Well observed. I'm going to have a Poe-reading session some time soon. I deserve a break from all the teaching I've been doing.

Still, in a mainstream quiz, that's quite an impressive question.

Inc, there's something about Neptune that gets to me. It is so incredibly far away; it is so cold; it looks so like an ocean planet, like Earth without the land, but is so big in comparison. Somehow it awes me more than Jupiter, even though it is much smaller.

I would have got that one. I studied the wretched Joyce at college - it started out entertaining enough, but it was an utter slog by the halfway point. (I probably mentioned it in a thread called something like, "Classics which don't work for you," which I probably started.)

Another thing I mentioned way back was a quiz where you had to identify four books based on the opening 3 words. I got 3 out of 4; I can't remember the one I didn't get:

"It was the..."
"It is a..."
"It was a..."

Lol, it'd be ugly watching me try to do an Astronomy crossword. Each day I do the crossword at Dictionary.com and/or (usually not both) USAToday.com. I'll usually stick to one for a while, then when I get tired of seeing the same answers over and over again I'll go to the other.

I think it's USAToday that generally has "Ursa", and I think it's one of their stock-questions that they use over and over whenever it fits. That's probably why we see a difference.

__________________
I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Cool
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
It was the hour of the night when there be none stirring save churchyard ghosts

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession
It is a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America that the toils

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents
It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen
It was a pleasure to burn
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs

Maybe:
It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw
It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining

Ought to be "It is the...", but surely you wouldn't have forgotten that.

Here is another answer to the first of the above, which deserves to be better known:

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me."

Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess.

How about:

"Call me..."

__________________
Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

I know you meant "Ishmael", but what instantly came to my mind was "Joe".

__________________
Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Thta's better than me. The Blondie song is what popped into my head.

*sings*
Call me on the line Call me call me any anytime...

__________________
Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

I thought of Blondie first too - bloomin' philistine!

I've been meaning to read Moby Dick for about 25 years now, so it probably isn't going to happen.

Sorry, Ivan, mental block. Can you give me a bit more?

Whereas I'll leave you with,

"April is the..."

Easy!

Maybe he was just extrapolating from "It was/is a/the..." to get all four possibilities, given that you'd listed three of them.

__________________
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Q: Who...

A: First base.

(sigh) So young...

Who's on First

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

That's pretty cruel, but not unusual.

Re "call me" this is what popped into the confined space of my head without a work permit.

__________________
A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Thanks Jim

I'm a Laurel and Hardy fan though, not Abbot and Costello. No wonder I got lost...