Mr. Write's Page

Happy New Year.

The Questions…

1. What is the full name of Cap’n Crunch, the cartoon cereal mascot, and where is he from?

2. Over the course of history, humans have manufactured incredible quantities of glass and ceramics. Because the stuff is basically indestructible, most of it is still around. How many years will a beer bottle or a casserole dish survive in a landfill?

3. What’s the difference between a meteor, a meteoroid, and a meteorite?

4. What’s the difference between a hurricane, a typhoon, and a cyclone?

5. The Great Dane is believed to be a mix of Irish Wolfhound and Old English Mastiff, developed to hunt wild boar. Where did the Great Dane originate?

The Answers…

1. His full name is Horatio Magellan Crunch. According to the Quaker Oats Company, he was born “on Crunch Island in the Sea of Milk — a magical place with talking trees, crazy creatures and a whole mountain (Mount Crunchmore) made out of Cap’n Crunch cereal.”

2. Best guess: a few million years. Glass and ceramics don’t actually decay; they weather, break, and erode, and sometimes they morph under pressure into smaller crystals. But they don’t systematically disintegrate and go away. All the more reason to recycle, folks.

3. A meteoroid is a chunk of stuff drifting in outer space. A meteor is a chunk that enters the earth’s atmosphere and begins to burn as it falls (aka a shooting star). A meteorite is a remnant that reaches the earth’s surface.

4. No difference. All are tropical cyclones. In the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the central and northeast Pacific, they are called hurricanes. In the northwest Pacific, they are called typhoons. In the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they are called cyclones.

5. Sorry, Denmark is the wrong answer. The breed comes from Germany.