I Dreamed a Dream of Wednesday Trivia!
Wednesday featured the inaugural game at the newest PHT venue, as we welcomed Augie’s Mussel House in Alexandria to the Wednesday night lineup. Overall, it was a busy hump day as 124 teams took in a game of trivia across 16 venues.
FIRST ROUND:
Opening round topics from Wednesday included the Oakland (soon to be Las Vegas) Raiders, the TV drama “ER”, and the maritime borders of the United States. The most difficult bonus question of the first round was asked as part of a three-part question in which each answer contained the letters ‘SHOT’:
–> Starring Vin Diesel, which 2020 action movie about a vengeful, resurrected marine is based on a comic book series?
About one-third of our teams gave us the correct answer of “Bloodshot”. This query was the only sticking point for most of the field, as 23% of our teams began their night with a perfect first round score.
SECOND ROUND:
Wednesday’s audio question asked our teams to identify three musicians who each won their first career Grammy Award last month. We listened to “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles, “Everything I Wanted” by Billie Eilish, and “Good As Hell” by Lizzo. We continued the second stanza by discussing the namesakes of the three major temperature scales, the French government, and this difficult question combining Shakespearean quotes with English history:
–> The name of which ruling house of England fills in this BLANK from Shakespeare’s “Richard III”: “Now is the winter of our discontent. Made glorious summer by this sun of BLANK”?
Only 17% of our teams responded correctly with York. After closing the first half with a question regarding the Jim Varney character of Ernest P. Worrell, we saw a dozen teams earn a perfect second round score, with most of those teams cruising into halftime with an impressive 72 points.
HALFTIME:
Culinary nuts and TV theme songs were the featured topics on Wednesday’s halftime page. The field breezed through this round, as 23% of our teams notched a perfect score of 20 points, while the overall average reached a remarkable 18.6 points. Here is Wednesday’s leaderboard at the halftime break:
- Van Buren Boys (Memories): 94
- Why Not Zoidberg? (Memories): 92
- Kitten Mittens (Quinn’s): 90
- Hipster Fashion Consultants (Quinn’s): 90
- Brother of Menelaus (Augie’s): 90
- Harsh Reality (Nido’s): 90
THIRD ROUND:
We began Wednesday’s second half with a Three Clues question regarding the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, before jumping into the most difficult wagering question of the night:
–> Which painter’s most notable work depicts the Italian merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, presumably in their residence at the Flemish city of Bruges?
Most of our players have certainly seen the 15th century painting “The Arnolfini Portrait“, but remembering who painted this piece proved to be quite difficult, as only 13% of the field earned points with the correct response of Jan van Eyck. Other third round topics included the music of Green Day, the chemical composition of steel, and the TV network Al Jazeera, the latter of which included a diabolical bonus question. Words Scott Can’t Pronounce (Quinn’s) gained two points on the entire field by being the only team to know that the name Al Jazeera is translated into English as ‘the island’. Not surprisingly, the third did round not yield any perfect scores on Wednesday night.
FOURTH ROUND:
After enjoying some Sriracha sauce while visiting Thailand in the 6-4-2 question, we jumped into the final round with a look at the film scores of composer Hans Zimmer. Only ten teams snagged the first two bonus points of the final round by knowing that Zimmer won an Oscar for composing the score to “The Lion King”. We continued by discussing the artichoke and the mythological beast Cerberus. The final round also included a unique Triple 50/50 question:
–> Determine whether or not the U.S. Postal Service currently delivers mail using these modes of transport:
- Hovercraft
- Mule
- Submarine
The respective answers we were looking for were YES (in Alaska), YES (in the Grand Canyon), and NO. The fourth round concluded with a look at world capitals, but only one team earned a perfect final round score: Brother of Menelaus (Augie’s). These were your highest scoring Wednesday teams after four rounds of play:
- Brother of Menelaus (Augie’s): 164
- Kitten Mittens (Quinn’s): 161
- No Ma’am (Memories): 159
- Flight Level Awesome (Belles’): 155
- Hipster Fashion Consultants (Quinn’s): 158
WEDNESDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (50.0% success rate):
–> Despite being imprisoned for a minor offense, the main character of this work ends up committing a plethora of more serious crimes including breaking and entering, two burglaries, highway robbery, parole violation, trespassing, and identity fraud, not to mention escaping from prison. For your wager, identify this creative work.
Exactly half of our teams earned their wager on this final question with the correct answer of “Les Miserables”. Congratulations to Hipster Fashion Consultants (Quinn’s) and Brother of Menelaus (Augie’s), who were the only two teams to snag a Perfect 21 on Wednesday by answering every wagering question correctly. Here is Wednesday’s final overall leaderboard:
- Kitten Mittens (Quinn’s): 171
- Hipster Fashion Consultants (Quinn’s): 170
- Words Scott Can’t Pronounce (Quinn’s): 169
- No Ma’am (Memories): 169
- Van Buren Boys (Memories): 168
- Flight Level Awesome (Belles’): 167
- Irish Beer Mafia (28 South): 166
- Brother of Menelaus (Augie’s): 165
- Cake of Death (Black Hoof): 165
- FOUR TEAMS TIED WITH 164 POINTS
WEDNESDAY’S WINNERS:
Whole Foods Market in Vienna, VA: NO GAME THIS WEEK (NEXT GAME ON FEB. 26 – First category: Sylvester Stallone Films of the 1970s)
Valley Grill in Middletown, MD: Southpaw Fish (Next week’s first category: “Les Miserables”)
Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Flight Level Awesome (Next week’s first category: Triple 50/50 – Spanish or Portuguese?)
Nido’s Ristorante in Frederick, MD: Harsh Reality (Next week’s first category: Cooking Terms)
Furnace Grill and Crab House in Thurmont, MD: You Should Have Known Stuff (Next week’s first category: Tanya Tucker – AUDIO)
Quinn’s on the Corner in Arlington, VA: Kitten Mittens (Next week’s first category: 2020 Academy Awards)
Dragon Hops Brewing in Purcellville, VA: Tiny Pete’s (Next week’s first category: Bruce Springsteen Lyrics)
Black Hoof Brewing in Leesburg, VA: Cake or Death (Next week’s first category: “The Man in the High Castle”)
GearHouse Brewing in Chambersburg, PA: Archived (Next week’s first category: 1990s Bronx Hip Hop)
Manor at Silo Falls in Brookeville, MD: Fan Club (Next week’s first category: Before, During, and After)
28 South in Hagerstown, MD: That’s How We Roll (Next week’s first category: “The Little Mermaid”)
Grape Escape in Gaithersburg, MD: The Bar (Next week’s first category: 1980s TV Theme Songs)
Bald Birds Brewing in Audubon, PA: Dudes (Next week’s first category: Electricity)
Augie’s Mussel House in Alexandria, VA: Brother of Menelaus (Next week’s first category: “Spartacus”)
Memories in Mount Airy, MD: No Ma’am (Next week’s first category: Three Clues / One African Capital)
Anchor Bar in Frederick, MD: Pearls of Wisdom (Next week’s first category: “Letterkenny”)
Brookside Inn in Jefferson, MD: Farmer’s Daughter Bakery (Next week’s first category: Foreign Rivers)