We played our 792nd trivia game on a recent blustery Fall day. I know, I know – 792 isn’t a special number or anything, is it? Is it a prime number? Nope, the Internets tell me it isn’t a prime number. Moving on? Here’s a pretty shot I was able to get during the game:

It’s still mind boggling to think we’ve played trivia games in the hundreds over the past decade, though! Most of them kind of blur together, though some are more memorable than others!

This game had its own memorable moments, too! For starters, there were some power blips that temporarily knocked out wi-fi and the PowerPoint feed on two mall-mounted televisions. After crudely joking about going out to loot some local stores while the power was out, we were off to the races! Races for trivia prizes, that is! Believe it or not, this wasn’t the first time we’ve experienced power outages while out for trivia games, and not even the first time at this bar! The most memorable power outage at a trivia game was undoubtedly the one that happened at the “Corner Brewery” sometime in the middle of the 2010s decade. A bunch of us had to crowd into the restrooms because of a tornado warning or something. It was quite cozy in the two-stall pink tiled women’s restroom!

As for last night’s game, we flubbed the game one final question about animated movies by picking the OG instead of one of the sequels (shame on us, total amateur hour), and wagered zero on the game two final question about consumer prices, which enough teams flubbed allowing us to be in a tiebreaker for second place, which…we won! Celebrate the little things?

We remain in fourth place in the bar’s overall standings, though since we haven’t been playing here every single week, we’re not likely to stay there or move up. But that’s OK! We’re just happy to be able to get out when we can and as a bonus, have some friends join in on the fun (even if it’s just one other friend)!

Here were our game questions, which may be abbreviated:

Game One/Round One

1 Cars – What style of vehicle has also been known as a “drophead coupe” in Britain?

2 Disasters – What type of natural disaster largely destroyed the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria?

3 Food – What is the main fruit ingredient in a traditional Black Forest cake?

4 Biking – After France, what bordering country has been represented by the winner of the Tour de France on the most occasions, including five times by Eddy Merckx?

Got all of these correct.

Mystery Round One – Fill in the Blank

Answer with the U.S. geographic location that fills the blank in each of the following lists:

M1 – U.S. states by total area – Alaksa, Texas, BLANK, Montana, New Mexico

M2 Oldest U.S. National Parks – Yellowstone, Sequoia, BLANK, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake

M3 Most populous U.S. state capitals (city proper) – Phoenix, Austin, Columbus, BLANK, Deniver

M4 Longest rivers in the U.S. – Missouri, Mississippi, Yukon, BLANK, Colorado

Missed #2 and #4.

Round Two

5 2000s TV – Audio clue from a 2001 episode of a TV series. The all-musical episode was titled “Once More, With Feeling.”

6 Movie Pairs – Name either actor who stars as a title character in the 1995 film Tom and Huck. Name both for a bonus point. No clue on either, miss and miss.

7 Books – Which two planets are referenced in the title of a 1992 best selling book about relationships written by John Gray?

8 Stocks – What discount retail company, a subsidiary of Dollar Tree since 2015, previously traded on the NYSE and S&P 500 using the ticker symbol FDO?

Mystery Round Two – Visual

Got all of these correct.

We were in fourth going into the final with 46 points, tied with one other team.

Final Category – Animated Movies

Name two of the three animated films that have been nominated for the Academy Award for best Picture – one released in the 1990s, one released in the 2000s, and one released in the 2010s.

We only got one correct. Fail…

Game Two/Round Three

9 Quotes – What two words complete the following quotation from a speech by Abraham Lincoln – “A house divided BLANK BLANK?”

10 Triangles – The Research Triangle is a region anchored by North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and what third, private university?

11 Lawsuits – Ray Parker Jr., who wrote the Ghostbusters theme song, was sued by what musician who claimed that parker plagiarized his song “I Want a New Drug?”

12 Flowers – Fusilier, Black Parrot and Surel are all varieties of what garden flower in the lily family?

Mystery Round Three

Time in Order

Put the following divisions of geologic time in order from shortest to longest – Period, Era, Age, Eon

Only got two points out of this round (bleah)!

13 – Sports – The PDGA is the governing body of what sport, whose official rules include sections titled “Throwing,” “Obstacles and Relief,” and “Regulated Routes?”

14 Comedy Films – Name either of the rival gyms that are the focus of the 2004 film Dodgeball – both for a bonus point.

15 Supplies – In 1867, Samuel Fay patented the first type of what now-common office supply product, which was originally designed for attaching tickets to fabric? FB clue.

16 Comic Strips – What comic strip title character, who was introduced in 1951, has parents named Henry and Alice, a dog named Ruff and a neighbor named George, who is often annoyed? Yay we’re old and knew this!

Mystery Round Four –

Give the first name of the TV dad based on the names of his children and the years the show aired (Note, name the character, not the actor).

M1 Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Bobby and Cindy (1969-1974)

M2 Ally, Geoffrey and Michael (1996-2005)

M3 D.J., Stephanie and Michelle (1986-1995)

M4 Kevin, Kate and and Randall (2016-2022)

Only knew #1. Another terrible mystery round for us! 🙂

We were in eighth going into the final with 43 points, again just one point behind the two-person team called “Just Two Today,” whom were sitting near us.

Final Category – Consumer Prices

Whoa, we weren’t touching this one! We bet zero.

Within two, what was the most recent year in which the average annual retail price of gasoline per gallon was under two dollars in the U.S. (According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration)?

Our cowardice in wagering coupled with all but three teams ahead of us getting it wrong meant one thing – tiebreaker time! We had a second-place tiebreaker with a team with a very alliterative name which I can’t recall – and we had to give the number of years between the birthdays of Bruno Mars and Matt Damon. Both teams put in the same guess of 22 years initially, so our host told us to guess again, which we did and…got it!

Isla’s Name Fund took first, we took second.

We’ll try to be back at it next Sunday unless life happens! As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, White Goodman in Dodgeball!