We had a whopping five players come out for a live trivia game last week at Sticks, a bar so named because of its pool tables. It’s also kind of a sports bar, and a place where you can watch professional sportsball games while you get your trivia fix!

As it happened, the Detroit Lions – which is “our” local pro football team – had a win over the Kansas City Chiefs shortly after our trivia game ended. Which is a weird thing indeed! You see, there is kind of a collective inferiority complex amongst Detroit Lions fans. We’ve never gotten to see the Lions play in a Super Bowl, let alone celebrate a Super Bowl win. I almost shudder to think of the mayhem that might ensue locally if the Lions did manage to win a Super Bowl! Maybe there is a good reason it just never seems to be allowed to happen?

But even stranger than that Lions win Thursday night was our team having a perfect score of 69 points in game two! Yes, we even got the final question correct, too! And, as Facebook’s “memories” app informed me, we had a double first place win eight years ago to the day with 165 total points for the night. In that game, we played at the downtown Ann Arbor version of Arbor Brewing Company, which has since closed (I think they sell insurance in the space now, but I’m not sure). At the time, we kind of fancied trying to dominate that spot, and a little more than a month later, we would wind up winning a tournament spot! Sure, we had to borrow a player from another team to do it and I seem to remember a tiebreaker being involved, but we managed to win the spot in true ‘Pods scrappy form! We’d failed in our attempt to lock down another trivia spot earlier in the week, so we were really in a position of needing that “W!”

These days we play trivia much more casually than we used to. But I do kind of miss the madness!

Here were our questions, which may be abbreviated:

Round One

1 Last Names – Which month of the year is also the last name of the title sisters in the novel Little Women?

2 Food Slogans – To counter the reduction in demand, what food product was marketed as “The Other White Meat,” beginning in 1987?

3 Animated Movies – Charlie B. Barkin, Itchy Itchiford and Carface Caruthers are among the main characters in what 1989 animated film? FB clue.

4 Athletes – What tennis player spent 186 consecutive weeks from 1987 to 191 ranked #1 with that record later equaled by Serena Williams? Miss.

Mystery Round One

We missed #1.

Round Two

5 Capitals – Name one of the two northernmost U.S. capital cities with the letter “D” in their names. Name both for a bonus point. Got both.

6 Reality TV – What reality competition series was won by Buddha Lo in consecutive seasons in 2022 and 2023 making him the show’s first two-time winner? Miss.

7 Instruments – A glockenspiel is most similar to which of the following instruments – maracas, clarinet, ukulele or xylophone?

8 Math – In mathematics, what is the 10 letter term for the type of number defined as any real number that cannot be represented as a simple fraction if the integer is divided by another? Dave sowed his wild math skills here, thank the gods!
Mystery Round Two

We got all of these correct.

We were in third with 45 points going into the final.

U.S. Government (see pic below)

Nope, this would not be our perfect game…

Round Three/Game Two

9 Years – What year of the 21st century is the most recent one that can be expressed in Roman numerals using only three total letters?

10 Nicknames – What rapper and singer born Armando Perez in 1981 and has been known by nicknames including Mr. 305 and Mr. Worldwide?

11 World History – Within two, how many total sovereign nations were formed after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991? Some of us started feverishly scrawling our own lists, and by some weird magicks, by cracky, we managed to get this right within two (no bonuses for hitting the number exact).

12 TV Themes – Audio clue of theme song of series featuring Urkel. Thankfully Dave and Susan were all over this!

Mystery Round Three

Chem scholar Dave took charge of most of these, I had just a little assist with #3, which I knew just because I think its name is kind of funny. Hey, it all counts when it comes to teamwork!

Round Four

13 Seas – The Tyrrhenian Sea is on the west coast of what European Country?

14 Movie Awards – Nicole Kidman won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of what TV pioneer in the 2021 film Meet the Ricardos?

15 Fencing – In fencing, what is the five letter term for a defensive action using the blade to deflect the attack? Brad’s dad used to teach fencing at Western Michigan, so I determined him to be the point man on this one!

16 Games – The Milton Bradley game Chutes and Ladders is based on an ancient Indian game that features what animal instead of chutes? And we came so, so close to talking ourselves out of the right answer, thanks Mike for sticking to his idea for the answer and not mine!

Mystery Round Four

Got all of these.

We were in first with 54 points going into the final. I know I’m not going to be able to type this sentence very often, I almost want to try to make it more exciting or something! 🙂

Final Category – Film Companies

Brad kind of groaned when we got this as a category indicating he wanted to bet zero (I know my players’ tells). But that was not to be…

Sixty nine points!

I knew the names of the K and G people for sure and was sort of sure of the S person (go figure he’s the most famous one of the three)! Held onto our lead, finished with…

I have a busy work week next week, so I’m not sure when or if we’ll be able to get out for a game. As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Steffi Graf!