What are the odds? A New SQL Agent Man Contest!!!

Tim Contests, DMV Book, sqlagentman 11 Comments Oct 6, 2010

Interesting situations arise out of mistakes everyday…

Alexander Graham Bell spilled stuff on his lap and called for Watson to come help him – achieving the first successful test of the telephone (or was it the first attempt at serving pr0n over a telecommunications signal?)
The doughnut was invented by a baker (and off-duty police officer) who had a penchant for sticking his thumbs into the muffins he baked. One day he was goofing off in the kitchen and one of his muffins ended up in the deep fryer and voila!
The dog was invented by someone who performed a lobotomy on a cat with a dull pencil.
A bar bet between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates was the spark behind the invention of the turtleneck.

A few days ago I was coming up with a T/SQL snippet for contatenating a varchar version of a datestamp for appending to export files in an SSIS package and forgot some basic syntax so I ended up with an integer value instead of a string. No big deal right? This is Tim – he makes mistakes all the time. However, those who know me even moderately well know that I’m a big fan of the Canadian rock band Rush, having grown up with their music. I could not believe what happened at the precise time I ran this initially and received the incorrect result:

Today's Tom Sawyer codes in T/SQL

Now it’s time for a contest. I will provide a winner, chosen at random from all correct answers submitted via comments to this post, with an autographed (ooooh) copy of my DMV book if they can give me a valid time of day that this was run on Monday, October 4th, 2010 and answer the following trivia questions related to Rush, growing up in the U.S. Midwest in the 1980s, and Canada.

I’ll not post the comments until after the contest closes on Sunday, October 10 8:00 am UTC -5 so you can’t cheat. I’ll then post all comments and announce the winner on Monday October 11. Winner must comment with answers to the following 6 questions (and the bonus question, if answered correctly will receive an additional surprise bonus mondo cool gift as well) in order to be considered for prize:

1. Valid time of day this query ran–>

2. Name of original drummer for Rush –>

3. Name of the highest charting song in the U.S. to-date from Rush –>

4. In 1998 Fender produced the Geddy Lee Jazz Bass modeled on his original 1970’s bass he picked up in a pawn shop in this midwest city –>

5. There is a pact in my house. If you come across this movie on T.V. you must watch it to completion. Hints: released in 1986, the “best friend” role to the lead actor was 29, though he was playing a high school senior, a former speech writer for Presidents Nixon and Ford is a supporting actor in the movie –>

6. The original home to Gibson Guitar Company –>

7. Bonus Question to see how pervasive information is on the Internet: the High School I graduated from and the year of graduation. –>

Again, the winner will be chosen at random from all correct submissions of the first 6 questions. If that random winner also answered the bonus question correctly they will also receive a bonus gift.