A. 王族　B. 白足袋　C. 醸造者　D. 虎　E. 双子　F. 幼獣

Heeeey, batterbatterbatter su-wing batterbatter!

It looks like Theoman has decided to take a break from being right all the time–his identification of A as the Pittsburgh Pirates is incorrect, and I think I know how he came about it.  That second character in A is read zoku, as is the second character in the word for pirate, kaizoku.  That “zoku,” however, means “burglar” or “robber,” whereas the one in A means “family” or “tribe.”  And since the character before it means “king,” these are, in fact, the Kansas City Royals.  I suppose Theoman gets half-credit for identifying them as an equally woebegone team.  Actually, now that I think about it, there are a large number of woebegone teams on this list, either perennially or currently.  Such is the fate of the Central.

His second guess (B=White Sox) is rather boringly correct.  His pick of Cubs for E, however, was a bit off the mark.  Unfortunately for him, the critical character in this compound is not the second but the first, which means “two” or “double.”  Thus at E we recognize the Minnesota Twins, who have won more World Series titles in the past 25 years than the rest of the teams on this list put together.

A Fan struck out in his first at-bat, guessing Astros, Brewers, Cardinals, though we’ll call one of those a foul ball rather than a straight strike; he was close on the Milwaukee Brewers, who find themselves at C.  His second at-bat was similar, though unlike the Reds and Pirates, the Cubs are at least found somewhere on this list.

That brought up Shirley, who was one off on the White Sox and one off on the Brewers, though Milwaukee isn’t that far from Minneapolis, so she was close in more ways than one.  I’ll take her calling the Twins the Cardinals as a compliment.  Her comments on her guess of the Indians could probably equally apply to the Indians’ season itself this year, but F is, in fact, those poor, poor Cubs, who have not been correctly guessed on KYPC in 103 years (true story).

And, to A Fan’s undoubted consternation, we are forced to reveal that D is the DEtroit Tigers.

But now it’s time to go west, young man (or whatever particular combination of age and gender you may happen to be).  The Baseball Team Identification Challenge continues with the West Division, and you’re in luck: there aren’t as many teams out there.  Pick from the Angels, Athletics, Mariners, Rangers (from the AL) or the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Rockies (from the NL).

A. 運動選手　B. 警備官　C. 神父　D. 天使　E. 船乗り　F. ペテン師

Still in Action Mode, Peter’s first reaction was to pull.  He pulled hard, hard enough to remind his fevered brain that bones can break, shoulders can be dislocated, and that maybe charging ahead without analyzing the situation wasn’t the best way to get ahead in the long run.  After all, if he had somehow managed to get wedged between a pillar and a garbage can, all the pulling in the world wasn’t going to help.  But when he turned his head, he saw that what was holding him in place was nothing more than a human hand . . . a human hand employing a full-force Greco-Vulcan Death Grip that would have put an industrial vice to shame.

Now in Analysis Mode—but still suffering from lack of sleep and feeling dizzy from jumping down all those stairs—his brain immediately leapt to the conclusion that he was being mugged.  He had thought that this was something that typically happened at night, but then again, what did he know?  Having grown up in the suburbs, he didn’t know much about being mugged, other than that it was “something that happened to other people” and that it was “undesirable.”

He might have been able to accept a morning mugging, but, as his eyes adjusted to the lighting, the identity of the mugger was nothing short of dumbfounding.  She looked like she could use the money, but was this little old lady really capable of such a crime?  Was that really cold determination he saw in her crinkled eyes and her thin mouth, or was it simply a trick of the unpleasant subway station lights?  And how in the hell was she strong enough to have him trapped like that?

The Old Woman of Simon Park Station had not expected this turn of events much more than Peter had.  The morning rush was entering a lull; the last train that could get people downtown by eight o’clock had already departed, and it would be at least fifteen minutes before the nine o’clock crowd started to pour in.  She had been all prepared to settle down for a brief rest when she saw the young man come dashing in, all by himself.  When he started to slow down right next to where she was sitting, she just reacted instinctively.

“Don’t you think . . .”

She stopped.  She had started to ask the question automatically, just as she had approached the man automatically when he passed her pillar.  But what was the point?  No one ever listened.  He was just another guy in a suit, rushing to catch a train.  She had seen tens of thousands of them in the time she had spent in Simon Park Station.  She had really believed that eventually someone would come along, someone who would listen to her little speech, someone who would help.  But the law of averages had failed her.  This strategy wasn’t going to cut it.

Using not prob and stats but one’s hand
Just as the Constitution had planned
Since the first sum (4 mil)
Every ten years we still
Try to count all the folks in the land

Event: The first U.S. Census is conducted
Year: 1790
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Census

A. 大いなる遺産　B. 虚栄の市　C. 荒涼館　D. ジェーン･エア

E. 宝島　F. 不思議の国のアリス

One reader described this week’s answers as “the best response ever.”  It’s certainly the longest response ever, and as we all know after taking the previous week’s quiz on Harry Potter books, the longest one is always the best . . . right?

Theoman tried his hand at guessing every single one of them, but unfortunately he got them all correct, so there’s not much funny to say about that.  I’m sure his grandmother will be proud that he apparently knows more about Victorian novels than he does about the works of Rowling.

This week’s responses included a fair amount of pro-Trollope outrage, which I have to say was not entirely unexpected.  I did finally figure out how his name is pronounced in Japanese–Tororoppu–but I still don’t even know if any of his works have been translated into Japanese, so I don’t know what any of their titles would be.  A Fan’s suggestion of Kanshu for The Warden seems as good as any to me, provided he means the kind of warden that runs a prison.

A Fan clearly believes that turnabout is fair play; he likes to give answers where I have to try to figure out what he means in response to the challenge, where he is supposed to figure out what I mean.  I’ll take a crack at it.  I was made to read two of these in high school, but based on a later response I’m going to guess that he means Great Expectations, which is correct for A.  The one that’s fun to read as a kid could only be Treasure Island, which is not B.  As far as I know, Bleak House has never been made into a Disney movie, so his next guess probably refers to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (or, in Japanese, “Alice in/of the Mysterious Land”), which is also incorrect.  I had to look up Vilette to learn that it was written by one of those Brontes, as was Jane Eyre, which he correctly identified as D (so far he’s 2-for-2 on books I had to read in high school).  The most overrated one on the list must be Vanity Fair, which makes A Fan so mad that he can’t even spot it properly.  This leaves us with Bleak House, which was not correctly identified, but we would still like to thank A Fan for copy-pasting roughly two-thirds of the book along with his answers.

A quiz on Victorian literature was Shirley’s suggestion in the first place, so I suppose she has a right to make comments about who should have been included, but isn’t Jane Austen really more Georgian than Victorian?  This isn’t exactly my field of expertise.  Perhaps blinded by rage at the exclusion of authors like Eliot and Trollope, she did not do as well as A Fan, but she did manage to find Treasure Island, and if you’re going to hunt for something, wouldn’t you much rather find an island full of treasure than, say, a dismal house?  Discuss.

So, you like Victorian novels?  I like . . . baseball.  This week we are having the KYPC Baseball Team Identification Challenge: Central Division.  Since there is no designated hitter in KYPC, teams could come from either the American League (Indians, Royals, Tigers, Twins, White Sox) or the National League (Astros, Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Pirates, Reds).

A. 王族　B. 白足袋　C. 醸造者　D. 虎　E. 双子　F. 幼獣