Editor’s Note: Please see comments below for a little post-script.

We wouldn’t be the ‘Pods if we qualified for finals on our first opportunity, would we? How boring of a story would THAT be to read? Who wants to see the heroes (or are we really villains?) have things play out too easily? With the ‘Pods, the quest for trivia supremacy almost HAS to be an adventure, or else we’d just get bored and hide under rocks like our cephalopod mascots! We live for the trivia fight, and we got that on Wednesday night, battling it out in what was hands-down the toughest venue tournament we’ve ever played. We went into the Sporcle Live​ venue tournament in kind of a weak position (seventh place out of 13 total qualified teams), but managed to finish fourth overall with 108 points and a $20/first place prize for game two. Congratulations to Sabertooth Crotch Crickets for winning the league championship spot, making this their (I believe) first trip to a Sporcle “finals!”

Special thanks to my teammates Mike​, Brad​, David​ and Evan, who is a “loaner” from a rival team at Sticks, but has played with us for a couple of seasons in our weekend games at Oscar’s, and a couple of tournaments, too. Moods were good all around on this high-stakes trivia night, and I couldn’t be more happy with how everyone worked together on the tough, tough questions! We waited until last call on almost all of the answer slips to make sure we didn’t have those awful “d’oh” moments when we realized we should have put “this” instead of “that!” Shout out to host Sporcle With Tim​, who said on the mic that he wasn’t feeling too well that night, yet you wouldn’t have been able to tell that had had he not mentioned it! You could set a clock to his games, lol…(hey…get better soon)! His birthday is next Wednesday if anyone wants to go out and join him at next week’s game at Corner!

Here are a couple of photos from the night’s activities…

The reserved tables were a real treat! We didn’t have to arrive nearly as early as we usually do to snag a table. Icing on the cake? We scored the last spot in the parking lot!

 

Brad goofing off and hamming it up…

And the questions, thanks to Matt​ from Toledo team Steele Trap​ for getting these typed up before I could!

Game One
1. Toys: Memetchi, Makiko, and Samuraitchi are among the many characters that appear in what toy that debuted in the 1990s? 5

2. Crashes: According to data from State Farm, West Virginia is the US state where a driver is most likely to have a claim from a collision with what? Miss for 3.

3. 2000s Movies: The second highest grossing film of 2009 at the US box office, behind Avatar, was a sequel in which film series? A bit of debate, but got this for 4. Knowing what the The Moops​ had for their final question on Tuesday was a bit of a…help, as it were! Pays to keep an ear to the ground, doesn’t it? 🙂

Here was The Moops’ final question from Tuesday…

Give the full titles of the two movies whose subtitles contain the word Dark that grossed over $200 million. In both cases the subtitles are at least three words long.

4. Sports Venues: Opened in 1983, Scotiabank Saddledome is the oldest NHL arena in Canada and is the home arena of which team?
Brad the hero here for 10.

5. Dickens: Which of the following works is NOT by Charles Dickens: The Chimes, Adam Bede, Little Dorrit, or Dombey & Son?
For some reason I knew which one of these was not like the others…, but only for 2.

6. World’s Fair: What country has hosted the World’s Fair 11 times – first in 1876 and most recently in 1984 – more than any other country?
Ugh. Miss for SIX! Someone shoot me into space with that thing they have in Queens, lol!

7. Country Music: What country music duo had #1 country hits in the 2000s with the songs “If You Ever Stop Loving Me,” “Something to Be Proud Of,” and “Lucky Man?”
What’s a trivia tournament without a country music question to thin the herd? Miss for 1.

8. Country Names: Name both of the European countries that have common English short form names that end with the letter M. We knew one right away, but were stumped about the other. I started jotting down names of all of the European countries I could think of, even the ones not ending in “m.” I figured doing so might help us land on the other one ending in “m.” Poor Mike was starting to get a bit despondent and might have…cussed a bit (go figure, Mr. Grumpy!). All of my scrawling on the paper paid off, I thought of the right one at the last nanosecond. In a rare moment of bravado, I fist-bumped Evan and said, “Slaya!” Hey…you had to be there, and I felt like a superhero for getting this! Got this for 9.

9. Families: King Randor and Queen Marlena are the parents of two children in a media franchise that debuted in the 1980s. Name one of them. Bonus for both.
Shame on us for not knowing this one. We’ll never be masters of the trivia universe now! Miss for 7.

10. Temperature: Measurements on the Kelvin scale are obtained by adding 273.15 degrees to what other scale?
Dave all over this one for 8.

Mystery Round: Quickfire
Five active NBA players have made at least 245 three point shots in a single season. One of them is Isaiah Thomas. Name the other four.

Managed to get two of these (nice work, guys)!

Scores (qualified teams with tournament points figured in): Eleven teams, scores 28 to 67, with Ennui and SCC tied for first. We were in fifth with 46 points, behind Money Badgers and Your Resume Sucks​, who both had 56 points.

Final Category: #1 Hits
Final Question: In the 1990s, two songs reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 after having previously being #1 hits for different artists years earlier. One song topped the chart in 1966 and then again in 1991. The other reached #1 in 1970 and 1992.
Name one of these songs.

We wanted to wager “something,” but not all…so I randomly decided 12 was a good wager. Not wanting to rely totally on my brain, I rolled a d20 (20-sided die) – and it said “12.” Meh…let’s go with it! Did not get this correct…

Final Scores: Alternative Facts of Life, 62 (moved up from seventh), SCC, 67 (zero bet). Ennui finished third with 57.

Game Two
1. Song Lyrics: What song that reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 opens with the lyrics “If I should stay, I would only be in the way/So I’ll go, but I know I’ll think of you every step of the way?”
Dave all over this for 10.

2. Governors: Prior to becoming president, Martin Van Buren and Grover Cleveland both served as governor of which US state? 9

3. TV Characters: Townsend Coleman, Patrick Warburton, and Peter Serafinowicz have all voiced or portrayed which title character on TV?
Triviagasm here, a couple of former fans of the 1994 series voiced by Townsend Coleman as the title character were in da house…8

Here are two other characters (besides the title one) from the 1994 series mentioned above. GOD I LOVED THAT SHOW!

4. Gaming: What game has had expansions named Urza’s Saga, Champions of Kamigawa, Shards of Alara, and Battle for Zendikar?
Shouldn’t have missed this, but we did for 2. Figures they’d ask about a nerdy game Mike and Brad HAVEN’T played! Bet Kevin​ and his team slayed this one!

5. NFL Players: As of 2017, other than the US, what country is the birthplace of the most active NFL players? 3

6. Musicals: “My Boyfriend’s Back,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” and “Rag Doll” are three of the songs in what production that won the Tony Award for Best Musical? Bonus: what Academy Award winning actor is a character in this musical?
Missed the bonus, got this for 5.

7. Movie Taglines: What 1990 film used the tagline “They say there’s nothing new under the sun. But under the ground?”
Mike got all excited about this one (he’s weird)…7.

8. Companies: Greene King, Marston’s, and Wells & Young’s are all companies based in the United Kingdom that specialize in what product?
Miss for 1.

9. Grammar: In English, most adverbs end in what two letters?
This sparked a lively conversation about “Mad Libs.” Was there any more fun way to learn about grammar? 6

10. Cities: What is the most populous city that borders Lake Ontario?
Boo! Were thinking of Lake Erie. Miss for 4 (this was totally my bad).

Mystery Round: Winners and Losers – name the film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture given some of the nominated films that lost.
1. Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Shine
2. Life of Pi, Django Unchained, Lincoln
3. Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Munich
4. Children of a Lesser God, The Mission, A Room With a View

Don Johnson in Django Unchained as slave owner nicknamed “Big Daddy.”

Evan and I both teamed up on this mystery round…We managed to get six points on this, doing better than a majority of the “herd,” from what Tim said. Twelve teams had goose eggs on this round. We’ll take it! We only missed #4 (my release year guess was only off by one).

Scores: 19 qualified and unqualified teams, ranging from 18 to 54, with us in first. We knew that even if we wagered and got the final we didn’t have a chance…but we were all still in the game!

Final Category: US Presidents
There was no WAY in Hell we were going to wager anything but 20 on this one! I started jotting the dudes down when I heard the category (which proved to be very helpful in this question)…

Final Question: Who was the fourth and final US president from the Democratic-Republican party?

We all worked together on this. But it was Brad saying a certain “key” word that began with the letter “f” (no, it wasn’t a swear word) that clinched it. So we managed to get this in a photo finish.

We finished first for the game and won a $20 gift card! We didn’t win a tournament spot, but…but…beer money! We haven’t won too much of THAT here this past season (I was starting to forget how glorious that plastic feels in the hands…so smooth..so shiny, lol). A tiebreaker had to be settled for second with two other teams…they had to answer how many days Warren G. Harding served in office, don’t recall which team won that tiebreaker.

And that’s the story of the Corner Brewery venue tournament for the winter/spring season! More trivia adventures await, stay tuned! A couple of us will be joining Evan at Sticks tonight to see if his team can make some noise (one good turn deserves another). As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Big Daddy from Django Unchained!