QUIZ RECAP

It was an intimate affair this last Tuesday at Petoskey's. With only three teams, and one of them comprised of staff, we had less than a dozen entrants overall. But as the whiffs of summer begin to make their way through the air, perhaps this is to be expected. As our seasonal depression leaves so too must our summer exuberance enter. Well, whether you're excited to be off splashing in the water or hiking up the hills, here's what things looked like indoors.

We had Free Pickles, our kitchen staff representatives, as well as We Have Birthdays and Cornstache. Things kicked off with a more difficult than usual General Knowledge Round 1, as the average accuracy was worst in this round compared to any other. If you're wondering why, perhaps you already knew that the most populous capital city in the world was Beijing, or are you a movie-trailer conniseur who knew Charlize Theron was the co-star of Seth Rogen in the upcoming Long Shot?

Things improved dramatically for some of our players in the Picture Round 2, where teams were tasked with identifying the film and TV series associated with famous newscasters. We Have Birthdays pulled off an impressive 16-point Double or Nothing but Cornstache and Free Pickles weren't quite as lucky. Because while we had live-action stalwarts like Ron Burgandy (Anchorman) and Phil Connors (Groundhog Day), we had a large serving of cartoon reporters as well like April O'Neil from T.M.N.T, or J. Jonah Jameson from Spiderman.

Heading into Round 3 We Have Birthdays had an early lead at 22 points, with Free Pickles and Cornstache trailing behind at 9 and 8 points respectively. Round 3 is traditionally our pun-happy theme round, but I award no creativity points for today's theme of "Who Ordered the Pastica: All questions or answers have to do with pasta or Africa". I know we can do better, but more importantly, we deserve better. The questions themselves weren't so bad though, whether it was testing your knowledge of map projections to identify the largest country in Africa (Algeria) or recalling some famous historical movies (The African Queen) or subgenres (Spaghetti Western).

We changed things up a bit in our Guess Who? Round 4, as today it was transformed into Guess Where?. Teams had to puzzle out the identity of Las Vegas using clues ranging from the generic "A new city hall was opened in 2013" to the insanely specific "The city's motto is 'What happens here, stays here'".

Score wise the team's positions had begun to spread out. Free Pickles had fallen behind to third with 13 points, leaving Cornstache in second at 21 points, while We Have Birthdays remained in first with 31 points. Moving into Round 5 we had Free Pickles drop out of the running, turning the night's already cozy gathering into a tender little two-party race.

Find the Connection Round 5 ended up being no challenge at all for the two teams. Even the more difficult questions were easily dispatched, (What is mixed with vodka and lime juice to make a Moscow Mule? Ginger Beer), including an otherwise ridiculous Hobbit related question ("What dwarf plays the flute along with Ori and Dori? Nori). Perhaps it was the Sushi Connection that made some of these easier to guess, or perhaps Petoskey's is just #blessed with superb trivia players.

Unfortunately for We Have Birthdays though, they weren't superb enough to outshine their rivals Cornstache, as Cornstache stole back first place off the back of their 20 point Double or Nothing, landing at 41 points just an inch away from Birthdays' 40 points.

Things stayed tense in Handout Round 6 where the teams were asked to match famous castle names with their corresponding franchises. We had castles from video-games (Hyrule Castle: Zelda, Eichenwalde Castle: Overwatch), books (Tower of Joy: Game of Thrones, Castle Caladan: Dune), and movies (Aldera Royal Palace: Star Wars), but nothing could stump our contestants as they went for 10 and 9 points each.

This meant that the teams were all tied up at 50 points each heading into our Final Round 7. You know how sometimes it's the quiet kid in the back who turns out to be the most ferocious on the field, well, sometimes a quiet night of trivia ends up being the most ferocious back and forth.

Our closing prompt for the day's contest was:

What 10 countries exported the highest dollar amount worth of cars in 2017?

This was a tricky question to answer, because while it's easy enough to guess Germany or the United States based on brands alone, that won't help you in knowing that Spain and Belgium were both on the list as well. In the end, the teams finished off the night separated by just one points: 57 points to 56 points.

The winner of tonight's two-way brawl was....We Have Birthdays. Congratulations on your victory, but a big shout-out to Cornstache for pulling things back with an incredible 20-point Double or Nothing for a rip-roaring down to the wire finish.

Thanks to everyone who spurned the glory of the sun for booze and facts, and I hope to see more of you next week!