Man I so totally know the answer to this one, but I won't ruin it for everyone. Still, it's going to bugg me something fierce not to burst out with the answer thusly:
NOOO!!! You IDIOTS!!! DON'T you SEE!!11!! THE DOG FETCHED THE DYNAMITE!!!!!
Was he no longer able to maintain biological functioning?
Is there "material" anywhere in the cabin?
Did he freeze to death after dropping his last remaining match?
Wait, isn't someone supposed to answer all these questions?
Did he freeze to death after dropping his last remaining match?
Nice.
How did he die?
With grace and dignity.
Theoretically, teofilo, but it's been, like, eight minutes and he hasn't shown up. He said he was ready. He obviously doesn't understand the kind of dedication this takes. It's not for the faint of heart.
Was he sent there by a link from Instapundit?
Is the cabin on the mountain on a planet without a breathable atmosphere?
13: Nice? It sounds like a horrid way to die!
Was he bored to death by arguments between an Enlightenment hyperrationalist and an advocate of Medieval submission to the judgment of an angry God?
This is a meta two minute mystery. The level one mystery is in the post. The level two mystery is where teofilo is and why he'd submit a mystery and then vanish. Solving the first will be a clue towards the second.
Is it the weekend? Is his name Bernie??
Did he forget that the vessel with the pestle held the brew that was true?
Did he die due to loss of blood and "material" from an exploding scrotum?
Is the mountain Erebor, known to men as the Lonely Mountain patrolled by Smaug?
I bet he never got his wafflecake, either.
Oh, I figured it out. That's no fun.
There you go with all that assuming again, apo.
Slut!
Whoa, hang on. I need some time to catch up.
You googled, didn't you silvana.
Also, yet another word we somehow missed in our linguistic explorations: abutt.
Did he die performing a maneuver, which maneuver was the subject of a scene in Clerks?
The mountain is not covered in snow.
He is recently dead.
He did not die in an avalanche.
No to all the joke ones.
On the second date, one can then rebutt.
30: No. I was going to make a joke, and then I was like, wait, that's the real answer.
Is the cabin covered in snow? How recent is recently? Is the cabin made out of snow?
6: Yes, but isn't that just the definition of "dead"?
You see, teo, the jokes are actually quite effective.
36:
a: No.
b: improperly formed question
c: No.
6: Yes, but isn't that just the definition of "dead"?
Is it? You tell me.
38: No.
41: If it is, then yes. If not, then no.
Did he die in the cabin? Could he have died the same way had he not been in a mountainside cabin?
Did he die of asphyxiation? (I think I got it)
Are there any visible wounds upon the man?
Oh, crap, now I remember the whole thing. Yes, a classic.
Are there invisible wounds? How can you tell?
Was the man allergic to shellfish?
You know what simple game I really like? Mastermind.
Well, there could be internal injuries, and in these games, it is best to be precise to the point of redundancy.
Well, there could be internal injuries, and in these games, it is best to be redundant to the point of precision.
Well, there could be redundancies, and in these games, it is best to be precise to the point of internal injuries.
He died in the cabin.
He could not have died the same way anywhere else.
He did not die of asphyxiation.
He has no visible wounds.
I still don't know the answer! No one give it away.
Is the chair upon which he is seated ceramic?
So, he didn't die due to lack of oxygen in his blood? (Just to be clear on what asphyxiation means.)
I never give it away.
Everybody has to pay and pay.
Wait, that's stupid, he could have died of a natural cause anywhere else.
Is the man tied to the chair?
Is he somehow anchored to the chair?
Did he die of natural causes?
If you think no longer being able to maintain biological functioning is natural, then apparently so.
56: Okay, he may have in some sense died of asphyxiation, but he didn't choke to death.
Was the cabin the man's property?
Did the man die of electrocution?
Did the man die due to fire?
Did the man die of overheating?
Did the man die of hypothermia?
61a: No.
b: Yes.
He didn't die of natural causes, in case that's unclear to anyone.
He did not die of asphyxiation
Really? I'm using the term in a broad sense.
More precisely, did he die because he couldn't get enough oxygen into his lungs?
OK, so the man is somehow anchored to the chair, was not choked, was not inhaling smoke, but died due to lack of oxygen. Correct?
Is the chair the ejector seat of a plane?
Is the cabin wired for electricity?
Is the cabin government property?
Was the man a criminal?
So he could get enough oxygen into his lungs, but not into his bloodstream?
73: He may have in some sense died due to lack of oxygen, but not in a way that's intuitively obvious to me.
Or maybe I don't got it...
Is this cabin of the sort that one would ordinarily go camping in?
75: No.
76: Yes.
77: No and no.
78: Maybe. I'm no doctor. The oxygen thing is kind of a red herring; you brought it up, not me.
Was the chair anchored to anything?
Was the man anchored to the chair using rope? Chain? Adhesive? Other?
Was the man grasping the chair before his death?
Was the chair anchored to anything?
Yes.
Was the man anchored to the chair using rope?>
No.
Chain?
No.
Adhesive?
No.
Other?
No.
Was the man grasping the chair before his death?
No.
Ahh.
Is the man somehow anchored to the chair?
You answered yes to this when I asked in 61 b.
Two-minute mysteries are all so violent. Why do we never see ones that pose the question, "Where did she get that ice cream cone?" or "Exactly how comfortable is the couch?"
The ship would have to be on the mountain.
87: Ahh.
Can I possibly be the first to point out the obvious fact that his scrotum exploded?
Upon reflection, I'm pretty sure he didn't asphyxiate in any sense.
Was the chair recently elsewhere?
Was the cabin recently elsewhere?
Did the man know, the day before he died, that he would die?
Did anyone else know, the day before he died, that he would die?
The ship would have to be on the mountain.
Underwater mountains! But there goes my theory.
I guess you don't think these TMM are so stupid after all, ogged.
Was the man wedged onto the chair? Was the chair wedged between anything?
Was the man crushed?
Is he anchored to the chair by a seat belt?
The man doesn't have any visible injuries.
Was the chair recently elsewhere?
Yes.
Was the cabin recently elsewhere?
Yes.
Did the man know, the day before he died, that he would die?
No.
Did anyone else know, the day before he died, that he would die?
No.
Is it possible to die from being crushed without any visible injuries?
Was the cabin lifted up and put onto the mountain by a tornado or other weather phenomenon?
Perhaps he meant emotionally crushed. (assuming 101 is to 98?)
Is it the cabin of an aircraft then? Is he a pilot?
I guess you don't think these TMM are so stupid after all, ogged.
I wrote and deleted the part where I reserved the right to keep thinking these are stupid. You try fighting boredom for two months while people decide which parts of you to take out, missy.
I wrote and deleted the part where I reserved the right to keep thinking these are stupid.
I bet you'd like them better if they were about ice cream.
people decide which parts of you to take out
In my experience, it's always the same part I've just put in.
As long as you've relinquished your right to think they're stupid.
Were there other people in the plane before it crashed? After?
hey, and so it begins. "You can't call me on my inconsistency, because I have cancer."
Did all the others survive? Did any others survive?
Are the other people/bodies still in the plane?
120: Does it matter? You've basically got it.
was the cause of the man's death the crash? or something else?
Aww. I thought there would be more. Usually TMM aren't based on simple wordplay.
110: Wait, do cars have cabins? This would come as a revelation to me.
And the fact that there are no visible injuries is odd for a crash-caused death.
How did he die in a plane crash with no visible injuries? Wouldn't smashing into the side of a mountain produce some?
I think the interior of a car (especially a van or SUV) is often called the cabin.
I'll have you know initials TMM are already reserved for The Modesto Mistress.
122: It was the crash.
123: Yeah, it's not actually that great of one. But I knew it and we hadn't done it yet.
sphinx personal sphinx 123 no takebacks!
But wouldn't the crash produce some external injuries?
134: Wouldn't he have to sustain some visible external injuries on the way to picking up fatal internal injuries?
Well, I bet a cracked rib could puncture your heart and lead to massive internal bleeding and death within minutes. Also, massive bruising. So if bruising is an external injury...
HEART ATTACK!
Plus, bruising doesn't happen instantaneously.
Hmm. There's a bunch of mysteries here, but I don't know that any would fit the yes/no questions format.
Really, the yes/no/maybe/that question assumes a falsehood/that question is irrelevant format.
I don't see why dying in a crash needs to involve external injuries. We're talking about a big plane here.
But what do you die of? What kills you in a plane crash is that you get thrown around and break stuff, or burn to death. A hard landing that isn't hard enough to leave marks on you probably won't killy you. (Oh, I suppose the seat belt could rupture your spleen, and you could bleed to death internally, but it's pretty low odds that you'd be visibly uninjured.)
HEART ATTACK.
These little games always frustrate me because there's usually a better solution than the official one.
I was counting bruises as internal injuries. Aren't they? B's answer also works.
So b, how do you think the guy died?
Toxic fumes from the volcano, of course!
(you say mountain; I say volcano -- let's call the whole thing off!)
They may be internal, but they're not invisible.
I was counting bruises as internal injuries. Aren't they? B's answer also work
Um, hello? Bruises might be internal, but they're sure visible. (Even a fractured rib is visible if you open the dude up.)
Okay, fine. He died of a heart attack. B wins.
And on his fall down the mountain, he didn't sustain any visible injuries? The question wasn't whether or not he died from them.
Fall down the mountain? He never leaves the chair.
141: Or you could die of lack of oxygen or hypothermia if the plane depressurizes or starts falling apart when it is high in the air.
I considered that, but it's inconsistent with some of my previous answers.
Carbon monoxide would work, if his cabin were too well-sealed against the cold and the chimney were clogged.
My folks used to tell a scary story about my grandmother's uncle, who got unexpectedly snowed in during a late-season prospecting trip. He survived the winter by supplementing his canned food with spruce-needle tea, but on the first thaw, every cabin he encountered on his way to town had only dead men--dead, of scurvy! (Whether they were sitting in chairs or lying in bed was not reported.) And, to the day he died, great-great-uncle P. never touched another drop of tea...