As it turned out, an afternoon meetup of some friends playing board games (Western themed Zombicide, for inquiring minds) turned into…trivia night! Well, except for Brad, who just showed up for board games and declined the trivia invite! We’ll forgive him! Would he have helped us out on the Major League Baseball stadiums final question in game two that only one team out of 15 teams got correct? Let me message him and see!

We only managed 61 points for the night – we’re hanging our heads in shame for not knowing more about Weird Al parody songs – (the question was not about ’80s Weird Al songs), but we’re not ashamed of being able to spell the name of that one singer who was in Queen of the Damned!

We actually had four players for game one, but only two hung out and soldiered through the end of game two. Some of those questions were pretty rough for us! Read on to see our hits and misses (mostly misses, LOL)!

All questions are abbreviated and were not written down word for word.

Round One –

1 Sports – Fred Arthur Stanley, the 16th Earl of Derby, is today mostly closely associated with what sport? We actually thought about the answer that would’ve been correct, but we talked ourselves out of it. Miss…

2 Celebrities – Stedman Graham has been in a relationship since the mid 1980s with what media personality and businesswoman?

3 Roads – What city was the starting point of Route 66, which ran 2,400 miles at its peak – ending in Santa Monica, CA?

4 Business – The luxury goods conglomerate LVMH takes its name from the two companies that merged in 1987 to form it? Luxury goods? When you have to ask “What the f— are luxury goods?” You’re probably not going to get a trivia question about them correct! Shrugs all around – clearly we were all too “bourgeois” for this question!

Mystery Round One

Crossword – list the following things given the following clues – in which the last letter is the first letter of the next clue. So spelling counted in this round (it’s an important plot point)!

1 Six letters – noble gas with the atomic number 2

2 Eight letters – Greek city associated with the legend of Pheidippides (I do not know if I spelled this name correctly, thankfully we didn’t have to spell it right to get the points)!

3 Six letters – character played by Karen Gillan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

4 Seven letters – name of “Princess of R&B,” who recorded the 2000 album “Try Again.”

Missed #2.

Round Two –

5 Politics – The Fort Lee lane closure scandal is also known by what 10 letter name – and involved New Jersey Governor Chris Christie – and his staff? Nice slam dunk from Dave R.!

6 Actresses – What actress was the first to win an Academy Award for best actress for a French speaking role – doing so for the 2007 film La Vie En Rose? FB host clue, too bad we didn’t need the hint to get this one correct!

7 Music Videos – This was an audio clue, I have no idea what song it was, but apparently it involves people using a treadmill. We missed it.

8 Theme Parks – At the time it opened in 1992, the theme park and resort known as Disney Land Paris was known by what name?

Mystery Round Two – Visual

We missed two of these.

We were in ??? place going into the final with 39 points (only the top five scores were read). We got all excited about the category of “Parodies,” but we’d soon find that our excitement was poorly placed!

Weird Al Yankovic’s 2014 album “Mandatory Fun” featured song parodies called Handy, Foil, Word Crimes, and Inactive. Identify the artists parodied in three of those songs.

Fail…we only got ONE correct. On to game two (which won’t be much better)!

Game Two

Round Three –

1 Games – How many lettered dice are used in the original version of Boggle? This one really boggled our minds, miss…

2 Musicals – Which musical which debuted on Broadway in 2002, featured Marissa Jarret Winokur as Tracy, Harvey Fierstein as Edna and Matthew Morrison as Link? Tracy should have been a better clue, but…it wasn’t.

3 Emmy Awards – Isabel Sanford won a Primetime Emmy in 1981 for her role as Louise on what sitcom? YAY WE ARE OLD! AND WE GOT AN EMMY QUESTION CORRECT! We’ll take whatever celebrations we can from this game, dammit!

4 Presidents – Who was the first U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives? Not to be confused with Idiocracy’s “House of Representin!”

Mystery Round Three –

PAT things – Name the things including the letters PAT based on the following clues:

1 Anatomical name for the kneecap

2 Dolls from the ’80s that included adoption papers

3 Children’s show featuring a boy named Ryder who leads a crew of search and rescue animals

4 First solo woman inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame

Got all of these correct.

Round Four –

5 Movie Pairs – Name one of the two films featuring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in credited roles. Thankfully I named the harder movie first, then the easy movie was…easy! Got the points and bonus.

6 War History – What island, the largest by area in the Solomon Islands, was the focus of Operation Watchtower, the first major land offensive by the Allied Forces? We thought about the right island, but we didn’t submit it as our answer. History fail!

7 Anatomy – In humans, the coccyx is part of the vertebral column and is more commonly known as what?

8 Nursery Rhymes – Who has their tails cut off by the farmer’s wife in a common nursery rhyme? Easy way to finish the round, time to catch our breaths!

Mystery Four – Best New Artist (ugh GRAMMIES – could this game get any more tragic for us? LOL!

Identify the winners of Best New Artist given the years they received the award – and a list of their albums.

1 1991 – Butterfly, The Emancipation of Mimi and Rainbow

2 2012 – For Emma, Forever Ago; I, I and 22, A Million

3 1997 – Songs in A Minor, As I am, and Girl On Fire

4 2009 – 21, 25, and 30

Missed #2 and #4. We set our goals low – I said, “Let’s try to get at least two of these right!”

We had 37 points going into the final. We were nowhere near the top five (just wait)!

Final Category – Stadiums

There are five Major League Baseball stadiums originally named for the persons whom were majority stockholders. Name three teams which play their home games in these stadiums.

We had no sporty players to give us confidence, so we wagered zero. But hey – we knew two of the correct teams! What did Meat Loaf say about that?

Then we waited…I said to Mike, “People always wager way too confidently in this category, maybe we’ll move up a bit.”

And that’s what we did! Not far enough to win any prizes, but…maybe next time?

We’ll try continuing to incorporate the occasional “live” trivia games into our routines and continue playing virtually as well. Because sometimes playing trivia in your jammies can’t be beat!

As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Keanu Reeves!