Declamation

New post so soon? Well, Me, myself, I'm surprised enough about that. This post is about my funny experiences during a club meet I've attended yesterday.

There's a club here in Vijayawada, focussed on developing Communication Skills. The club is called The Felines, which is a initiative of students from Career Launcher Vijayawada. Each week there'll be a club meet during which various activities like debates, group discussions, extempores etc., are conducted, and is open to any student.

One of the events conducted yesterday was called Bulls Eye. It's basically a guessing game which involves strategy. The rules are like this: The game master will think about a personality, and the team has to guess who it is, by asking questions which can be answered only by a Yes or No (Like Male? Indian? Actor?) There'll be a limit of 15 questions. It's a really a good game involving formulating a strategy of asking questions basing on previous questions. Well, though intellect, there were quite a few instances where there was lots of fun.

One guessing round, the team asks:
Q: Male?
A: No
Q: Female?
A: ???
It's obvious that if it's a No to male, then the personality is female... A question got wasted!

Another round: In this, the team got so involved, they were assuming they were posing questions to the personality instead of the game master. The questions were like this...
Q: Are you a Male?
A: Of course I am.....
Q: Oh sorry, Male?
A: Yes
Q: Do you play sports?
A: Yeah, I used to play chess during schooling, but these days it's cricket....

Bits & Pieces:
Q: Is it a Male?
A: Yes, "It" is a male

Q: Indian?
A: No
Q:South Indian?
A: No

Q: Which country are you from?
A: #$%@$@!

Q: Politician? (That was their 15th question)
A: No, It's Osama Bin Laden.
Team: Hey you said Yes to Female...
A: No, I said No to female..
Team: No You said Yes
A: I said No (Spectators supported that)
A: Well, If you feel female, Ok, then it's Mrs. Osama Bin Laden (In a lighter tone)
Spectators: Well, which one? He got more than a dozen...

Q: Fine Arts related?
A: No
Q: Fine Arts includes Music, Singing, Movies, Painting right? (They asked in generic sense, to know about the game rules)
A: Yeah, that's right
Spectators: Hey that makes two questions....
Q: What? Doest that count as two questions?
Spectators: That makes three...

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Wow, almost an year I've made my last post... Time flies, isn't it? So busy [:d] with studies and exams, I almost forgot about the blog. Okay, no more suspense about the post title... "Why did the chicken cross the road?" is one of the oldest and most famous riddles still in use in the English language. Lately some of my friends and I got into a philosophical discussion about "What came first? the chicken or the egg?" and this riddle made it's way into the discussion and that's where the philosophy was gone to a six and the discussion got filled with subtle riddling and puzzling.

Amused by the riddle (Even though I've heard the riddle n number of times before, it's still interesting to have a fun discussion on it), I researched a bit in the net and came up with something I thought to share with you. The most common answer to the road crossing is "To get to the other side." When asked at the end of a series of other riddles, whose answers are clever, obscure, and tricky, this answer's obviousness and straight-forwardness becomes part of the humor.

There are many riddles that assume a familiarity with this well-known riddle and its answer. One class of variations enlist a creature other than the chicken to cross the road. For example,

A turkey or duck crosses "because it was the chicken's day off."

Another variant: "Why did the dinosaur cross the road?" "Because chickens weren't evolved yet."

Also include "Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?" to which the answer is "Because he had no guts," or "He had no body to cross with him."

"Why did the chicken cross the road halfway? To 'lay it on the line'."

Another class of variations for oral transmission:

• Karl Marx: "The chicken was driven by the lash of economic necessity."
• Amelia Earhart: "She could have flown."
• Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that one day chickens will be able to cross roads without having their motives called into question."
• Central Intelligence Agency: "We can neither confirm nor deny any involvement in the chicken-road-crossing incident."

The joke is reportedly codified into law in at least one municipality. A Quitman, Georgia ordinance prohibits chickens from crossing the road.

Quite funny, especially that CIA one. LOL :)

Update: Just found out that there's a website dedicated to this [:o]:
http://www.whydidthechickencrosstheroad.com/
And an article with famous people's responses: http://www.freemaninstitute.com/chicken.htm