Trivia Recap: 10/26 (Victoria's Version)

Dear true followers of good writing,

This is your friendly neighborhood Skoogmasta flex coming to you again in the wee hours of Saturday morning (aka 11AM) to bring you a synopsis of our Thursday Night trivia game. Poor Hannah spoke with me personally and let me know that she was very disappointed in Darren’s rendition of the blog this week. He Maths for a living after all. I graciously agreed to re-write it and promised that I would not let Darren (also known as Arthur) know about his colossal fail. Thus, I have temporarily blocked him from the Facepage, so he will likely never see this. Don’t worry, I’m gunna send out a message to “All my friends” telling them I’m temporarily getting off social media in order to make Darren feel like he has not written a massive turd of a blog post.

We had a lot of troubles choosing the bonus categories this week. We landed on ‘This One is Wild’ (Audio), 90’s song lyrics, and then the debates began. Hannah wanted ‘Hop on the Bandwagon’, but Samara (Mary), and I were firmly in the boat of ‘Stems from Latin’. Darren/Arthur made a strong argument for ‘Six-Letter Words’ by saying that there are only twenty-six to the sixth power possibilities and most of these were not actual words. This was the sort of sad attempt at humor one would expect from a Math professor, and we let Darren/Arthur pick this category out of sheer embarrassment for him.

There were four of us at this point- Hannah the Artist, Samara (Mary), Darren (Arthur), and me. We were understandably worried about some of the categories that featured sports questions. Our New New (who knew his name was Landon?) was missing and he knew of the Sports in that weird general way that most dudes do. Hannah mentioned that Educated Friends (the name of our group) were not Educated Athletes. Then, New New showed up, and saved the day. We still didn’t choose any sports categories as the bonus category so that New New would not have to shoulder all the responsibility if he got it wrong.

My food arrived just as the game started. The waitress accidentally laid it in front of New New who passed it to me, and said “Don’t worry, I was gunna give it to you. I wasn’t gunna be like ‘Here’s a fry, Tootz.’” This Dad Joke solidified my faith in New New’s ability to remember Sports Stuff no one truly cares about. We did well in the first round- the first question was on the reason John Brown was executed. The reason was treason (you’re welcome for that amazing rhyme). We also got the classic Hollywood character thanks to the hint of the day- Plumber- the answer was Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews. Hannah got the bandwagon question, and all the pressure was on Samarah and me for Stems from Latin. The question was something about a Latin term for a condition related to the use of psychedelics. I guessed delusion, but Samarah correctly guessed hallucinogen.

In the background, the song by Chumbawumba started playing, and Hannah told us that Siri regarded this as the best song of all time. Hannah didn’t think so, and New New said he was obsessed with it for a few days, then just got tired of it. I was thinking about how I would rank the song while “PISSING THE NIGHT AWAY” blared in the background. Just when I was about to agree with Hannah, the TV behind her displayed a football player dancing in victory and he matched the beat of the song perfectly. Siri was right. There is sone sort of magic about that song… BOOOOY, JOHNNY BOOY…

The Second round started off a little rough when we only got 1 of 3 Audio clues featuring the word Wild. At this point Hannah started an angry glass tap. New New took this opportunity to tell us how his PapPap was baller at playing the glasses just like in the movie Miss Congeniality. When he finished, New New would always say, “That’s a good one. Thanks Pap Pap.” You’re welcome, dear audience, for that brilliant sprinkling of an anecdote.

We got the MTV question about some sort of odd reality truck show based on the obviously superior show, Pimp my Ride. Then, Mary figured out Ronald Reagan was born in Illinois for the Presidential Potpourri question. We got the baking question which asked about an ingredient called ‘Sweet wood’- it be the Cinnamon, but our knowledge of recent Volcano eruptions in the Phillipines was lackluster.

We housed on the Bonus Sheet mid-game which featured Blue characters and Blue Songs (Mr. Blue Sky etc.). The only ones we didn’t know were the names of the blue fairy from Sleeping Beauty (Meriweather), and the name of a skinny blue jay. Darren/Arthur led us astray thinking it was a PURPLE lady Toucan in a tank top he saw on some popular adult cartoon. I think a blind person would have known this was incorrect. Again, since Darren is obviously our token Mathlete, we all pretended that a Toucan and a Bluejay were “look-a-likes”. For your reference, in case you were doubtful of my acuity:

At halftime, we were in second place with a lot of game to go. When we got our bonus sheet back, Hannah pointed out that Eeyore had been misspelled as Eyore (a mistake our antagonist Darren had made). Darren was able to redeem himself with the six-letter word question that featured a description of Cookie Monster’s eyes: Googly! The next question was about countries that no longer existed where the Olympics had been held. We got USSR right away, but I thought since Great Britain was renamed England, this might count. The team thought otherwise. Mainly because England is still a country. I brought up Czechoslovakia, and New New came up with Yugoslavia (where did that one go? I had no idea it was no longer a country!). Darren countered with Finland- Girl REALLY? We got the question right except West Germany. We all said “oooohhhh!” in unison cause that was a thing. At this point Samarah noticed Darren really enjoying his beer- a chocolate IPA. Little known fact, Samara hates both chocolate notes and IPAs in general but was still briefly interested in trying this beer. In the end, she decided against it- wise choice. Who knows what Darren might be carrying?

The branches of Science question featured the IRS which I took literally to be an acronym for something science-y. The true answer was taxonomy like taxes which I would definitely have known if Darren had given me just a second to come up with it before blurting it out. We got the question in between the third and fourth round right away for 6 points as Adam listed off siblings of Barbie (the answer).

In the final round, I figured out the country with a military leader whose name started with Guiseppe since I’m from New Jersey and that is an insanely Italian first name (guy might have been my second cousin, who knows?). Hannah got the Disney question on characters named Flotsom and Jetsam from The Little Mermaid. (Hannah here: Darren actually knew this one! The man's a Disney wizard!)

At this point, Darren’s son showed up for a grilled cheese sandwich with the obligation to speak with adults. In normal teenage boy fashion, he stood next to Darren with his eyes transfixed on the TV. I’m pretty sure this is how teenagers charge up (as opposed to being plugged into the wall). Darren peppered Elliott with normal Dad questions like ‘How was your day? How are you doing?’ and many others. Since Elliott had not charged yet, he completely ignored these questions in favor of the TV.

After a few moments, Elliot responded to a question about a project he was working on relating to dystopian society. At this point, the next question rolled out about a college in one of the Carolinas that used to be a fortress. We got this right away- Citadel- but weren’t entirely sure on the mascot. New New squeezed his brain to pop out Bulldogs. The answer was actually Bullfrogs, but since it rhymed, Adam gave us the points. New New pointed out that he had a love for both sports and cats. I thought these to be anachronistic. Maybe New New has more layers than one would think.

Darren’s obsession with Alanis Morissette proved to be useful when he came up with the song title “You Learn” for our 90s Song Lyrics question. The final question of the fourth round was on female authors and with three English teachers at the table, we killed it. Adam announced we were in first place with a majority of the other teams trailing far behind. We decided to wager 2 points on the last question as this would guarantee that we would be in at least 2nd place if we lost. The final question was ‘In 1812, the first man with this title died in battle’. They said something British-y or English-y (see what I did there with that call back). We guessed Prime Minister and got first place! A successful trivia night thanks to a great team effort (obviously minus Darren). With this note, I will leave you with my typical advice fair readers. Don’t eat anything I wouldn’t eat.

FYI, I ate the Rachel tonight at Trivia and it was awesome. I’m not a cannibal; just referring to the sandwich. Welp, I don’t think I’m a cannibal. I mean who really knows for sure, am I right? I’ve made some questionable meat choices in my day.

Best Regards,

Skoogalicious