There comes a time when those gift cards you win in trivia games start to weigh down a gal’s purse a bit! That is NOT a brag, by any means, my team really isn’t THAT good! Although I do have four YpsiAlehouse gift cards with 18 cents on them, and another with ten whole dollars!

Two gift cards I wanted to spend on Thanksgiving Eve were one from The Owl in Milan – and another from Sticks, which we did. While The Owl is a coffee house/tap house/cocktail bar hybrid business with an overall chill vibe – except when that one player practically threatened to throw fists about a video game question (more about that in a bit) – Sticks is a completely different kind of scene! We arrived in the midst of “karaoke night,” and at the time, it was being done rather…loudly, and poorly – the Sheryl Crowe/Kid Rock duet, I believe? That one short guy in the trucker jacket did a GREAT take on Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress by the Hollies! I wanted to tell him so, but didn’t want my husband to think that I was being a flirt! LOL, he knows me better than that, and he knows who’s taking me home!

It’s actually a good thing we didn’t win any more prize money at The Owl, since we don’t plan to play there much in the colder months. Plus, there is an ex-player from our trivia team who frequents the place. It’s the little things that add up, ya know?

We finished in sixth for the night with 79 points, no prizes.

Here were our questions:

Game One/Round One:

1 Parades – What company conducts an annual Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City, which ends outside of its flagship store at Herald Square?

2 Viral Videos – In 2022, a 7-year-old named Tariq went viral following an interview with the web series Recess Therapy in which he expressed his love for what food?

3 Potatoes – What is the six-letter term for the type of potatoes with dark brown skin and a white interior that are popularly used for baking and mashing – and whose varieties include Burbank, Ranger and Blazer, among others?

4 TV Episodes – “Pilgrim Rick” and “Six Thanksgivings” are both holiday-themed episodes of what TV series that aired from 2016-2022 and uses flashbacks heavily? We were a lot better at figuring out what series it wasn’t than we were at figuring out what it was! My trivia pardner Mike kept suggesting series that I knew didn’t air during this time frame – Rick and Morty’s original air date was earlier, so was How I Met Your Mother (funny this show will be a correct answer later). Although I did think about that one series that many of my FB friends have posted about liking that I’d probably never, ever watch, and of course that was the right one (I just couldn’t think of the name). Meh…

Mystery Round – THANK words

The correct answer to each clue includes each of the letters T, H, A, N, and K at least once, though not necessarily in that order.

M1 Seven letters – First name of the Academy Award-winning director of The Hurt Locker

M2 Ten letters – Painting by Edward Hopper that portrays four people in a downtown diner late at night as viewed through the diner’s large glass window

M3 Six letters – The Jewish scriptures comprising the books of law, the prophets, and collected writings

M4 10 letters – Large landlocked country that borders Russia, China and three others

Missed #3, we knew it wasn’t Torah, Talmud or Jewish Koran (JK, JK)!

Round Two

5 Hall of Famers – Norman “Turkey” Stearns was posthumously elected to the hall of fame in what sport? We incorrectly guessed bowling, because damn it, I knew “turkey” was a bowling term (I was a junior high bowler and remembered some things, just not the right things, apparently)! We didn’t go too high, though!

6 Video Games – What farm simulation role-playing video game first released in 2014 includes games subtitled The Lost Valley and Light of Hope? Congrats to the one player in the bar knowing this answer (you know who you are). Another player got angry that his answer of Story of Seasons was not accepted. I’ve heard of fights breaking out on trivia nights, like when My Trivia Live decided to stop doing shenanigans on questions all teams get wrong (a host told me that there was a fist fight that I’m so very disappointed I didn’t get to see). This guy was LOUD, and insisted that the answer should be “Story of Seasons.” Host Adam told the player to complain to Sporcle, he doesn’t write the questions…wow, just wow. I haven’t seen an outburst quite like that on a trivia night in a good long time!

7 2023 Films – What is the word beginning with the letter L completing the subtitle of the horror film Thanksgiving – There will be no L (blank)?

NERD POINT – name the director of that film.

Mike was all over the first part of this, and asked me to try naming a director. Me? “Uh, OK! Well it can’t be Wes Craven, he’s dead…how about (that guy who directed Cabin Fever and the short film within a film in Inglourious Basterds)?” I was so excited to get this right, since I don’t know a lot of horror film director names, besides the biggies like Romero, Craven, Carpenter. The guy I came up with is definitely on the younger end! And I want to see this film, BTW!

8 Turkeys – In 2021, at the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation, President Joe Biden pardoned two turkeys, with what sandwich related names? Miss, we guessed “reuben and club.”

Mystery Round Two (ugh this is going to be awful for us, you can skip this if you want)!

Name the artist who made the Billboard critic’s list of the “Top 20 Thank You Songs About being Grateful,” based on the year of release and the given lyrics:

M1 2002 “Could this be the greatest love of all? I wanna know that you will catch me when I fall; So let me tell you this…some people wait a lifetimes…”

M2 1999 “All you people can’t you see, can’t you see; How your love’s affecting our reality; Every time we’re down, You can make it right”

M3 2018 “Say I’ve loved and I’ve lost; but that’s not what I see; So look what I got; look at what you taught me”

M4 1998 “Thank you India; Thank you terror; Thank you frailty, Thank you consequence; Thank; thank you silence”

We only knew #4, we were feeling pretty ungrateful about not knowing grateful songs better!

We were in seventh going into the final with 34 points.

We decided not to wager anything on the category of “Thankful States.” We were thinking it would be about official state pies or something obscure, we deeply regretted our decision, as we would have known the answers. Oh well, sometimes these things happen in trivia games!

Final Question:

Name the U.S. states whose names rank first alphabetically for all of te letters – “T,” “H,” “A,” “N,” “K,” and “S.” Six answers total.

Game Two/Round Three

9 Magazines – In 2018, the monthly women’s fashion magazine InStyle became the first major publication to ban photography and advertising of what products using what material?

10 Help – What turkey and poultry brand created the Turkey Talk-Line in 1981, a toll-free number designed to help answer preparation and cooking questions?

11 Sculptures – The original version of the bronze sculpture The Thinker is displayed in the garden of a museum named for what artist who created the work? We initially put down the last name of the sculptor, but then the host announced that he wanted both the first and last names. I’m “thankful” I remembered his first name (my husband knew the last name), teamwork, yay!

12 Duets – Audio clue of “Wrecking Ball,” had to ID both singers. As much of a fan as I am of nine inch nails, especially lately….I also gotta say I kind of like this song! It’s heartfelt, powerful, comes off in a very sincere heart on the sleeve way, and is kind of catchy – I actually don’t mind when it comes on at work!

Mystery Round Three – Visual

We missed # 1 and #2.

Round Four

13 College Basketball – The only school other than UCLA to win the NCAA Division I men’s basketball championship between 1964 and 1973 was about what school based in El Paso? Good news is we actually named a Texas college besides TCU or Texas A&M! Bad news it wasn’t the right one (I tried)!

14 Movie Plots – In a subplot of the 2009 film The Hangover, the main characters return what type of animal to Mike Tyson, which they had stolen from his mansion the night before?

15 Trees – Name one of the two official state trees of California.

NERD POINT – Name both.

We kind of went back and forth, swaying as trees sometimes do in heavy winds…I came up with two I thought were correct, he came up with another that seemed good, and we discussed whether one of the ones I came up with actually had two different names…We did get one correct, missed the nerd point.

16 Science Terms – What word form the Latin meaning “To steep” is generally used to describe a volcano that is inactive, but not extinct?

Mystery Round Four – This Day In History (yay I like this category)

Answer the following questions about events occurring on November 22.

M1 On this day in 1063, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in what U.S. city?

M2 On this day in 1718, what notable pirate was killed in a battle with a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard?

M3 On this day in 1990, who announced their resignation as prime minister of the United Kingdom, being replaced six days later?

M4 On this day in 1975, Juan Carlos was named king of what country, following the death of Francisco Franco?

Got all of these. Just because of the whole sculptor question earlier, we were sure to put the actual name of the pirate – and the first names of the other people. Mike said, “Are you sure about the pirate’s real name?” Me – “What makes you think I don’t know pirate stuff?” I don’t think we needed to put the pirate’s actual first and last name, but it was fun discussing pirate stuff anyway! Argh, matey!

We were in fifth going into the final with 49 points. We wagered four points on the category of:

Thanksgiving Football

Much like the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys traditionally host NFL games on Thanksgiving in the U.S., one Canadian Football League franchise traditionally hosts a game each Canadian Thanksgiving Day.

Name that team, whose logo includes a bird and whose name is derived from a children’s song about plucking feathers from a lark.

It’s one of those questions that when the answer is revealed, you’re like…”Oh yeah, I should’ve known that!” And also, “I totally didn’t know that was a bird, I thought it was a cheese (LOL), but when you hear the song, it makes total sense.”

Also, how sadistic is it to pull feathers from a lark? This sounds like the red flags of a future serial killer!

We’ll have to miss our game Sunday at the YpsiAlehouse because of other obligations, but we’ll be back at it there again soon! As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, you sick person who likes to pull feathers out of a living bird!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!