Answers are at the end.

We played our penultimate game of the spring/summer My Trivia Live season on a recent chilly – as I’m delighted to say – August evening.

Michigan weather is famous for not following the boundaries of traditional “seasons” or calendars. It does whatever it likes! If it’s August and you have to look for your shacket or wool socks, that’s just “Pure Michigan!” If you’ve already put all of your shorts and tank tops away and there’s a warm spell in September, well that’s “Pure Michigan” too! Just go with it…

As far as we know, we’re still poised to be bronze medalists for the trivia season at McShane’s. Yeah, yeah…make all of the jokes you want! First runner up is just another word for “loser.” We’re at peace with it! We did the work, it didn’t turn out to be enough, meh…we tried!

This isn’t like a beauty pageant. You know – like if a team isn’t able to fulfill their duties in representing the bar at semifinals – like say if certain nude photos of the team got published or were spread viral online – that the next qualifying team would step in to represent them instead.

There are always extenuating circumstances with these racy photos, aren’t there?

Anyone remember Vanessa Williiams? Fewer people probably remember the woman who replaced her in the Miss America pageant, Suzette Charles. Maybe one day we’ll have a trivia question about this!

But enough about all of this talk about scandals and nude photos! We did have a question about a guy who directed a movie with lots and lots of nudity. I am not going to share any images from that movie here, because that would be in poor taste! 😂

Instead, I’ll share this nude picture:

Let’s talk about the trivia game, shall we?

We actually managed to finish in first with a $30 prize for only the second time this season!

Here were our abbreviated questions:

Round One

Friends – What was the name of the purple dinosaur who entertained children on PBS from 1992-2000?

Home Improvement – What home improvement retailer sells items under the private label HDX?

Cheers – The Siren’s Curse roller coaster opened in 2025 at what Sandusky, OH amusement park?

Round Two

Temperature – In Fahrenheit, what is 100 degrees Celsius?

Bodies of Water – What Great Lake is smallest by water volume? Miss.

Eruptions – Kirishyama in what country erupted June 22, 2025?

Round Three

Sports – In a deal announced in August, 2025, what sports league would have 10 percent ownership of ESPN? Miss.

Same Name – What word meaning electromotive potential shares its name with a reaspberry flavored Mountain Dew variety?

Books – What word is missing from a commandment in bibles published by Baker and Lucas in 1631?

Halftime – Time

Identify the units of time based on the following descriptions:

H1 – one sixtieth of an hour

H2 – one revolution of earth about its polar axis

H3 – 2,160 years, astrologically speaking

H4 – 40 days

We missed #s 3 and 4. All teams missed #4.

Halftime Scores:

Team #10, 5; Wise Guys, 19; Spacecats, 25; Titanic Swim Team, 26; Ypsi Starlings Rugby/Keeping up with the Joneses, 27; Nope/Pods, 29; Dead Guys, 30; and Pursuit of O Snappiness, 33.

Round Four

Automobiles – What luxury auto maker has models including Vistiq, Lyriq and Optiq? Miss.

Card Games – What Brit is best known for laying down rules in a variety of different card games?

Acting Kind – What actor started the St. Jude charity? There were a lot more qualifiers for this one…

Round Five – In 1998, Paul Verhoven became the first person to accept what award – considered to be the ignomonious counterpart to an Oscar – in person?

Yes he was the guy who directed Showgirls. Not my favorite movie of his, that would be either Total Recall or Robocop.

Companies – What conglomerate includes A-1, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Clauson Pickles? Miss.

Fictional Wages – In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, what does Willy Wonka use to pay the Oompa Loompas? We used our “Answer of the  Day” freebie for this one.

Show Business – What Oscar nominated actor wanted his stunt double Vic Armstrong to step aside and allow him to do more stunts in a 1989 sequel film? We initially talked about one actor who had a 1989 sequel film but didn’t get his Oscar nod until later, then we thought of the  right guy!

On the Radio – Steve Inskeep and Leila Fadel are the hosts of what news program on NPR? Miss.

Medieval Weaponry – What element represented by the letter C would a blacksmith use to add to iron to make steel?

Scores heading into the final:

Ypsi Starlings Rugby/Keeping up with the Joneses, 45; Titanic Swim Team, 52; Nope/Spacecats, 55; Pursuit of O Snappiness/Pods, 57 and Dead Guys, 58.

Science!

Which Italian born French astronomer was known for studying Saturn and its rings and became the first de facto director  of the Paris Observatory?

Our “Starman” Mike was all over this and even had his reasoning for his answer being correct written down on his brainstorming paper so that it could be passed around the table. We were confident enough to wager everything on this (a rarity for us in MTL games, we almost always hold a couple of points back).

Dead Guys and Nope were in a tiebreaker for second, had to answer the total cubic miles encompassing Lake Erie. Dead Guys won the tiebreaker, so the game winners were:

Nope, Dead Guys, Pods.

We have just one more game to play this MTL season, and that will be (drum roll), Tuesday. We’ll be heading out of town next weekend, and may hit up a MTL spot “Up North.”

As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Danny Thomas!

Answers

R1 Barney, home Depot, cedar point

R2 212 degrees, lake Erie, Japan

R3 NFL, voltage, not

H minute, day, age, quarantine

R4 Cadillac, Hoyle, Danny Thomas

R5 golden raspberry, Kraft Heinz, Coco beans

R6 Harrison Ford , morning edition, carbon

F cassini