohorts dress like impersonators to rob casinos in the action crime film, 3000 Miles to Graceland. I guess kicking Elvis in the shin wasn’t bad for his career.

This week’s bonus question:

Although Kurt Russell personified Elvis in the 1979 movie, he didn’t actually perform any of the songs. The singing voice was credited to this country star?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

06/10/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 10/05/25 - 10/11/25:

We all know at least something about black holes, but since I’m no astrophysicist, I’ll keep this topic relatively simple. The basic idea is that a black hole begins when a star “dies”. This happens when it exhausts its nuclear fuel and collapses upon itself creating a gravitational pull from which nothing can escape, including light. To put that in perspective, you would have to travel at more than 186,000 miles per second to escape. In comparison, a rocket has to fly at about 25,000 miles an hour to escape Earth’s gravitational pull and about 166,000 miles per hour from the sun. In addition to what we think we’ve learned about them, there are misconceptions in our understanding about black holes. First of all, they are not actually holes that suck everything in like a giant vacuum. It’s believed that they resemble more of a pit and when anything crosses the boundary of the black hole, known as the event horizon or the point of no return, it falls into the pit which tapers to a single point. That point is called a singularity and is believed to have such a strong gravitational force that it can no longer be defined as spacetime. Since there is no law of physics to prove what occurs in a singularity, there have been different theories about what actually happens. One of these is that there may be a wormhole found there, another cosmos created on the other side of the singularity. Probably the most widely accepted theory though is that matter will stretch to infinity causing an effect called “spaghettification”. For example, if a person were to pass into the event horizon their body would get progressively more dense, making it infinitely longer and thinner (which is fine if you’ve always wanted to be taller and skinnier). Scientists also believe that there are black holes of all sizes, so if a very small one passed through a person, it would have a similar effect to a bullet wound, damaging all the matter that it came into contact with. Black holes are not as all-consuming as you might think. It’s said that an equal-sized black hole could replace the sun without it affecting any of our planets, although without the sun we would all freeze to death, so there’s that. In fact, the chance of a black hole entering our solar system is astronomically small, the nearest one to Earth is over 1,500 light-years away.

This week’s bonus question:

Although they’ve been theorized for centuries, this physicist is often crediting with coining the term “black hole” in 1967?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

01/10/2025

Just a reminder, no trivia at Brews tonight, and the schedule for the rest of the year is,

Oct 8th & 22nd

Nov 5th & 19th

Dec 3rd & 17th

Send a message to learn more

29/09/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 09/28/25 - 10/04/25:

First of all, congratulations to the Seattle Mariners who won the AL West for the first time since 2001. Now, let’s talk about one of the driving forces behind their success, the Big Dumper, Cal Raleigh. I’m sure you’ve heard ad nauseam about what an historical home run season he is having, but let’s break that down, shall we? First of all, 60 home runs. Major League Baseball has been around since the late 1860’s and Cal is only the 7th player in those 150+ years to accomplish this feat and some on this list were probably aided by PED’s. Granted, the baseballs used before 1920 were made differently and home run totals were significantly lower, only a few players hit over 20 in the dead ball era between 1900 -1919. As an example, Babe Ruth hit 11 and 29 in the 1918 and 1919 seasons. In 1920 and 1921 he hit 54 and 59. The difference was that cork was now used as the center of the new baseballs that gave them more “juice”. Surprisingly the ball has changed very little over the years since that initial introduction. If you consider some of the legendary greats that are near the top of home runs in a career, Willie Mays, Albert Pujols, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Hank Aaron, none were able to reach 60 home runs in a season. Although second on the list with 755, Hank Aaron surprisingly never hit more than 47 in a season. What else has Cal done this year: most home runs by a switch hitter. Being a switch hitter in the Major Leagues is difficult enough, learning to hit from both sides of the plate effectively while a variety of high speed pitches are flying by you. An old saying goes that a batter can fail 70% of the time and still be considered good (.300 average). Cal finished with a .247 average, but we’re not here to talk about that. He did however break a 64 year old record set in 1961 by Mickey Mantle who hit 54 switch hit home runs that year surpassing his own record of 52 that he set in 1956. No other player in history has hit more than 45 in a season. Let’s add all of this to the fact that Cal Raleigh is primarily a catcher. Historically, catchers are not usually putting up big numbers. The physical demands and their focus on the position, similar to why pitchers are normally terrible hitters, usually limit their success at the plate. Hall of Famer Johnny Bench hit 45 home runs in 1970, 38 while playing catcher. Mike Piazza hit 40 twice in 1997 and 1999, all 40 as a catcher. In comparison, Cal played 49 games as a catcher, 11 as designated hitter or pinch hitter for his 60. In a lesser-known stat, Cal has also tied Aaron Judge, Hank Greenberg and Sammy Sosa with 11 multi-home run games in a season. Let’s not forget he won the Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game as well. That said, Aaron Judge has some gaudy numbers this year and he’s a Yankee (east coast bias is real people), but let’s hope Cal can win the AL MVP for his phenomenal season. Go M’s!

This week’s bonus question:

Cal’s first home run record that he broke this year was most by a primary catcher surpassing this Kansas Royal player who had 48 in 2021?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

22/09/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 09/21/25 - 09/27/25:

In a recent Facebook share that I saw, I was reminded of a remarkable story of survival, but I had no idea how incredible it actually was. On Christmas Eve, 1971, Lansa Flight 508 took off from Lima, Peru for a 600 mile trip to Iquitos, Peru. Along the way, the flight encountered thunderstorms and severe turbulence. The crew erroneously decided to continue through despite the risks and the plane was struck by lightning. Seventeen-year-old Juliane Koepcke, traveling with her mother, recalls seeing lightning hit the plane that created an extreme nosedive. The next thing she remembered was being strapped in her seat that was now outside the plane as she watched it disintegrating away from her. She lost consciousness during her descent but did realize that her seat was spinning around in circles. She woke up some time later still in her seat which landed upside down on the jungle floor and she was entirely alone. The distance she fell was estimated at about 10,000 feet. She didn’t make it out entirely unscathed however. Suffering a broken collarbone, deep gash on her arm and a severe concussion that caused impaired vision, Juliane remained where she was until deciding she was stable enough to go find help. Her parents were zoologists living in Peru where she was born. They opened up a research station in the Amazon rainforest three years before the crash and during that time Juliane learned some survival skills. She began her journey out of the jungle by searching for sources of water, small ones at first which led to larger ones, knowing that there was a good possibility of finding settlements. She subsisted on this water since she had no food. A search for survivors was conducted for ten days, but was called off when none could be found. During that same time, she saw several bodies which she forced herself to examine looking for her mother. On that tenth day, she was able to locate a logging hut, where she took shelter. Juliane was weak from starvation, had severe insect bites and botfly larvae in her arm wound. She poured gasoline in the wound and removed about thirty maggots. Spending the night there, she was awakened the next morning by three Peruvian loggers, who treated some of her injuries, gave her some food and transported her by canoe to civilization and then flown to a hospital where she spent a month recuperating. While she was there, she found out that her mother’s body was found on January 12th. From investigation reports, as many as fourteen people, including her mother, actually survived the initial crash but perished before they could be rescued, leaving Juliane the sole survivor of the 92 people on board. The miracle of her story has led to debate on how it actually happened. It’s thought that her seat was attached to a portion of the airplane’s fuselage that had a parachute effect as it fell. The surrounding thunderstorms may have also helped by creating updrafts that slowed her descent and that the thick cover of forest and underlying vegetation slowed her impact. In the aftermath, Lansa Airlines, which had a history of deadly crashes, had their license revoked on January 4th, 1972 and they went bankrupt shortly after. Surprisingly, this amazing story has never had a proper film adaptation, but in 1998, a short documentary was released that visited the area of the crash along with Juliane. The director of the documentary, Werner Herzog, took on this project because he was supposed to be on that flight, but missed it due to a change in his itinerary. Juliane followed in her parents’ footsteps and became a zoologist and is living in her parents’ native country of Germany, age of 70.

This week’s bonus question:

Named after a shrine in Peru that honors the victims of Flight 508, this is the title of the 1998 Werner Herzog documentary about Juliane’s survival?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

15/09/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 09/14/25 - 09/20/25:

We’ve all heard of the legendary tales of King Arthur, one of those being the Sword in the Stone. As one version of the story goes, Arthur is taken away as a baby for protection by Merlin following the death of his father, King Uther. He’s placed in the custody of Sir Ector, a British lord and is raised along with his foster brother, Kay. Years later Kay becomes a knight and Arthur is his squire. Merlin, knowing that Arthur was coming of age and that he was the rightful heir to the throne, magically placed a sword into a stone in a market place of London. On the stone were words claiming that whoever removed the sword would be the true king of England. Attempts were made by people of all walks of life, but to no avail. After failing to remove the sword, the Duke of Cornwall decreed that there would be a tournament, believing the winner would be able to succeed. Sir Kay heard about the contest and decided to attend with his squire Arthur. Unfortunately, Arthur forgot to grab Kay’s sword and decided that he would borrow the sword from the stone. He was easily able to remove it. Thinking that it was a fluke, he was asked to put it back. More attempts were made by others to take the sword out, but no one else could do it. Arthur was once again able to remove it and his true identity as king was revealed. That tale is obviously based in mythology, but in actuality there is a real “sword in the stone”. Despite being real, the stories behind how it got there are also the stuff of legends. In the 12th century, St. Galgano Guidotti was a wealthy arrogant knight who liked to indulge excessively in the pleasures of life. Then he was visited by or had visions of archangel Michael who suggested he give up his worldly ways and dedicate his life to religion. The knight thought this was an unrealistic request and replied that it would be like a “sword splitting a stone” and to prove his point, he attempted to do so. Shockingly, the sword sliced right through it. Sometime later he saw a hill that appeared to him in a dream and he was so moved by this he wanted to plant a cross at the top of it. Since he didn’t have one, he buried the blade of his sword into another rock where it has remained since. Galgano died about a year later and was canonized by Pope Lucius III. A chapel was built over the place where the sword is located. Attempts have been made to steal the sword, including one by a thief whose severed hands are still on display in the chapel, a grisly warning to those that may have the same idea.

This week’s bonus question:

Located just outside of Siena, Italy, this is the chapel that contains the real “sword in the stone”?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

08/09/2025

I'm looking to add another Wednesday show if anybody knows of a place looking for some trivia

Send a message to learn more

08/09/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 09/07/25 - 09/13/25:

I mentioned Hall of Fame baseball player Honus Wagner last week. I’m not here to talk about his amazing career however, but rather his rare baseball card. Before we get into that though, I’ll give you a little rundown about the origin of baseball cards. Professional baseball began as a league in 1876 (although the Cincinnati Red Stockings were founded in 1869), but the first card that featured amateur players came out a few years earlier. Cards of a different nature had been around for decades prior used to promote products and had a dual purpose: to fit in a cigarette pack to help prevent them from being crushed. Naturally, when baseball’s popularity increased, to***co companies saw an opportunity to further their exposure by adding players’ pictures on those cards. Eventually other companies, such as sporting goods manufacturer, Peck & Snyder (considered the creators of the first true baseball card), got involved, and with the recent advent of photography, it was a perfect mix to create a collectible memento of the “national pastime”. Enter Honus Wagner. He began his career with the Louisville Colonels in 1897 and despite his bulky size, barrel chest and bowlegs, he became a superstar shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Between 1909 and 1911, the American To***co Company released a set of 524 artistic lithographic cards called the “T-206’s” of which Honus was a key player. While thousands or tens of thousands were duplicated for other players, estimates range of up to only 200 for Wagner. The long-rumored theory of why there was such a small production of these was that Wagner was a non-smoker and didn’t want to promote to***co products. The real reason however is thought to be about a money dispute between the two parties. Either way, it’s led to the T-206 Honus Wagner becoming one of the most valuable baseball cards in history. Its status has fluctuated over the years, but it has remained near the top over the last several decades. One was even owned by NHL great Wayne Gretzky, who co-bought the card in 1991 for $451,000. There are still around 50 known to exist but of varying quality. The highest rated cards have drastically increased in value and in the most recent auction in 2022 one sold for $7.5 million.

This week’s bonus question:

For the majority of the time since its release, the Honus Wagner card has been at the top of most valuable baseball cards, but in 2022, this baseball card shattered the record by selling at auction for $12.5 million?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

04/09/2025

*********Reminder*********

Trivia changes back to 6:00 tonight at S2S Everett

Send a message to learn more