Scroll all the way to the end for the answers:

Wow, has it really been a whole year since my trivia team came out of post-pandemic “exile” in the My Trivia Live league?

Yes, it was June 16, 2024 when I brought a threesome for a My Trivia Live game at Powell’s Pub! This was at the request of the host/TJ Stacy. She texted me and said that she missed us – and also said that her Sunday show was struggling – could we please come and try to help a gal out?

My “trivia pardner” (husband) and I talked about it a bit, and…the rest is history!

Sadly, the Powell’s show didn’t make it much longer after that 😔 That’s around when we started wandering, kind of like guy you see below:

Yes, we wandered the local trivia landscape a bit for a few months like that guy (played by David Carradine) in Kung Fu (though not nearly as cool) – trying to find another trivia spot to call “home.” Well, maybe not an “actual” home, because the bar staff would kick us out if we tried to do that! Wouldn’t that be a funny movie though? Where a loveable drunk is a bar regular and always tries to find creative places in the bar to sleep it off at his favorite bar after it closes? Who would be a good choice for the loveable drunk (male or female)?

So we wandered into McShane’s Pub on a late summer day in September, 2024, thinking we’d give this place a shot after being absent from its trivia scene since 2019. We saw some familiar faces, but a lot of unfamiliar ones, too.

From that point, we enjoyed some modest degrees of success at McShane’s, so we made it a semi-regular place up until the end of 2024. More recently, we’ve started playing there more regularly. Now that summer is nearly here (if one follows the calendar), we still don’t know how regularly we’ll continue playing at McShane’s. Life happens, and sometimes other trivia spots open up, and work life gets busier! It can be hard to plan things months in advance anymore.

As for this most recent game, we did pretty well! Missing just one question in the halftime round was enough to put us four points behind – and in second place going into the final with 65 points. Yes, we were insanely jealous of our competitor’s score of…(wait for it):

We never said that we were a mature trivia team! 😂

Still, we’ll happily take a second place prize on what was a very competitive trivia night! Even if it means getting beaten by the top dog team, who typically play under the name “Three,” though overly long names with hashtags seem to be a “thing” at this bar!

Here were our abbreviated questions:

Round One

Measurements – How many minutes are in a quarter of an hour?

Song Titles – What colorful aquatic vehicle did the Beatles sing about in 1966?

Fruit – Ponderosa, Lisbon, Eureka and Meyer are all varieties of what citrus fruit? Dave saved the day here, woot!

Round Two

Fictional Worlds – In books by L. Frank Baum, what fictional world did Dorothy Gale get swept into as a result of a tornado?

Science – What scientific discipline is defined by Merriam-Webster as the study of material remains of past human life and activities? We really debated between two possibilities here, thankfully we picked the right one.

Food – What popular Canadian food consists of fries topped with gravy and cheese curds? There may have been disagreement at our table as to whether or not this food is delicious or “nope,” but we agreed on our answer!

Round Three

Sports – Which is the most recent team to win back-to-back Superb Owls? This is how I’m referring to the NFL championships in all of my blogs from now on 🦉 😂 OK, maybe just a couple of more!

Notable Books – What author wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Color Purple, published in 1982? If I were like an actor on stage at the Oscars receiving an Oscar, I’d spend a few minutes thanking my brain for remembering this fact! Seriously…it took me a minute to remember this (whew)! Those trivia moments where you know a question answer is all you – and you don’t want to let down your team!

Technology – In May, 2025, what tech company announced it was changing the way it names its updates to its IOS system?

Halftime – Looking Up

Choose which of the following things are the tallest.

My husband made a joke here… and said my name! Silly boy…☺

H1 Mount Whitney/Mount Rainier

H2 Eiffel Tower/Statue of Liberty

H3 Gateway Arch/Washington Monument

H4 Empire State Building/Chrysler Building

Missed #2. Little did we know at the time that this would keep us from getting the sexiest trivia score ever!

Round Four

Animals (bear with me this one is really really abbreviated) – Tarsiers belong to what order of animals? A lot of work went into this one, I went back in time to my eighth grade science class here (I still remember the mnemonic device my science teacher Mr. Francis taught us for animal classification which was: King Philip Cried Oh For Goodness Sake). All we had to do was pick which thing fit the letter “O” and we were off to the races! Thankfully we didn’t screw it up (Mr. Francis would probably have a good laugh if I told him this story)!

Awards – Who stated that “only outrage overcomes oppression” in their recent acceptance speech for Advocate of the Year at the recent Webby Awards? Miss.

Musical Families – Which person departed the Jackson Five group causing them to be called “The Jacksons” after this happened? A few days ago I decided to play a bunch of music quizzes on the Sporcle site and have this to thank for knowing this answer – I said “Hey (this one) had some hits in the 1970s so it’s probably them.” And to think I was only hitting up the music quizzes to try contributing better on the Sporcle Music Quiz games! Funny, in our most recent game, my first guesses at the final questions turned out to be correct, though we didn’t actually go with them (to be fair I didn’t really know them for sure, but it’s weird that it happened anyway).

Round Five

Invasions – What country did Italy invade in 1930, entering through Eritrea?

Mascots – What animated character, whose first appearance was in 1955, was the mascot for the WB network? Mike knew this one right away, and Dave had no idea this character even existed. It was fun explaining this pop culture reference to him (which involved singing the character’s signature song). Teaching moments in trivia games can be fun, can’t they?

Psychiatrists – Which author and psychiatrist published On Death and Dying, which outlined five stages of grief?

A few years ago, I pointed out the similarities of the five stages of grief with morning alarm clock fights:

Denial – “It’s not really this early, is it?”

Anger – “F—, it really is this early…”

Bargaining – “I’ll turn off the alarm and set it 10 minutes later – and shove something nutritious at my face while I drive to work. Make that 20 minutes, I don’t really need to eat after all.”

Depression – “I don’t feel that great, maybe I’ll just call off today.”

Acceptance – “Well, guess I gotta go to work.”

We used our freebie “Answer of the Day” to avoid having to answer this (damn I read this in college just couldn’t remember who wrote it). Central Michigan University had a “Death and Dying” class in the mid 1990s that satisfied a philosophy requirement. Wednesday Addams would probably love a class like that! The only other things I remember from that class is the professor made us watch Platoon, and we also had to read Night by Elie Wiesel. Not the most uplifting class in the world! 😂

This makes me think of a scene from The Naked Gun where Frank and his girlfriend Jane react very inappropriately after having watched that movie:

Sports – In what decade did the NHL cancel a season of play due to a labor lockout?

Human Body – What is the only human organ capable of natural regeneration of lost tissue?

Food – Ramen, udon and linguine are all types of what food made with unlelavened dough?

Scores going into the final:

Spacecats, 49; Maddy Platters, 51; We Were Never Here, 56; Pants, 59; Dead Guys, 60; Rather Be At, 63; Bastard Squad (us), 65 and Three, 69.

Final Category – Uniforms

A “woggle,” first mentioned in a 1923 publication, is part of a uniform worn by participants in what organization?

Yay, we actually got an MTL final question correct! So did a lot of other teams, so standings stayed mostly the same, though Dead Guys moved up to third. We finished second, and Three finished first.

This concludes our trivial pursuits for the week, unless we sign into a virtual Sporcle Events game while we’re on vacation “Up North.” It may be difficult to resist the allure of battling Globe Game questions! We’ll see how great the wi-fi works in the places close to where we’ll be camping!

As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross!

Answers

r1

15, yellow submarine, lemons

r2

oz, archaeology, poutine

r3

chiefs, alice walker, apple

halftime

whitney, statue of liberty, gateway arch, empire state

r4

primates, jasmine crockett, jermaine

r5

ethiopia, michigan j frog, elisabeth kubler ross

r6

2000s, liver, noodles

f girl/boy scouts (both accepted)