Bonus Points: Podcast entrepreneurs were your downfall

Hello, Point-dexters!

I'm your Quiz Master, Aimee Lucido, and this is Bonus Points: the newsletter that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at last week's Pointed news quiz.

We closed the week just before Israel launched a strike on Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure, and the subsequent attacks between the two countries. So looking back on the question set today feels a little like opening a time capsule. But even so, you all knew your stuff. The average score this week was up over 15 points from the week prior, and most of the questions had get-rates in the 60-80% range.

But there was one question that stuck out as particularly challenging with only 31% of you getting it right.

Hardest Question of the Week

Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes, the three hosts of the SmartLess podcast, are planning to expand into another industry. It's one that the star of the Deadpool franchise has also dabbled in. Which word appears in the name of the new company?

A) Mobile
B) Tequila
C) Soccer
D) Coffee

You may have correctly sussed out that the star of the Deadpool franchise is actor/entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds, but that only gets you so far. Reynolds is too prolific to narrow the answers down based on him alone. None of his ventures involve coffee, so you can rule that out immediately. Reynolds does, however, have a stake in FC United of Wrexham, but that's famously a football club, not soccer (ah, pedantry!). We thought that might trip some of you up, but only 23% guessed that option. What really got you here, though, was tequila. Reynolds owns Aviation American Gin, but 36% of you guessed tequila, maybe thinking of George Clooney or all of the other celebrity tequilas. Mobile was the right answer, and Ryan Reynolds does have an ownership stake in Mint Mobile. And now, the SmartLess guys are competitors.

Deleted Scenes

Sometimes a question gets cut because it's based on a feature story and not a specific news hook. Here's an example of that from this week.

The Istituto per le Opere di Religione, one of the world's most exclusive banks, manages about €5.7 billion ($6.5 billion). Last year, it pulled in new cash and increased its assets to a 10-year high. The bank hopes to continue this win streak, even though it's recently under new leadership. Near which landmark can you find its offices?

A) The Colosseum
B) The Tower of Pisa
C) Sagrada Família
D) St. Peter's Square

The first thing to notice about this clue is that Istituto per le Opere di Religione is 1) Italian and 2) includes the Italian word for "religion." Because the language is Italian, Sagrada Família (which is located in Spain) can be ruled out. Because of the appearance of the word religione you can further narrow down the options to the ones associated with religion. The Colosseum is an ancient amphitheater, and the Tower of Pisa is a belltower, but St. Peter's Square is located in The Vatican. Doesn't get more religione than that!

Trivia From Outside the News Cycle

While reading this Bloomberg opinion piece I came across this passage: "Meanwhile, a frisson had arrived on Tuesday in the form of a brief clip on X, Musk's social media platform, apparently showing a self-driving Model Y turning a corner in Austin. This most Panglossian read of the past week ignores a couple of things."

The word "Panglossian" tripped me up because: 1) I'd never heard it before; 2) it was capitalized; and 3) the roots of the word are "pan" (Greek for "all") and "gloss" (Greek for "tongue") but the sentence isn't about languages. So I looked up "Panglossian" and it turns out the word means "optimistic" and comes from the name of a character from which 1759 satiric work? To help you narrow things down: The book has the word "optimist" (or "l'Optimisme" in the original language) in the title.

Oh, and here's the answer to last week's Trivia From Outside the News Cycle question! A reminder, the question was: "Three of the top ten largest deserts in the world have names that translate to some version of 'desert' or 'waterless place.' What are their names? And for Bonus Points bonus points, from which languages do they derive?"

The answers are… Sahara (derived from Arabic), Gobi (derived from Mongolian) and Kalahari (derived from Tswana). Anyone else feeling thirsty?

A Hint for This Week

We're already hard at work drafting this week's Pointed, so if you're looking for a hint to help you join that elusive 190 club, you've come to the right place. Your hint is to study up on SmartLess Mobile's latest competition, particularly ones that might brand themselves around the numbers 45 and 47.

Aimee Lucido

Aka The Quiz Master

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