Am i culturally literate?

Today our Sonlight homeschooling order arrived, and it was very exciting, and i'll blog about that later, because that will take time and i don't want this to be a long post. Anyway, one book we got is called "Cultural Literacy:What every American needs to know" by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. I thought this was very interesting, because what i want to know is who are they to decide what every American needs to know! And anyway, i'm not American anymore, at least not fully. So i picked it up and looked on the back and saw a little test. It said "Test your cultural literacy. Can you put the following in context?" and i went through and i found that, yes, i could put it all in context. Making me very culturally literate. Now i will give you the same test, and let's see if you are culturally literate enough to understand all my answers....

"absolute zero":Duh, absolute zero would be absolutely between -1 and 1! Dead center! Duh!

"Alamo":Either it's what you yell when going down a water slide or it's a person who lives next door to an Eskimo. I know one of those is right.

"Billy the Kid":I know this one. Billy is this Kid who's best friend is Mandy and his babysitter is the Grim Reaper, but they call him Grim. I don't have Cartoon Network but even i know that one!

"Carpetbagger":Some body who always carries a carpet bag. One famous example who comes to mind is Mary Poppins. She had a carpet bag that held all kinds of things. But not for carpets, she pointed out to that stupid British kid.

"El Greco":This obviously a Typo, it's "El Geiko" or if you want to be funny "El Gecko". They can help you save 10% or more on car insurance!

"Faust" Well, this is what mean Germans use to shoot people. If a mean German doesn't like you they just Faust you in the face. Bot for a while there were adds here in Estonia abouts some Faust thing playing at Vanemuise in Tartu. I wonder what that was about? I thought they only had gun shows in Texas!

"Gamma rays":One of the many things SuperMan can shoot out of his eyes, if i remember correctly.

"Homestead Act":This is a strange play where they get a bunch of houses ("Homesteads") together to act in different plays. Normally these kind of plays aren't so popular becase Homesteads just can't act. They also can't move very well without the aid of a passing tornado.

"Iago":It's the parrot from Alladin. That evil jerk parrot is named Iago. I always just called him "The red-feathered evil jerk bird".

"Icarus":I'm pretty sure this is one of those crazy hard rock bands that likes to dance around with no shirts on while smashing their guitars. And they also seem to like naked pictures of winged men. Ewww!

"jazz":As in "All that jazz" i guess. Like "Hey, what's up?" "Not much, same old Jazz."

"lame duck": this one is extrordinarily obvious. It is a duck that is extrordinarily, over the top, unbelievably, sickenlingly, uncool. Or to put it all in one word. LAME!!!

"manna from heaven":Manna is an Estonian desert that most foreigners (and even many Estonians) don't seem to like. I like it quite a lot with milk, and at music camp ate mine, my friend Christian's, and my friend Ahto's! I'm assuming Manna from heaven is simply Manna that was not bought at the store but Manna that just fell out of the sky, making a big sloppy mess (though a mess that would be tasty with milk).

"nom de plume":A book written by Tony Lo Tempio and produced by Chippewa Publishing. Judging the book by it's cover i'd says it's about a blond chick in a dress holding a cat, and a confused looking dude in a tux holding a book.

"penis envy":Ummm, this was on the back of the book. I think it's fairly obvious. It's envying...Ummm...Well, you get it!

"rococo":A chocolate company based in London. They claim to have began the Real Chocolate Revolution in 1983. I wouldn't really know...

"sea legs":Well if you're a pirate and one of your legs get cut off the give you a peg leg. But if both your legs get cut off they give you sea legs. Which are basicly just 2 peg legs, except sea legs have wheel and are made to make you float at sea. The only problem with sea legs making you float at sea is that they make you float upside down...Oops!

"tabula rasa":Tabula Rasa is a massively multiplayer online game from Richard Carriott. I have yet to try this out. But it sure looks cool! Kill the aliens!! (http://www.playtr.com/index.html)

"Valhalla":Valhalla is (or so i'm told) the premier Led Zeppelin tribute band in Southern California! Wow, congrats Valhalla! I'm proud of you!

"Waterloo, Battle of":Another typo. It's "Battle of Watery Loo". This is the tragic urban legend of how a group of room mates in England all ended up killing each other in a huge battle over who had messed up the loo. Aparently someone had either left the water running or clogged the loo and therefore the whole place was flooded. Very nasty, smelly, and sad.

"Zeitgeist":Now of course i know this one. I love rock. And though The Smashing Pumpkin's new song "Tarantula" might not be my favorite new song of 2007, i do know the name of the new album it's off of. That's right, Zeitgeist is, obviously, the name of The Smashing Pumpkins new album.

So now i have proved my cultural literacy. I hope you were all as culturally literate as me, and knew all those answers without me having to tell you. I can only hope. But now i must go. Goodbye!