I brought two “borrowed” players from another trivia team along with my longtime trivia “pardner” slash husband Mike to a My Trivia Live semifinal game with fairly low expectations and well, I guess we got ourselves a finals spot anyway! We were even talking before everything shook out about how we didn’t really care about – or even really want to – go to the finals – even if we made it.

Special thanks to Kim S. and Cathy F. from Sparty On for stepping in to help us when my own players had to be elsewhere!

We played our semifinal Saturday, August 3 at McShane’s Pub in Ypsilanti. The top four teams winning finals spots were:

1 Apollo 15, Buffalo Wild Wings (Ann Arbor)

2 Better Late Than Pregnant, Oscars, Saline

3 Miskatonic University Cephalopods, Powells Pub, Ypsilanti

4 Pursuit of Snappyness, McShane’s Pub (Ypsilanti, Thursday nights)

The top four teams have shots at cash prizes at finals Saturday, August 10 at Library Pub in West Bloomfield.

I was so NOT expecting to advance to finals that I didn’t even bother to ask for the day off work. I have some vacation days in August and took a couple of days for a beer festival and didn’t want to be too greedy. Oh well, I guess I’ll be putting on my negotiating cap and maybe juggling some things around with my boss. Work a Sunday instead of Saturday. I’m sure we’ll figure it out!

Every player on my team today did a great job of contributing to correctly answering questions. Some of our answers were even correct! We either/or’d ourselves out of a couple of them, we drew a total blank on a halftime question about books, did not have any players knowing where the sitcom “Martin” was set, picked the wrong NBA team in the correct state on the only sports question and…let’s never speak of Garth Brooks hit songs again, shall we? 🙂 Overall, moods were pretty mellow during the game, no hating, face slapping, tantrums or excessive bitching about our misses. If we failed a question, that was…OK!

Our “TJ,” or “trivia host” Stacy threw out a question because she felt that the wording was too misleading.

Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we decided to take a cue from the “cool” trivia teams. You know the ones that play under team names other than the ones they are registered under with the league? I actually gave it a lot of thought beforehand. Sexual innuendo? Nope. Some kind of hybrid name involving Sparty On (the team helping us in the game) and our own name? Uh, no…Some kind of reference to that super cool guy from Turkey who’s in all of those memes right now? Nope, we’re not cool enough for that!

So I just started thinking of movie quotes, and decided upon:

The rest is history! Han Solo never stops being cool, does he? ♥

We were in fifth going into the final question and we knew that only four teams would be picked to go to “the big dance,” so we were really cutting things close! In the end, my husband’s “strategic” wager wound up saving the day. Hey, I know he’s not the most personable bloke in the world, he is not a morning person and he even middle finger emoji’d me on my phone this morning when I sent him a message to get his butt out of bed! And a grumpy face emoji too! You kiss your mother with those thumbs, mister?

It’s because of his braininess, among other qualities (like making me laugh, his wildly creative mind and having a gentle, kind spirit that he doesn’t show to the world enough), that I still keep him around, especially in trivia games! Oh yeah, he makes great sandwiches, too! 🥪

Just last night, we were driving to a bar when he saw a groundhog crossing the street. He came to a full stop because he knows that I love those dumb chubby animals and that I would want to get a closer look. After it crossed the street, it escaped to safety in a cemetery via a hole in a chain link fence. Now if that isn’t love!

You’ll have to read on to see what he did with the wagering to ultimately win us a trivia spot, and no, there was no Jedi mind trickery or bluffing involved this time around 😉

Here were our very, very abbreviated questions:

Round One

Colors – Cerulean, cornflower and periwinkle are all shades of what color?

Advertising – What insurance company can’t save you from becoming your parents, but can save you by bundling home and auto insurance?

Presidents – What U.S. president was nicknamed “Big Bill” and according to legend had a special bathtub made to accommodate his girth? I learned recently that his love of dairy products (hence the need for a larger tub) prompted him to acquire a cow that was shipped from Wisconsin and ultimately became the official White House cow slash pet! Her name was Pauline Wayne III, and she grazed – and graced – the White House lawn! She was the second White House cow for the Tafts, the first died after eating too many oats. Sadly, Pauline would eventually have to move back to her farm in Wisconsin because of ill health, but she fared better on her home farm. Wisconsin is where dairy cows belong, after all! Read the license plate (they don’t lie)!

Pauline Wayne has her own Wikipedia article, look it up!

No misses this round.

Round Two

Authors – Cat’s Cradle and Breakfast of Champions were penned by what American author? Finally an excuse to use the meme shown at the top of this post! I don’t have many excuses to use that very specific meme!

Human Body – Forgive me, I didn’t really write this one down at all, but there was something about “ear tube.” Ultimately enough players complained that Stacy threw it out and swapped the question for this one:

Fabrics – Pashmina wool is derived from what animal?

Round Three

Movie Soundtracks – “Playing With the Boys” and “I Ain’t Worried” appeared on soundtracks for what original film and later, its sequel?

One of our “hired guns” was all over this (thanks Cathy)!

Websites – Since 1998, the website “Where’s George?” has tracked the location of more than 300 million of what?

Magazines – First published in 1955, what magazine was originally titled Sports Car Illustrated? We had the correct answer as one of our two choices, but nope, we didn’t write it on our slip.

Halftime- Initials #1 Works

Identify the sets of words indicated by initials when given a year each event occurred.

H1 Best-selling album 1996, JLP

H2 Publisher’s Weekly best-selling novel, 2007, ATSS

H3 Highest-rated TV series, 1961-1962, WT

H4 Top grossing domestic U.S. film, 1989, B

Missed #2.

We were in first after the half with 31 points. Our ship will start to take on water and nearly sink before long!

Round Four

Art – A work depicting a pipe titled The Treachery of Images, which features the French words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (this is not a pipe) was created by what surrealist? I have no idea who the guy was who Mike and Cathy discussed and put as our answer, but I sure am glad they knew it! Yeah I only know Dali…and he was NOT it.

We were not given the French words for our question, I just wanted readers to know that the answer is NOT Dali.

Reboots – Shenae Grimes and AnnaLynne McCord starred in a sunny 2010s reboot of what series that originally aired 10 seasons? Kim the hero here!

Philosophy – What problem-solving principle is based upon finding the simplest solution possible? Cathy got a strike here…

Round Five

Opera – La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly are all operatic works by what composer? Cathy the most cultured one here…

Basketball – Which NBA team won the NBA finals twice in between Chicago Bulls’ “threepeat?” I’m sorry if I’m not even close to correctly or accurately recreating this question…I just can’t be f—ed to care. Miss.

Country Music – What was Garth Brooks’ first hit song in 1989, which reached #8 on the Country charts? Kim tried SO hard to get this for us, but nope, our hearts were not too achy breaky for missing it! Yes, I know Achy Breaky Heart was not a Brooks song! Excuse me, my knowledge of cuntry (sic) music is quite limited!

Round Six

Video Games – What video game in the Mario series introduced a companion character named FLUDD? Nope..we didn’t have any video game experts on our team.

Shakespeare- What Shakespeare character uttered the “perchance to dream” line? We dreamed about getting this right, but…nope. We zigged when we shoulda zagged. Or was it the other way around? Miss.

Coins – What U.S. coin has 119 widges, one more than a dime?

We were in fifth going into the final with 51 points. Apollo 15 was in first with 60.

Final Category: Awards

George Bernard Shaw and Bob Dylan are the only two people to have won what two major awards? Sorry, no indication about posthumous or not.

We knew one for sure, put in our best guess for the second one. Mike, the keeper of the score slips and points sheet, had a crazy idea about how we should wager. He kept his thinking secret and just did his thing.

He wagered all of our points except TWO. So we wagered 49 points and…

This put us in third? Really? Oh, OK! Only one team seemed to get it right, and they were the leaders going into the final (Apollo 15). There were six teams tied for fourth with zero points, which was settled with a tiebreaker.

So with two stinking points we – finished third! 🙂 It really is all about the final questions in MTL.

We’ll see if I actually get to go to finals! I’ll talk to my boss next time I work. As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Martin Lawrence!