Trivia Recap: 8/18

Oh, boy! Wait 'til you hear what The Educated Friends chose as next week's opening category...

Spoiler Alert: We won!

Opening category: Squirrels

Hint of the day: Someone kicking a football

The players: Hannah (English teacher), Darren (math professor), Mary (English teacher), Brock (something with design and computers and other things I don't understand), Phil (also something I don't understand), Alex (coffee-shop owner), and Ben (social studies teacher)

Round One

We bombed the squirrel question, which asked about which continent the smallest squirrel (3.5", I believe it was) came from. The answer? Africa. What we guessed? Asia. Right out the gate, we were down 3 points. Fortunately, we were able to dig ourselves out of the shallow hole and earn some points with categories like Name That Invention, US Cities, Triple 50/50: Snoopy or Scooby? (this was our bonus category and we aced it!), and Zoological Terms. Did you know that a group of male lions (not female!) is referred to as a "coalition"? We didn't, but we were wishing Kristin was with us because she and her kids actually have an idea for a book that involves all the funny names that groups of animals are called.

Side note: To any of my Educated Friends who may be reading this... A group of elephants is called a "herd," as you suspected. A group of owls is called a "parliament." Let's keep that in mind for the future, just in case.

Round Two

Choosing a bonus category that required us to identify which film scores went with each movie, we were off to a strong start and earned 16 points on the first question. We also did well with Occupational Clothing, TV Dramas (thank you, Darren!), Cocktails, and Pro Sports Team Commonalities (it took Ben all of one second to figure this one out). No wrong answers that round, and I believe we got all the bonus points as well.

This week's half-time sheet required us to identify the boss of the featured character on the top half (there was a name bank) and match alternate names for musical instruments on the bottom half. We scored 20/20 and were only one point behind the leading team, Sexy Abe Lincoln, going into the third round.

Round Three

We Share a Last Name was fun! The answer was Chamberlain, but we got all the first names too. That gave us a two-point bonus. Also, shoutout to my mom for making me read and then watch The Thorn Birds when I was a teenager. I still love that storyline! Car Models came next (Phil and Ben took care of this one), Hip Hop Artists earned us a whopping ZERO (but we only wagered one point), Units of Measurement was fine, and Female Authors was great too.

6-4-2

Did you know the original title of the movie Alien was going to be Star Beast? Neither did we, which is why we didn't earn six points. But we did get it on the second clue, which earned us four points. Hey, it's better than two!

Round Four

We made our bonus category Video Games for this round because none of the categories sounded especially good. Fortunately, we knew the answer! And because of Mary, we even got the bonus! I wanted to wager nine points here, but Darren wasn't as confident as I was. He did allow us to go with seven points, though, so we got the five bonus points for it being our chosen category and the two bonus points because of Mary's random knowledge about subtitles, so we ended up earning fourteen points. Not too shabby! Next was South American Geography. Ben drew this map.

Let's pause here and spend a moment talking about Ben's artistic ability. I don't really believe he considers himself to be an artist, but his maps are absolutely incredible! The man can just sketch out a shape that vaguely resembles a continent, fill it in with random squiggles that loosely resemble countries, and accurately label the entire thing! In mere minutes! I've started to save his maps and hope to one day either create a shirt that features them... or maybe a coffee-table book. I'll let you know when these things are available for purchase. Stay tuned.

Round Four, continued

World Religions was next. We got it, but not the bonus. Reality TV Shows was fine and Notable Athletic Achievements was surprisingly fine too. For the first time that I can remember, the hint of the day (kicker) was the very last answer to the very last question. I mean, unless you count the Final Question, which I don't.

Final Question

I was in the bathroom and the whoosh of the hand dryer prevented me from hearing the category, but it was something about films. And now that I'm writing this, I can't remember the actual wording of the question, but the answer was Heath Ledger and Ben got it right away and I guess Sexy Abe Lincoln didn't because when Adam (that's the d.j.) announced the winners, he said, "In first place, The Educated Friends!"

Ben leaned across the table looking mischievous and whispered to all of us, "Venereal Diseases" as a suggestion for next week's opening category. He'd suggested this last week as well, but we only came in second. So I went up and told Adam that would be next week's opening category and Adam laughed and laughed and laughed. I believe Ben said he was going to research viruses and the rest of us are responsible for bacteria. Darren refuses to research any of it but I think it will be quite interesting!

Until next week...