Trivia hits two years and 100 games

By Ken MacGray

If you haven't had a chance to play Tuesday Night Trivia at the Old Timer, you're missing a good time. You don't have to be a genius to participate. The questions are all over the map, and you'd be surprised what bits of useless knowledge are in your head. What was the name of the band that Kenny Rogers was in? First Edition. Why do I know that? It doesn't matter, that's the point of the game.

TNT is approaching its second year anniversary and 100th game on November 23. Currently in the middle of the first ever Tournament of Champions, 12 teams will qualify for the final game to earn prizes and claim the bragging rights as the best in trivia, at least for another year.

The game is scheduled to start at 7pm, but host Joel Bates begins a bit later to let the room fill up a bit. As each team chooses their name and orders their beverages of choice, my teammates - Jeff The Science Guy, JJ, Mike M. and Mike D. – and I settle into our corner of the bar, by the entrance to the mens room.

Obvious reasons aside, we always play in this location. We seem to have good luck here and feel displaced if left somewhere else. Easy access to the bartender on duty doesn't hurt either. Our anchor, the lovely and talented Moe, is not with us this night, but we feel confident.

The sound of the Monday Night Football theme means that that the game is underway. Joel usually skips the rules for the regulars, but there are a few new teams this night.

Then comes the first question: "Which U.S. novelist's last unfinished work was "The Last Tycoon?" There's a few seconds of silence before Jeff blurts out – not yells, we don't want to help the competition – the answer: F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Bidding. It's all about the bidding. Based on how confident you are in the answer, you wager points. Jeff's pretty sure on Mr. Fitzgerald, so we throw a 5 on it, and get it right. We're off to a good start. Questions 2 and 3 continue in the same vein for us, with confident answers and smart wagering.

Then comes the first sports question of the evening. See, sports is not our strong suit – we're pop culture, geography and science folk – unless it's a ridiculously easy question. They never are. Incredibly obscure is more like it, although I suppose every sports question is obscure if you don't know the answer. Still, we manage to get it, with some assistance from someone not on our team.

It's at this point that a competing team member – a Dirty Old Man – cries foul. What's later learned is that he also had some help from the same person regarding an earlier question.

On to the first bonus question: "What do the letters K.I.T.T. stand for, which is the name of the car from the TV show, "Knight Rider?" This is a throwaway question for this geek: Knight Industries Two Thousand. And with that, we've amassed a rare (for us) 24 points in the first round, getting every question correct.

It feels good to be the champs, at least for one round.

Unfortunately, the second round is much the opposite. We blow 4 out the 5 questions, taking a bit of steam out of sails.

Here is where we start to see a bit of dissent in the ranks. If it's one thing I've learned from playing this game for almost two years, it's to go with your first instinct. Usually, but not always, it's correct. It's when you start second-guessing your answers that you find yourself in trouble. We also end up with our highest bid left over for sports, our worst category. This is not good.

Fortunately, all of the other teams fare just as well as we do by the time the second round scores are read. No one did well that round. Even though we missed most of the questions, we are still in the lead.

The third round is uneventful, but the fourth round is a complete disaster. Out of the movies, TV, poetry and organizations categories, we get them all wrong.

That sets us up for the final bonus question, which is in Sports. I look to the heavens and wonder why Joel has forsaken us. Why can't it be movies, music, or best of all, comic books? It turns out to be a timely question: "Who did the Red Sox play in the 1918 World Series?"

We bid 20 and go with the Cubs, and end up with 98 points. That's good enough for a $10 gift certificate to the Old Timer. The Dirty Old Men, the team everyone loves to hate, take the top spot and clinch a qualifying spot for the final game.

It's at this point in the evening that about half the teams usually leave. However, if you're sticking around, there's still two more rounds of questions to go, and this time it's for money. $5 per team (sometimes in $10) goes into a pot and the winner takes all.

During the first round of questions, Joel drops a new category on us: Taxonomic Nomenclature. The question: "What comes between a genus and a species"? There's stunned silence on our team. I'm contemplating what the question means because I thought taxonomic nomenclature had something to do with money. It turns out the answer is "family". Who knew? We didn't.

The final round includes a Simpsons question, which are usually incredibly obscure. If you knew that Krusty The Clown has three nipples, you would have gotten this one right.

In the end, we would not take the money home – or more accurately, use it to pay our bar tab – but the team known as Nutmeg State does, with a very respectable 33 points.

The game is over and we head home for the evening, with the goal to be alert and pay attention to useless knowledge, no matter the source. After all, you never know when someone is going to ask you how many miles of coastline Connecticut has.

(Originally published in the 11/18/04 Lancaster Times & Clinton Courier.)