Zamboni Trivia for 2024-10-18

My name is Giancarlo Zamboni and I have no idea why I’m here.

Seriously! One moment I’m riding along on my ice resurfacer at a rink in Anchorage, the next I’m in some weird midwestern diner trying to explain to a skeleton man that, no, not all ice resurfacers are Zambonis, I’m actually riding an Olympia resurfacer.

Yes, I am aware that my name makes the situation ironic; no, I’m not related to Frank Zamboni, the man who invented the ice resurfacer and whose company makes a product that, though perfectly serviceable, is in my opinion slightly inferior to the Olympia.

The strange skeleton man muttered something to me about needing to fill in for a guy named “Curtis”, then he put a computer in front of me and told me to write some trivia questions about products whose names have become genericized trademarks. Which is a pretty weird thing to have happen to you. Especially after you’ve been magically teleported something like 3,000 miles alongside a multi-ton piece of heavy machinery.

But as it turns out, collecting trivia about genericized trademarks is kind of a hobby of mine. And it’s not like I have anything better to do. So here goes!