Trivia Recap: 8/4

I play trivia on Thursday nights. I'm not especially good, but my team is, and last year my third-period students got really into hearing about how we did each week. On Thursdays, they'd wish me luck; on Fridays, they'd file into class and ask for a recap. If a student was absent on Friday, I'd often get emails wondering if we won. Now that I'm a blogger, I thought, "Why not blog about trivia?" So that's what I'm doing.

Team name: The Educated Friends

Hint of the day: Hammer

The players: Siri (English teacher), Jimmy (P.I. like Veronica Mars), Ben (social studies teacher), Darren (math professor), Hannah (English teacher)

Last week, on 7/28, The Educated Friends won. Since it was Mary's birthday, we let her choose the opening category, and much to everyone's chagrin, she opted for Taylor Swift Songs.

Fast forward one week and guess what. Mary's son gets sick. She can't come to trivia. No one else on our team listens to Taylor Swift. (Although, I do think "Picture to Burn" is a fantastic break-up song and what's not to like about "Shake It Off"?) Needless to say, we miss the opening question.

Don't worry: the rest of round one goes great, as does round two! Ben utilized the hint of the day early on, deducing that the heaviest things thrown in field events at the Olympics are shotput and hammers. I didn't even know hammer throwing was a sport! I pay for below basic cable and only get the basement channels, so it could just be that hammer throwing isn't covered as much as sprints and whatnot, but even if I did have an opportunity to watch hammer throwing, I probably wouldn't. I usually stick to the pool events. Anyway, I digress...

Siri immediately got the answer to Medical Maladies (hemorrhoids; she's never had a problem with hers, fyi) and TV Comedies. The music clue of the evening had to do with Vacation Songs -- we had to name the artist. The first song played was "Vacation" by The Go-Go's, which we got. The next song was "Holiday," off Weezer's Blue Album (coincidentally one of the first two albums I ever bought with my own money, the other being Green Day's Dookie, which I purchased at the same time. Big spender, I am!), and the last song was country. For reasons no one understands, Ben said, "Kenny Chesney," which is what we went with... and then we got it right! He admitted that he's not sure he's proud of figuring it out, but the team sure was proud of him!

Quick aside: Ben is toying with a mustache right now and it actually looks decent on his face.

The half-time challenge was hard. This is a photo sheet divided in two halves. On the top, we had to identity which company was being represented by the spokesperson in the picture. Of course we recognized Flo and Mayhem and Animal who lives in the attic and creates a lot of noise -- we could even quote the commercials! -- but The Educated Friends would've benefitted from a word bank. We missed four. On the bottom of the sheet, however, we proved that we really know our board games.

Onward and forward... rounds three and four!

Darren proved his worth yet again with Classic TV Shows, Ben proved to know quite a bit about mountains, and Siri came on strong with her knowledge of mongooses and British Monarchs. We did great! Here's my favorite part, though: I went to the bathroom around the time of the 6-4-2 (that's when you get a clue and have 45 seconds to figure it out for 6 points, another clue and another 45 seconds to figure it out for 4 points, and finally the final easiest clue for 2 points) and when I came out, Jimmy was schooling everyone on something to do with Michael Vick (hate that guy) and Mexico. I don't even know how the question was worded because someone was drying her hands with the whooshy air thing while I was peeing and I couldn't hear the DJ. But we got the 6-4-2 for 6 points and that's really, really good!

I'd wanted to make our bonus category for round four Prenatal Science, which I know sounds like an odd choice for me, but hear me out. Last summer I wrote a book about a pregnant man (it's sooooo good, you guys! Weird, but good. I need an agent) and then I just finished writing another book in which a woman is pregnant (I won't tell you which one since I don't want to ruin the plot of a potential future read) and so I know a whole lot about pregnancy even though I've never been pregnant! Anyway... we got the answer to that question right away (amniotic fluid), but we'd decided to make US Newspapers our bonus category, and that worked out fine because Darren and Ben know a lot about a lot of things.

Going into the final question, we were in second. Here's where Ben pulls out an amazing save and figures out that "tambourine" is the only musical instrument that when spelled correctly contains all five vowels. Ben for the win! Cue applause, throw the confetti.

We ended up securing second place, losing to The Street Sharks by two points. The opening category next week (their choice) is Tiki Drinks. Piña colada, anyone?