Trivia Recap: 8/25
Tonight was really fun! (I'm writing this at 9:36PM, only moments after returning home from trivia.)
The team: The Educated Friends
The players: Hannah (English teacher, aspiring writer), Mary (English teacher, aspiring editor), Darren (math professor), Phil (entrepreneur of all things... and hilarious to boot), Brock (something to do with computers and graphic design and other such wonders), Siri (English teacher), Ben (social studies teacher), and special guest Alex (coffee shop owner) who came for a drink or two beforehand and lended us some luck
Opening category: Venereal diseases
First things first... I gave Adam (the DJ) my business card and told him that he should read my serial novella. He was all like, "You know, I used to actually have a website where I read stuff for first-time authors and posted reviews. I think the site's still up, but I don't do that anymore. It just got to be too much." WHAT ARE THE ODDS THAT MY FAVORITE TRIVIA DJ LOVES READING SO MUCH THAT HE REVIEWED BOOKS FOR FREE?! The world is small, folks. Very, very small.
Okay. So, Round One...
We got everything right. It's not super exciting or anything... we just got EVERYTHING right. I even knew some answers!
Venereal diseases? Check.
Triple 50/50: Billion or Million: Check. (Darren was an asset here. Some of us were leaning toward "million" for the last one, but Darren, the math professor, was all like, "I'm gonna trust my gut and go with billion." And he was right!
Jewelry Store: Check, and another instance where Darren knew his sh*t.
Movie Music: Check. I think this was Darren again.
Foreign Foods: Check. Darren. But also... sidenote: I used to have a student I referred to as Mr. Borscht. The reason for this? His mom made borscht and that is how I came to know what borscht is. Spelling counted tonight and even though Darren already knew how to spell borscht, I also knew how to spell borscht because of Mr. Borscht... whose real name I cannot remember.
Round Two...
Band Name Commonalities was fun, but Ben proved to be the real asset this round. He knew that Niagara was the second biggest tourist attraction in New York, that Argentina was the answer to whatever the question was about Sports Geography (I stop paying attention once I hear "sports," unless it has to do with swimming), and he also knew that Molly Ringwald was in The Stand (though, I got The Stand portion of that answer right because I love Stephen King, I've read The Stand twice, and I have a sort-of-kind-of crush on Gary Sinise... but not so much when he plays Lieutenant Dan and loses his legs because amputation IS my number-one fear in life).
At half-time, we were in the lead.
The half-time sheet required us to identify corporation logos on the top and songs with rain/rainy/etc. in the title on the bottom. Bob Dylan did not make the cut. Sad. Siri impressed me SO MUCH with her ability to identify song titles while other songs NOT pertaining to rain were playing in the background!
Round Three...
The first category was Museums and I called "Gougenheim" even before we heard the clue. That's how I play Final Jeopardy too: I like to take a guess before I have a reason to. This time it worked out well. Ben got the second part of the question, though. I forget what it was, but he got it and I gave his right shoulder many appreciative slaps.
Oh oh oh! This is wild: Remember how last week I addressed in my blog post that a group of owls is called a "parliament"? Just randomly I did that. Well, that was an answer in THIS WEEK'S third round of questions. Siri answered it because I was too busy being astounded by the fact that I essentially predicted an answer SEVEN DAYS BEFORE it was asked! (You know, I just today told many of my students that I am the weakest link on my trivia team, but that I surround myself with geniuses and that's why we're good. Turns out, I'm a sort of futuristic genius!)
Side note: This is not the first time my futuristic genius ability has occurred. There was this one time that I was getting ready to leave the house and I just felt CERTAIN that Watermelon Sugar/"Watermelon Sugar" was going to be an answer. I mean, I was thinking both Harry Styles AND Richard Brautigan. And do you know what? "Watermelon Sugar" (the Harry Styles song) was an answer that night. I was prepared with the name of the author of the book too though... just in case.
Still regarding Round Three... Ben knows a thing or two about Legos AND Tim Burton. He was an asset yet again and I gave his shoulder many hearty pats.
6-4-2
The answer was "barber" and we could have gotten it for four points but we waited, just to be safe.
Round Four...
Siri got the answer of "Madonna" but we didn't get the bonus. Ben then did some serious other-language translation and got Breaking Bad. I gave him shoulder slaps a lot. Phil did a lot of rationalizing in regards to Not-So-Famous Firsts and had us go with "meteorite," which was the right answer, and Ben told us a nice story about white-water rafting on the New River which was coincidentally also the answer to a question about River Geography. "New River" was the answer, not "I went white-water rafting down that river once."
My favorite part of the night happened when we had the category of Abbreviations: IMF, ZPG, JTT. Many of my teammates knew IMF (International Monetary Fund) and we all got JTT (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) -- Adam did a hilarious Tim "The Toolman" Taylor impersonation here as well -- but we were a little bit stumped on ZPG. I said something about "zoning" and it took off from there. We started brainstorming as a group and we really belonged in a television show at this point because we were all so brilliant and team-oriented. Eventually we came up with Zero Population Growth, which was the right answer, and even though I wasn't the one who came up with the whole right answer, Ben gave me MASSIVE shoulder taps and I now have a bruise.
No, not really! That was a joke! But Ben did punch me in the bicep in a very jovial manner!
Final Category: The Name's the Same.
Phil desperately wanted us to only wager six points, I think it was, but he and Darren argued back and forth so much about how many points to wager that we missed the cut off and ended up wagering the automatic twelve. Then the question was voiced and it had something to do with cars and botanical ingredients used in sauce and Phil was HILARIOUS! He was so, so nervous. He started listing things -- "BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche... Oh, I know it! I know it! It's Cayenne!" -- and then he collapsed in his seat as if he'd just had a mini-stroke.
We won for the second week in a row and next week's opening category is "Songs from 1997." I hope the answer is Reel Big Fish!
Additional side note: Reel Big Fish is and always will be my favorite band even though Caamp and Dispatch are my other favorite bands. But RBF just holds a very special place in my heart and always will. (Someday I'll write a blog about them.) I told Ben tonight that the next time RBF tours I intend to buy his ticket and drag him along to the show and buy all his beers and just allow him to experience WHY they are so fun to see live. Phil right away was like, "Oh. Good show. Great show." I love Phil. Ben will NOT pinky swear to accompany me when it happens (Phil and Brock are going), but he also didn't say he wouldn't come. It's just that Ben thinks of Reel Big Fish as a "garbage band." He once told me that everyone has a favorite garbage band and it just so happens that my favorite garbage band is also my favorite band. I will never let him live that down. I will take him to a Reel Big Fish concert, though! And I will pay for the entire experience! The sad thing is, Reel Big Fish hardly ever tours, so who knows when this will happen, but taking Ben to a Reel Big Fish concert is on my bucket list:
Get a legit book deal
See a Red Rocks show (ideally Dispatch, but I'll see whomever)
Take Ben to a Reel Big Fish concert with Phillip and Brock
Adopt a Maine Coon
Own an Otterhound
That's my current bucket list.
Here's a picture of my trivia team in case you were wondering what everyone looked like:
From left to right: Ben, Hannah, Darren (back), Mary (front), Phil (back), Siri (front), Brock
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