Scroll to the bottom for the answers.

We brought a foursome to play the last game of the current My Trivia Live season on a recent Thursday at McShane’s Pub in Ypsilanti. Despite the jokes some of the players like to make about just being “seat warmers,” there was absolutely none of that on this particular trivia night! Everyone had a role to play!

We finished first with a $30 prize.

This time we had myself, my husband Mike, our longtime friend Dave, and Kim, whom I’ve known for nearly a decade, and has her own trivia team called Sparty On. She’s backed up my team in regular games and tournaments on countless occasions, and is also a frequent collaborator with me in music trivia games. Note to MTL brass, we miss Face the Music games – please bring those back! 🙏

We’ll be playing in a Sporcle Events “Music Quiz” game Monday, April 7 at Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti.

As for the past season at McShane’s, we played 13 total games over a 20-week season that started around Thanksgiving, 2024. Only the highest scores count for teams playing in bars that offer more than one trivia night in MTL games, so we logged 10 total scores in the past season officially. Our lowest score was 43 points and our highest was 70 points.

We didn’t play enough games last season to be in contention for a semifinals spot this time, and I don’t know for sure if we’ll ever be able to do that again. It’s not easy planning your life that many weeks out these days.

All I can say for sure is we’ll play when we play! We’re only playing once a week these days, though we’ll occasionally play twice if the stars are right!

Here were our abbreviated questions:

Round One

States – What U.S. state is geographically closest to Cuba?

Sports – What ice sport do players use brooms and brushes?

Oscar Winners – What 1997 epic disaster film was nominated for 14 Academy Awards, winning 11?

Round Two

Vitamins – What vitamin is known as the “sunshine vitamin?”

Sports Movies – What sport is the focus in the 1996 film Tin Cup?

Scales – What scale measures the spiciness and hotness of a chili pepper?

Round Three

Festivals – What 2017 music festival organized by Billy McFarland and Ja Rule turned out to be fraudulent? Thanks to Dave for having watched a Netflix documentary about this!

Politicians – Who made four bids for U.S. president – twice as a Green Party candidate in 1996 and 2000, as a Reform candidate in 2004 and as an Independent in 2008?

Fairy Tales – What does the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk say that he smells immediately after saying “Fee Fi Fo Fum?” This is an important plot point in the movie Troll Hunter. Which is about actual trolls, not Internet trolls!

Halftime – Color Me Up

Identify the colors for the following game parts:

1 Color of history wedge in Trivial Pursuit

2 Color of Australia in Risk

3 Color of Kentucky Avenue in Monopoly

4 Color of battleships in Battleship

Missed #1 and #2 (I was torn between two TP colors and picked the wrong one). Clearly it’s been too long since I’ve played that game!

Halftime scores:

30 points, Ypsi Starlings Dead Guys and Spacecats; 31, Pods (us); 32, Save the Trees, Pursuit of O Snappiness, Market Crash and Longest City Name in the World. Long team names are definitely a thing at this bar, but we’re rebels and usually opt for brevity! Also I’m lazy and don’t want to write more than four letters for a team name 🥱 🦥

Round Four

Desserts – What dessert has a custard base with a caramelized sugar topping?

Outer Space – What was the name of the first artificial satellite?

Diseases – What serious disease is also known as lockjaw?

Round Five

Dolls – What defunct women’s magazine offered a paper doll named Betsy in 1951? Miss.

Human Anatomy – What human body part has the greatest number of bones? A lot of debate, but we got it.

Women’s Firsts – Charlotte Ray, Ada Kepley and Arabella Mansfield were pioneering women in what profession? No idea, so we used our “word of the day” freebie pass to avoid having to answer this. All I could think of here was “Facts of Life” actress Charlotte Rae! I even spelled her name this way in my notes!

I’ll just bet that Charlotte Rae could have played a great lawyer (sorry I totally gave a hint to the answer here not sorry)! 😁

Round Six

Recent Music – What 1980s band teamed up with Pit Bull on the song “Now or Never?” Yay Kim who listened to this song today and has a great love of this 80s band!

In the Kitchen – What is the highest quality grade of steak in the U.S.? A lot of chewing here on possible answers (see what I did there) but we somehow got this.

State Capitals – What is the capital of Colorado?

We moved up to first with 65 points going into the final, right behind us were Market Crash with 63; Dead Guys with 62; Starlings and Go Tigers with 60; Spacecats and Long Welsh town name, 58; and Pursuit of O Snappiness, 56.

Final Category – National Symbols

Featured in an English anthem written by Alexander Muir that some consider an unofficial anthem, what national symbol of a world country is also the name of an Amtrak train that goes from Penn Station under Madison Square Garden to Union Station on Front Street West?

I actually did write this question down word for word. Now who can read this whole thing in one breath? 🤣

Lots of chatter, at one point one of us actually said the correct answer. Did we write that on our slip? It’s cute that you might have thought that, but nope! 

No teams got this, zero wagers prevailed.

Our trivia plans next week are TBD. As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Ralph Nader!

R1

FL, curling, Titanic

R2

D, golf, scoville

R3

Fyre, Nader, blood of an Englishman

H

Brown, purple, red, yellow

R4

Creme brulee, Sputnik, tetanus

R5

McCall’s, hand, lawyer

R6

Bon Jovi, prime, Denver

F maple leaf