Sovereignty Ascends

Scott Hardie | November 3, 2006
Well done, Steve! I made Government & Politics (0882) as hard as I could, and I'm impressed that you got it. It probably should have waited for the elimination phase next week, but oh well. Can anyone else get it?

Steve West | November 4, 2006
Ah, the ever-elusive Golden Imelda. This site is too full of very good players to ever expect to achieve that . It does still happen, obviously, but with the current cast of characters, it becomes that much more of an achievement. Damn you and your big brain Megan. Next time, perchance. Seriously, good going.

Megan Baxter | November 8, 2006
Thanks!

Seeing the explanation for the goo now makes me laugh, because I got there in such a roundabout and random manner. I looked up female heads of state, went on to research sovereignty, found that both Quebec and France are associated with sovereignty movements, assumed I would probably know if it was a Quebecoise politician, researched French leaders, and came across a reference to her laying a rose on a memorial to a late Latin American politician.

Sometimes persistence pays off, even if it doesn't make any sense.

Amy Austin | November 10, 2006
So true, Megan... so true -- good job.

Steve Dunn | November 13, 2006
Ah hah hah, this is funny.

On that alchemist one, I thought that HCL was HCI, so instead of searching for actual, you know, alchemists, I spun my wheels paging through the luminaries of Human-Computer Interaction.

Megan Baxter | November 13, 2006
I did the same thing, actually. It was a Wikipedia disambiguation page that tipped me off, because it said HCI was a common misspelling of HCl, the compound.

Megan Baxter | November 15, 2006
About half an hour ago, CBC Radio had about a 15 minute long piece on Segolene Royal. I thought that was an interesting synchronicity.

Scott Hardie | November 16, 2006
I wondered if anybody would make that mistake about HCl given the arial font on the site, but I figured it would be part of the difficulty. :-)

I like Royal and I suspect she's going to become a much more famous figure in a year. Maybe someone will forget this in a year or two and suggest that I make a goo out of this now-more-famous figure? It happened with Osama bin Laden: I gooed him in 1998 and got complaints that he wasn't famous enough, but after 9/11 several people suggested that he'd make a good goo.

Amy Austin | November 16, 2006
I think many of your goo choices have proven a bit prescient, Scott... it's one of the things I like about playing the game, because I learn things like this and then feel like I have a better understanding of related current events as a result.

Scott Hardie | November 16, 2006
It has helped me, too. I never would have read interesting life stories like Henrietta Lacks or David Hahn if I hadn't gone searching for unusual celebrities to baffle and delight the players.

My previous comment reads like I was bragging for being so prescient, so sorry if it came across like that; not my intention.