Answers in the comments.

Trivia tournaments just haven’t really been the same since the long, long ago. Which, for me, means the “before times.” But to all of you, that can mean “Before the pandemic of 2020 catapulted our entire planet into chaos.” Sigh. Eighty teams in a banquet room…hoping beyond hope yours would be photographed with an oversized fake check! Good times…

But let’s look at the bright side of things, shall we? I’m glad things are starting to get more back to “normal.” And today, that meant driving out to a championship trivia game to compete for cash prizes! Did we win any? No! But we did come really, really close! Who would have bet on The ‘Pods actually KNOWING a final question answer in a big stakes game (be honest now)? We certainly would not have! 🙂 Yet there we were, with our low wager submitted and, well SHUCKS…we knew the answer, dammit!

It’s always a gamble. Bet it all, get it wrong and lose your points and your standing. Wager conservatively and with a little luck, the question will be a doozy and sink just enough teams ahead of ya so you can maybe take a booby prize or get a championship spot or a picture of a shiny trophy for your Sporcle team page at least.

While luck may not have been on our side for winning actual cash money today, it was on our side in some other odd instances!

I was only able to summon three players for today’s game. Some people actually have more important things to do on Saturday afternoons, if you can believe THAT! The three of us who didn’t have better things to do actually teamed up pretty well on the questions, bickered just a bit (par for the course for friends who’ve known each other for more than a couple of decades) and WOW, I can’t say enough about the bar tab! Happy hour prices from 11 am to 6 pm, our team only had three alcoholic drinks plus a coffee. Want a good recommendation for a place to watch some daytime sports and not break your bank with the drink tab? Check out Spoons Place in Canton, MI! And all of this time I thought it was an ice cream place or a place selling jams 🙂 I must’ve been thinking of American Spoon, which does sell jams and stuff.

Things were set up well for the trivia teams. When we arrived, we saw a sign by the host stand telling players to look for their tables and to please not swap tables. OK!

The top five teams were Calvin and Hobbes, More Beer Less Pants, Potty Power, We Don’t Have a Team Name and #1 was Hugh Jass. Pardon me, I don’t know how they spelled their name, I’m thinking of the Bart phone gag where Bart crank calls Moe’s Tavern asking for Hugh Jass – which he thinks is a fake name – but Hugh Jass actually shows up!

Well, the Hugh Jass trivia team obviously did more than just show up, hats off to them for winning today! Sorry if the name is not spelled correctly!

The questions you are about to read may be pretty close to how they were presented to us – or may be heavily abbreviated – depending totally upon how much time was needed for me to help answer them, my feelings about the question or the moon phase (you get the drift). If my teammates knew answers immediately without my help, that gave me time to jot them down! If they were too wordy and I knew we’d miss them anyway, well I may have decided that brevity was the watchword! I did my best in both answering AND recording these, so read on…

Game One/Round One

1 Prisons – What California prison, the oldest in the state, located north of San Francisco and founded in 1854 is known by a two-word name and for live albums recorded there by Johnny Cash and BB King? We missed this and initially thought we did so for eight points. Turns out we only wagered 1, thank you whatever glitch caused this to happen! We incorrectly guessed another prison – one not quite as old as the correct one in the same state – where the Man in Black also was associated musically. Miss.

2 Song Lyrics – What character created by five elements of magic rings invented by Gaia is the first entity mentioned in the lyrics of Fallout Boy’s 2023 cover version of We Didn’t Start the Fire? Thankfully knowledge of that actual song was not required, Mike took a swing and got a hit here.

3 Same Name – What is the shared name of both the last name of a private investigation played by James Garner and also geographic regions in Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois? This was one of a couple of “Yay, we’re old!” questions!

4 Board Games – What is the third most valuable property for purchase in a standard Monopoly game and shares its name with a U.S. state? This question is heavily abbreviated… (but we got it right).

Mystery Round 1 – Before and After – State Nicknames Edition

M1 State nicknamed The Golden State and actress/writer of My Big Fat Greek Wedding

M2 Bluegrass State and former capital of Tokyo

M3 Magnolia State and name of 2004 debut single by Ashlee Simpson

M4 Volunteer State and name of children’s book series featuring characters named Usara and Kalik, among others

#2 was the only one we got correct. I completely brain farted on the Greek Wedding woman’s last name, though I did know her first name even without the state nickname clue!

Round 2

5 Cells – What organelle, which is responsible for transporting, modifying and packaging proteins and lipids into vessicles for delivery to targeted destinations is located in the cytoplasm and named for the Italian scientist who first discovered it in 1897? What a question for our team when we had an actual cell biology PHD owner playing with us! This time, “science guy” Dave took a swing for the hit.

6 Airports – What are the two busiest airports in the United States whose names do NOT contain a city name in their official names? They are the sixth and seventh-busiest airports in the U.S. as of 2022. What? Did we actually get an airport question correct? Bet y’all would not have bet on that! Yet there we were, woo hoo!

7 Working Titles – Lenny, Kenny and Penny was the working title of what sitcom that was ultimately changed when a main character’s name was changed prior to debuting in 2007? My two guys were all over this one (thanks guys)!

8 Short Stories – In what short story by Edgar Allen Poe does the narrator describe his experience of being a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition? Mike and Dave kind of went back and forth about this one, sadly, we didn’t “swing” the right way (yes that’s a clue to the answer).

Mystery Round 2 – Add ‘Em Up – The correct number answers to each of these questions will add up to 100.

M1 – Name of musical duo who had Grammy winning songs called Stressed Out and Heathens

M2 – Numbered interstate running between Las Cruces, NM and Wyoming

M3 – Number of bits in a byte

M4 – Number of chromosomes that people typically have

Missed 1 and 2.

Round 3

9 Academy Awards – Name either of the actresses who received Academy Award nominations for playing the person whose birth name was Norma Jean Mortensen – one in the 2010s, one in the 2020s. Can you believe they actually needed me for an answer in this game? 🙂

10 YouTube – What group with nearly 60 million subscribers, holds more than 20 Guinness world records for feats including most limes sliced in 30 seconds among other things (this was very wordy and I couldn’t be f—ed to expend this kind of energy on a question we didn’t know anyway. Though I guess I just used a lot of words to describe this situation, so the irony ain’t lost on me (more about irony later). Nope!

11 Dynasties – What was the last imperial Dynasty of China that ruled from 1368-1644? this period of Chinese history featured the refurbishment of The Great Wall and large naval expeditions. And all along we thought the dynasty was named for this guy:

12 Commercials – Cynthia and Brittany Daniel, Jean and Elizabeth Sagal and Tia and Tamera Mowry are among the many pairs appearing in commercials for what gum? Second “Yay, we’re old” question for the night.

Mystery Round 3 – Two Songs, One Title

Given the names of the artists and release years, give the name of the hit song both groups recorded.

M1 – 1969, Three Dog Night and 1992, U2

M2 – 1959, Isley Brothers and 1984, Tears for Fears

M3 – 1983, Def Leppard and 2015, Ed Sheeran

M4 – 1992, Radiohead and 1994, TLC

We got all of these correct. And there was an off color joke made about how I felt about this (but it’s not family friendly, lol).

Round Four

13 Relocations – What two cities are home to NHL franchise that moved from Atlanta- those moves taking place in 1980 and 2011? As often happens in trivia games, there is ALWAYS a question you get that you need an absent player to answer. In this case, our absentee player Brad would have helped us here. Boy does he love going on about how this team used to be this team and play somewhere else and boy does he also love talking about the American Basketball Association! Every trivia team has to have “that” quirky player – or several, don’t they?

14 Stock Symbols – What Italian car company trades under the name RACE on the New York Stock Exchange? A bit of discussion, but we hit the finish line here.

15 Original Songs – What song that won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2003 was the only nominee not performed at the ceremony? After a surprise performance at the 2020 ceremony the artist said: “Back at that time, the younger me didn’t really feel that he would understand me.”

16 Street Names – The U.S. Postal Service maintains a list of more than 100 Street names includingStreet, avenue and drive. What four- letter C Street name can also mean a piece of land jutting into the water and a type of cloak?

Mystery Round 4

Add a Letter – Comic Book Edition

The following clues will create new comic book Characters by adding one letter.

M1 – Tony Stark puts on a suit of armor that allows him to fight enemies using words whose meanings are opposite of what they intend or mean

M2 – Catwoman is an expert in singing songs in an improvisational jazzy style using nonsense words

M3 – Fiery founder of the Fantastic Four uses his powers to promote empathy and sympathy

M4 – reddish video game console released in 2017 and alter ego of Wanda Maximoff

Missed #4, Mike took care of this whole round, thanks for the effort on #4!

We were in fifth place going into the final with 86 points. We didn’t feel confident with the category of “U.S. Geography – And MORE!” We remembered a tough final we had about U.S. interstates that was really, really rough…maybe in 2015?

So we only wagered three points on this. And as soon as my husband heard it, he said “Of COURSE we know this!”

Final – The largest moon in the Solar System, also the cupbearer to the gods in Greek Mythology can be spelled using the postal abbreviations of four U.S. states. Place the capitals of those states in alphabetical order.

I didn’t actually write down the tiebreaker question, but from what I heard of it (I think it was about rivers or something), I probably would not have won had we been in a tiebreaker. So had we been in a tiebreaker for fifth and lost, that would have been far more of a bummer than not being in the top teams at all! Trust me on this, I know from experience!

It was fun being a part of a championship game again! Boy do I miss some of the crazy things we used to do in our trivial pursuits! Like driving 40 some-odd miles to Berkley, MI to help out a friend’s trivia team back in 2016. This was mid-July, and our car at the time had no AC! Sadly, just today I learned that the bar where this happened (Patrick J’s) will no longer be offering trivia 😦 Anyone else miss those places where we used to be able to get our trivia fixes but can’t anymore?

We’ll be having a regular old team meetup at our “regular” trivia spot Sunday. As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Fortunato! Maybe some day your story will be the correct answer in a trivia game!