Our three-game streak of winning trivia game prizes came to an end on a recent Tuesday during a My Trivia Live game at McShane’s Pub in Ypsilanti. I’ll give you all a few minutes to grab a tissue to soak up those tears while you process this sad, sad news (there, there). Or if you prefer, you can begin laughing maniacally. All emotions are legit, so have whatever feelings you choose! Or not!

Our moods were so silly on this trivia night we just shrugged off not winning any prizes. There was quite a bit of reminiscing about our respective younger days! Kim remembered flying to Vegas when she was 21 and seeing the Grand Canyon, and Dave has been going through old snapshots at home. When he mentioned that he found pictures from the Wheatland Music Festival in the early 2000s, my reaction was “God hopefully I’m fully clothed in all of those.” He said “Yes, and thankfully I am too!”

I mentioned having a college roommate whose boyfriend worked for Frito-Lay and brought us free chips. When she started dating a different guy, we tried to encourage her to stay with the Frito-Lay guy so that our free chip supply would not dry up (we also thought he was nicer than the other guy so it wasn’t JUST about the chips, though they were important). She did go back to the chip guy!

Anyone else think that the days with no social media were kind of awesome? 😂 Any embarassing photos can be banished to boxes -or burned!

Anyway, on another topic (ahem)…we’re not in any real contention in the bar’s standings at the moment, since we haven’t played enough games. We haven’t played a whole MTL season since before the pandemic. We play when we can play!

Here were the questions, most of which will be heavily abridged:

Round One

Capital Cities – Denver is the capital of what U.S. state?

At the Theater – Whose hand was eaten by a crocodile in the 1904 play Peter Pan? This could have just as easily have been a “books” or “animated films” question.

2000s Music – What rapper recorded the Marshall Mathers E.P.?

Round Two

French Food – At what holiday would one serve Buche de Noël? My sister in law makes these every year, I admire her dedication!

Here’s an AI rendering (hers looks better):

Doctors – William Mayo opened a medical clinic in 1864 in what U.S. state?

Animals – What is the offspring of a male donkey and female horse called?

Round Three

From the Latin – What Latin word usually used with dates, refers to at, approximately or of?

Supreme Court – Who was the first African American member of the U S. supreme Court?

Awards – Awarded by President Andrew Johnson, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was the only woman to ever receive what prestigious military award, doing so in 1865?

Halftime – Food Additives

Name four of the five vitamins added to flour to make it “enriched.”

Got all of these so…10 points! We had a perfect score of 37 going into the second half, with Three right behind us with 36; Pants was in third with 33; Matty Platters was in fourth with 32; ??? had 30 points, Spacecats and Dead Guys were tied with 29 and Han Solo had 25.

Our perfect game… wouldn’t stay perfect! Entropy will occur! Though no six point misses!

Round Four

Fishing – What author launched an international Billfishing competition in 1950, attracting fishermen from around the globe?

Math – What Greek letter is used to represent the summing up of numbers?

Billionaires – Larry Fink is the founder and CEO of what multinational investment company? Our first miss of the game (won’t be our last).

Round Five –

Science – What word describing a process of coating with zinc is named for an 18th century physicist? Nice work Mike with Dave backing him up, teamwork makes the dream work! 🤜

1990s Movies – What Scottish outlaw did Liam Neeson play in a 1995 film?

Baseball – Who was the only pitcher to throw a perfect game in World Series history in 1956? Miss.

Round Six

Alphabets – What alphabet was created by Eastern Orthodox people who spoke Slavic languages?

Movie Ratings – Name the movie produced by Steven Spielberg that prompted the PG-13 rating. I’m not 100 percent on this wording, but we missed this, picked an earlier Spielberg film that has been discussed as needing to have this rating (though it wasn’t a rating at the time). Miss, we went with Poltergeist.

Publications – What publication based in New York City is referred to as “The Journal?”

We dropped down to fourth with 65 points, We’d Rather Be At was in first with 71, one point ahead of Three who had 70, and Pants (our former Wurst Bar rivals), was in third with 67 points.

Final Category – Quotes

What late singer said the following quote in a 1985 Opening Statement to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Rock Lyrics and Record Labeling:

“Bad facts make bad law. And people who write bad laws are, in my opinion, more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality.”

We didn’t even discuss the right person. We knew that they had to be dead, so we were super bummed to NOT be able to say Dee Snider. Seriously three of us wanted to put him as our guess at the same time! But five other teams knew this. We did guess a dead singer whom was a prominent target of Tipper Gore, but nope…

Did that parental advisory label do anything but make us want to buy the stuff with the labeling? Ooh explicit lyrics, let’s listen! “Gee, I wouldn’t normally buy a 2 Live Crew album, but that warning label looks so cool! Those explicit lyrics MUST be awesome, right? If Tipper Gore hates it I’m totally buying it.” Did this labeling actually increase sales? Probably!

We’ll be back at McShane’s for the last week of the MTL season next week, but our trivial pursuits are done for the week. As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Frank Zappa! And his kids Dweezil (who was kind of cute in the 1980s 😘) and his sister Moon Unit, too!