June 16, 2014 - Trials Pub

The Quiz, The Players, the Results

Standard Trials Pub Quiz
Lab Coat Guy, Music Guy, Book Guy.
We scored 16 out of 20. The winners had 17 points.

The Missed Questions

1. **What is the Latin word for 'elsewhere'?
2. **Who is credited with having written the ancient poem 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'?
3. Who made the jersey number 16 famous for the Kansas City Royals in the late 80s?
4. What cocktail's standard recipe is comprised of Tequila, Cointreau, and fresh lime juice?

The Right Answers

1. alibi
2. Pearl Poet
3. Bo Jackson
4. Margarita

Our Wrong Answers (and some Excuses)

1. blank. I confess that I don't remember exactly what we wrote. However, we did argue about the standard "here, there, over there" conjugation. It was just that none of us knew any Latin, which is sort of central to the question. In the absence of knowledge, we went making up something. And failed.
2. Anonymous. I'll defend Book Guy here, since there is no actual name for the author, and many sources consider him anonymous. Book Guy remembers a cover with the word 'anonymous' on it. However, in terms of literary scholarship, the author is grouped with other contemporary poetry, and has been given the name "Pearl Poet", which is -technically- right. I suppose we could press the point here, but we got a judgement call in the other direction, and so didn't push the issue.
3. Fred Patek. Our standard answer was going to be Joe Montana, especially since he wore number 16 (for the San Francisco 49ers), and played in Kansas City (for the Chiefs, as the Royals are a baseball team). I guessed a name of any Royals player from that era, and left it alone.
4. Tequila Sunrise. None of us really go for cocktails. And our fault was not recognizing that Cointreau is a brand of triple sec. We only knew two cocktails with tequila, rejected the margarita as the question didn't say 'triple sec', and went elsewhere.

My Favorite Right Answers

As before, random questions are marked with ** two stars. Teams can visit a group of librarians, and ask for help on one question: chosen from one of the starred questions. The librarians have no knowledge of the questions beforehand, and may not know anything about the subject. It is just a fun bonus. I will include the starred questions in the blog.

1. **Whose directorial debut feature film was 1977's 'Eraserhead'?
2. **What building is an ancient citadel located on a high rocky outcrop above the city of Athens?
3. Whose 1996 sophomore album 'Fairweather Johnson' has sold a preposterous 2.3 million albums to date?
4. Who shot Alexander Hamilton in that famous duel on July 11, 1804

1. David Lynch. It's good that Book Guy and Music Guy know their movies, because I don't. Although, I don't know how to interpret his weather report
2. Acropolis. But what do they say of the Acropolis where the Parthenon is?
3. Hootie & The Blowfish. People with good memories might remember last week's blog, where a question asked about a band's preposterously selling debut album.
4. Aaron Burr. This is an easy question for my generation, as long as you remember the famous Got Milk? commercial. The question is worded in the same way.

Post your scores in the comments! Tell me how much smarter you are!

June 9, 2014 - Trials Pub

The Quiz, The Players, the Results

Standard Trials Pub Quiz
Lab Coat Guy, Game Guy, Book Guy.
We scored 12 out of 20. The winners had 13 points.

The Missed Questions

1. What river runs past Belfast?
2. What band's debut album 'Cracked Rear View' preposterously sold 10.5 million copies in 1994?
3. **What NBA team had 'The Jordan Rules' designed to defend against Michael Jordan?
4. What's the most popular name of Mount Godwin-Austen?
5. Name the 1992 Australian movie about the neo-Nazi movement in Melbourne starring Russell Crowe
6. What's the polynesian name of 'Easter Island'?
7. **What animal is featured on the flag of Sri Lanka?
8. Where are General Zod & his men imprisoned in 2013 film 'Man of Steel'?

The Right Answers

1. Lagan
2. Hootie & the Blowfish
3. Detroit Pistons
4. K2
5. Romper Stomper
6. Rapa Nui
7. lion
8. The Phantom Zone

Our Wrong Answers (and some Excuses)

1. Liffey. Yes. We know that the Liffey is in Dublin. And we know that Dublin is not close to Belfast. But we drew a blank on "Name another Irish river" and panicked. The shame!
2. Spin Doctors. Book Guy takes the credit for this. He remembered the album cover, tried to describe it, knows that he had the album when he was younger. And then completely remembered the wrong album entirely.
3. Houston Rockets. This was a small debate between Game Guy and myself: we knew it had to be a rival for the Chicago Bulls. And that it wasn't the Lakers. I voted for Houston, as they did win the NBA Championship during the years that Jordan retired. So wrong answer, wrong reasons.
4. Kilimanjaro. I want a point for this. I knew it was one of the big four trivia mountains (Everest, K2, Kilimanjaro, or the Matterhorn), and that we had this question before. I tried to talk it out, but I was immediate overruled by both Book Guy and Game Guy who were pretty sure that it was Kilimanjaro, figuring there was a separate European name. Well, there isn't, and I demand a retroactive point here.
5. Mad Max 3. None of us even knew that Russell Crowe had started acting roles in 1992, so we tried to list any Australian film we knew, and gave up. However, the quiz we graded suggested Australian History X, which is by far, the best wrong answer.
6. Moai. I claim the blank here. I knew it had a Polynesian name, and that Moai referred to the statues on Easter Island, so maybe there's a link. I think we just forgot about the original name, sadly.
7. Tiger. There is a separatist group on Sri Lanka called the Tamil Tigers, so the guess is that there is some greater significance to the tiger in the culture. This discounts the idea that lions are really cool on flags.
8. The Negative Zone. While you can understand the difference, this is worse if you are a comic book nerd who points out that the Negative Zone is alternate universe from the Fantastic Four series, which is Marvel not DC.

My Favorite Right Answers

Starting this week, random questions are marked with ** two stars. Teams can visit a group of librarians, and ask for help on one question: chosen from one of the starred questions. The librarians have no knowledge of the questions beforehand, and may not know anything about the subject. It is just a fun bonus. I will include the starred questions in the blog.

1. **What was the name of the family ranch on TV's Dallas?
2. **Which of Shakespeare's plays is referred to as 'the Scottish play'?
3. Who was the star musician founder of Rocket Records?
4. Who made her motion picture debut as Mathilda, the pre-teen assassin in the 1994 movie 'Leon: The Professional'?

1. Southfork. I am proud to know that, despite never watching an episode of any soap opera. This is "learning trivia by watching too many quiz shows". Also, it's now a conference center.
2. Macbeth. I guess this is a gimme, but at least I get to link to a behind-the-scenes clip from The Chase about Scottish kings, and how to handle mentions of Macbeth.
3. Elton John. It helps if you start listing musicians and acts associated with the word "Rocket". Like Rocket Man.
4. Natalie Portman. It's rare, but it's a movie that I've actually seen, start to finish. Although now I don't remember the name of Leon's plant.

Post your scores in the comments! Tell me how much smarter you are!

June 2, 2014 - Trials Pub

The Quiz, The Players, the Results

Standard Trials Pub Quiz
Lab Coat Guy, Game Guy, Book Guy.
We scored 16 out of 20. This was good enough for first place for the week, and the tournament.

Apparently, I was unable to update this blog in a timely fashion during May. While I have the original questions and the correct answers, I no longer remember what we wrote down. So, rather than leaving some poorly-remembered notes, I'm skipping ahead to June.

The Missed Questions

1. Who played 'Sweet River Baines', the first black Harlem Globetrotter in a 1991 SNL skit?
2. Name the frontman of T-Rex, who was alleged to be the inspiration for Bowie's hit 'Lady Stardust'
3. What now-defunct division of Chrysler debuted the Barracuda in 1964?
4. What was Winston Churchill's middle name?

The Right Answers

1. Michael Jordan
2. Marc Bolan
3. Plymouth
4. Leonard

Our Wrong Answers (and some Excuses)

1. Chris Rock. This was an fun question (early 90s Saturday Night Live was quite well done), but we couldn't work this out. We went through the regular cast, but no one seemed to fit (for instance, Tim Meadows isn't normally that type of character). We tried to guess on special cast or guest hosts, presuming that Chris Rock would do something like this type of sketch. It never occurred to us to think of an actual basketball player as a guest host.
2. Iggy Pop. A music question, without music guy. And we had no idea. We could've tried to guess something funnier, but I this was the last question of the day, and we can't stand to leave an answer blank.
3. American Motors. A major gap in our knowledge: American car brands and marques. There's an entire history there, with companies and mergers and spin-offs. Unfortunately, we could only pick something that "sounded right", which is probably just as valid as writing Iggy Pop.
4. Hawthorne. The Wikipedia featured articles for the last few weeks were on Neville Chamberlain. Unfortunately, none of them included on any of the other names for Churchill. This was another blind guess (which isn't as interesting as gettng something wrong for hilarious reasons). But still, something British sounding: Hawthorne fits.

My Favorite Right Answers

1. What Shakespearean problem play features the King of France & Bertram?
2. What is defined as a line that connects points on a map that have the same temperature?
3. What popular children's show successfully funded a Kickstarter last week, in the amount of $1 million, to bring an app-based program to underprivileged schools?

1. All's Well that Ends Well. My favorite question of the night, even though I didn't participate it. The clue phrase was "problem play", which means that Game Guy and Book Guy tried to list all of the problem plays: Measure for Measure, Merchant of Venice, Winter's Tale, before landing on the correct answer. It is an earned point for deducing the right answer.
2. isotherm. This is a shout out to both my friends who are interested in weather related topics, but also the fact this was a component on Only Connect only a week prior.
3. Reading Rainbow. This is a personal plug to note that this Kickstarter is still going strong (as of June 17, it is at $3.8 million). Reading Rainbow was a wonderful and important program for me as a child, so I am glad to see it succeed.

Post your scores in the comments! Tell me how much smarter you are!