QUIZ RECAP

We started off the Trivia night with 5 teams, and after 1 round there was some intense competition between the top two teams who both got extra points for registering their teams on KingTrivia.com!

In round 2 we had another team join us for the rest of the evening, and it was back and forth between Origin of Oranges and Dontchaknows, until Thranduil Our Daddy stepped up, and took the lead in round 4, followed by a strategic Double or Nothing pick in round 5, securing their First Place spot. Spart Your Face lost some footing in round 4, and then a couple double or nothing picks resulting in the latter option, pushed them out of the running. Meanwhile Second Deck and Spider Monkeys held steady in the middle of the pack.

At the end of the game, we came out with a First Place for Thranduil Our Daddy, Second Place went to Dontchaknows, and Third Place to Origin of Oranges!

Congrats to you all! Thanks for coming out for a fun Tuesday Trivia night at Petoskey's!

QUIZ RECAP

There was some hot competition in the air on Tuesday night. In the end, it seems the team names were more than just empty words.

We had the Most Valll-uable Players topping the list, with the most players on their team, and the most points for the game. In Second Place was Second Deck. They were then followed by Really Real Wrestlers getting feisty in their corner, LGBT BBQ wishing there was barbecue a pizza joint, Cupp-a-Joe (were they drinking coffee?), and finally First Shall be Last bringing up the rear.

Keep the fun going, and I'll see you next time! Thanks to everyone for coming out to Trivia, and to our fantastic bartender Maria for keeping the food and drinks flowing 🙂

QUIZ RECAP

Oh my goodness, your eminent host made a colossal mistake during my preparations for my trip abroad. I regretfully failed to package in my notes from the night's contest into my laptop briefcase, meaning that my round-by-round breakdown of points and commentary has been lost to the damp and dark recesses of my mind. I know what you're thinking, but why don't you just go into your mind palace and visit the memory of you writing down the scores after each round. Well, ordinarily I would do that, but I had to delete the information in order to make room for statistics I could reference about how the TSA is pointless security theater for when I was going to be patted down for refusing to go through the body scanner at the airport.

But enough about my travel misadventures, we had three teams competing for honor on the final day of winter, Hamberders, Almost Weekend, and Bring Back Winter. Yes, we had a more intimate affair tonight than we usually do, perhaps in part due to St. Patrick's Day having took place the day before? Not everyone subscribes to the 'hair of the dog' method of hangover cure after all.

Things kicked off as they always do with our General Knowledge Round 1 where we got warmed up with questions of the topical variety (What is the only superhero film to earn a Best Picture Oscar Nomination? Black Panther) as well as the mundane (Sake is made from the fermentation of what grain? Rice). And I do remember the general breakdown of points after this interval: Hamberders had the lead with around 7-ish points, Almost Weekend was in second with 5(?), and Bring Back Winter was our caboose with 4 points. I mean, it was no more than 4 because they were in third, but it could have been less. Never delete recent memories from the mind palace, god, how many times do I have to tell myself that?

Things fell down a notch from your host's perspective with our Picture Round 2; although for our contestants it was a more exciting prospect, as both Hamberders and Almost Weekend successfully pulled off a Double or Nothing. But if you know all the answers where is my opportunity to fake pre-existing knowledge of all the hard questions? I mean, obviously I know all the answers because I'm a super genius, that was just a off-handed joke.

The teams didn't make it any easier for your host to try to flaunt his ability to read words off a printout, as they continued doing well in our Theme Round 3. Tuesday's theme was Hitchcock-A-Doodle-Doo, meaning that every question or answer was related to Hitchcock films or roosters. Despite some deep-cut questions being thrown at them (Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train inspired what Devito-driven dark comedy? Throw Momma from a Train?), the teams managed to fend them off just fine. However, your host's favorite question of the night was only answered correctly by Bring Back Winter, so congrats to you (What is the flap of skin on a rooster's neck called? Wattle)!

The relative positions of the teams remained the same at this stage of the night. Hamberders held first place, with Almost Weekend trailing by about 6-8 points in second place. And Bring Back Winter continued to chug along in third place at about another 10 points back.

In our Guess Who? Round 4 teams were competing to identify Robert Redford based on a series of increasingly more specific clues and hints. Hamberders impressively knew the answer after our generic 10-point clue referencing his birth year and first big break in the play Barefoot in the Park. But they didn't have the confidence to actually submit their correct answer until they heard the 8-point clue. Meanwhile, Bring Back Winter recognized our actor/director at 6 points, and Almost Weekend at 4 points.

In our Find the Connection Round 5, teams were faced with a barrage of questions from a cornucopia of categories, all of them sharing a common theme or association between their answers. Whether judging the mouth-feel of the "San Francisco Treat" (Rice-a-Roni), going beyond Hamilton-fandom to identify the fourth president of the United States (James Madison), or knowing the mother of silver-fox news anchor Anderson Cooper (Gloria Vanderbilt), it only took a handful of correct answers for teams to easily identify a variety of college and university names appearing every time. It seemed too easy somehow, it was almost as if there was some kind of major event going on this month where the names of dozens of colleges and universities were waxing towards the zenith of their annual cultural significance.

Handout Round 6 took things in a much less popular sports direction by asking our teams to match National Hockey League teams with the names of Arenas that they played in. And while we are able to trick our teams into confusing the Winnipeg Jets Bell MTS Place with the Montreal Canadiens Bell Centre, in a hilarious bit of coincidental timing, ESPN was literally airing an NHL match between the Rangers and Red Wings on one of our venue's televisions (and both teams were on our handout). You're welcome for that freebie by the way.

If you're aggravating over how the points and standings had been shifting throughout the night, just know that nothing had substantively changed the entire night. Hamberders remained in first place, their lead over Almost Weekend shifting from between 7 and 9 points round by round. And although Bring Winter Back slowly decreased their initial 10-point gap each round, they were still down by 6 points heading into our Final Round.

Our Final Round prompt for the night was:

Name 10 of the 11 highest grossing films Sandra Bullock has appeared in (not adjusted for inflation).

Although all our teams understandably missed some of her niche films like The Prince of Egypt, as well as some of her truly awful stinkers like The Heat, they also missed some larger heavy-hitters like A Time to Kill. Don't think they weren't bullish on Bullock though, we had plenty of incorrect Sandra vehicles submitted such as The Lakehouse, Demoliton Man, and Forces of Nature. But no team was prepared the sheer horror that awaited them at the top of Bullock's box office list. Sure, her Oscar nominated performances in Gravity and The Blind Side made the top 5, but even they couldn't compete with the complete global saturation of the Minions, god help us all.

And yes, I do remember the final standings, although it didn't hurt that nothing changed throughout the night except the precise gap between the point totals of all our teams. Hamberders went 7 for 7 and never lost their first place lead, ending the night just one point shy of 60 points. Almost Weekend followed behind them in second place at 53 (I'm like 75% sure it was 53 and not 52). And finally, our caboose that dreamed of being an engine ended up in third place with 37 points after a daring, but ultimately inconsequential last minute Double or Nothing that didn't pan out (no, Speed 2 is still not the list...why, because it's a bad movie that's why, yeah I said it). Apologies if I'm off by a point or two, but I'm pretty confident in the final tabulation, just not the way we get there.

Yeah that's right folks, my preface was not a joke. Your host is already travelling out of the country and won't be returning until April 1st (still not a joke). That means you'll be graced by a lovely and caring substitute next week, so give them a warm and hearty welcome. I wish I could greet any returning regulars to needle them about whether they had a good St. Patrick's Day, but you can't always get what you want.