Answers are at the bottom…

It may not be a certainty – like death and taxes – but doesn’t everyone love having  “Lady Luck” on their side?

Here’s how an AI image generator interpreted “Lady Luck” for me:

Luck was only on our side twice in last night’s trivia game – and the first instance had nothing to do with the game itself.

Our first instance of luck was us getting a sweet parking spot right by the front door!

It was all downhill from there! Except for the last question in round five. That’s when Lady Luck blessed us a second time in the game- though to be fair, some mad skills were involved too! Game MVP moment for Kim S.!

No prizes for us for the second game in a row 😢

Here were our abbreviated questions:

Round One

Trees – What country is the only place in the world where a Redwood tree grows in the wild?

Military Bases – Rammstein Air Force Base is located in which European country? I took a music quiz on the Sporcle quiz site a while back  where I learned that some kind of air show accident happened here, which is why the band Rammstein decided to call themselves…Rammstein.

Geometry – How many vertices or corners does a cube have?

Round Two

Same Name – What spiked hairstyle often associated with punk music aficianados shares its name with a Native American tribe indigenous to New York?

Entertainment – Paul Shaffer was the band leader and musical director for what late night host from 1993-2015?

Medicine – Caused by allergies, what is the name for the eye infection commonly called pinkeye? Funny, we had a question similar to this about a week ago at another trivia spot, though it was worded differently.

Round Two

Football – What professional football team was known for Steeled Curtain events in the 1970s?

Yay an easy sportsball question for us…(whew)!

Manufacturing – Originally made from discarded war materials, the Lamborghini company’s Trattori was what type of vehicle? I hear that when Lamborghini and Ferrari were trash talking each other about their respective cars, Ferrari said something about how Lamborghini may have been great at making (this) vehicle, but how could he make a good sportscar (or something along those lines, most likely in Italian). Oh to be a fly on the wall when this conversation was happening! I saw a Lamborghini for the first time ever in the wild in 2017 at an auto dealership:

Food – What is the most consumed tree nut in the world? We didn’t like having to do this…but we used our freebie answer here, since we weren’t sure – and didn’t want to blow five points.

Speaking of blowing points!

Halftime – Musicals

Remember how I said that we used up our luck getting a good parking spot? Yeah, luck would have been great in this round, but fate had different plans for us on this night 😔

Given the name of the following musicals, identifiy the musical artists or groups that they are about.

H1 Jersey Boys

H2 Ain’t Too Proud

H3 A Beautiful Noise

H4 The Boy From Oz

We got one correct, which was #3 (thanks Mom and Dad for having the album by this name and being fans of this  artist). My music trivia pardner Kim likes to joke that all questions about this artist are my responsibility in music trivia and name that tune games)! 😂

Still though, two points  in  this round…to cite a lyric from this artist, I’ll say “Pour me a drink, and I’ll tell ya some lies.” That’s from “Love on the Rocks,” if you want to stream it (what are you waiting for, look for that song right now, lol)!

Round Four

Coins – In 1966, Sierra Leone became the first country to issue a coin using what metal, which uses the chemical symbol Pd?

Cartoonists – What American cartoonist’s title characters are named for, respectively, a  theologian who believed in predestination – and a philosopher who had a dim view of humanity?

Notable Women – Later known for her actvism, what woman lost her whole family to a pandemic in 1867 and later, her business in the Great Chicago Fire? Miss.

Round Five

Explorers – What geographer and mathematician was known for mapping the Upper Mississippi River basin in the 1830s? Miss.

Presidents – Who became the first U.S. president to visit Canada and the state of Alaska during his Voyage of Understanding? Miss.

We had two consecutive misses for the lowest points we could use. And we had one last  question that we HAD to use our six point wager on in the category of…

Dance Music. I said to Kim S. that I believed that she would be strong in this category. She has two daughters whom have both taken dance classes, after all! For good measure, I even massaged her brain before has hre question (not her actual brain, it was just a little head massage). What – you don’t do this during trivia games with your team, too? I’m just a very “hands on” kind of trivia cap’n at times!

The poor gal was really feeling the pressure for a second there. Would she come through for us – or would we lose six points on the question? I  honestly would not have gotten mad at her if she got it wrong. That’s not how I roll in trivia games. Not anymore, anyway 😂  I’m trying to be a kinder, gentler person when it comes to trivia!

Here was the question:

Dance Music – In 2008, what single by rapper Vic inspired a dance craze in 2011 and again via Tik Tok in 2021?

She got it! Turns out we were the only team getting this right! You just gotta believe in what your playas know sometimes 🤜 🕺

Round Six

Kid Lit – Who wrote “Where the Wild Things Are?”

Miss.

Mythology – What Greek god created horses? Another miss. Lady Luck decided that she granted us enough favors by letting us have a good parking spot up front and making sure we got that dance question correct…

Rhymes – What gets caught by a toe in the children’s rhyme?

Scores heading into the final:

Dead Guys, 38; Spacecats, 46; Pods, 51; We Were Never Here, 52; Rather Be At, 55; Maddy Platters, 56; Pants, 57 and Three, 61.

Final Category: International Relations

In 1777, Sultan Mohammed III was the first head of state of what country to publicly recognize the independence of the United States?

Miss for us, three teams got it. Spacecats finished third, We Were Never Here finished second and Three finished first.

We’ll be playing a Sporcle Events spot Thursday (weather permitting). They do outdoor trivia, and we only want to play if the games happen outdoors and it isn’t too f—ing hot! We haven’t paid a visit to this place in nearly a year, hopefully our luck will be better in this game (I’ll have five playas for this game).

As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Warren G. Harding! We didn’t think that you were adventurous enough to venture into the wilds of Canada and Alaska! We totally thought that the answer was Teddy Roosevelt (darn you Murdoch Mysteries for having that episode where Teddy was in Canada lol)!

Answers:

R1: U.S., Germany, 8

R2: mohawk, letterman, conjunctivitisR

R3: Steelers, tractors, almond

halftime: Four Seasons, Temptations, Neil Diamond, Peter Allen

R4: palladium, bill watterson, mother jones

R5: Nicolet, Harding, Wobble

R6:  Sendak, Poseidon, tiger

f: morocco