I’m not sure if we’ve ever attended two debut trivia nights for the same place! In March 2016, we braved a snowstorm to play the first debut trivia night at Original Gravity in Milan. We played there semi regularly until they stopped offering trivia around when the plague hit the globe.

On Thursday April 25, 2024? Second debut trivia night at OG! Instead of battling weather, we braved blocked roads, detours and orange cones. Wow, and I thought the road construction headaches were bad in Ypsilanti! At least now I know what the prison looks like! Sanford Road not a bad alternative route if we want to stay off the highway.

As for the game, we finished second overall with 105 points, lost a tiebreaker for second in game one, won second in game two. Best finish of 2024 so far! We’ve been in such a slump, and just recently returned to trivia habits because of being busy with…a variety of things.

OG does not show questions on screen for players, and the acoustics were a bit…lacking – so…technology to the rescue? I like the feature that allows teammates whom are not using phones to submit answers to “play along” on their phones in a sort of read only mode. Had I not been able to see the questions being asked on my tablet, I would have had great difficulty since I couldn’t understand the host on the mic well. I know, I know it’s a double edged sword – phones in trivia games give the opportunity and perception of cheating (more about that, read on), but they are useful tools for those of us who’d never, ever cheat in a trivia game! Tsk, tsk…

And I can take screen shots to make doing the recaps easier and – who doesn’t like accurate questions as opposed to facsimiles from heavily abbreviated notes?

On that note…

Round One/Game One

1 Theater – Opened in 1825, the Bolshoi Theater hosts ballet and opera performances in what city?

2 Film Jobs – The three main characters in the 2016 film Hidden Figures primarily perform what job for NASA?

3 Song Lyrics – What is the name of the boy challenged by the Devil 👿 in the lyrics to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band?

NERD POINT – What does the Devil offer as his wager against the boy’s soul?

4 Newspapers – The 1878 merger between the Evening Post and the Dispatch formed what is now the largest daily newspaper in which Midwestern metro area – Kansas City, St. Louis Omaha or Milwaukee?

Miss.

Mystery Round 1

NHL Greats

Name the player who was honored by the NHL as one of the 100 greatest players in recognition of the league’s 100th anniversary in 2017.

M1 23-time All-Star who debuted in 1946 with the Detroit Red Wings and was still playing with the Hartford Whalers at the age of 52 in 1980

M2 Defenseman who primarily played for the Toronto Maple Leafs but is also known for the doughnut shop that he opened in 1964 that became a chain restaurant

M3 Goaltender who won both the Vezina Trophy and the Hart Memorial Trophy in 1997 and 1998 while playing for the Buffalo Sabres

M4 First overall pick in the 2004 draft who is known as the “Great Eight”

Missed 3 and 4.

Round Two

5 Drama TV – The drama series Queen Sugar, which aired from 2016-2022 on the Oprah Winfrey Network, was created by what filmmaker, whose directing credits include the documentary 13th and the 2018 film A Wrinkle in Time?

Miss.

6 Metals – Of the six metals that make up the platinum group on the periodic table, two have names beginning with “P,” including platinum. Name the other “P” element in the group which has a nine -letter name and the atomic number 46. A lot of discussion, some of which involved made-up elements such as pandemonium, platimony and perineum – but we got it.

7 Abbreviations – Name one of the two “S” words represented in the abbreviation SASE, as it relates to mailing and postage.

8 Infomercials – What product has been featured in an infomercial in which pitchman  Vince Offer delivers the lines “This tuna looks boring. Stop having a boring tuna. Stop having a boring life.” When I heard the name (which escaped us),I said, “Hey wasn’t that a hockey movie with Paul Newman?”

Got all of these.

We were in third with 40 points going into the final behind Ryan and the Ladies and the Josh Pit. Eight teams overall.

Final Category – Astronomers

What astronomer is credited with proving the existence of galaxies beyond the Milky Way, doing so in the 1920s by demonstrating that the Andromeda Nebula, among others, was much too distant and must be a galaxy in its own right?

We were tied with Ryan and the Ladies for second  after answering this correct so we had to answer this tiebreaker:

To the nearest degree Fahrenheit, what is the boiling point of platinum?

We guessed 900 degrees, our competitors guessed the answer as 3215 degrees, the correct answer was… 3215 degrees. Now this tells me one of three things – one, they had a chemist on their team, two – they’re really, really lucky – or AND I DO NOT WANT TO THINK THIS…they cheated. I even mentioned to the host that this was a bit too close for comfort, and he said he’d talk to the team. The story he brought back was that the team “meant” to put in 3250 degrees but mistyped it.  And I want to believe that they were being honest. Really, I do!

Game Two/Round Three

9 Presidents – What US president is the tallest to have served, doing so in the 19th century while standing 6 feet four inches? I’m a tall person, so unsurprisingly, I know some “tall facts!” Does anyone know who the shortest president was?

10 2010s Movies –  The following clip is taken from the trailer to what 2010 animated film that has produced two sequels, including a 2019 film subtitled The Hidden World? Thanks Dave for spotting this!

11 NBA Players – In 1994, while playing for the Houston Rockets, who became the first NBA player to be named MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP in the same season? Thanks again Dave!

12 Countries – What large peninsula with a five letter name contains the only part of Egypt located in continental Asia?

Mystery Round 3

Eight Letter Ladies

Name the female characters with eight letter names played by the following women in TV series

M1 Kim Cattrall, Sex and the City

M2 Kate Flannery, The Office

M3 Viola Davis, How to Get Away with Murder

M4 Sandra Oh, Grey’s Anatomy

Missed 3 and 4.

Round 4

13 Mythology – Lycaon of Arcadia is a character in Greek mythology whose tale is believed to be the origin story of what legendary creature?

14 Temperature – Temperatures measured in Kelvin increase and decrease at the same magnitude as what other scale?

15 Words – What colorful nine-letter slang term for an inexperienced person may have originally referred to a young ox or bull?

16 Discoveries – Within 15, in what year was the wreckage of the RMS Titanic discovered by an expedition led by Robert Ballard?

Got all of these only two years off on last one. Nice overall teamwork on this last round!

Mystery Round 4

Hurry Up and Wait

The correct answer to each clue includes the word “wait,” either on its own or as part of another word

M1 1992 novel by Terry McMillan that was adapted into a 1995 film starring Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett

M2 NPR program that features panelists and contestants being quizzed about that week’s news

M3 1953 play by Samuel Beckett in which the title character never shows

M4 Folk singer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011

We were in first going into the final with 50 points. As luck would have it (unlike the “luck” that allowed that team to “guess” the correct boiling point of platinum in the previous game), the category scared us into a zero wager.

NFL Draft

From 2010-2023, two franchises each selected three quarterbacks in the first round of the NFL Draft. Name both of those franchises – one that selected quarterbacks in 2012, 2014 and 2018 – and the other that selected quarterbacks in 2011, 2014 and 2021.

Josh Pit the only team to get this. We got second. Yay, first prize money for us this year! Nice way to end a stressful sad month!

We’ll be back, ideally when we can bring at least three of us. As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Edwin Hubble!