Douglas Coupland Trivia

1. What affectionate nickname do Karen and Richard call each other?

From Quiz Living on Borrowed Time

Answer: Beb

'Beb', as Richard explains, is a 'snotty contraction' of 'babe', and he and Karen call each other 'Beb' throughout the book. He also calls her 'Starbaby'. Richard is the narrator for most of the book, except the introduction and a large part of Part Three, both of which are narrated by the ghost of Jared, a football player and former friend of the group who died of cancer. Karen and Richard are due to go to a party, and they have sex in the woods and go for a ride on a ski lift, where Karen tells him about a premonition she had about the future.

From Quiz JPod

Answer: Turtle

The members of JPod in a Vancouver video gaming company have been told to design a new character for a skateboarding game called "BoardX". Unfortunately, the team is alarmed by the fact that the new character has to be a skateboarding turtle because their boss, Steve (who turned Toblerone around in two years), thinks that since his son likes a game with turtles in it, everyone else will too. Ethan, the main character of the story, is called to his parents' house where his mother has unfortunately killed a man to whom she was going to sell marijuana. They are forced to dispose of the body in a local construction site.

From Quiz Living on Borrowed Time

Answer: "Roll up the window and shut the door. G-d may be watching."

Karen and Richard go to a house party with their friends Wendy, Pam, Linus and Hamilton, and Karen takes a couple of Valium tablets which she stole from her mother. When Richard rejoins his friends, he discovers that Karen is unconscious and the police have been called. After Karen is taken to hospital, Richard reads the letter she gave him, which states that Karen had dreams about the future, and evidently saw something she wasn't supposed to have seen, because she felt like she was going to be taken hostage. Karen's parents initially blame her friends, thinking she must have drunk too much, although tests show no alcohol in her blood and Wendy says Karen was barely drinking anyway. Some months later, Karen is revealed to be pregnant with Richard's child; their daughter is delivered by Caesarean section.

From Quiz JPod

Answer: Ronald McDonald

The team realizes that Ronald McDonald must feel lonely without a spouse or girlfriend to go home to, so they each write their own letters (including Kaitlin) to give Ronald options. This later comes back to haunt Cowboy. In order to procrastinate the creation of the turtle character in "BoardX", Ethan creates biographies for all of the JPod crew members involving info like their weaknesses and favourite foods.

From Quiz JPod

Answer: The Subway Diet

Ethan and Bree decide to Google Kaitlin to learn more about her and they find that she was a spokesperson for the Subway Diet only to be caught cheating. It is later revealed that Kaitlin planted the pictures to trick her colleagues. Meanwhile, Ethan is forced to help his brother smuggle Northern Chinese immigrants into the country for a famous Cinese businessman, Kam Fong, and Kaitlin learns that the man who originally had her cubicle killed himself by sucking in too much helium at a child's birthday party.

From Quiz Living on Borrowed Time

Answer: Cinnamon

The group go to a Halloween party and Richard is a spaceman, Linus is a Borg from 'Star Trek', Pam is a cinnamon heart candy and Hamilton is a decomposing corpse or, as he calls it, a 'leaker' (Wendy is at work). Hamilton explains the story behind their outfits: he saw emergency services outside a block of flats and found out that an elderly resident had died during a heatwave and the people living below her had complained about the smell, and black fluid leaking through their ceiling. The stench was so bad that both the dead woman's apartment and the room below had to be gutted, and the police brought in some local smell experts who said that the opposite smell of a decomposing corpse was cinnamon (hence Pam's outfit). The building was filled with the scent of cinnamon candy to counter the rotten smell.

From Quiz JPod

Answer: Ballroom dancing

Mr. Jarlewski was once an accomplished ballroom dancer despite the fact that Ethan's mother hated the hobby with a passion. During a night on the town with Kam Fong, Ethan discovers that Kam is also a dancer and both Kam and his father bond during a bout of dancing. After a night where literally everyone in Jpod is frazzled and bothered with problems, Ethan returns to Jpod and decides to tell Kaitlin that he has feelings for her and decides to give her some doughnuts. She realizes that he doesn't care how fat she gets and reveals that the Subway Diet webpage was a hoax. She used her sister (who has the family 'fat gene') on the site and tried to mess with everyone's minds.

From Quiz Living on Borrowed Time

Answer: 17 years

Karen's muscles have degenerated and her hair has grown brittle, but she receives daily massages and is kept fed through tubes. Lois did consider having the plug pulled but decided against it. Richard goes outside during the Halloween party and realises that Karen is waking up. At the same time, Wendy is called in to see Karen, who has woken up after being in a coma for seventeen years and is shocked to discover how weak her body has become. Karen meets Megan, and Richard later joins them. The day after the party, Hamilton and Pam are taken to hospital after overdosing on heroin, with Linus accompanying them. Despite Lois' protests, Wendy insists on keeping Karen, Hamilton and Pam on the same ward, as she believes it will give them incentives to get better.

From Quiz JPod

Answer: SpriteQuest & Sprite Quest

Four months later, Ethan and Kaitlin are together and Steve (who turned Toblerone around in two years) has been missing for ages. Four months earlier, Ethan had seen Steve outside his mother's house, and he hadn't seen him since. At the office, the new boss decides to change the game entirely. The player is now a character who rides a magic carpet through dungeons and other odd areas and the game is called "SpriteQuest". One night, the group gathers to watch a TV show and Ethan realizes that Kam Fong and his mother may know more about Steve's disappearance. They also note that the Zima they're drinking would be something that Douglas Coupland would use to establish a culture.

From Quiz JPod

Answer: Bree

After a European man comes into her life, Bree decides that she needs to class herself up in order to get a beter job and look great for her new beau. She realizes that British women are more likely to get raises than North American women. Meanwhile, Ethan finds evidence of Steve at his mother's house (in the form of a penguin-patterned tie). As for "SpriteQuest", Jpod is trying to sabotage the game. Four members are creating an evil 'Ronald McDonald-esque' clown character that can be unlocked that has the ability to create carnage and destroy environments and characters in the game complete with back story and dungeon.

From Quiz Living on Borrowed Time

Answer: They fall asleep and never wake up.

Karen is invited to appear on local TV and Gloria, the presenter, asks her about her experiences as a coma patient, hoping to get a dramatic interview. However, she is annoyed when Karen continually blurts out that the world is going to end. She tells a crew member that she had visions of the world 'going dark', that everyone will fall asleep and that there is no escaping from what will happen. Sure enough, people start to fall asleep and never wake up all over the world, including Lois - who falls asleep in a supermarket freezer - several passengers on Richard's plane, Megan's boyfriend Skitter and their friends, and the group's parents. Karen has visions of people dying around the world, including the Queen of England. The last person to die is an old woman in Florida.

From Quiz JPod

Answer: Douglas Coupland

Ethan gets fed up with the whole 'Missing Steve' situation and goes to Kam Fong who sets him up on a plane ride to China. On the first class plane ride, Ethan notices Douglas Coupland (the writer of this novel) who is writing an article about China and commercialism before telling his story and getting drunk. Coupland later roots through the files on Ethan's laptop and leaves a note for him. In China, Ethan is whisked off to a slave labour factory within a couple days and he finds Steve, on heroin, cutting soles for fake Nike shoes. Ethan returns Steve to the United States.

From Quiz JPod

Answer: Kaitlin

Kaitlin created the hugging machine idea as a way to combat acute forms of autism that she has seen from her fellow workers. Using crib mattresses, terry cloth covers and pieces of wood, she unveiled the creation as John Doe unveiled his jCola idea (although Kam Fong put drugs into it). John Doe's lesbian mother also makes an embarrassment of him at the party and while Ethan takes Steve to get some drugs, Douglas Coupland talks to the other JPodders about an investment opportunity.

From Quiz Living on Borrowed Time

Answer: The Cleveland Dam

Jared gets the group together and tells them that they have been wasting their lives, and Richard thinks that they have been given some kind of test and failed it. Jared tells them that they should have tried to understand why the world became the way it did, and that they have the chance to live their lives over again and bring the world back to normal - a Plan B - but they are going to have to change the way they live. If they had actually tried to understand why the world ended, the world would have gone back to normal and they would have become wiser, but they wasted a year sitting around doing nothing. He tells them to meet him at the Cleveland Dam in a week's time. The group drive down to the dam and Karen orders everyone to kneel, and Jared appears for a final time.

From Quiz JPod

Answer: freedom

At the party, Ethan's mother takes a liking to freedom (which she likes to keep uncapitalized) and she ends up leaving home for weeks to get in touch with her inner woman. Because of this, John Doe and Ethan take an hour-long ferry ride to visit freedom's lesbian commune and talk to his mother. Also, Ethan talks with Bruce Pao who plans to shut down "Spritequest". Ethan brings up the fact that he's related to Greg Jarlewski, his brother, and Bruce comments that he might want to buy Lot 49 in Whistler, so he holds off on shutting down production.

From Quiz Living on Borrowed Time

Answer: Go back into her coma

Jared tells the group that in order to restore the world, Hamilton, Pam, Linus, Wendy, Megan and Richard must change the way they live. Wendy must stop burying herself in work, Hamilton must grow up, and all of them must use their skills, constantly question the state of the world and encourage others to question it, even if it drives them insane. If they don't do that, the world will end again, for good. Karen must also go back into her coma, and Jared must wander the world for several years. Richard protests, but Megan sides with Karen. Jared also tells them that they will keep their memories and experiences, and Jane will not be born blind or mentally disabled. Everyone must go back to where they were when Karen woke up - Richard to the canyon and everyone else to the hospital - while Karen takes Jane up a mountain. Karen says her goodbyes to all of the group before they part, and Richard hears her voice for one last time when she reaches the summit. The world goes back to normal, with Richard aware that he and the others have a great task ahead of them.

From Quiz JPod

Answer: DGlobe

In Whistler, Ethan discovers that freedom plans to buy Lot 49 and "SpriteQuest" is shut down when Bruce Pao doesn't get to buy it. As if things couldn't get worse, Ethan's mom calls him up and they decide to dig up Tim's body in Kam Fong's lawn to retrieve a safety deposit box key. All of the JPodders help out and they tell Ethan that they're all quitting the job to work for Douglas Coupland. When they dig up the body, everyone goes off to a meeting while Ethan stays back. Douglas Coupland arrives and drives him to DGlobe headquarters to unveil his new product to Ethan, a sphere that can show the world's transformation (or other planets' transformations) over billions of years. In exchange for his new laptop (so that Coupland can write a book about his life), Ethan gets a job with his friends at DGlobe, and he mentions that everyone is happy.

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