We managed to summon a trio of ‘Pods for an afternoon trivia game on a recent hot and breezy Sunday afternoon. It seems the other regular teams had better things to do on this Labor Day weekend, as there were only three teams in contention! Seeing as how we’ve been struggling to make any kind of noise in our attempts to return to live trivia games, we’ll take every advantage we can get!

As it would happen, we did manage to win at least one of the gift card prizes – a $10 second place prize in game one. We were not at all confident in the category of “heist movies,” so we wagered nothing. The only movie involving a heist we kind of know things about is one featuring this character:

No teams got it correct, but because of our having missed all of the eight points available in the game one mystery round, we couldn’t overtake the first place team. It was one of “those” mystery rounds where you pick John Lennon instead of Paul McCartney, burnt umber instead of burnt sienna, Harriet Tubman instead of Frederick Douglass, where you pick zig instead of zag (you get the point). Guess which of these either/or scenarios actually came to pass during the game?

Speaking of heist movies, Army of the Dead is a good one if you like both heist movies and movies involving zombies! Ever wonder what would happen if a zombocalypse came to pass in Vegas and even affected Siegfried and Roy’s tigers? Wonder no more! I think it’s streamable on Netflix, so what are you waiting for? 🙂

Here were our questions, which may be abbreviated:

Round One

1 Produce – Campari, cherry, grape and plum are all varieties of what produce items?

2 Political Parties – What political party was founded in 1971 and has used the slogan “The Party of Principal?” Talked ourselves out of the correct answer, miss.

3 Video Games – In addition to duck, what kind of animal appears in the video game Duck Hunt? Mike with the correct guess.

4 Elements – Of the four elements with exactly five letters, which one appears first alphabetically?

Mystery Round One – This Day in History

Note, I did not photograph the mystery round on screen or write these down, so this is all reverse engineered based on the correct answers…(here goes):

On this day:

M1 – In 1783, what war was brought to an end by the signing of the Treaty of Paris?

M2 – In 1838, what abolitionist made their dramatic escape from slavery traveling north by train and boat?

M3 – In 1971, what former protectorate of Great Britain located in the Middle East declared its independence?

M4 – In 1658, what lord protector of England and Scotland died?

Missed…every damn one of these. What would my high school history teacher Mr. Young say (besides “Read the chapters and answer the questions?”) He’d say “You should have read the chapters, then you’d get the questions right.”

Round Two

5 Reality TV – What “Real Housewives” installment has aired the most episodes, as of of 2023? We could only think of one installment of this show that none of us have ever, ever watched, and yup, it was the wrong guess.

6 Rivers – The Potomac River flows more than 400 miles before emptying into what body of water, which is an estuary of the Atlantic?

7 Literary Characters – In a 1960 novel, the character named Arthur Radley is known by what nickname? Shrugs all around, a big nope here…

8 Movie Pairs – Winona Ryder plays the love interest of Adam Sandler’s character in what 2002 film? For a nerd bonus point, give the first name of either character. Got the points, not the nerd point. We know more than a few things about Winona Ryder’s acting career and police record (lol), just not a whole lot of the finer details of Adam Sandler’s films. I used to play trivia games with a woman who knew a lot of these Adam Sandler movie finer points!

Mystery Round Three (special thanks to Brad for taking the photo for me):

Where am I?

Missed #4.

We were in second with 36 points going into the final, trailing the first place “Street Smarts” team by (I think) 13 points. Had it not been for that mystery round…yeah, yeah, Frederick Douglass, it’s not your fault!

Final Category – Heist Movies

We were not at all confident with wagering anything on this category, despite the slim competition on this trivia night! But I did correctly guess what the question would be about, when I said, “It’s probably about the Oceans movie franchise.” And behold:

The plot of the 2001 film Oceans 11 involves the simultaneous robbing of three casinos, name all three of those casinos.

We did manage to come up with one correct casino. The team ahead of us watered just enough to stay ahead of us by four points with a cautious wager (now that’s street smart of you guys)! We were happy enough to win anything – ten bucks is better than no bucks, woot!

Round Three

9 Mammals – The only mammal native to Iceland when humans first arrived was the artic species of what animal? Brad’s field of study in college was evolutionary biology which means he has above average knowledge of animals and stuff. But the guy who answers the questions – Mike – tends to forget these things during games and likes to “voir dire” players to make sure they know an answer before he submits it. “How do you know this answer for sure?” “Are you sure it’s not (blank) instead of (blank)?” How confident are you in your answer?” After enough persuasion and me saying “Brad knows a lot about animals and stuff,” we put in the answer Brad wanted, which was correct. And in the next question I would poke fun at my husband’s careful vetting…

10 Lead Singers – A clip of the 1977 song “Baby What a Big Surprise” was played, and we had to ID the lead singer. I wrote down on a piece of paper the name of the singer I wanted Mike to put in and said I was eight points sure. And yes, he wanted to know just how sure I was! So I said I was “arctic fox sure.” The playing of this song sparked a lively conversation between Brad and I about this band’s songs, many of which, especially in its later years, were a bit sappy and cheesy. Brad’s about 10 years older than me, but we both kind of grew up with this band’s songs. There weren’t a lot of rock bands that had a “horn” section like this one, that’s for sure!

11 Mythology – In Norse mythology, which god was bound to a rock as punishment for killing the god Balder? FB clue.

12 Word Origins – The word “Honcho” is derived from what language? Miss.

Mystery Round Three – Visual

Missed #3, nice work Brad with helping us get all of the others!

Round Four

13 Bones – What is the 10 letter term for the five long bones in the midfoot?

14 Commercials – A 2012 commercial for Wheat Thins featured two characters from what animated series? Miss.

15 Subtitles – What Broadway musical is subtitled “The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical?” Mike was up to this old tricks again with this one (he’s not a gambling man for sure)! Are you sure it’s not (this musical), or (this musical), or (this musical)?” Though Brad backed me up a bit, I just had to say “that musical was about the last days of Jesus Christ, that musical was a retelling of West Side Story, and there are no hippies in any of these musicals you mentioned.” I made my point! Maybe it helped that I’m an Aquarius!

16 Symbols – The fleur de lis is a stylized version of what flower?

Mystery Round Four – Composers (yay)!

We got all of these correct.

This time we only trailed Street Smarts by five points, with us having 46 points. But that’s OK, we would (spoiler alert) foolishly decide to wager full points on a question that we would end up (narrowly) missing.

U.S. History –

Within one, in what year did all of these events occur?

Al Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize, Nancy Pelosi becomes first woman Speaker of the House, daylight Savings Time extended by several weeks.

Our guess was only one point shy of the “within one” window. So, so close! That’s OK, that’s why this was a final question, and not a regular round question! But man, if only that question were about 1980s events instead!

No matter how much we f— up during our games, it’s still nice that we’re able to get out to do them again! We’re going to try to be back at it for a weeknight game this week. As always, Go Pods and stay classy, all of you “real housewives!”