We played the first game of the new My Trivia Live season on a recent warm Sunday evening. Nothing terribly noteworthy about the game, other than actually getting the final question correct! Were we ballsy enough to wager enough points to hold onto our first place lead?

To be fair, we only started playing My Trivia Live games in “earnest” again – after a five year break – fairly recently (about a month ago). We’re trying our best to get back into the swing of things with this league! One major difference between My Trivia Live and Sporcle Events Trivia is that in MTL, players get to hear the final question before deciding how many points to wager on it. In Sporcle Events games players only get to hear/see the category before deciding what points to wager.

We obviously haven’t figured out any real “tricks” for success when it comes to final questions I mean…you either know ’em, or you don’t. And even if you think you know the answer, there’s always that little annoying voice in the back of your mind causing you to doubt yourself.

If we manage to get it all figured out, we’ll post videos on YouTube all about it, and order you to “smash that like button and to subscribe.” But…don’t hold your breath! 🙂

As for the game, we were in the lead going into the final with 60 points, but dropped to second because of our cautious wager. Straight out of the Pods playbook? Yep! Special shout out to my husband and intrepid trivia “pardner” Mike! He was clearly the game MVP – honestly if he’d played by himself, he would have done quite well! He might have f—ed up the explorers question by his own bad self though just like we did as a team (curse explorer questions anyway…we always say Magellan when we should say DeGama, say Portugal instead of Spain)…uh read ahead a few rounds for this one…

Here were our questions, they will be very abbreviated, they were simply read over the mic and not presented to players in any visual form:

Round One

Anatomy – What is the name for the structural internal support of the human body consisting of bones?

Initialisms – What does the letter H stand for in the abbreviation WHO?

Latin – What two-word Latin phrase typically means “seize the day?”

Round Two

Medicine – What infectious disease is sometimes abbreviated to four letters and has been called the “kissing disease?”

Inventors – What founding father, whom was also an inventor, invented a stove bearing his name in 1742?

Fun and Games – Wuat amusement park ride is mentioned by name in a playground clapping game which uses the words “down down baby” among others? Ugh…sometimes the MTL questions are just a bit “too old” for us. I had no memory of this particular clapping game from my childhood. Anyone else remember the “Hello Operator” clapping game? Ahem:

Hello operator…please give me number 9…if you disconnect me…I’ll kick you right behind the refrigerator…there was a piece of glass…Miss Suzie sat upon it…and it went up her…Ask me no more questions…tell me no more lies…

Maybe I went to the wrong school? Sorry, I don’t remember more of this clapping game!

Yeah, we missed this one, we incorrectly guessed merry-go-round.

Round Three

Solar System – Which outer planet has moons named Oberon and Umbriel?

Actors – What actor played Gandhi in the 1982 biopic film?

Poetry – In the poem Warning by Jenny Leigh, what color finishes the line: “When I am an old woman, I shall wear (color name)?”

Why wait til you’re old?

Halftime – Mountains

Name four of the five states containing mountain peaks which are all next highest in elevation after Alaska’s Mount Denali.

Picked three correct states.

Round Four

Explorers – When Ferdinand Magellan sailed the strait which would eventually bear his name, he was sailing under which country’s flag?

Argh, not his home country’s flag, apparently! Miss for SIX! Curse, curse explorers questions which we always f— up!

TV Locales – The fictional city of Hawkins in the Netflix series Stranger Things is in which US state?

Athletes – In 1992, Manon Rhéaume was the first woman in North America to play in what “big four” professional sport, starting in preseason games?

Made correct reasoned guess based on her name’s ethnicity. Not enough to make up for our explorers flub! 🙂

Round Five

Mergers – The CW network was created in 2006 with a merger between WB and what other network?

Toys – What toy brand similar to Transformers were produced between 1983 and 1987? Remember how I said that this was my husband’s game? Yeah I love it when he just writes the answer on the slip and hands it in without discussing it with anyone! If I tried doing the same, all hell would break loose! “What did you write down? Are you SURE? Let me see!” Oh the humanity!

Rappers – What is the stage name of the rapper born Earl Simmons in 1970 – who died in 2021? This is pretty much completely rewritten, I didn’t get it down in its entirety. We used our “word of the day ” freebie answer to avoid having to lose points on it on it.

And you know what’s really, really funny? One of the women working behind the bar was wearing a T-shirt with this rapper’s name on it! Go figure.

Round Six

Borders – The Zambezi River shares a border with Zambia and what neighboring country?

Before and After – When you combine the title of a 1988 Bruce Willis action film with the title of a 1964 Beatles film, what four word phrase do you get (articles excluded)?

Assassins – Who was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth? Yes this was really a question!

We were in first with 60 points, eight points ahead of our nearest team behind us. Our final category was…

Health Codes

In 1909, Chicago became the first US city to enforce a law that made what food safety measure compulsory?

A bit of discussion, Mike kept asking me to name a safety measures involving meat, and for the life of me, I couldn’t think of a specific thing. I did write down a safety measure that is mainly used for other types of animal based products (among other liquid things), and we kept trying to think of the meat thing he wanted to do, and ultimately put down my answer out of desperation – for five points. Thankfully the #2 team missed this, but congrats to Team Francis for getting this right and having the cojones to bet it all!

We have GOT to stop overthinking these questions! New Year’s resolution in July?

A midweek game may be possible this week, nothing etched in stone. As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Ferdinand Magellan! I guess those “East Indies” natives (modern day Phillipines) weren’t too happy to see you – and said “no thank you” to converting to Christianity!