J: [prepares breakfast]

me: "Doot doot da-doot-doot"

J: "Banana bread."

A missing music expert and an early deficit left us in third place.

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Matt Strahm has a Declaration of Independence glove in recognition of his resemblance to what actor?

One of the first purchases on Ebay (aka AuctionWeb) was $14.83 for what electronic office equipment that was advertised as "broken"?

What is the name of the branch of philosophy concerned with the study of knowledge?

What deadpan comedian (1929-2024) had the top two albums on the Billboard chart for nearly 30 weeks in the early 1960s?

One of our team members arrived late due to car shopping, but won it for us by getting us to the correct final answer.  

Which came first, Jazzercise classes or women getting credit cards in their own names?

What MLB Hall-of-Famer lettered in four sports at UCLA (baseball, football, basketball, and track), prior to being drafted into the Army?

What singer of "Coal Miner's Daughter" was the older sister of Crystal Gayle?

What longest-running talent show is known for its notoriously tough audience?

My Favorite Team finished on top, and answered the final question thanks to the extra hint.

What musical group, whose biggest hit was "Eye in the Sky", did Homer Simpson describe as "some sort of hovercraft"?

What does the musical instruction "col legno" mean to a violinist?

What household object, once called a besom, is sold using brands including Libman and SWOPT?

What hip-hop song, the top-selling single of 1995​​​​​​​, uses a melody by Stevie Wonder and was parodied by Weird Al Yankovic?

I am pleased to report that My Favorite Team got every one of this week's questions correct except for the "toss-up" questions whose answers are some random number that one just tries to answer closer than everyone else.

What is the distance between the center of a circle and its perimeter?

What genomics company filed for bankruptcy in March 2025?

What Latin American dessert consists of spongecake soaked in a mixture of whole, evaporated, and condensed milk?

What is the name of Percy Jackson's friendly hellhound?

What manicure style is characterised by a natural base and white tips?

What disease was treated by the earliest vaccinations?

What basketball coach led UCLA to seven straight NCAA championships?

What board game includes the characters Frostine, Plumpy, Gloppy, and Gramma Nutt?

What singer who died in 1995 was called the Queen of Tejano Music?

What are the birthplace countries of the following actors?  Heath Ledger, Ryan Reynolds, Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman, Lupita Nyong'o

What newsworthy country in 2025 is the world's largest island (not also reckoned as a continental landmass)?

What is the correct spelling of the region that includes Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and many other islands?

What is the only country with a non-quadrilateral flag?

What "Goonies" actor also voiced teenage mutant ninja turtle Donatello in two movies and Slash on TV?

Silk production begin during the Neolithic in what country?

Who was the author of "Don Quixote", often considered the first modern novel?

Cusco was the capital of what empire until the 16th century?

What actress and wife of Harrison Ford stars in "Curse of the Starving Class" with Christian Slater?

What civil rights activist was memorialized by Barack Obama for his legacy in the farm labor movement?

What annual event was inaugurated in 1985 at Madison Square Garden, with Muhammad Ali as a referee and Liberace as a timekeeper?

Long-awaited semi-finals were going well at first, but our second half was not good enough.

What state has the Crayola factory and also the first US oil well?

Baylen Dupree of "Baylen Out Loud" has what unusual condition?

In what country is Ushuaia, the world's most southermost city?

What assassinated president had campaigned on the slogan "A Full Dinner Pail"?

The last question thwarted us again and disproved my Guessability Theory.

What is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea?

What 1958 film is about a fan who'd sell his soul to aid the Washington Senators?

Who responded to Barry Goldwater's "In your heart you know he's right" slogan with "In your guts you know he's nuts"?

What song ranked #3 by Rolling Stone and #1 on its list of protest songs begins with the following lyrics?

"I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh, and just like the river, I've been running ever since"

Tesla's sales are down 13% globally in Q1, compared to Q1 of last year.

It was worse in China, and in most of Europe.

I want to celebrate, but this still leaves me wondering about the math. If sales tanked worse in most countries, then they may have improved somewhere else to balance at 13%.

Guess where "somewhere" is gonna be... guess what country we don't have sales numbers for yet 🤣

There are other explanations though, the Model Y just got a refresh that some people were waiting for. That bump won't last.

So I am still hopeful that Americans will be either too smart or too dumb to buy a Tesla!

Finished week 2 at Google (on contract). It's quite a relief to get a job where i'm given a task and am not micromanaged (even if all my various facets of existence within the Google hivemind have yet to fully coalesce, which hindered my ability to work until this Wednesday).  I've had to thrash against the limits of my ignorance yet, after establishing the initial parameters, managed to surpass obstacles on my own, needing only once to ask for clarification.

Plumbing and electric work on the new house is nearly done, which will allow us to insure it.  The garage at the current house has been obliterated and removed, and the dogs are greatly loving the new roaming grounds.  Memo hates shovels and, when faced with the Bobcat that remained overnight (the garage demolition took two days), felt that it was his duty to bite the largest shovel he'd ever seen.

Our grandson Elliott drew some capybaras during his last visit. They now grace our fridge.

The semifinals aren't happening yet, but My Favorite Team did get tripped up by the final question this week.  My post-mortem advice was that the final answer is almost always something you could have guessed, even if you didn't.

What character created by Stan Lee was supposed to be unlikeable because "everyone hates war"?

What tech company founded in 1939 was named based on the flip of a coin?

What was Elvis Presley's first number one hit?

What automobile device was first used to try to gain an advantage in the 1894 Paris-Rouen race?