A Pilgrimage to Monday Night Trivia!
Our regular Pour House Trivia players certainly know that our game has a certain flow to it. Let’s just say that Monday’s game did NOT fit that typical flow. What do we mean? Read on to find out:
MONDAY’S STATS AND FACTS (37 teams across five venues):
Highest Overall Score: B-58s (DRP) with 166
Highest Score After Round 4: B-58s with 154
Highest First-Half Score: B-58s with 87
Perfect 21 (correct on all wagering questions): A tough night all around meant for the second Monday un a row, NO TEAM scored the Perfect 21 tonight. In fact, no team was able to answer all ten wagering questions correctly in the first half!
–> Monday’s floral halftime page played to an average of 16.6, but NO team was able to score 20 points. Eight teams topped out at 19 points.
–> Our 6-4-2 question was slightly less difficult, with about 18% of our teams scoring six points by recognizing the history of the beverage Orange Crush.
–> In a break from the ordinary, Monday’s first half was actually more difficult than the second half. As evidence, the two most difficult questions of the night was both asked in the first half, with about one-third of our teams earning points on the first round “Seinfeld” question and the Broadway audio question (and only seven teams earning points on both)!
MONDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (52.8% success rate):
–> This man was the first author to be buried in Westminster Abbey’s “Poets’ Corner”, even though his most notable work references a different cathedral located 60 miles to the east. Who is this writer? (you’ll find the answer later in this blog)
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DRP in Alexandria, VA
Tonight, I was joined by my colleague Kate, who happens also to be a host for Pour House Trivia. Tonight, she had an unexpected night off, so she was on the other side of the microphone. Her team of Walking Talking Stephen Hawking were battling it out with the rest of our loyal teams here at DRP. And with eleven other teams in contention, did she succeed? Let’s see what happened tonight.
Round 1 started off with some academic questions on the convergence of rivers and Russian emperors. However, a pop culture question in which of the four main “Seinfeld” characters was absent from the pilot episode had more than half the teams missing this pseudo-multiple-choice question. Round 2 started off with a rousing rendition of “You’ll Be Back” from “Hamilton”, only it was Jimmy Fallon singing it. Teams then had to identify King Lear’s last line, which only one team could identify before the multiple-choice.
Our halftime puzzle sheet had everyone do well in the bottom half, but only two teams were able to identify the elusive Flower 10, which was a zoomed-in picture of a lavender stem. Round 3 then asked some questions on the dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” as well as World English. Round 4 wrapped up with some terrible misspellings for Uluru in Australia and teams trying to name the famous T-rex skeleton at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History.
Tonight’s Final Question was on British authors, specifically the first who was buried in Westminster Abbey’s “Poets’ Corner”. Most teams figured out Westminster Abbey was a mislead and instead focused on another cathedral about 60 miles away in Canterbury. That led our teams to Canterbury Cathedral and the “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer. In fact, nine of our teams got this one. And because of that, here was our medal table for the night.
First Place: B-58s
Second Place: The Tyler Stone Project
Third Place: HR Puff ‘n’ Stuff
Next week’s first category: The French and Indian Wars
I’ll be out of the country next week, so I’ll see y’all two weeks from now! Treat my sub well!
~ Chris
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Greene Turtle in Hagerstown, MD
Monday’s game at the Greene Turtle was cancelled due to the Capitals game. Chad will return on May 15th with an opening question on Baltimore Ravens history.
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Morgan Inn in Woodbine, MD
Another fun Monday night at Morgan Inn in Woodbine as six teams competed for prizes and bragging rights in yet another edition of Pour House Trivia. We started off the night by playing some tetherball with Napoleon Dynamite, and then visited the shores of some U.S. cities built around the conjunction of some major rivers. We remembered Steve Jobs’ description of the first generation of the iPhone, and played a little golf down in New Orleans. Finally, we revisited the Seinfeld cast, especially this member that was not present in the pilot episode:
Jumping into round two, we began as usual with an audio clue, but this time it was Jimmy Fallon performing a song from the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton”. We then took a trip to the spa and got those skin pores open, then got a tetanus shot just in case we came into contact with anything rusted. We heard the last words of King Lear, and finished off the round with an Al Pacino Oscar nomination that’s also the title of one of this band’s best studio albums:
The third round only had one faux pas, that being a Barry Manilow tune that was the Song of the Year in 1977, after that it was a good scoring round for everyone. We visited the city-state of Singapore and their attempt to get citizens to speak proper English, and then rolled back to the southern U.S. for the HBO series True Blood. We had two game references, one being NFL star linebacker Lawrence Taylor, and this children’s game that has run through some color variations throughout its years.
The final round featured a trip “down unda” to Australia’s natural monument of Ayers Rock, and then we did a little pottery with some pretty colors and designs. We went back in time to Herbert Hoover’s failed attempt to regain the Presidency, and then into the future with some popular sci-fi gadgets from films. We did a little paleontology as well, with the most complete skeleton of this prehistoric predator, which can be found at Chicago’s Field Museum, hopefully without too many bullet holes.
Tonight’s final had a lot of strategic wagering, and a decent amount of success considering the subject was a 14th century author. Here are the results:
First Place: Westward Ho!
Second Place: Morgan Station
Third Place: Men & Pausers
Next week’s first category: Marquette University
~ Ronnie
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Coming soon…
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Uno Pizzeria in Frederick, MD
With a beautiful Monday night outside, we had a wild game of Pour House Trivia here at Uno Pizzeria in Frederick tonight! Thanks for everyone being patient as I broke in new Pour House host Aaron; looks like he caught on quick though! It was certainly an up-and-down night, as an unexpectedly difficult beginning had some teams spinning their wheels out of the game, but some teams peaked at the right time to finish in the money. Our winning team is no stranger to Pour House Trivia, but they made the most of their debut at this venue!
Highlights of the Night:
In “Methinks-Thou-Doth-Protest-Too-Much”: I like how I don’t even have to make a joke anymore; anytime something old-timey comes up, Tequila Mockingbird points it out themselves. I just get to sit back and go “You said it, not me!” The jokes write themselves!
In “Tournaments-No-One-Has-Heard-Of”: The Zurich Classic was a tough sell tonight. I’m not boned up on golf at all, but even the golfing fans in the house were puzzled by it. I think the fact that it’s called the Zurich Classic and it’s held in New Orleans threw some people…
In “More-Than-Just-The-Handmaid’s-Tale”: The Final tonight was make or break for a few teams; as up and down as the top standings were, it was critical to get the correct British writer tonight!
In third place tonight, Stink Floyd!
In second place tonight, Tequila Mockingbird!
In first place tonight, Poovey Farms!
Great game guys! Next week we’ll kick things off with a question on 1960s Broadway Musicals!
Study up, and we’ll see you next time!
Until then,
~ Ian
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Basic Burger in Arlington, VA
Tonight’s game at Basic Burger was cancelled due to a private party. Katie returns on May 15th with an opening question on “Twin Peaks”.
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Il Forno in Frederick, MD
With the Caps game on tonight, it was a PACKED HOUSE at il Forno! There were lots of people here to watch the Caps lose (actually… they won!), but even more here to play trivia! Sixteen teams tonight and as luck would have it, this was the night I was training a new host. It was pretty hectic, but we had a good time. Thanks for putting up with us! It felt like it went well and we didn’t run too much longer than normal!
The first half scores were lower tonight than usual, with first round questions dealing with the iPhone, the PGA Tour, and “Seinfeld” (come to think of it, all of these question explanations could double as Seinfeld episode titles… get it?). Only a few teams picking up points on any of these questions, with the two-point bonuses proving to be even more difficult. After a painful first half, we saw Fat Kids are Hard to Kidnap on top, the only team to eclipse a score of 80 points, a rarity for this crowd.
The Jeff King Experience, our current season leaders, are usually the team to beat, but a rough first half saw them at only 67 points, an all-time low for this strong team. They’d be fighting an uphill battle in the third round, though this is usually where they shine brightest. Fat Kids weren’t giving up any ground though, holding onto their lead through the 6-4-2. They’d be winning if they could make it through Round 4 unscathed.
Round 4 proved to be tough for Fat Kids, and a new squad was able to take full advantage. After quietly doing pretty well the whole game, Jalapeno Business moved into the lead just before the final! What a great second half for them! Final question tonight was decently challenging. About half the teams getting a correct response, with a couple of those responses coming about 30 seconds into the question, the rest of the answers coming in were mostly wrong. Chaucer gave some teams something to cheer about, others’ spirits were diminished.
Next week’s first category: College Team Nicknames
