Trivia Recap: 9/14

Spoiler Alert: We came in second because Darren is a good father.

The Players: Hannah (English teacher), Mary (English teacher), Darren (math professor), Marc (social studies teachers and ice cream connoisseur), and Danielle (bartender)

Something we learned last night is that Marc's arms are not nearly as long as Ben's arms. So Danielle took the picture.

Opening Category: R.E.M. audio clue

Hint of the Day: Mermaids

Disclaimer: I am writing this blog from school during my lunch break and forgot to bring my notes from last night, so it's likely going to be a brief one.

Side Note: Isn't it interesting that every single paragraph of this blog entry so far contains a colon?

Round One:

Side Note #2: There was another one!

If I remember correctly, we didn't miss any questions in this round. I actually figured out the answer to the opening question, "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" even before Darren did, and Darren is the R.E.M. expert. I don't actually remember anything else that was asked in this round, but Darren was really beneficial on the second or third question.

Round Two:

We did well in this round too. Mary was quite helpful with the audio club because she knows things about country music. All of the songs played last night contained the word "Waiting" in the title and we needed to identify the artists. The first answer was Rascal Flats and the second was Mumford and Sons (we all knew that one) and the third answer was... I forget. At one point, there was a question about geography and island countries and Marc knew the answer straight away. And Darren wanted to figure out how many points we should wager so he asked, "And you're very confident that at least one of these is correct?" (Because we needed one answer to get the points and both to earn a two-point bonus.) Marc was funny because he looked at Darren very seriously and said, "I'm confident that both are correct." So we went high and got the points and the bonus. There were obviously other questions that were answered this round as well, but I have no memory of what they were.

Halftime Sheet:

The top half of the sheet consisted of photographs of award-winning female musicians, and because I am not especially drawn to female musicians, I didn't help very much with this. However, because Mary seems to prefer female artists, and because Marc and Darren like females who are musicians and actors and writers and TV personalities and just, you know, women in general, they were quite good at this. On the bottom portion of the halftime sheet, we had to match the location of a reality TV show to the name of the show. I don't watch reality TV, so I wasn't much good here either.

A Note About Musicians:

I have and always will have an affinity for musicians, and because I am attracted to men, I think this is why I very much prefer male musicians. I mean, yes... I listen to music because I like music. But I also listen to music because songs help me come up with scenes in books that I intend to write. I mean, sometimes a song will paint such a vivid scene in my head that it becomes a challenge (and also an excitement) to write because I just need that scene to exist. And all of my characters who are musicians are male because I like to write about them. And I like to go to concerts and watch men on stage because I find men to be fascinating in their interactions and the way they communicate with each other. Don't get me wrong: women are fascinating too... but men are, to me, more fascinating because their brains work very differently from mine. In addition to all this, I am an alto and have an easier time singing along with male voices, and I very much like to sing along with the music I'm listening to.

Round Three:

This might have been the round with TV Show Spinoffs... but that might've been Round Four. Either way, it was Danielle who knew the answer. From behind the bar, she very confidently mouthed the words "Scooby Doo" as the TV tie-in to Supernatural. Darren, at first, was a bit skeptical that Scooby Doo was the answer, but that's only because he didn't see the adamancy on Danielle's face. I was facing Danielle and therefore could see her face and we went with Scooby Doo and it was right. There was also a sports question in this round and it had something to do with football and math. Even though we didn't have Landon (he was having dinner with his mom in York), Darren and Marc reasoned through all the possibilities and came up with the right one: a two-point conversion. Remember that time Darren was a mathemagician? This time he was kind of like a mathlete.

Mary wanted to see if Landon would have known the answer to the football question. He didn't.

6-4-2:

The first clue let us know that there are three states that are bordered by two states. We needed to come up with the largest one. I suggested Washington. Darren agreed. We waited for the next clue, just to be on the safe side. We should've gone for six points... but hindsight's 20/20, right?

Round Four:

Marc left around this time because he had to help at open gym... so then there were four. I had predicted that the answer to Film Debuts would be "Mermaids" and I was right. I took joy in this and told Mary to text Landon and tell him, which she did. There was also a question about fish in this round and we got it wrong because the most popular freshwater fish is a guppy, not a goldfish. Who knew? Not The Educated Friends.

Final Round:

Going into the last question of the night, The Educated Friends were in first place. Melissa of Street Shark fame was apparently conferring with Adam regarding her team's score and it was taking forever and Darren needed to pick up his son from baseball, so he left too. And then there were three. The last question involved a country that did not announce it was going to host the Olympics in 1940, even though I guess it was supposed to be hosting the Olympics in 1940, but then because of WW2 the Olympics were postponed, but this country has now hosted both the Summer and the Winter Olympics. Mary was pretty sure it was Russia. Neither Danielle nor I had any idea. Russia seemed as good a guess as any, so that's what we put, but the answer was Japan. Therefore, The Educated Friends came in second.

Next week's opening category was originally going to be Serial Killers, but then the team changed its mind and decided to go with the original Saved By the Bell instead.