Unutterably Silly Quiz

[Stitchawl]

I've got a quickie... It will require pure guesswork on your part, but you'll be amazed at the answer.

In Japan, bicycles are one of the most common forms of transportation. Kids ride them to school, housewives ride them to the supermarket, and of course, people ride them for pleasure too. The most common are 'market bikes' like the nasty old lady in The Wizard of Oz rode, with a basket in front, and you find literally hundreds of these parked outside all train stations in Japan. And lots of bikes get stolen every day.
Question: What 'group' of people are responsible for 80% of all bicycle thefts in Japan?

For 'group' you can choose type, age, gender, Nationality, religion, hair color, clothing designer, etc., etc. ANY grouping. They steal 80% of all the bicycles...

Who are they?



Stitchawl

[red_phoenix]

foreigners?

[orlok]

Buddhists?

[Bilbo1967]

Businessmen?

[poohbear_nc]

tourists?

[orlok]

Left-handed red-heads with a peg leg and a hump?

[Iznogood]

Nasty old women with a fondness of killing dogs named Toto?

[Stitchawl]

Wow! We have a winner! I'm amazed!

Bilbo got the right group. Businessmen! Well, they call them 'Salarymen' here, but these are the office workers and salesmen. As part of one's salary in Japan, you are reimbursed for public transportation used for work. Usually that involves taking a bus to the train station from home, then the train to work. Each might run $3-$5 for each. By 'borrowing' a bike for one leg each way, and leaving it when finished, that can amount to an extra $200-$300 a month in their pockets. They aren't 'stealing' the bike to keep, only 'borrowing' it to take to or from the station. But the results for the bike owner are the same... a lost bike! For the salesman who much visit several clients a day in different parts of town, 'borrowing' a bike can earn him an extra $1000 a month or more! Once a month the various towns and cities collect the abandoned bikes left at the stations, and you see huge truck loads of them being taken to the recycle (no pun intended) areas.

Well done, Bilbo!


Stitchawl

[Bilbo1967]

Gosh, thanks. Sorry for the delay, that was a wild guess so I hadn't really rushed to check back and see if I was right.

Today, I think, an organisation called QS published their list of the top ten universities in the world.

Points for naming any of them.

[Daithi]

Here is my 10 --
Oxford
Cambridge
Tokyo
Harvard
Yale
MIT
Stanford
Princeton
Cal Tech
Berkeley

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Here is my 10 --
Oxford
Cambridge
Tokyo
Harvard
Yale
MIT
Stanford
Princeton
Cal Tech
Berkeley

1. MIT
2. Cambridge
3. Harvard
4.
5. Oxford
6.
7. Yale
8.
9. Princeton
10. Cal Tech (it says California Institute of Technology; I assume that's the same place).

Very good! You have 7/10 and already win. Feel free to poise a question. If anybody wants to guess the others, go for it.

[Daithi]

1. What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?
2. What can you catch but not throw?
3. What can run but not walk?
4. What goes around the world but stays in a corner?
5. Give me food, and I will live; give me water, and I will die. What am I?
6. I'm the part of the bird that's not in the sky. I can swim in the ocean and yet remain dry. What am I?
7. What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a bed but never sleeps?
8. A certain crime is punishable if attempted but not punishable if committed. What is it?
9. I am weightless, but you can see me. Put me in a bucket, and I'll make it lighter. What am I?
10. At night they come without being fetched, and by day they are lost without being stolen. What are they?

[SneakySnake]

1 towel?
2 a cold?

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Daithi

1. What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?
2. What can you catch but not throw?
3. What can run but not walk?
4. What goes around the world but stays in a corner?
5. Give me food, and I will live; give me water, and I will die. What am I?
6. I'm the part of the bird that's not in the sky. I can swim in the ocean and yet remain dry. What am I?
7. What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a bed but never sleeps?
8. A certain crime is punishable if attempted but not punishable if committed. What is it?
9. I am weightless, but you can see me. Put me in a bucket, and I'll make it lighter. What am I?
10. At night they come without being fetched, and by day they are lost without being stolen. What are they?

1. A towel
2. A cold
3. A nose
7. A river
8. Suicide
10. Dreams

[Daithi]

SneakySnake and Bilbo1967's guesses were all correct.

Our total is--
SneakySnake 2
Bilbo1967 4