Did someone already point out that there is a novel, by a famous, late author, occasionally discussed on this blog, which uses this as its central plot point?
Not at all, it is deadly serious.
2 -- yes they did. The scenario described in the movie is rather different from what happened in this story.
4: Did you notice I said novel, and author, not movie, and filmmaker?
slol, I tried to point it out, but by the time I hit 'post' the main post had been deleted, so my comment never showed up, not even for a second.
Osner, had there been a flood in the region recently?
5 -- missed that. I am not familiar with the novel you are talking about so I cannot guarantee that my scenario is different from its.
Possibly, we are the only nice Jewish goys around here.
at least, I think what I was thinking of is what slol was thinking of. slol, was it Tia's original scenario?
10: Boy, that makes me think it's the same novel. I'm not a goy, though.
12: See, I missed all the excitement with the deleted posts and comments, so I got no idea what's going on around here.
Ack -- sorry -- I am supposed to limit my participation in this thread to anwering questions, not asking them. And castigating malefactors.
I believe I can state with a high degree of confidence that slol is not Jewish.
They had an alternate solution to the drowned man in a tree thing on an episode of CSI.
Was his body moved to the forest after he drowned?
Was his body hung in the tree post-mortem?
19: What kind of surname do you think Lerner is?
20: People -- even Jews -- have mixed ancestry, you know.
I'm a goy; Weiner's a gentile, as are the rest of you lot. (Well, except for the surprisingly high population of lapsed Mormons lurking around the blogs.)
Is the drowned man hanging on a branch? Is he hanging from a rope?
26 -- the exact chronology isn't totally clear but I'd say no.
28 -- Your question would fit perfectly into Dr. Seuss' classic "Green Eggs and Ham". The answer to it is, "on a branch".
Ack, I thought of that and should have explicitly mentioned it. Or kept my mouth shut. In fact the mixed ancestry has been noted, hasn't it?
For people talking about the original, deleted scenario, and movies, novels, or television shows mentioning it, you can follow this link to see them all listed. I don't recall either of those novelists being discussed on unfogged though. If you're still trying to keep yourself in suspense about the original one, don't do that.
Given the answers to 23 and 26, had he died in a flood?
Is there anything left of his body but the skeleton?
Are the trees alive? (To the extent that green n' growing trees can be said normally to be alive, that is; I'm not asking about Ents or anything.)
w/d, one of the novels has been mentioned -- making the link a touch spoily of the novel (though honestly, it's not like knowing that really ruins the novel for you in any meaningful respect).
Osner, had he been drowned in a flood a while ago, washed into the forest, and remained there since?
Was the man trapped on an island that existed during the ice age but ceased to exist later?
When you say "tree in a forest," you aren't referring to giant kelp, are you? Just checking.
Are the trees petrified like that awesome cross-section of tree on display in the gems and minerals section of the museum of natural history which I've been a big fan of since I was about four?
Okay, I think I know what happened.
I prefer the scenario where the Dread Pirate Jack dove into the sea to retrieve a gold ring, got distracted by mineral glints in the water, and got entangled in the giant kelp forest, where he drowned and slowly rotted away. We have observed Captain Jack at a moment after he has mostly skeletized but before his clothing has rotted away entirely: the pistolet on his belt and his jewel-encrusted boots are heavy enough to create the "hanging" rather than "floating" effect.
Did the tree grow up through the skeleton?
Actually I think I don't know enough about how free-standing trees get petrified to avoid making an ass of myself.
53 -- that would be a good story for this scenario but it does not fit in with several of the answers I have given.
55 -- one of your assumptions does not need to be made.
The assumption that I haven't already made an ass of myself?
Are the skeleton, tree, etc, all embedded in a rock?
Wait, 29 seems to preclude the answer to 54 being 'yes', unless you're going to say "he wasn't hung in the tree."
65: I am not going to say that, and you are right that the answer to 54 is not "yes" as should be clear from my 64.
66, yeah, it crossposted, and I was smacking myself on the forehead for being dumb.
So, um, have we settled it? The man drowns in a flood/mudslide combination, which deposits him in the tree, and then they all get petrified?
Jackmormon's 53 gives me what I think might be a really excellent and complex way to play this game. At the beginning of the game, the host lays out a scenario and has a story to explain it in mind. As the game progresses, any of the contestants can think of their own story-line that matches the answers given by the host thus far. When the answers for their story-line diverge from the host's answers, they can jump in and say, "I'm starting an alternate version right here" and subsequently must give their own answers to each question in parallel with the host.
69 -- yeah, that's about it. I was hoping for there to be someway to fit in his pet saber-tooth cat Mikey but it did not come up.
I'm not sure that he counts as hanging in a tree once they're all embedded in the rock, though.
Was the tree growing in the ground when the man got entangled in it?
No, wait, damn, I'm too slow.
poetic license
Ok, I've got one. What's green, hangs on the wall, and sings?
*My* scenario accounted for the hanging.
I like your idea for a variation, Jeremy, although the forking paths might become very difficult to keep straight. Of course, it might work better online, where we would have all the questions and answers archived.
hangs on the wall
is the answer to this going to be dependent on the green singing thing and the wall being embedded in rock?
Jackmormon -- the complexity of keeping the separate theads straight is to me the main attraction of my idea. It will break down however if people forget to sign their posts as I have seen happen occasionally.
Now you're just trying to bait us quasi-Jews.
Kermit, after being attacked by warbloggers who got the literal and figurative meanings of "frog" confused and stapled him to a wall, saying, "Maybe when you finally understand what Jesus felt you'll understand why we have to oppose Islamofascists"?
Um, you all seem to be misunderstanding the game. The game is not, you try to guess the answer. The game is, I give you the answer, and then you protest against the inadequacy of its various parts, thus allowing me to deliver the punch line. Slol, you can do this, right?
If by do this, you mean, run through the script from the joke, then sure. To recap:
One Jew says to another (for "one Jew" read Weiner, and for the sake of this joke, for another, read "slolernr")
"What's green, hangs on the wall, and sings?"
The other says,
"I don't know, what?"
The first Jew says, "A herring."
Now:
Right, I just put that in to make it hard.
(Thank you, I'll be here all night. Thanks, slol.)
Oh. Weiner, I thought you meant the relationship between the nominal subject of the thread and your riddle was a red herring. Which also isnt' green. I don't get this joke either, really.
No, no, you screwed it up! You say, "Nu, so you paint it green."
Then I say, "But a herring doesn't hang on a wall!"
You say, "So you could hang it on a wall."
Then I say, "All right mister smarty-pants, but noway does a herring sing!"
Then you say, "Ah, I just put that in to make it hard."
Christ I suck. I suck so bad, it isn't funny. Serves me right for trying to think about work when I should be commenting. Apologies, slol.
"You can paint it green."
"But a herring doesn't hang on the wall!"
"You can nail it to the wall."
"But a herring doesn't sing!"
How do you say "pwned" in Yiddish?
a drowned man is found hanging in a tree in the forest. What happened?
hurricane Katrina?
83-90: That is funny.
Hmm. I may be more Jewish than I have been led to believe.
I was going to say, you know the story about the rabbi from Chelm, who was asked, "Rebbe, why is the water in the sea so salty?" and replied, "Because, you know, of all the herring in it."
But then Google found me this.
That is funny.
Hmm. I may be more Jewish than I have been led to believe.
As Colbert said the other night, everyone knows Jews have no place in comedy.
There needs to be a special name for this variation of the Weiner-pwn.
JM, you know how you told me to email you, and I did, and then I began to wonder if you ever check your email?
96: I have been pwned by Unfogged's formatting demands; the second line was also a quotation from MAE.
91: My internet research has led me to believe that a direct translation could be garmogt or darmogt.
101 -- surely it would be garmwgt or darmwgt?
"owned" would be "farmogt"; I think a direct translation would involve a typo involving a substitution of a key one over.
Ack, slo. Not often, it's true. (Going right now.)
How about, fwrmogt? That keeps the w-ishness and non-pronouncibility of pwned and still relies on a close-key typo.
Who mistypes w for a?
Retards, that's who.
"...my previous, now deleted post."
?
"Jeremy has said he'll field questions on his alternate scenario, so come play with Jeremy, guys!"
Is there a link?
Tia posted this scenario earlier today. Michael came on the comments and gave away the answer. Tia, in a fit of pique, deleted the post and comments. I then wrote to TIa that I had an alternate solution that I would field questions for. Tia graciously opened up a new thread for me to do so.
(So no link is necessary. This comments thread is the one where I answered questions. Matt W. got the answer up above, at 69.
It wasn't a fit of pique. There wasn't any point left to the post, and anyone who came across it would just have gotten the riddle spoiled.
It wasn't a fit of pique.
But you described it as such, on Alameida's thread.
Matt W. got the answer up above, at 69.
Ahem.
Oh -- sorry Chopper -- yeah I guess you got the answer and Matt W. summarized it succinctly.
Those of us who like to keep up with the blog but cannot be there at every single moment do like to be able to read the comments and threads to which other comments refer regardless of whether or not a riddle has been spoiled therein.
Look I called you "noble" on the next thread over, isn't that enough for you?
I mean, people do read the archives here. I don't think they're looking for total suprises and this wasn't a case of too much personal information being revealed or of putting things out of the reach of search engines
...unless... was the drowned man one of us?
There were about 17 comments when I deleted, eb, and they all pertained to a riddle game we weren't playing anymore. JO, I meant I was too annoyed with Michael to think about deleting his comment right when I made it, not that my decision to delete the post was hasty.
Not sure I see the distinction but OK. My "fit of pique" description is withdrawn.
Michael's been known to get me hot and bothered, too.
The distinction, JO, is that I wasn't deleting the post to be pissy. I didn't think its presence added to the blog.
By that criterion, though, an awful lot of comments would have to go.
Michael came on the comments
There's a lot of that going around.
If you are going to delete a thread, please don't post followups. This multi-headed blog is confusing enough as it is.
124. ... Wonder if I'm the only one who thinks, of late, that Tia's presence doesn't add to this blog either.
Yeah I wouldn't think that would be a very common sentiment among Unfos.