We managed to move from dead last place – to fourth place – in a recent Sporcle “Pub Trivia” virtual game. We have not had a lot of luck in recent games, especially those pesky final questions, so we gotta celebrate those little victories!

It was one of those rare games where players on a team we actually know IRL were also in the mix. Congrats to the members of Sparty On for pulling a first place victory! We envy your ability to be able to summon more than two players to play in the virtual games! 🙂 When the pandemic hit and everyone was sidelined at home, it was much easier for us to get teams together for these games, but now, most of the people who played before have just gotten too busy – and I’ve gotten too busy to even ask for help, to be honest!

We were especially happy to have a question involving a movie featuring this character:

Here were our questions:
Round One
1) Wonders Which of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was built as a tomb for the pharaoh Khufu? Social, all teams knew this one.

2) Sports Teams Which of the “Big Four” North American professional sports leagues at one time had a team named the Seals? Social, everyone got this, too.

3) Theme Songs – What TV series, which originally aired from 2000-2006, has a theme song that opens with the following lines?

“Someone once told me, ‘The grass is much greener on the other side.’
Well, I paid a visit. Well, it’s possible I missed it.
It seemed different yet exactly the same.”

And only two teams out of 15 got this one correct (ours was not one of those teams).

4) Shapes – How many sides does a dodecagon have? Commence Mike talking about the very limited uses for a die with this many sides in a Dungeons & Dragons game (unless you are playing a barbarian). And really – why would you NOT want to play a barbarian in a D&D game? 🙂 I miss my barbarian character Frida, whom I created before Xena was on the air. She was kind of like a blonde dumb Xena, but far more chaotic. Ah, memories…

Mystery One

We missed #1 and #4. We were very, very excited about #3 (we have a poster for that third movie in our basement, where we play most of our virtual games).

Round Two

5) Artists – The artists who painted The Girl with a Pearl Earring and Night Watch were born in cities that are located in what present-day country?

NERD POINT: Name any year in which both of those artists were alive.

Missed the nerd bonus.

6) U.S. Cities What is the southernmost city in the contiguous United States?

7) Band Members – What given first name is shared by two of the five members of the Spice Girls? Miss, we were too old to give any f—s about this “band.”

8) Alphabets – After “Alfa” and “Bravo,” what is the third letter of the NATO phonetic alphabet? Years ago before cell phones, Mike and I used to use walkie talkies to stay in communication at a music festival. So he taught me the NATO alphabet so we could sound bad-ass while we were chatting. I don’t know if sounding “bad ass” was the actual end result, but we still had a blast!

Mystery Two

We missed #1 and #3.

Final Category – Time
Within two, how many of the 50 U.S. states are located in exactly one of the U.S. time zones?

Note: For the purposes of this question, only the geographic boundaries of a U.S. state are considered, not necessarily whether every area within that state observes Daylight Saving Time equally.

Mike started counting backwards from 50 and naming states out loud (that is one of the benefits of virtual trivia, we couldn’t get away with doing this in a crowded bar). Though I started jotting down states I knew were one time zone only, he took lead on this question. When he arrived at the number he thought was good, I said “Add a couple more. There are always ones you’re gonna overlook.” Years ago playing trivia with Angie C. at Wurst, she taught me that little trick when we had a similar question. And we always try to stick to this rule in trivia games (also the “it’s always earlier than you think” rule when it comes to inventions/technology). Do these strategies always pay off? No, but they help more often than not!

So yeah, moving up to fourth from 13th place was the closest we get to trivia victories these days! But we’re OK with the whole relaxed trivia vibe.

As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Amanda Bynes (whomever you are)! And now that is two trivia questions we missed about you in the past two weeks!