It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, me and others on my trivia team were regularly competing in two different trivia leagues with varying degrees of success and failures. Win some, lose some, win some big tournament money that one time in one league (My Trivia Live), win some random top five prizes in tournaments in the other league (Sporcle Live).

These days, we’re down to just four of us, and it’s pretty rare when we can get all four of us out to play in one game, let alone more than two of us! The last time we all played together was at Sticks in September (and Dave brought his wife). I’ve had to adapt my “strategy” involving one of our regular players to stay as close to home as possible, so that he can easily get to games even if he doesn’t drive there. Picking trivia spots that happen to be favorite spots to hang out on non trivia nights for your players is also key!

All of that being said, we randomly decided to try out a “new to us” trivia spot, though as the host Adam told me, My Trivia Live has been offering trivia nights for a couple of years at Mash – a whiskey bar in Ypsilanti’s “Depot Town.” For those of you unfamiliar with this jargon, “Depot Town” refers to a historic area of Ypsilanti, MI where businesses were centered around a (duh) railroad Depot. The area was founded by a man named Mark Norris, and a street nearby shares his name as proof of that. But don’t take all of this from me, if you want to learn more about Ypsilanti history, you can read this article: https://aadl.org/ypsigleanings/35662.

If you’re local and lucky, you might even bump into local historian James Mann, who’d probably be happy to tell you more about this town (which celebrated its bicentennial last summer). They even unearthed a time capsule from 1973, which included various documents – though I was kind of bummed that a Jim Croce record wasn’t one of the things in the time capsule! It’s just my weird mind that immediately associated the years 1973 and – Jim Croce! Which turns out to be a little weird (read on)!

There is something to that since Jim Croce died in plane crash in September, 1973, and his song “Time in a Bottle” became a posthumous hit around this time, staying on the charts for 14 weeks. Maybe I have a knack for remembering dates? Shrugs…

So what does Ypsilanti history have to do with this pointless trivia blog? Lots of things! For starters, the place we played on a recent Thursday night, is “historic” in its own right! Mash is part of what is called the “Thompson Block” Of Depot Town buildings and is on the north side of the first floor, sharing space with Thompson & Company, a bar/restaurant serving mainly upscale Southern inspired cuisine and craft cocktails. The top two floors of this building have been renovated as living space for renters. It’s a project that was a LONG time in the making! It was even used as a Civil War barracks, and was home to a variety of other businesses over the years, including a Dodge car dealership way back when the Dodge Brothers might have even still been alive! If the Dodge Brothers went through a time portal and were transported here now, they’d probably enjoy some drinks (those guys liked to party)! Though maybe the prices would shock them!

Here’s a photo I took about eight years ago, using a black-and-white setting on my camera:

The building looks MUCH more spiffy now, obviously… The front is mostly outdoor restaurant/bar seating, some of it covered. I don’t have a photo of my own to share of the new hotness outside, but here’s a photo from the business’ Facebook page:

Aside from my husband and I having lunch at Thompson & Co. a couple of years ago, this was our first time visiting the next door business Mash. I was very curious to find out what it was like inside, and I wasn’t disappointed!

When the trivia game started creeping into the second half, we learned that bar seating was not the best place to be for hearing questions, even if it was nice to have our drinks brought to us instead of going up to the bar for bar service (live and learn, laziness is not always the best policy when it comes to trivia dominance)!

Speaking of drinks, draft beers were on special during the game, and were $2 off! I had a “light” beer called “Hooked” made by North Peak that clocked in at a refreshing 3.9 percent ABV. Drink specials definitely would be a draw for a team like ours that likes our drinks!

And now to the questions, please bear with me, I couldn’t hear a lot of them very well and only jotted down essential bare bones stuff, so…yeah, please deal with it 🙂

Round One

Recipes – What fast-food chain boasts using 11 herbs and spices in its signature recipe?

Bowling – What is the term for three consecutive strikes in bowling? Three strikes may be bad if you’re a lawbreaker, but great if you’re a bowler! Yay I remembered this term from junior high bowling league…

Under the Sea – What sea creature with an equine name mates for life and has males carrying the eggs and going through gestation instead of females?

Got all of these.

Round Two

NFL – What NFL player served 12 years in prison for being involved in a dog fighting operation? Brad swung and hit here…

In the Kitchen – What is the name for the French sauce that translates to “Dutch Sauce” which includes eggs and butter, among other things?

Computers – Safari, Firefox and Chrome are examples of what things related to computers?

Got all of these.

Round Three

Presidents – The Giant Panda exhibit at the National Zoo was started after what U.S. president’s visit to China? And in sad panda news, the pandas are being returned to China. I remember being at the zoo on my honeymoon – the darn things hid the whole time we were there! 🙂

Athletes – Who won the Tour de France between 1999-2005?

Birds – What bird can rotate its head 270 degrees? Brad happened to be wearing novelty socks featuring this bird (who says socks can’t help with answers on trivia nights)!

Got all of these, rest assured, we’ll start f—ing things up very soon!

Halftime – Pairs

Answer the following questions involving pairs.

1 What Full House character was played by twins Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen?

2 Who recorded the country music song Two of a Kind, Working on a Full House?

3 Number of colored Monopoly sets featuring only two properties

4 Common term for restaurant fare including steaks and seafood combined

Missed #2, though considering the category name, we thought Brooks & Dunn was a good guess.

Round Four

Finances – What does DTI stand for in real estate parlance? Miss.

Pop Bands – I really, really didn’t hear this question very well at all, and since it was about Maroon 5, a band I know nothing about, it really didn’t matter that we didn’t get all of the details! Something about its former name? Flowers? Miss, but we used our “Answer of the Day” lifeline for six here.

Beatles – I didn’t hear this one well, either, but we wouldn’t have known this one, either. I went to the Internet to help me out here, what is the name of the recently released song by the Beatles, which is a John Lennon demo enhanced by AI technology, and is technically the “newest” song released by the Beatles? The Beatles are a legit band and I’ll go to the effort to resurrecting a trivia question about them that I couldn’t hear. Maroon 5? Nope, can’t be f—ed!

Round Five

Birds – A 10 million year old fossil of what bird species was recently discovered in Nebraska, making the bird the oldest known living bird on the planet? Brad again the “bird man” here, with the soundest logic imaginable “They sound like dinosaurs, don’t they?” Yes…yes they do! Because we all know what dinosaurs sound like don’t we?

Alcohol Brands – What two branded spirits are typically used to make the Espresso Martini? There were more qualifiers to this question that (sorry) I didn’t chase down. We got one correct, but not both, miss.

Attractions – What New York World’s Fair attraction from 1964 formerly served as a ferris wheel but now sits alongside a Michigan interstate in another form? This was not exactly how this question was worded, but hey, not too many Michigan trivia players are gonna miss this!

Round Six

Early U.S. History – Pocahontas was also known to local settlers by what women’s name? Miss.

Reality TV – What 2016 reality musical competition series featured battles including Channing Tatum, among others? Again, sorry to not go to more effort to resurrect this question that we missed that I didn’t hear in its entirety! I’ll tell ya it’s NOT Masked Singer (which was our guess)>

Diseases – What disease can be caused by lack of sunlight and vitamin C? Yay points for us to end the round!

We had 55 points and were in sixth out of eight teams going into the final (clearly this was a warmup game for us, we hadn’t played any MTL games for more than two years).

Final Category – Actresses

This league lets you wager AFTER hearing the question. Which was:

Actress Gal Gadot’s film debut was in 2009 as a recurring character in what action film franchise?

Our guess was correct and we bet it all on it, but that was not enough for us to break the top 3. Maybe next time?

Our next trivia outing will be Sunday at the YpsiAlehouse, where we will return after a brief hiatus. Unsure when we might visit Mash again, but we’re not ruling out coming back at some point! As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Richard Nixon!