Easy Money: The Insufferbowl Quiz -- or How to Avoid Tiresome Conversations This Weekend

This weekend even mimes and Trappist monks discuss the Super Bowl. Of course, not all of us have succumbed to the hype or can say "

Tennessee Titans

" with a straight face. If you find yourself trapped in a conversation on sports, there's no need to feign interest. Here are five sports questions that are guaranteed to sabotage any further discussion. You may even get beaten up.

Take the quiz, then press the back button on your browser to

check the answers and see where you rank in the Sports Haters' Hall of Fame.

TSC

readers appreciate a sure bet; the 1919 World Series certainly was for one diligent investor. Which one of these characters fixed the games? (This ain't the Irish Sweepstakes.)

Big Mo Annenberg

Meyer Wolfsheim

Arnold Rothstein

August Schoenberg

Although most sportscasters wouldn't know the capital of the Roman Empire, they always compare the Super Bowl to gladiatorial combat in the Colosseum. When the Colosseum was being built, who did the heavy lifting?

Christian slaves

Jewish prisoners-of-war

Italian blue-collar (toga) guys

guest workers from Helvetia and Germania

Our modern Olympics began in 1896. The ancient games originated in 776 B.C. and were played at four-year intervals until A.D. 394. Why were they abruptly discontinued?

Christian fundamentalists thought that athletics was decadent paganism.

Hordes of marauding barbarians literally cut down the attendance.

Crown Prince Arcadius lost the chariot race, so Emperor Theodosius canceled the games.

Constantinople's chamber of commerce bribed the emperor to relocate the games to its city.

In the modern interpretation of the Constitution, a president must claim to be a jock. Which one of these Presidents was the first to play >varsity football in college?

Ted Roosevelt of Harvard

Bill Taft of Yale

Herb Hoover of Stanford

Ike Eisenhower of Army

The

Duke of Wellington

said, "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." In other words, the elan of upper-class twits was a more decisive factor than French incompetence or the timely arrival of a friendly Prussian army. In 1815, which of these sports was

not

part of the physical regimen for an English preppie?

rowing

tennis

football

cricket

Eugene Finerman is a humorist, speechwriter and uncoordinated klutz who only passed gym because he was polite. Furthermore, with his addiction to ice cream, Eugene deserves to look like William Howard Taft; however, he works out on a rowing machine while watching -- what else? -- "Jeopardy!" His work has been published in Vital Speeches of the Day, The Wall Street Journal, and the Chicago Tribune. While he cannot provide political advice or recommendations, he invites you to

comment on his column.