Via the Shakespeare Geek, we find an “amazing anagram” (which I have to say I never bothered to check):

To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Becomes:

In one of the Bard’s best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.

That anagram has inspired this week’s Conundrum!

What well-known Shakespearean phrases can be anagramed from the following?

1. Tall Worthless Adage
2. Icky Backwashes Uncrowned Lord
3. Haberdasher Elf Slots Low Motto
4. Embrace Incoherent Hoot
5. Many Mourned Scorn Snifter

By the way, ShakespeareTeacher.com anagrams out to Search Peacemaker Ethos. I think that’s appropriate.

UPDATE: Anagram 2 solved by Annalisa. See comments for all answers.

I’m feeling a little let down by the Sopranos finale. To be sure, there were things about it that I liked, but the series ended not with a bang, but a whimper. The finale is the writers’ last chance to say whatever it was they wanted to say when they created the series. It should be something spectacular.

There have been series finales that have knocked my socks off. My pick for best finale would be the last episode of M*A*S*H, an instant classic that did justice to the magnificent series it concluded. Over twenty years later, it still has the power to move me.

I also really liked the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which used a time-travel scenario to pay tribute to how far the show had grown during its run. Picard actually goes back in time to the series premiere. Brilliant.

And who could forget the finale of Newhart, when Bob wakes up in his earlier series The Bob Newhart Show and realizes he dreamed the whole Newhart series?

Cheers brought back Diane for its finale. Seinfeld put the gang on trial for their lack of empathy throughout the run of the series. Deep Space Nine ended with a final battle of biblical proportions between the forces of good and evil, and the ultimate sacrifice by the central character to save the universe. Now that’s good teevee.

What was your favorite series finale of any TV show, and why?

The tenth episode of The Tudors airs tonight on Showtime and will be replayed throughout the week. You can also view the episode On Demand.

Use the comments section of this post to discuss the episode. Any comments I may have will be posted in the comments section as well.

WARNING: Comments may contain further discussion of the show, including potential spoilers. Click through only after viewing the episode. Commenters may discuss this episode as freely as they like, but are asked not to spoil future episodes.

By the way, did you know that after all of the turmoil surrounding the Tudor succession, Queen Elizabeth ruled for 45 years, presiding over a new Golden Age that produced both William Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon?  That’s hot.

Tomorrow night is the final episode of the Sopranos. Use this thread to discuss the series, and post any predictions, speculations, or hopes about the final episode. Everything’s fair game here, both the sacred and the propane.

Via The Media Dude we find this thread of speculation about the final episode. Which theories do you think will play out?

And after the episode airs, feel free to continue the discussion here, about the finale or the series in general. What were the best moments of the series? What was the best hit? What was the biggest shock? And what was the best malapropism of the series?

If you need to catch up, the current season is On Demand. And you can see a recap of the first six seasons here:

Enjoy!

I had wanted to post this clip from the Republican debate earlier, but didn’t want to ruin this week’s Headline Game. Giuliani was asked to respond to a harsh quote from a Catholic bishop about his stand on abortion. As he tried to answer, lightning began to play havoc with the sound system. The audience laughed as the candidates on either side of him, Romney and McCain, began to back away, and Guiliani made a joke about it.

Politics aside, it’s pretty funny. Check it out:

If you watch the rest of the clip, you can see Mike Huckabee’s defense of his earlier stance against evolution. He spins it hard, but then he ends with a quote that leaves little doubt about his position on the matter:

If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it.

McCain and Giuliani seemed amused by that. We’ll see how it plays with the Republican base.

I bid Ernest farewell and think Shaw is the man;
I’m a word used to fight the assault weapons ban;
I’m a place where a farmer might get a good tan;
And a common design that is worn by your clan.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Lee. See comments for answer.

Real life or parody? Sometimes, I can’t tell the difference anymore. That’s when it’s time for the Headline Game.

Below are two headlines from CNN.com and two headlines from The Onion. Can you spot which are the real headlines and which are the fakes?

1. Audience calls candidates back on stage for debate encore
2. Lightning zaps Giuliani’s abortion answer
3. Nation hoping for a windy Flag Day
4. Winnie Mandela barred from Canada

Note: CNN headlines taken from front page of CNN.com; headline of actual story may differ. Capitalization on the Onion headlines changed to match the style of CNN.

Answers: Story 1, Story 2, Story 3, Story 4

How did you do?

And one more from The Onion:

Unconventional Director Sets Shakespeare Play In Time, Place Shakespeare Intended

I often like to come up with games of chance. There have been times in my life when this has been profitable, but mostly I’m just interested in questions of statistics and probability.

I had considered the math behind putting together my own Deal or No Deal style game, but with greatly reduced suitcase amounts and with a cost to play. Determining a fair cost (one which I would agree to if I were the player or the banker) at first seems like a hopelessly difficult problem, but the math is actually quite simple. The player has the option of keeping the initial suitcase until the end, and the banker has the option of offering whatever small amount he wants. At any given time the chosen suitcase is worth the average of all unopened cases. The banker certainly isn’t going to offer more, and if the player accepts less it’s just because he’s hedging his bets. The cost to play should be the average of all of the cases, whatever they may be.

A couple of months ago, while discussing the Two Envelopes problem, we briefly discussed what’s known as the Monty Hall problem, after the host of Let’s Make A Deal. Thinking of that problem has inspired another gambling proposition which is this week’s Conundrum.

Let’s continue to call our two gamblers the banker and the player. The banker has three boxes and hides a $10 bill in one of the boxes and a $1 bill in each of the other two. The player pays a set amount to the banker and chooses one of the three boxes. The banker must then open one of the other two boxes and show the player a $1 bill. Then the player can decide whether to keep the contents of the box he chose or switch to the other unopened box.

What would be the fair amount for the player to pay the banker to play this game?

UPDATE: Question solved by David. See comments for the answer.

I finally picked up a copy of Al Gore’s new opus The Assault on Reason, and I’m looking forward to devouring every word. I chose to get the unabridged audio version on 9 CDs, which I will import into my iTunes library and listen to on my iPod heading back and forth to work over the course of about a week or two.

So my question is why the fact that I’m listening to the audiobook on the subway rather than reading the hardcover version at home in my easy chair should elicit snickers everywhere I go, as though I’m somehow cheating or that I shouldn’t get credit for “reading” the book.

First of all, let’s clear this up right now. I’m not in school. I don’t need credit for reading the book. I’m genuinely interested in what the man has to say, and if I can do that more efficiently through my headphones, I don’t see why anyone should have a problem with that.

It’s an issue familiar to any Shakespeare teacher. But is this really the equivalent of renting the movie when you have a book report due? Is it different if you’re watching a full-text version of a Shakespeare play (like the BBC versions) instead of reading it? What if you’re reading a comic book version of Shakespeare in the original language? What if you get together with a group of friends and read the complete text out loud? Does a spoonful of sugar necessarily ruin the gas tank?

Personally, I like to read. And these days I usually have one book running on my iPod while another is sitting on my night table. But with my schedule so crazy around this time of year, it’s usually the same book sitting on my night table for a while (I still haven’t finished The Blank Slate) while I’m able to burn my way through many more audiobooks on a variety of topics. I don’t feel that I’m missing anything by experiencing them this way, and as an auditory learner, it might even be a better way for me.

So why do audiobooks get such a bad rap?

Just a few items I’ve been meaning to link to for a while now, but never could find the right context:

• Priests to Purify Site After Bush’s Visit – President Bush has apparently lost the Mayan vote.
• Germany GenWeb Project Map List – Here’s another collection of cool historical maps.
• ABC Plans Show Based on GEICO Caveman – It was entertaining for thirty seconds. Let’s try it for a season or two.
• D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y.com – Just in case you were wondering how to spell it.