Scroll all the way down for the answers.

How competitive was the Tuesday night trivia scene at McShane’s Pub in Ypsilanti? FOUR teams were involved with tiebreakers for prizes at the end!

Very, very sad to say that my team wasn’t one of them!

As I confessed to a teammate last night, I really, really love tiebreakers. Though I probably used a… little more lewd language than that!

This is how I felt about being left out of the tiebreaker fun last night:

I even wrote down my own guess and showed it to the host! 😔

The tiebreaker subject was “writers,” and the question was:

In what year was Gene Siskel born?

My guess was only two years off from the correct guess (two years too early).

As for how we did in the game? Not terrible, but certainly not great! I always say “If we have a score of higher than 50, that’s… OK.” No prizes for us this time, we finished with 55 points. Two teams got the final question correct, but no teams wagered points on it. Not having someone in the mix who knew about old time sportsball stuff definitely hurt us. And shame on us for not remembering the United States Postal Service service (I hate to use that word twice in a row but I kinda have to here) that – get this – would PRINT out e-mails for corporate clients to deliver to physical addresses. Yes, this service was offered in the 1980s, apparently. I think maybe 1-2 teams got this one correct.

Hey we all have those family members who still “print out the internet,” don’t we? We’re a long way off from being a completely paperless society. Now if only I could get my mom to see the cat photos I sent to her on her “new to her” smart phone! I think I’ll call her today – on her land line that she still uses – to tell her she has some text messages on her smart phone! I know if I use the words “cat photos” she might actually be enticed to turn the phone on and look at them while wearing her reading glasses!

Here were our abbreviated questions:

Round One

Nursery Rhymes – According to the nursery rhyme, April showers bring May what?

World Capitals – Madrid is the capital of what country?

From the French – Pomme de terre in French translates into “Apple of the Earth” or what root vegetable in English?

Round Two

Energy – Photovolteic cells get their energy from what source?

Animals – House Targarian is represented by what animal in Game of Thrones? And this is where Mike went on a rant about how much he hates this book series and TV series (though to his credit he read some of the books and watched at least one season of the series). Hey, I don’t care how he feels about GOT as long as he helps us get trivia questions about it correct!

Same Name – What geographic feature is used to describe little or no growth or decline following a period of progress?

Round Three

Food – Considered a child of Hollandaise, what sauce, typically paired with steak, shares its name with a province in France? Sometimes in trivia you get lucky – and the only thing you can think of for an answer turns out to be correct (meaning the one other French sauce besides Hollandaise that I could name turned out to be the right sauce).

Architecture – A cupola is typically found where on a building?

Legends – According to legend, Romulus and Remus were twins who founded what city? As Michigan cities, they are pretty far away from each other (yes there is a Remus, MI and some family members of my husband live there)! It’s a happening little town located on M-20! It has a Subway, an organic foods store, a dollar store, a grocery store, a tractor repair business – and an annual music festival called Wheatland. What are you waiting for, start planning your trip now! No motels, but you might be able to rent someone’s farm house!

Halftime – Movie Subtitles

Given the subtitles for high grossing 2022 films, identify the movie titles.

Maverick, The Way of Water, Dominion, The Rise of Gru

Missed the last two (but nice try Kim on the last one you at least knew more than us there)!

We had 31 points at the half playing under the alias “My Malibu Skipper doll was deported to the country of Mattel.” Recently learning that Mattel is a country got me really curious – what’s the capital city, what’s the most populous city, what are the primary ethnic groups, what’s the national language, what types of flora/fauna might one find in Mattel, what are the primary exports…

JK, JK (you all knew that right)?

Now for the second half to destroy us! Are you sure you want to read on? You can stop reading now if you want!

Round Four

Empires – The Golden Horde and the Blue Horde were factions of what empire? Thank the gods that my husband’s world history knowledge saved us here… (thanks honey)!

Journalists – What Wall Street Journal journalist was kidnapped and murdered by Islamic militants in 2002? We all remembered this news story, and when the name was revealed as the answer, we were like “Oh yeah, that guy.” We remembered the story, just couldn’t remember his name, miss.

Speaking of things we didn’t know…

Athletes – What actor and TV host was drafted by the NFL in 1991 by the Rams as an 11th round pick? We did pick a football player who is also a TV host, but not the right one, miss. This was the first of two sports questions fucking us! Actually, we used our “word of the day” to keep the second sports question from destroying us (but would have preferred using it on a different question). Speaking of questions we didn’t want to wager points on:

Round Five

Postal Services – What was the name of the USPS electronic mail service that printed e-mail messages for corporate clients to be delivered to physical addresses? It was proposed in 1978 and used in the 1980s. No clue from any of us, miss.

Classic Baseball – What baseball player had a streak of 56 straight games with a hit in each game that ended in July, 1944? If they’d worded this question a little differently, like maybe using the words “Marilyn Monroe,” I might have actually known the answer! We used our “answer of the day” freebie on this one. The answer of the day for this game was “mayhem,” which was also a good descriptor of how we were doing in this game! 😂

Cities – Guayaquil is the economic leader and main port city of what country? I actually wrote down the correct city as my first guess, but did we actually submit this as our answer? Nope! Speaking of trivia about this country, did you know that guinea pigs are a delicacy here? I think they’re called “cuy” or something like that.

We were heading into the final round with a mere 43 points. Would we meet my benchmark and break 50 points? Read on to see (if you dare)!

Round Six

Critics – What movie reviewer from the Chicago Tribune said that Saturday Night Fever was his favorite film and to prove this, bought the suit that John Travolta wore in the movie? I initially wrote down one critic, but thankfully changed my mind and wrote down another one before handing it in. The way our game was going, I figured whatever I wrote down first HAD to be wrong. Yay this put us up to 47 points! Only three to go!

Medical Terms – What seven-letter term describes a long flat bone forming the center of a human chest? Yay 53 points!

Relations – What country began a tradition known as “Panda Diplomacy” in 1941? As much as I love the cuteness of these animals, deep down, they’re…kind of…jerks. They only eat one thing (not unlike a picky eating child who’ll only eat chicken nuggets, but for pandas, it ‘s bamboo), they can’t even be bothered to easily make copies of themselves (seriously has anyone tried playing Barry White or Sade music for them), and they love to hide when you come out to a zoo to see them. But gosh darn it they are just SO cute, aren’t they (we’ll forgive you for being jerks)!

Scores heading into the final:

Lovers, 41; Dead Guys, 46; My Malibu Skipper doll was deported to the country of Mattel (us), 55; Rather Be At, 59; Matty Platters and Three tied with 62; We Were Never Here (yes you were I totally saw you) and Spacecats tied for first with 64.

Final Category – Super Bowl Advertising

In 2025, what organization ran what they claimed was the first fresh produce ad in a Super Bowl commercial?

Every single team wagered zero – though two teams got it correct.

Teams Three and Matty Platters had to break a tie for third, and teams We Were Never Here and Spacecats had to settle a tie for first.

The question category: Writers

In what year was Gene Siskel born?

This means Three finished in third, Spacecats finished in second, and We Were Never Here finished first.

After the game, I chatted a bit with one of the other players about one of our favorite topics! Pens! Francis from team Spacecats generously gave me a four-color Bic pen at a trivia game at Powell’s last summer, so I wanted to tell him that I added two more four-color Bic pens to my collection – two of which have pastel colors but most importantly – my favorite ink color purple!

Then he showed me a couple of his Marvel four-color Bic pens, one of which had Spider-Man on it (don’t remember what was on his other pen).

Here’s a pic showing the colors of one of my new pens:

More important than our fascinating discussion about pens though – was the final question at last weekend’s MTL finals championship! Since I know I wasn’t there and not all of the followers of this pointless blog were there either, here it is (abridged):

What world capital city known for both religion and royalty had the busiest airport in 2024? I wasn’t there, so this is how the question was reported to me second hand.

Two McShane’s teams wound up finishing in the top 10 for knowing this – Spacecats, and Rather Be At.

Our next trivia game is TBD. Turns out I may not be working an 11 hour shift Thursday after all, whether I feel like a trivia game that night will be a game time decision.

As always, Go Pods and stay classy, Joe DiMaggio!

Answers

R1

Flowers, Spain, potato

R2

Sun, dragon, plateau

R3

Bearnaise, roof, Rome

H

Top gun, avatar, Jurassic world, minions

R4

Mongol, Daniel Pearl, terry crews

R5

E-COM, Joe DiMaggio, Ecuador

R6

Siskel, sternum, china

F avocados from mexico

Answer from MTL finals May 10: Bangkok