Trivia Recap: 12/21

The Players: Hannah (English teacher), Kristin (English teacher), Ben (not a cartographer… although he could be), Victoria (veterinarian), and Christian (arborist) 

This is actually the gang from the After Party because we forgot to take a picture at Fourscore, but at least Harvey was able to join us!

Hint of the Day: The Rodeo

Opening Category: Renaissance (the Beyonce album)

First and foremost, what needs to be mentioned is that when Ben arrived mere minutes before the opening clue was read (as is his tendency to do), he brought with him the scent of an alpine forest. We are talking about an absolute olfactory delight. An overwhelmingly pleasant (and tantalizing!) conglomeration of soft pine needles, shirtless men on white steeds, and little red ships with multiple sails and old spices as cargo. So that happened.

Another thing that should be noted is that Ben found a dried out piece of pork somewhere in the vicinity of our table and (I suppose because he was feeling generous and very much in the holiday spirit) he offered this dried pork-belly bite to the group. It became our centerpiece. I observed, “I’m surprised you didn’t just ate that” because Ben likes to use “ate” when he shouldn’t be using “ate,” but even Ben determined that he wouldn’t ate a dried pork-belly bite that he found on the floor or whatever. And he finally admitted that he wouldn’t ate a cabbage jack-o-lantern that weathered the elements for weeks on end either.

Round One:

The Beyonce question obviously went terribly for us. Mary’s the one who would have possibly known it, but something came up and she couldn’t make it. She had what some might refer to as a “baking disaster.” You see, what happened is this: She ran home after school to whip up a quick batch of chocolate crinkle cookies… but then she accidentally added confectioner’s sugar to the recipe instead of baking soda. And then, wanting to see if she could remedy the situation, she decided to sprinkle the tops of the chocolate crinkle cookies with baking soda, which was obviously the wrong thing to do. 

Nah. I made that up. Mary’s not a moron; she understands that baking soda is not meant to be sprinkled atop Christmas cookies.

International Holidays proved a great category for our bonus! Kristin was adamant about choosing it and she not only knew Bastille Day was the answer, but she also knew that July 14 is its exact date. The lady knows her holidays! We all knew that the Curies were scientists worth remembering, although I don’t remember the clue, and right after that, we were successfully able to identify the speaker (Muhammed Ali or Mike Tyson) of three quotes. 

Again, Kristin killed it with her knowledge of Christmas TV Episodes, which was the final category of the round. The lady loves her Ted Lasso and before Adam had even finished the question, she was spewing the answer to both it and the bonus!

Round Two:

Christmas Artists was our audio clue, and although Ben recognized Bruce Springsteen and Ludacris caroling like the best of them, none of us recognized Billie Eilish. You know who might have? Mary… sigh

I’ve been practicing my geography skills and country capitals with this new app on my phone, so even I knew Long Island was the answer to North American Islands. College Sports wasn’t great for us. Marc undoubtedly would have known, but he’s lately developed an obsession with basketball. All he wants to do anymore is play basketball and watch basketball and share his love of basketball with young people and travel to faraway places so he can experience different gymnasium floors and hoops and locker rooms. So because Marc’s love of basketball has risen up to take the slot once reserved by The Educated Friends, we chose Michigan instead of Texas. (I am wondering if the hint of the day, rodeo, may have had something to do with this now that I'm reflecting on it...)

Even without Darren, our math skills were on point last night. Not only did I add up all of our points correctly, but we were also able to add the number of days of Hanukkah plus the number of days of Kwanza and we got the answer, which was fifteen. Had Kristin realized that Indiana Jones Potpourri was a category, she would have insisted we choose that instead of the audio clue, but she didn’t realize it and so we didn’t choose it but we still got the answer which was actually a team effort. I’m not an Indiana Jones aficionado, but I am quite skilled at deciphering the thoughts in Kristin’s head, so as she stammered the first syllable of the answer and struggled to name the mathematician we needed, I provided the name “Archimedes” and Kristin confirmed that this is what she was trying to say and with our powers combined, we were like Captain Planet, but instead of saving the universe, we saved our score.

Halftime:

The top part of this was hard because there were random stills from holiday films and we had to identify those holiday films and we missed some. Someone strongly stated “Love Actually” as the answer to a picture from Die Hard and I was confused by this because Love Actually is one of my top two favorite Christmas movies and I didn’t recognize the picture… but then, I haven’t watched Love Actually for a couple years. Ben didn’t closely look at the picture because the person who stated “Love Actually” was adamant about it but if he had studied the picture, he would have recognized the actor as having appeared in Die Hard. But we did get a point that we otherwise wouldn’t have because my one student whose name starts with a P (she knows who she is!) made me watch the trailer for Klaus on Wednesday and Klaus was one of the answers and I recognized it because of P!

The bottom part of the halftime sheet had us doing a sort of word scramble with the letters in “Christmas Time” and for the life of her, Kristin could not wrap her head around how this worked. And apparently neither could Pour House Trivia because they wanted us to use the letters in “Christmas Time” to spell “Minecraft” and there is no N in “Christmas Time…” 

Round Three:

With two English teachers, the Shakespearean Characters question was very easy. Even Ben knew enough about A Midsummer Night’s Dream to know the answer, but unfortunately none of us knew the movie all that well and so we missed the bonus. Musical Instruments was fine–the answer was “piano,” which Ben and I figured out–and Three Clues/One City (Barcelona) went okay as well (although we once again missed the bonus). 

Things fell apart a little bit with Science. You see, Victoria is a scientist… but in the middle of the game she received a phone call that required her to leave for half an hour. The situation is all very mysterious as it involved a locked freezer and no mention of ice cream. But then, Victoria has a pet tapeworm named Spartacus who is technically dead. Anyway, regarding the category and the clue that went with it… The answer was “screw” and Ben said it was “screw,” but the clue didn’t make sense to me because how is a screw both genders? A screw is a male and a bolt is a female, so in my mind the answer should have been “nuts and bolts.” But it wasn’t. So Ben was right, I was wrong, and we lost a point.

Fortunately, Kristin deservedly has all the confidence in the world when it comes to Candy Commercials and is not only an expert on Mentos, but also a Foo Fighters fan! Therefore, we got all of the bonuses (all both of them!) and finished the round with smiles on our faces!

6 - 4 - 2:

Ben and Kristin were really tag-teaming it again regarding the answer (because they both knew it but it was stuck on the tips of their tongues) and I was reminded of the Archimedes thing and then something clicked in my head about what Adam had said about an animated film and I said “Nemo” and that was the answer so we got four points.

Round Four:

Even though Ben doesn’t like the New York Yankees, he knew the answer was Aaron Judge… but again we didn’t get the bonus (which was not Reggie Jackson, but I can’t remember the actual answer). Historic Figures was fun because Ben knew that too, but not until he checked the spelling of a word with Adam. You see, Adam sometimes mumbles his way through a question and we all heard “Rebecca Wolfe” when he actually said “Rebecca Rolfe” and once Ben realized the word was Rolfe and not Wolfe, he also knew the answer was Pocahontas and not Sacajawea. The Historical Figure Section of his brain just clicked and we got nine points as a result!

Literary Names wasn’t great for us and let me tell you why: We didn’t get the points. The question required us to name two of the three Karamazov brothers and since none of us knew we were just coming up with solid Russian names. Ivan and Boris and Vlad are the ones we went with, but while we were listing them, I said, “What’s the name of that hot Russian gymnast?” And Ben thought this had absolutely nothing to do with anything, but I was trying to come up with popular names, you know? And then I came up with Alexei and we didn’t use that as a name… but it was one of the Karamazov brothers’ names and if we’d listed that, along with Ivan, we would have gotten the points. 

This is Alexi Nemov. Cute, right? You should see him on the bars...

Dog Breeds was obviously our bonus category and something bad almost happened because The Educated Friends know things about dogs that Pour House Trivia does not… like that in 2003 the name of the Jack Russell was changed to Parson Russell by the AKC. And it wasn’t enough that we had a veterinarian on the team–we had to prove this fact with the internet. So in fact we were the only team to get the answer right… but everyone who said Jack Russell also got the points.

Triple 50/50: Christmas Movies was fine because we used a technique that was smart but I’m not going to share it because our competitors may be reading this blog.

Final:

The question had something to do with a President who outlawed Christmas trees until his son Archie did something important to change his mind. And maybe bears were also crucial? I forget. The answer was Teddy Roosevelt though. We came in third and next week’s opening category sounds hellish. It’s something about religion…

Trivia After Party:

Kristin and Ben came back to my house after trivia. I gave them a tour of my basement and we talked about books. Then Ben left because he had a full day of work on Friday. Kristin hung out and then Darren showed up! Darren hadn't been able to attend trivia because he was visiting with his friend Willem. Willem owns a pickle farm in Idaho. Only rarely does he make it back to Adams County, but he returned for Christmas this year and so Darren deemed Willem a worthwhile reason to skip trivia. He brought me some pickles though!

Shortly after Darren arrived, Phil and Brock made an appearance! Phil and I were wearing matching shoes but I didn’t take a picture. I’m going to write a blog about our shoes in the near future though. 

Something important that happened at the after party is that we learned Gettysburg has a record store and that it is not called Sweeper Pete’s. In fact, it is called Sweet Repeat and it’s going to be changing locations because the cigar store is relocating to another town altogether! (I have never frequented the cigar store before so this really won’t affect me.)

That’s a wrap. I’m sick of writing this blog.

Fun with panoramic photography!