QUIZ RECAP

I hope that everyone had a great "Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day". My boss wasn't so enthused but hey, I'm sure our clients were more than impressed with my dedication to celebrating obscure national holidays. Luckily I had time to change back into my regular digs, after all, it's not wear your pajamas to trivia day. Joining us this Tuesday evening were five teams of competitors. We had Kings and Queens of the North, The Durst Boys Go to Mars, I Love Pineapple Pizza, Not Yo Mama's Trivia Team, and NFC Ya Face.

We started the post-pajama party hi-jinks off with our General Knowledge Round 1. This is the round where we'll toss out some softball questions ("What is the national bird of the US? Bald Eagle) as well as some trickier specialty questions ("Who was the first black manager of MLB? Frank Robinson). And despite my careful repetition of the Double or Nothing rules, Not Yo Mama's Trivia Team learned the hard way how easy it is to fall short by just one question.

Things moved into our Picture Round 2 where teams identified famous characters based on their lego mini-figures. We had plenty of easy grabs like The Flash, Medusa, and Hermione, but the real challenge for our teams was instantly recognizing the protagonist of the Lego Movie and then realizing you had to remember what the heck his name was (Emmet). I Love Pineapple Pizza had the skills to not only recall that little namesake, but to correctly differentiate between what some teams thought was Han Solo but was actually Ripley.

That little trick allowed them to succeed with a self-assured Double or Nothing for 16 points which secured them an early first place at a total of 19 points. Second place was taken by The Durst Boys Go to Mars with 11 points, third place was held by NFC Ya Face with 9 points, fourth went to Not Yo Mama's Trivia Team with 5 points, and finally Kings+Queens of the North were our caboose with 4 points.

Theme Round 3 was a 'Make a wish / Place a curse' theme. Teams were tasked with identifying the film associated with a description of a curse or wish. For example, "A young girl makes a birthday wish and wakes up as Jennifer Garner" would be describing 13 Going on 30. Not every film was quite so recognizable however, unless you happen to be a fan of cult films like Bedazzled or Thinner.

Our Guess Who? Round 4 was another Guess Where? this week. We didn't have any impressive high-point clue guesses though, but I'm guessing even you the reader couldn't tell me what National Park was established in 1919. Most of our teams were able to quickly identify The Grand Canyon after our 6-point clue revealing it's connection to the Pueblo people, the Sonoran Desert, and the oldest exposed rocks on Earth. Suprisingly, the team with two ASU graduates weren't able to guess this one until the very end, but that's their shame to live with.

Before we head into Round 5 let's get a quick score update. First place was still held by I Love Pineapple Pizza at 26 points, followed by The Durst Boys Go to Mars at 21 points. Third place was held NFC Ya Face at 17 points, fourth was Not Yo Mama's Trivia Team at 13 points, and our caboose remained Kings+Queens of the North at 10 points.

Find the Connection Round 5 was a tough nut for my foes to crack. Although our teams were able to put up an average accuracy of 70%, only a single team was able to discover the connection between our smorgasbord of questions. If I told you what substance is the opposite of acid is (base), the Hawaiian word for "to slice" (poke), and the picture editing software included with Windows (Microsoft Paint), could you piece together what's the common denominator? I'll give you a minute then tune back in.

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Welcome back, did you get the answer? If you said "They're all kinds of balls" then you got it. Don't understand yet? Baseball, pokeball, and paintball. Now it makes sense huh. Well, most of our teams didn't think it was quite so clever, but they weren't The Durst Boys Go To Mars who not only knew the connection, but every other answer along the way to their impressive Double or Nothing for 20 points allowing them to take the first place lead at 41 points.

Unfortunately for The Durst Boys their mission to Mars hit an unexpected snag in Handout Round 6 where we asked teams to match DJ Khaled songs with their featured artist. For those who didn't know who DJ Khaled was, let alone his song titles, it was a brutal round earning them zero points. The best result was from I Love Pineapple Pizza with 50% accuracy, but the overall average was a meager 22% accuracy.

Before we hit the final round, let's get a complete overview of the scores and standings. The Durst Boys Go to Mars were still in first at 41 points, but they were closely followed by I Love Pineapple Pizza in second at 37 points. Third place was held by NFC Ya Face at 26 points, fourth place was Kings+Queens of the North at 20 points, and Not Yo Mama's Trivia Team was now our caboose at 19 points.

So without further ado, let's reveal the prompt for our final round. And although I swear to you I have nothing to do with writing these questions, it was yet another geography related prompt for your esteemed geography major host to read.

According to the UN list of member states, what 8 countries have names starting with the letter 'E'?

Quite a few teams were fooled into answering England, forgetting that it's official title is the United Kingdom. Overall though, our teams did quite well, putting up an average accuracy of 65%. Although everyone got the gimmies like Egypt and Ecuador, the hard ones like Equatorial Guinea and Eritrea eluded all but two of our teams. And I enjoyed the comical answers that some teams put forward so a quick shout out to East LA and Ebonia.

So how did things shake out after the dust had completely settled? Let's roll through our team placements starting from the bottom. The battle for the caboose ended with Kings and Queens of the North falling prey to winter and fifth place at 20 points after a failed Double or Nothing. Fourth place was edged out by Not Yo Mama's Trivia Team at 24 points, meaning that the remaining teams had all managed to reach the pedestals.

Our third place team was NFC Ya Face at 29 points. And who managed to stay on top at the very end? I Love Pineapple Pizza...was not the ones to pull off a second comeback, ending the night in second place with 42 points. That means the victory for tonight went to the Durst Boys Go to Mars with 47 points.

Thanks everyone for coming out and enjoying a great boisterous evening full of food, friends, and fun. I hope to see you all again sometime soon, pajamas or not.