BSNYC Quiz Day Fun Fry!

Yesterday, as I traveled through Brooklyn on my way to Manhattan, I noticed a double-parked Mini Cooper bearing a large decal on the door that said "NYC*scout." Since I don't always pay as much attention to municipal matters as I should, I suspected "NYC*scout" was either some film location scouting company that scours Brooklyn for new, never-before-seen brownstones, or else some new Zipcar competitor. (A Zipcar packed with Whole Foods groceries is the gentrified Brooklyn equivalent of a truck with a dead deer strapped to it.) However, when I consulted a popular search engine, I learned that "NYC*scout" is actually the "Street Conditions Observation Unit" of the Mayor's Office of Operations:

Their job is "driving every New York City street every month of the year," and reporting "visually-identifiable street conditions into a hand-held device that wirelessly transmits the data to the Mayor's Office." Here's a chart that shows how the whole thing works:

Given our current fiscal crisis, I was shocked to discover that the city is paying 15 people to scour the city in Mini Coopers looking for stuff that needs to be fixed when they could simply pay a single person to do it on his bicycle. That person, of course, would be me, since riding around the city and looking for things to complain about is nothing less than my dream job. So uniquely suited am I to this position that I even already possess a "hand-held device that wirelessly transmits the data to the Mayor's Office"--or, as I prefer to call it, a cellphone. I wonder how much the city pays for a fleet of cars that look like they should be part of the Michael Graves collection at Target and for 15 special "hand-held devices" that they could have purchased for next to nothing pre-paid at Rite Aid when they could have just hired a whiny blogger who already has a bicycle and a cellphone and who only requires a modest salary and a daily lunch allowance at Blimpie. Plus, you notice a lot when riding a bicycle that you'd otherwise miss when driving a car. Using a car to check on the street conditions is like giving yourself a breast exam while wearing an oven mitt.

Hopefully one day my dream will come true, but in the meantime it gives me pleasure to present you with a quiz. As always, study the item, think, and click on your answer. If you're right you'll know, and if you're wrong you'll see someone with one of those defective levitating crabon wheels.

Thanks very much for reading, ride safe, and enjoy the weekend.

--BSNYC/RTMS

1) These cheek piercings are evidence that police may have used torture on the so-called "Milwaukee Polo 11."

--True
--False

2) This photograph, forwarded by a reader, depicts a mythical creature known as:

--The Jackalope

--The Texas Kangaroo

--The Dachshund of Time

--The Prairie Cockle

3) This bicycle, spotted by a reader in California, would make a good dedicated jackalope-hunting bike.

--True

--False

4) Home-baked is the latest thing in:

--Muffins
--Bread
--Energy bars
--Fixies

5) What is this?

--Fixed-gear freestyle body armor

--A foldable bicycle helmet

--A bike polo chest protector

--A new type of protective canine activewear

6) In the future, cyclists will travel:

--Beneath the streets through subterranean tunnels

--Underwater through giant tubes

--Through the air on tiny wires

--Faster than the speed of smell

7) Cinelli is for sale on Craigslist.

--True
--False

8) The next episode of "Pedaling" will be called:

--"Sweet & Savory"

--"From the Exotic to the Familiar"

--"Down Home Downtown"

--"Soft & Douchey"