Missing fourteen total points on the mystery rounds alone wasn’t a great way for us to be able to make any noise in our sixth game of the current Sporcle Events season, and third game for us at the YpsiAlehouse! It also didn’t help us to think so highly of Celine Dion in terms of how much her skills are appreciated by her fellow Canadians, but that is another story for another day!

Other than that, it was guessing this instead of that, not knowing enough about Emmett Till, that one Supreme Court justice that was appointed before Brett Kavanaugh, not paying attention to the red carpet actresses at the recent Emmy Awards, not knowing enough about interstates, book characters, music videos from 2000, NBA players who only played with one team in their careers and never won a championship…Other than all of those things we didn’t know enough about, our game was pretty close to perfect! 🙂

Nope we’re not having much luck with the questions this season! It’s been a rough go for us, especially since we ended 2023 on a fairly high note. Guess we either run hot or cold? Our best showing so far is a fifth place finish overall we had in a January 24 game at Arbor Brewing Company, which is especially notable since it was just two of us versus countless teams of six players or more. Sure, we had to wager zero on a final question that most teams missed, but sometimes a team has gotta do what it takes to survive!

When the game was almost over, YpsiAlehouse owner Ted Badgerow took the mic for a few minutes to talk about a zoning request that the Ypsilanti Planning Commission will be addressing at its 7 p.m. Wednesday, February 21 meeting at Ypsilanti City Hall. He asked that people attend this meeting to speak up about plans for the new owners of the Alehouse building (which is called the Centennial Building) to construct a mixed-use condominium/retail development in the parking lot area of the Alehouse, which could negatively impact the business by eliminating parking choices and restricting loading dock access for the Alehouse (among other things).

He stressed that he wanted the commission to know that the Alehouse – which has been open since 2016 – is a “Vital downtown business,” offering live music, and a variety of other entertainment six days a week.

The former journalist in me wants to keep an unbiased mind about this proposal and just “state the facts,” but on this issue, I’m gonna say…

Nope! If it’s gotta happen and ends up happening, please, please, please work with the YpsiAlehouse as much as possible to accommodate their needs for access and parking! And really…is there enough of a population boom in Ypsi that we really need a multi-story housing development here?

Fliers distributed at the Alehouse mentioned that in the future, underground parking might be an option. Projects like that could take years to happen, and the impact on the highly historic area, I think, would just be too much. I don’t want to be a “Not in my back yard” person here, but this does not need to be here. Plus, parking garages that are above ground are sketchy enough. Does anyone else think a subterranean parking garage would just encourage crime? And serve as a potential vampire hangout? 😃

More details here…https://cityofypsilanti.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=2145

Sorry for that little interruption there, if you’re just here for the trivia questions, keep on truckin’!

Now for the questions…

Game One/Round One

1 Dance – The Rockettes’ signature high kicks are based on what dance that originated in France?

2 Pitchers – In 2004, at the age of 40, who became the oldest MLB pitcher to throw a perfect game?

NERD POINT: Which National League team was he pitching for at that time? Miss.

3 Stores – In what decade did the first IKEA store in the United States open outside of Philadelphia? Miss.

4 Interstates – Interstate 80 runs nearly 2,900 miles from Teaneck, NJ to what west coast city? And thus completed our first round hat trick of…suck. Not….good!

Mystery Round One – Fill in the Blank

Fill in the blank with the answer that contains each sequential list.

M1 – US Paper currency – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, BLANK, Andrew Jackson

M2 – Greek letters – Theta, Iota, BLANK, Lambda, Mu

M3 – US Federal holidays (chronologically) – Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, BLANK, Columbus Day

M4 US Supreme Court Justices (chronologically by appointment) – Elena Kagan, BLANK, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Ketanji Brown Jackson

Missed #4. Just could not think of their name…

Round Two

5 Original Songs – What 1956 single by Elvis Presley was originally recorded four years earlier by Big Mama Thornton, whose version spent seven weeks at #1 on the Billboard R&B chart? FB clue.

6 TV Movies – The 2016 TV movie subtitled Let’s Do the Time Warp Again is based on what 1975 film?

7 Empires – Located primarily in the Andes Mountains, what was the largest empire by area in pre-Columbian America, before it was conquered by the Spanish in the late 16th century?

8 Plants – What genus of flowering plants lends its name to the girlfriend of Porky Pig?

Yay, a round without misses! Maybe this mystery round will be like that too? Spoiler, nope!

Mystery Two – Initials to Baseball Position

Name the POSITION in baseball that has the same initials (or common abbreviation) as the person described in each clue. give the name of the position, not the person’s name or initials.

M1 Actress who has been nominated for golden Globe Awards for her roles in the films Basic Instinct, Casino, The Mighty, and The Muse.

M2 Saturday Night Live cast member known for playing over the top motivational speaker Matt Foley

M3 Beninese born actor who appears in the music videos for Straight Up by Paula Abdul and Express Yourself by Madonna

M4 Hall of Fame basketball player who won six NBA championships with the Chicago bull and who won Olympic gold medals in 1992 and 1996

Missed #3.

We were tied for eighth out of 10 teams going into the final with 42 points. Isla’s College Fund and solo team MikeB were tied for first with 49 points, and Street Smarts was in second with 46. Solo guy Mike has been on fire this season! Maybe we ought to sit closer to him and try cheating off his paper! 🙂

Final Category – Canadian Music

In the decade of the 2010s, four solo artists were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Name three of those artists, all of whom had their biggest hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in the 1990s.

We really tried on this. As soon as I heard the category, I started listing every Canadian music artist I could think of. Here’s proof that I actually did that and am not just saying that to sound like I actually know things about Canadian music!

Disregard Eminem’s name, he was not part of the Canadian music brainstorming!

There’s one artist I didn’t write down and turned out to be correct. And apparently ALL teams put down a popular artist who wasn’t correct as their answer!

I don’t have the “after the final” scores as of this blog posting, so I do not know if any teams got this correct…

Round Three/Game Two

9 Mascots – What boxed food product has a white gloved hand as its mascot and has varieties including tuna and hamburger?

10 Bounty Hunter Stephanie Plum is the main protagonist in a series of novels by what author? Miss.

11 Landmarks – In January, 2021, Emmett Till’s childhood home was designated a historic landmark by the city council in what city? Miss. We were all about naming a bunch of cities in Alabama, which was not even the correct state…

12 Traditions – What is the common birthstone used for the month of January?

Mystery Round Three – Visual

We only got #4 correct (isn’t she adorable)?

Round Four

13 Country Names – What was the most popular baby name in the US during the decade of the 2000s that is also the name of a country? Miss.

14 Thriller Films – A novelist named Paul Sheldon and a nurse named Annie Wilkes are the main characters in what 1990 psychological thriller film?

15 Music Videos – What rapper released a 2000 single with a music video that features lookalikes of Kid Rock, Carson Daly and Pamela Anderson, among others? Miss, though we did consider the right person (as evidenced in that photo from earlier).

16 Gymnastics – The lever, iron cross, and shoulder stand are among the skills performed on which gymnastics apparatus?

Mystery Round Four

B There

The following answers will all start with the letter B

M1 Body of water between the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, separating Russia from Alaska

M2 The only Hindu-majority province in Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands

M3 US National monument in southeastern Utah that features a pair of buttes named for certain parts of a animal in the genus Ursus

M4 Las Vegas resort hotel whose signature attraction is a large, dancing water fountain

Missed #2, we guessed Borneo.

Final Category – Not NBA Champs

Of the 11 NBA players who played at least 15 seasons and with only one franchise, two never won a championship. Name either of those players, whose careers ended in 2003 and 2005.

We were in last with 36 points going into the final. Street Smarts was in first with 53, Merde was in second with 52.

We had to wager zero on this, we just didn’t have the collective team knowledge for this one. Sadly, doing so didn’t pay off for us in any way. Street Smarts and Vital Downtown Business finished in first and second respectively.

A mid-week trivia game won’t work out for us this week, but we should be back at it Sunday at the Alehouse. We may be really sucking right now, but damn it, we don’t give up! As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, KD Lang!