It was the second consecutive trivia game at Arbor Brewing Company Microbrewery (aka Corner Brewery) that resulted in my getting a Prince song stuck in my head! Granted, it’s not that hard – or uncommon – for songs to get stuck in my head (especially songs by the dearly departed Prince)!

Last week, the song was anotherloveranotherholenyourhead, from the box office bomb Under the Cherry Moon. This is because they asked about the ancient medical practice of trepanning, which means drilling a hole in a person’s head to cure them of whatever was ailing them. This past game, that song was Kiss, if only because of this one line:

“You don’t have to watch Dynasty…to have an attitude!”

Truth be told, I used to watch Dynasty every week with my mom! Was that the reason for my attitude? Uh….! Me having watched that trashy nighttime soap “sort of” helped us with the final question since I knew what network on which it originally aired (more about that later).

Did we have a question about Dynasty? No! But we did have a question about the series that “Dynasty” was created to be a competitor for! It was a final question that sunk 18 out of 19 teams in the room, hats off to Don’t Forget to Strip Your Bartender for being the only team to get the question correct at our bar!

So how did we do? Meh, we held our own! We remain in eighth place in the bar’s overall standings, and finished in (I think) seventh for the night. We failed both final questions, but wagered conservatively on both (six points on TV networks, zero on NBA championships). We won a $5 third place prize in game one. Hey, don’t make fun – we haven’t won any trivia prizes at this place since November, 2021! We only recently started playing here again.

This was only the second time we were joined in a live trivia game by our “third amigo” Brad since before the plague – and boy was he a big help on the questions!

Here were our game questions, assume they are abbreviated versions of the questions that were asked:

Round One

1 Board Games – Name one of the two cheapest purchaseable properties in a standard Monopoly game.

2 Commercials – Audio clue of commercial with a kerchief wearing blonde British woman talking about having a nicely smelling mouth or something to that effect (sorry I didn’t write down everything she said). It’s from the Orbit gum commercial.

3 Animated TV – What Disney original animated series airing from 2002 to 2007 featured a theme song by Christina Millian titled “Call Me, Beep Me?” Miss, we had zero clue, never heard of the show.

4 Lawsuits – In 2001, Casey Martin successfully sued the PGA under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in order to allow him to use what during competition? While we were discussing the answers, Brad said “This guy had a handicap,” to which I said, “Aren’t you supposed to have a handicap in golf?” He was all over this (thanks man)!

Mystery Round One – Best actor quickfire

In 2022, Will Smith became the fifth African American to win an Academy Award for best actor, doing so for his role in King Richard. Name the four actors who preceded him in winning the award.

We were initially confused by the wording of the question, since the second sentence doesn’t specify African American actors, so we asked, and yes, that’s what we had to do. Good thing, because if we had to name all four actors who preceded him in winning the award, that would have been much harder! We only managed to name three correct actors, we kicked ourselves for not remembering him!

Round Two

5 World Geography – Of the countries that make up Central America, which one extends farthest south?

6 NASA – In 2021, Swati Mohan, the Guidance and Controls operations lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was the voice heard confiming the landing of what Mars rover? FB clue.

7 Rock Albums – What rock band has released three studio albums with titles including the word “rock” in 1977, 1981 and 2014, respectively? We talked about the right band, but didn’t put it in as our answer. Dammit, they ask about a band we like and we blow it! Pardon us while we go on a road trip along the Highway to Hell and do dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Hey, you can have a drink on me while we’re on the road trip!

8 Animals – What is the name of the animal called an “earth pig” in Afrikaans, aka African Antbear?

Mystery Round Two – HORN people

The persons identified in the following clues will all have the letters HORN consecutively in their last names.

M1 – Actress who plays Kim Wexler on “Better Call Saul”

M2 – Composer who created soundtracks for Avatar, Titanic and Apollo 13, among other films

M3 – 1956 Heisman Trophy winner who went on to become nicknamed “Golden Boy” and played for the Green Bay Packers

M4 – Singer/actress who performed “Stormy Weather” in 1943 in a film of the same name

Missed #1, the second of three TV questions we will miss in this game! Guess you can never watch enough TV, can ya?

We were in fourth going into the final with 46 points. We decided to wager “just a little bit, not quite half the points” on the final category of TV networks.

On what broadcast channel did “Dallas” originally air from 1978 to 1991 – and on what cable network did the reboot air from 2012 to 2014?

All I knew is that “Dynasty” aired on ABC and competed with Dallas, so we had only to pick one of the other two major networks broadcasting TV at the time, and of course we zigged instead of zagged, miss. But we got real excited when Tim read the standings…

Woot! Third place? We’ll take it! Teams finishing ahead of us were second place Group W Bench (we are old enough to get that pop culture reference), and Don’t Forget to Strip Your Bartender (first place). They were the only team to get it correct, we would have finished second had we wagered zero instead of six points, but what’s another five bucks, right?

Round Three

9 Sports – The “Dead Ball” era is a name used for a period of time in which scoring was relatively low in what sport? Brad the hero for us again on a sportsball question!

10 Game Shows – Name two of the three “lifelines” contestants could use on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” when the show debuted in 1999? Name all three for a bonus point. We knew two, but not three (we wanted to be able to call a friend for this, LOL)!

11 Electricity – In terms of the reciprocal of electrical resistance, what is the term for the measure of ease at which an electrical current passes through a substance? Mike and Brad were not in agreement on the answer, so we wagered low and as is our team’s talent, picked the wrong answer out of two choices! I won’t say whose answer was wrong (a gentlemen never asks, and a lady never tells)!

12 Literary Objects – In the novel Lord of the Flies, what object belonging to Piggy is used to help start fires?

Mystery Three – Crossword

For this crossword mystery round, the first letter in each clue will be the last letter in the next clue.

M1 – Five letters – Caribbean nation known previously as “Land of High Mountains” in the Taino language

M2 – Eight letters – Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999

M3 – Four letters – Atari game released in 1972

M4 – Four letters – Restaurant chain with the menu item Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘n Fruity

Got all of these.

Round Four

13 Sandwiches – A sandwich known as an “Elvis” is grilled Hawaiian bread with peanut butter and what other ingredient? Darn, when we heard the category was going to be “sandwiches,” we were hoping it would be about the Monte Cristo!

14 Movie Remakes – What 1989 ensemble cast film starred Sally Field, Dolly Parton and Julia Roberts and was remade in 2012 as a made for TV movie on the Lifetime network?

15 Rivers – What river forms portions of the border of Maryland along with Virginia and West Virginia?

16 Guitarists -What notable guitarist conceived of and commissioned “Electric Lady Studios” in New York City? Easy way to finish the round, got all of these correct. Don’t worry, we still have a mystery round and final to screw up! Hey, all trivia teams have to be good at something, don’t they?

This was a great chance for me to take a potty break since Brad and Mike didn’t need my help with this, those two dynamos (hey I love my teammates) knew all of these.

We were in ninth going into the final with 51 points. We were very, very crestfallen to do this, but we bet nothing on the final category of NBA championships. Honestly you need at least a couple of solid sportsball aficionados to be able to get final questions like these right – or disagree on the answer and talk each other out of the right answers!

Final Question Two:

Shaquille O’Neal played for six teams in his NBA career, but only won the NBA championship with two of then. Name three of the four teams in which he did NOT win an NBA championship.

Since we wagered zero, we put down Washington Generals, Harlem Globetrotters, and some other team – even though I suggested “That high school basketball team in the movie Teen Wolf.”

Turns out the teams in the bar knew a lot more about Shaq’s career than they did about nighttime soaps from the ’70s that got rebooted!

We’ll be back in the saddle here next week with one extra player (hopefully)! But I do not know when we can play again beyond that, it all depends upon my work schedule. Also, if weather gets nicer, sitting outside in the biergarten may have more appeal than sitting in a crowded room answering trivia questions!

It was really fun getting our “trio” together for trivia again! As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Sue Ellen!