Trivia Recap: 2/16

The Players: Hannah (English teacher), Mary (English teacher), Darren (math professor), Ben (not a psychic), Alex (coffee shop owner), Brock (graphic design and web design aficionado), Danielle (bartender)

Hint of the Day: Pockets

Opening Category: Murder, She Wrote

Tonight started off in a peculiar fashion in that Ben was the first to arrive. This made him the one in charge of finding a table and getting seats. Ben has never been responsible for such a task before -- he always arrives right on time, never first -- and we were all flabbergasted. He did a great job, though! He brought chairs in from outside! Therefore, I think we should all take a moment and give praise to Ben. From afar, please give the boy a round of applause.

Round 1:

Darren knew the Murder, She Wrote question because he understood that Magnum PI did a crossover event with Jessica Fletcher. It was a solid start. Other things we got right were: This is a "Hot" One (this was a three-part question and we got all three parts, largely thanks to Darren who was the only one to know "Hot Rod Magazine"), Nonhuman TV Characters (Ben and Darren knew Knight Rider, but we did not know what KITT stood for), A Little Alliteration (it was "finger foods," not "handheld"), and Biochemistry 101.

Round 2:

Cover Songs was a little bit tough, but Ben recognized both "Eric Clapton" and "Fugees" as artists covering Bob Marley songs. Fortunately, Danielle knew the other song was by "Beyonce" and we not only got the answer, but earned the 2-point bonus AND our 5-point bonus points. Last Word, First Word was gotten by Mary ("Alexander the Great Dane"), Boxing Champs was figured out by Darren and Ben, Brock knew that Ben Affleck was in Dare Devil, and we all worked together to figure out that "Q and B" are the only two letters not used in any 2-letter state abbreviations.

It was around this time (a little before, honestly), that Brock offered me his pickle. And then a few minutes after that, Danielle came over to see if she could clear anything from our table and Darren was giving her his plate but asked if anyone wanted his pickle and I jumped on that because I love pickles! (Dill pickles, that is -- not sweet pickles.) As it turns out, Ben wanted half of Darren's pickle. Unfortunately, Ben (who is apparently not a germaphobe) is deathly afraid of my germs because he does NOT like to consume anything after I've touched it, apparently. I offered him half of my (Darren's) pickle, but he said it was at that point covered in my germs and he wasn't going to eat it. I am apparently a very filthy person..? Who knew. Anyway. This comes into play later.

Halftime:

We got 20/20. On the top, we had to identify the movies that had masked characters. On the bottom, it was something to do with politics. I went for another beer knowing that Ben and Darren would know all the answers. They did.

Before Round 3 began, I purchased a pickle for Ben and requested that Danielle make sure absolutely no one handle it. I said, "Could you please make sure it's in a very clean bowl because Ben is apparently very fearful of germs." I then walked over to our table and tapped his shoulder with my filthy-dirty hand and said, "Benjamin? I bought you a gift." And I presented him with a pickle. And, I mean, I think he appreciated it a little bit... even though he nearly flung half of the pickle onto the floor and just barely managed to save it by catching it in his bowl. [Insert eyeroll here.]

Round 3:

Darren and Ben knew the answer to Film Characters, Ben knew I Am An Explorer with impressive speed (James Cook), Mary knew more than one would expect about the Periodic Table and thanks to my eighth-grade science teacher, I remembered that AU is gold's symbol because one would yell, "Ay! You! Come back with my gold!" if someone was stealing his/her gold. Modern Authors was easy once we heard JD Robb (obviously, that's Nora Roberts) and Darren knew Native Americana was "Navajo."

6 - 4 - 2:

I forget the clue that went with this, but the answer was "William Shatner" and we got it right for 4 points.

Round 4:

Country Music Awards was fun because "Old Crow Medicine Crow" was one of the answers and we once made that our opening category when we won trivia but weren't going to be there the following week because The Educated Friends were going to see Old Crow Medicine Show instead of playing trivia. And then I reminded Adam (the DJ) of all that and he remembered and smiled. So that was fun. The other categories were mostly fine too: Can I Have a Beer? (Yes, you may... and it'll be a Sam Adams); 3 Clues, 1 Country (Alex called "Peru" right from the get-go); Dick Vitale (whom I originally thought was Dick the Tally, like that was his codename and he kept tallies on sports teams... but Ben set me straight), and TV Quotes (Ben remembered many, many things from Game of Thrones).

Somewhere around this point in time, Adam played a Blink 182 song and Ben and I had our standard Blink 182 conversation:

Hannah: Ugh. This band has the nasaliest voices.

Ben: But really only one of the singers is nasally. The other isn't that bad.

H: I think they're both bad. They're too nasally.

B: No, one's definitely better than the other.

[Everyone at the table is rolling their eyes by now.]

H: I just don't like this band.

B: No, me neither, but one singer is better than the other.

H: You know they have a record label or something called PooPooPeePee, right? Just because they wanted grown-ass men who were working for them to have to have serious conversations with corporate bigwigs and say things like "The guys in Blink are adamant about PooPooPeePee representing blah blah blah." I listened to that podcast Ben told us about. When he drove back from out west over the summer.

B: [Looking surprised, even though this is the fifth time I've shared this information with him] You listened to "60 Songs"?

H: Yeah.

B: Which ones?

H: Just the Blink 182 podcast.

B: I didn't listen to that one.

H: I know.

B: Were they nineties? They weren't two thousands?

H: Late nineties. Like, ninety-nine.

B: Yeah, that makes sense. When I was in college, I played Madden Football on PlayStation, you know, and they had a worse song than this. [Ben then proceeded to make his voice very nasally and sang part of the song, which we all remembered as being awful.]

Brock: Maybe we could just request that Adam not play anymore Blink 182, ever, so we never have to hear this conversation again.

***Ben and I will have this conversation forever, every time Blink 182 is played in our presence. And it will always be funny.

Final Category:

We wagered 12 points because we were in the lead and the question was something like, "Which person received an unprecedented FIVE most beautiful person awards in People Magazine?" The answer was Julia Roberts and I was the one who suggested it and my team liked my answer and we used it and we were the ONLY team to get it right, so that was fun. We won and got to choose next week's opening category, but much of the team has other plans next week so Mary and I went with Fahrenheit 451 the novel, not that new stupid movie that's all wrong.

I forgot to take a picture. Sorry. Here's what our scoresheet looked like: