Star Trek episode, Dave Eggers book, or Mountain Goats song?
April 20, 2019 12:19 PM   Subscribe

Test your Trekkie / literary / indie rock cred with this quiz: Star Trek episode, Dave Eggers book, or Mountain Goats song? As its MeFite creator duffell wrote, "there's no real joke except that all three of these things tend to have delightfully overwrought titles." [via mefi projects]
posted by filthy light thief (34 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
Because I know none of those songs and I am afraid to take the quiz but I certainly recognized some Star Trek titles and a couple of Eggers books, and I think this is a fabulous idea for a quiz. I salute you, duffel (or whichever MeFite did this, apologies, on my phone). Thanks, OP!
posted by Bella Donna at 12:24 PM on April 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


22/30 - Of the three, I knew enough Star Trek episodes to make a go of it. Thanks.
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:30 PM on April 20, 2019


Ha! Thanks for the post. I've been having a lot of fun creating little monuments to asininity like this lately.
posted by duffell at 12:41 PM on April 20, 2019 [6 favorites]


15/30... I may need to turn in my TNG communicator badge for this and report for duty on the Orville. The only thing that might have made this more difficult would be adding a fourth choice... MetaFilter post titles... "Fixing up Waco"? "Daikon on Instagram"? "A Brief History of Cooties"?
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:14 PM on April 20, 2019 [6 favorites]


I wonder if the similarities between Trek titles and Mountain Goats songs is deliberate?

Good quiz!
posted by Foaf at 1:15 PM on April 20, 2019


18/30 - Unfortunately I only know TOS episodes by name, have only read one Eggers book, and haven't actively listened to the Mountain Goats.
posted by fings at 1:17 PM on April 20, 2019


I got 81%, though I shudder to think how I'd do if you took out the Trek titles and Mountain Goats songs I recognized directly.
posted by ckape at 1:26 PM on April 20, 2019


Dave Eggers is GREAT at coming up with titles for things and should be encouraged to just do that.
posted by bleep at 1:44 PM on April 20, 2019 [8 favorites]


I messed up a lot of these because I thought This isn’t quite the title I remember, so it must be one of the other two, but it turned out I was remembering the title wrong.
posted by Etrigan at 1:55 PM on April 20, 2019 [3 favorites]


Ugh. I know Trek TOS and TNG and Eggers really well, figured that would get me through it. Nope. 15/30.
posted by martin q blank at 2:04 PM on April 20, 2019


"Little Monuments to Asininity" is definitely Eggers
posted by Gorgik at 4:39 PM on April 20, 2019 [3 favorites]


Never heard of the mountain goats so stuck to picking out trek. 'World is hollow and I...' was a certainty to show up.
posted by biffa at 4:39 PM on April 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


A little disappointing there weren't any that hit two or better yet all three.
posted by ckape at 4:50 PM on April 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


A little disappointing there weren't any that hit two or better yet all three.

Not that I know of, no--but several ST episodes and Mountain Goats songs come close. Dragon's Teeth/Lion's Teeth, New Zion/New Eden, Conscience of the King/Idylls of the King...
posted by duffell at 4:59 PM on April 20, 2019 [2 favorites]


23/30 with one stupid blunder, but I think this is pretty good (or lucky) for someone who loves Star Trek but has never read anything by Dave Eggers or knowingly listened to a single Mountain Goats song.
posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 5:07 PM on April 20, 2019


To save myself further self-embarrassment, I gave up at 1/10, but I very well could therefore have made it 21/30, so that's the score I'll report.
posted by maxwelton at 5:13 PM on April 20, 2019 [4 favorites]


17/30, Star Trek: Discovery kicked my ASS
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 5:35 PM on April 20, 2019


14/30, I just don't know enough about Eggers. Going to go sing Pale Green Things to myself and cry now.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 5:56 PM on April 20, 2019


23/30, but I don't read Eggers or listen to the Mountain Goats, so I suppose that's about what I could've expected.
posted by mordax at 6:18 PM on April 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


11/30. Every time I hesitated, I really should have just picked "Star Trek episode."
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:14 PM on April 20, 2019 [5 favorites]


28/30. I can rattle off Trek episode titles like nobody’s business and I know absolutely nothing about Eggers or the Mountain Goats (and would like to keep it that way) so I guess I’m still excellent at tests.
posted by Automocar at 8:08 PM on April 20, 2019


The Star Trek eps are too new for us to mostly get. But we got all the Mountain Goats songs!
posted by 41swans at 9:12 PM on April 20, 2019


My weak point is the decision between Eggers and later-than-TOS Star Trek. If it was restricted to TOS, I think I would've killed.
posted by praemunire at 11:58 PM on April 20, 2019


Ask Me Another, the NPR show, does a similar quiz sometimes... one I remember was Talking Heads songs, WrestleMania events, or a Danielle Steel novel.
posted by Snowishberlin at 6:21 AM on April 21, 2019


17/30 and I'm happy that somebody might listen to The Mountain Goats for the first time This Year.
posted by carsonb at 10:06 AM on April 21, 2019 [2 favorites]


My main squeeze and I just got a very humbling score.
posted by Grandysaur at 10:18 AM on April 21, 2019


I can’t believe they left out my favorite Star Trek episode, The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton.”
posted by bibliowench at 10:42 AM on April 21, 2019 [8 favorites]


Goats > Trek + Eggers, for me, though all within my realm of culture consumption. 15/30.
posted by Borborygmus at 6:24 PM on April 21, 2019


Got all the Trek, a handful of Eggers, and the rest were a judgment call.

Kind of surprised "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not For the Lamb's Cry" didn't make it into the quiz, considering the Disco lovefest. It almost makes a rhyming couplet with "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky."
posted by ilana at 7:15 PM on April 21, 2019


I don't really understand my results. I have a passing familiarity with the Mountain Goats and Eggers, but not enough to know more than one or two titles from each. My Star Trek is decent but highly concentrated in a few series.

So of course, I get 16/30, largely held up by TOS episodes (a series I've barely watched), Discovery episodes (a series I've seen more of and is the most recent, so fair) and a handful of guesses for Mountain Goats and Eggers titles. I missed all the DS9 and Voyager ones, even some that in hindsight are really obvious. I'm not sure there WERE TNG ones in there but yeah.
posted by chrominance at 9:07 AM on April 22, 2019


I think I just put one TNG episode in there. Thing is, Star Trek series are not equal in terms of their over-the-top titles. Original Series, Deep Space 9, and Discovery all have an abundance of delightfully florid episode names, much more so than other ST shows.
posted by duffell at 9:09 AM on April 22, 2019


Mostly this just made me sad that Dave Eggers started, then kept writing books, although each did astonishingly vie with the previous for "most pretentious title in a work of fiction."
posted by aspersioncast at 7:44 PM on April 22, 2019


17/30 and I'm happy that somebody might listen to The Mountain Goats for the first time This Year.

They've got a new album coming out... later this week, I think?
posted by atoxyl at 8:04 PM on April 22, 2019 [1 favorite]


It's really sneaky to put in a title dripping with classical references like "An Obol for Charon" where it's NOT a Mountain Goats song. Also including MG songs that were only performed once on a radio broadcast selects for the true obsessives.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 8:40 PM on April 22, 2019 [1 favorite]


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