It’s very true that we’ve been struggling to be able to get into the “swing” of live trivia again -and as it turns out, we’ve been struggling in the actual games, too! Welcome to Slumpsville! I think we’re here for a prolonged stay!

So far in the past five live and virtual games, we’ve failed to crack the top three teams at the end of the games, though the three games prior to those saw us finishing in the top three each time. We even managed to finish first on November 29!

We paid a visit to Sticks for trivia – the first time we’d ventured into this place for trivia in about 10 years. Well, more like three! Everything that happened before the plague just “feels” like 10 years (is that just me)? The house was fairly packed, and as a change from before, all orders had to happen at the bar, which meant I grabbed two cocktails for myself – and two for my trivia pardner Mike since I knew I’d be too lazy to stand in line to grab another round mid-game! We both had variations on the Moscow mule, which were a nice change of pace from the hard seltzer and beer/cider we usually keep on hand at home!

As for the game? It really, really sucked! Which is fine and good since we’re not trying to qualify for tournaments – and even if we were – are any trivia companies really doing those anymore? In all honesty, it’s just our fragile egos getting bruised while we battle questions that leave us shrugging – and remembering answers hours later! Just last night, even after the final answer about a number one song was revealed, it literally took me hours to remember what the song was – and what movie based on a TV show it was used in! I was secretly hoping the movie was “Shaft,” but I knew it wasn’t – even though it was released the same year as the movie they asked about in the final question. The correct song was really popular when I attended my 10 year high school reunion! I even remember asking one of my old classmates who the band was singing the song when it was playing, and after she told me, I was thinking to myself…

Who dat?

I guess it wasn’t exactly my type of music! Now when those old Prince songs came on, even I went out to the dance floor! Sure, sure – my ballet dropout dancing skills are on par with Elaine’s from “Seinfeld,” but after you’ve consumed enough alcohol to even tolerate being around your old high school classmates – you stop caring what they think about you! You just might even get chummy with a former cheerleader that you would not have given the time of day to – and vice versa – when you were attending high school.

Isn’t it funny how an innocent trivia question can trigger the memories? Oy…for now, let’s focus on memories of last night! Ugh, it was a game I’d certainly like to forget…we flubbed both final questions, we went with the wrong epic poem by Homer, and forgot which countries have those famous waterfalls in Africa. Talking yourself out of right answers can always be frustrating in trivia games.

I’m sure you all want to scroll down to see our most painful moments of the game, don’t you? 🙂 Without further ado, let’s rehash this shitshow of a game…

Round One

1 Literary Locations – “Second to the right and straight on til morning” describes what literary destination? I’m glad my trusty trivia pardner was all over this, because I would have put in a stupid guess like 100 Acre Wood! Funny, I actually asked him to read the correct book a few summers ago because I told him they might ask trivia questions about it (he really enjoyed reading the book anyway). Guess that reading assignment paid off!

2 Retail – What do the letters A and P stand for in the company name NAPA, which was founded in 1925? We made the correct guess, but we weren’t confident.

3 Reality TV – Other than Blake Shelton, name two of the three coaches on “The Voice” for the 22nd season airing in 2022. Yeah, we don’t watch those shows! First “owie” of the game.

4 Waterfalls – Victoria Falls is on the border between what two countries – both of which start with the same letter? Talked ourselves out of the right countries here, miss.

Mystery Round One – James Cameron Movies – In order

Place the following James Cameron films in order from earliest release to most recent based on images from the films:

The two of us teamed up very well here – Mike was good at naming the movies in the images – and I put ’em in order (too bad more of our questions in the game didn’t go this well)! 😦

Round Two –

5 Science! – What is the term for the period of time during which the number of atoms in a radioactive substance exponentially decays roughly 50 percent?

6 Fruit – Alphonso, gold nugget, pico are all varieties of what fruit – which is the national fruit of India, Pakistan and the Philippines? Thank you FB host clue…

7 Crypto – What crypto currency created in 2020 gets its name from a dog breed originating in Japan?

8 Money – From 1816 to 1945, what denomination coin had a depiction known as the Winged Liberty Head on its obverse side? The second year was a big clue for us, yay we got all of the questions in two consecutive rounds correct! Never fear, we’ll still manage to f— up this game in pure ‘Pods fashion!

Mystery Round Two – Provincial Musicians

Identify the Canadian provinces that the following groups of musicians all hail from.

M1 – Celine Dion, Men Without Hats, A Simple Plan

M2 – Shania Twain, The Weeknd, Rush

M3 – Michael Buble, Carly Rae Jepsen, Nelly Furtado

M4 – Nickelback, Tegan and Sara, kd Lang

Third time’s a charm! Got all of these right. I had to guess on the last two groups since I only knew the first two for sure – I said to myself, “Michael Buble seems more “urban,” and the others seem more rural.” Whatever works? I mean – the way Michael Buble sings makes it seem like he always has a martini in his hand, though if Dean Martin were alive, he might want to smack him around a bit! And I wouldn’t mind seeing that happen (forgive me I heard far too many of his holiday songs at work over the past few months).

Now it’s time to really f— this game up! How about the final question? We were in third going into the final – and that is absolutely no place for a team having a slump to be, so let’s fix that!

Final Category – Element Symbols

What plural word is spelled out when the chemical symbols for the elements with the atomic numbers 2, 18 and 117 are placed in order?

We knew the symbol for the first one, and made the wrong guess for the other two. Fail…

Game Two

9 Politics – Prior to serving as vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris was a senator in what U.S. state? Got it, but for low points.

10 Settlements – In 2016, what company agreed to pay more than 10 billion in fines as

 a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest corporate settlement in U.S. history? You know it’s bad when it makes the Exxon Valdez disaster look puny by comparison. What a sigh of relief Joseph Hazelwood must have had after hearing this news! And the internets tell me that Hazelwood (Exxon Valdez captain at the time of the 1989 oil spill) died last year.

11 ’90s Music – Audio clip of “How Do I Live,” had to name one of the artists who had charting hits with this song – both artists for a nerd point. No clue from us, miss.

12 Sports – Rikishi refers to athletes in what sport? Talked ourselves out of the right sport…miss.

Mystery Round Three –

Restaurant Anagrams

Identify the prominent food chain restaurants based on anagrams of their names.

M1 – Pass Apex Nerd

M2 – Equine Yard

M3 – Damn Colds

M4 – Alert Elastics

Round Four –

13 Blood – What is the most common blood disorder – according to the American Society of Hematology – affecting more than 3 million Americans? I had a guess, and he had a guess…I said his guess wasn’t a blood disorder, but my guess wasn’t right either. Perfect storm of duh, miss.

14 TV Characters – In addition to “Happy Days,” actor Henry Winkler has appeared as Arthur Fonzarelli in three spin-offs of “Happy Days.” Name one of those series – two for a bonus point. Yay we’re old, we totally knew this! No way would we miss a question about the Fonz!

15 Poems – What epic poem attributed to Homer is set near the end of the Trojan War and among the events features a duel between Menelaus and Paris? I wrote down two possibilities, and when Mike said which one he wanted to go with, I said that I’d read one of those epic poems in college and didn’t remember those events happening. That’s not to say those events might have happened in the poem anyway since I read the damn thing back in the early 1990s. Yet another perfect storm of “D’oh!” One more regular round question to go – will we screw it up? Read on to find out!

16 Disney Films – Timothy Q. Mouse, a steam locomotive named Casey Jr. and the Ringmaster are among the non-title characters in what Disney film? Yay I made the right guess! Now just two more round for us to screw up and secure our stay in Slumpsville!

Mystery Round Four – Art

Art – Pick ’em

Select the four art works from the following list that are on display at the Louvre.

Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, The Starry Night, Girl with the Pearl Earring, Liberty Leading the People, Winged Victory of Samathrace, Guernica.

We only picked one correct work of art. Clearly we need to actually go to the Louvre! We did joke about changing the name of the Girl with the Pearl Earring painting to something lewder (we are crude like that).

We were somewhere near dead last heading into the final. We decided to wager nothing on this:

Final Category – 2000s Music

“What group had the first #1 hit single on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in the 21st century? The song spent 11 weeks at #1 from November, 2000 to February, 2001 after initially appearing on the soundtrack for a film based on a TV series?

We’ll try our hands at a virtual game tonight, gluttons of punishment that we are. As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, John Forsythe, aka “Charlie.” Or “Blake Carrington.”