Last week's challenge
Start with the phrase RESOLUTE DESK. Replace two of the vowels with a T, rearrange the letters and you can spell the name of a Pulitzer Prize-winner who lived to be 96. Who is it?
Answer: Replace the O and E with a T and you can spell STUDS TERKEL.
THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: MUSICAL WORD PROBLEMS
On-air questions: OK, Ian: Grab a pencil, some paper, and your calculator because it's time for some musical word problems. I'll give you a problem based on songs with numbers in their titles and you figure out what the answer is.
1. If Dolly Parton worked her usual hours every day (what a way to make a living) for each day a week that the Beatles ain't got nothin' but love, how many hours in total would she work?
2. If each nation in the White Stripes' army knew as many dances as are in the land that Wilson Pickett sings about, how many dances would the entire army know?
3. If the current year were the year that Prince wants to party like it's, and Liesl from The Sound of Music has finally turned the age she was "going on", what year would she have been born in?
4. If ? and the Mysterians cried one of their tears each time Nena popped one of her red balloons, how many balloons would still be unpopped by the time they were done crying?
5. If all of Paul Simon's ways to leave your lover were among Jay-Z's problems, how many of Jay-Z's problems would not be ways to leave your lover?
Extra credit
1. Assuming Bryan Adams considers June to be the beginning of summer, how much time passes between the month Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons had "oh, what a night" and when Bryan Adams got his first real six-string?
2. If one of Alice Cooper's babies were worth the same amount as all of Eddie Money's tickets to paradise, how much would each ticket be worth?
This week's challenge
Start with the name of the Spin Doctors' song TWO PRINCES. Drop one letter and you can rearrange the result to spell a five-letter word for a category of beverages and a four-letter word for a specific type of beverage in that category. What are the words?
ANSWERS
On-air questions
1. 64 (8 hours per day for eight days)
2. 7000 (7 nations, 1000 dances each)
3. 1982 (1999 – 17)
4. 3 (99 balloons – 96 tears)
5. 49 (99 problems – 50 ways to leave your lover)
Extra credit
1. 5½ years (from December 1963 to the summer of '69)
2. $500 million (1 billion divided by 2)