Monday Night Trivia: 100 Zeroes Worth of Fun!
With an impending snowstorm on the way (or already here!), our seven venues of Pour House Trivia were still packed with eager trivia players. In an interesting development, our newest Monday night venue has become the spot with the toughest level of competition – it seems like every night is down to the wire. Tonight was a prime example: among all of our venues, only five teams topped 160 points before the final question, which is a rather impressive feat. But FOUR of those teams were playing at that same bar! Let’s find out which one of those teams topped them all:
MONDAY’S STATS AND FACTS (57 teams across seven venues):
–> Highest Overall Score: Kitten Mittens (Basic Burger) with 177
** Highest Score of Season XV **
–> Highest Score after Round 4: Kitten Mittens with 168
–> Highest First Half Score: Kitten Mittens with 94
–> Perfect 21 (correct on all wagers and final): That’s a Niner (Greene Turtle), Arrondissements of Ouagadougou (Greene Turtle), Westward Ho! (Morgan Inn), Kitten Mittens, PC Principals (Basic Burger), Waking Talking Stephen Hawking (Basic Burger), The Jeff King Experience (Il Forno)
–> The “H” logos on our halftime page proved to be easy for some teams, as the average score reached 17.1, with about 20% of our teams scored a perfect 20.
–> The 6-4-2 question was even easier, with just over half of our teams knowing that Kevin, Stuart, and Bob are the names of the lead characters in the film “Minions”.
MONDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (58.7% success rate):
–> Founded in the late 20th Century, which company used a variation on the spelling of a term coined by nine-year-old Milton Sirotta, a boy whose uncle published the 1940 work “Mathematics and the Imagination”? (you’ll find the answer later in this blog)
DRP in Alexandria, VA
We gathered once again for another Monday night of Pour House Trivia today. Nothing really special today, except for the fact that this could be the last night of freedom for everyone before facing Snow Storm Stella on Tuesday. So, of course, we’re thankful to all of our teams that showed up tonight. And with thirteen teams in contention, it seems everyone got all the milk, bread, and batteries ahead of time to spend their evening with us.
Tonight was a night of near-misses. Our first question on “Futurama” asked about the Planet Express courier company. Unfortunately, for one of our teams, they wrote down “Express Planet”. Later on, a question asking about which sportsman had “Golden Bear” as his nickname resulted in a few teams mixing up Arnold Palmer with the correct answer Jack Nicklaus, ending up with Arnold Nicklaus, or something like that. Then, in Round 3, many teams seemed to have forgotten that March Madness consists of four additional schools to the 64 that have already been seeded, leading to an incorrect sum total. And to top it off, a question on the music compilation series “Now That’s What I Call Music!” had teams mixing up the words. So close, but no cigar …
Our final question of the night turned out to be slightly easier than normal, as more than half of our teams figured out that Google was based off the number googol, which is one hundred zeroes following a one. So, our medal table looked like this:
First Place: Snow Day
Second Place: HR Puff ‘n’ Stuff
Third Place: Alternative Best Snow Storm
Next week’s first category: Sixth-Grade Science. Are you smarter than a sixth grader?
Until next time,
~ Chris
Greene Turtle in Hagerstown, MD
On the eve of Winter Storm Stella, seven brave teams endured the chilly conditions to compete for the title of the Best of Hagerstown’s Greene Turtle teams. Subbing for Chad tonight, I got to come back to my old stomping grounds. It was great to see the old teams with new names, like Quality Guesswork and The People. We’d also like to welcome the new team Buttah Bottoms; we hope you’ll be back next week!
Our first half ran very smoothly, with That’s a Niner playing a nearly flawless two rounds, topping off the half with 20 points on the halftime sheet and a first place score of 88 points. But two teams were close on their tails, and a missed question in the second half might seal their doom. In an interesting twist, in the 3rd round every team chose Body Parts as their bonus category, with most teams pulling off a correct answer of ‘epiglottis’. A crucial two-point bonus on the Egyptian mythology question gave the Arrondissements of Ouagadougou a one-point lead as we hit the final round.
The fourth round was no match for AoO, as they increased their lead with several two-point bonuses, the most impressive of which was knowing the name of Alyson Hannigan’s character from the “American Pie” films. Our final question didn’t change the final standing even with some strategic wagering by Danny Glover. DG held on to third place, That’s a Niner kept second, and the win went to Arrondissements of Ouagadougou! This team has not finished outside of the top two all season, and have three wins in the last five weeks.
Next week’s first category: “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (KHAN!!!)
Chad will be back next week. Have a great snow day everyone!
~ Sean
Morgan Inn in Woodbine, MD
Happy Monday to everybody and thanks again for braving the impending “snow-maggedon” to roll out here to Morgan Inn for some Pour House Trivia! We had seven teams in tonight’s game, and thankfully the weather works held off until after our game was done. We had a little “mosh pit” going for our first category of the game: Heavy Metal Music, followed by a remembrance of the early Beatles, and finally we put our best foot forward with some Native American footwear. We also found out that Coke’s stock symbol is “KO”, however our most popular incorrect answer was the photo company Kodak.
Round two proved to be just a tad tougher with some missteps on a popular pirate idiom as well as two competing British houses who were involved in the Wars of the Roses. Folks nailed the golfer known as “The Golden Bear”, with a few aware of his college alma mater as well. Finally, we had a classic science fiction film as one of our audio answers tonight, with most likely this being the most recognized scene:
We put the “H” in one half of the halftime puzzle, and then matched up some TV families by surname; great job to “The Long D’s” with the top score on 17 on the puzzle. These teams were sharp when it came to knowing some famous Presidential residences apart from the White House, and they were pretty keen on identifying that key piece of cartilage in our throats that keeps us from choking on “din-din”. However only two teams were aware of the recent change to the March Madness bracket, and they all struggled a bit naming all four of Disney’s theme parks short of this “magical” location:
About half the teams threatened to burn up their booklets for missing the second-best known Ray Bradbury novel next to “The Martian Chronicles”, misnaming McDonald’s Filet o’ Fish as “McFish”, and finally forgetting the name of this REAL LIFE space vehicle:
Westward Ho! was far enough ahead to wager zero on tonight’s final question, but we also found some strategic wagering for our second and fourth place finishers as well. Thanks again for coming out, and go easy on the shoveling tomorrow. Here are the final results:
First Place: Westward Ho! (two in a row!)
Second Place: Morgan Station
Third Place: Men & Pausers
“The truth is out there”, as our first category for next Monday is “The X-Files”
~ Ronnie
Hershey’s Restaurant in Gaithersburg, MD
I was glad to see some teams get out before the storm for our Monday evening game at Hershey’s Restaurant in Gaithersburg! Even though it was cold outside, the game got HOT after the halftime puzzle page! As I read out the scores before the start of the third round, Dangerous Curves was in third place, but well within striking distance of the lead as they sat 13 points behind the Jon Jeffries Fan Club in first place. When I read the scores again before the start of the final round, Dangerous Curves had overtaken second place, and now sat just TWO points out of first place (needless to say, it was a crazy third round!). Dangerous Curves took full advantage of the 6-4-2, gaining four points on the rest of the field by knowing the names of the lead characters of the film “Minions”.
Unfortunately, the momentum didn’t carry through from there and that’s where they finished. After the final was answered we had I Saw Another Team Cheating finish in third place, a valiant second place finish for Dangerous Curves, and a triumphant first place victory for Jon Jeffries Fan Club! They sealed the deal by being the only team to answer correctly on tonight’s final question. It’s their third win of the season (and technically, their third in a row since they took a couple of weeks off in between their last two wins). Keping with their recurring theme, they chose Asian Borders for the opening category of next Monday’s game. Study up and we’ll see you with hopefully a better forecast next week at Hershey’s Restaurant!!
~ Jon J
Uno Pizzeria in Frederick, MD
The storm may have been rolling in tonight, but that didn’t mean our teams were rolling out until the finale of our game of Monday night Pour House Trivia tonight at Uno Pizzeria in Frederick!
Highlights of the Night:
In “Houston-We-Have-A-Problem”: Oh Technology… For all your benefits, you have a wonderful way of screwing everything up in a pinch! Thank you all for being so patient with me tonight as I did battle with my blue-screening laptop. A sure sign I need to get the old girl reformatted or replaced. But we got through it, and she eventually began to cooperate. But not before I had to do two rounds of scoring by hand. Yikes!
In “They’re-Gonna-Jump-Me-In-The-Parking-Lot”: Tequila Mockingbird, you guys know I love ya; I had the perfect opportunity for a couple of jokes, can you blame me for jumping at them? I could’ve gone further, I had a few more up my sleeve. Why are you looking at me like that? No, wait please! Help! Help! Tell my mother I love herrrrr…
In “They’re-Like-A-Disease”: Every time I think I’m finally rid of the horrid little things known as Minions, they pop back up unexpectedly. Like in a 6-4-2, that saw six of our seven teams come up with the correct response on the six-point clue. Forget the so-called two-point Walk of Shame; you all knowing the names of the Minions on six points? THAT’S the walk of shame in my book!
After a wild night, the final didn’t have much impact, so our podium stood thus:
In third place tonight, Fire-breathing Rubber Duckies!
In second place tonight, Tequila Mockingbird!
In first place tonight, Stink Floyd!
Great game everyone! Stay safe on your way home tonight, and tomorrow be safe in the midst of Snowmaggedon 2017. Next week we’ll kick things off with the On-screen Deaths of the Late Great Bill Paxton! Game over man! Study up, and we’ll see you next time!
Until then,
~ Ian
Basic Burger in Arlington, VA
It’s a SNOWPOCALYPSE! And seven teams still SNOWED up…I mean SHOWED up to tonight’s game of Monday night Pour House Trivia here at Basic Burger in Arlington! Our first round seemed to be SNOW problem for most of our groups (yes, this is going to continue, go with it…), with the toughest answer being the name of the company whose stock symbol is “KO” and used the slogan “Make it real”. Many teams wanted to say Kodak, but instead it was ICE COLD Coca Cola that was the real answer. Round 2 was pretty CHILL, and again saw only a bonus question making it rough on our teams when trying to name Jack Nicklaus’ alma mater – none other than THE (SN)OHIO State University! (Ok, I’m reaching here, but it’s fun) When halftime came, I thought there was SNOW way our teams would score perfectly – but five teams did! Way to go, teams!
The locals really ICED the competition when naming the three Presidential homes that started with”M”: – Mt. Vernon, Monticello, and Montpelier are a snowball’s throw away for us here in Virginia. The toughest question in Round 3 was naming the Egyptian god of the afterlife (SN)OSIRIS (yup, I did it again, too easy) – but none of the teams got the bonus on that one – the deity is usually depicted as the color green, not gold, black, or blue. Teams TURNED UP THE HEAT in Round 4 by naming Fahrenheit 451 as the dystopian novel based off the short story “The Fireman” – but only two teams were able to correctly name the protagonist, Guy Montag. As we finished round four, I couldn’t believe the scores that our teams put up tonight! Our fourth place team went into the final with 161 points!
In the end, only a couple of our teams really FROZE up on the final question. Kitten MITTENS (providing their own snow joke) took an early lead and it just SNOWBALLED from there. Tonight’s winners were as follows:
First Place: Kitten Mittens
Second Place: PC Principals
Third Place: Walking Talking Stephen Hawking
Next week’s first category: Mascots in the 2017 NCAA Tournament
~ Kate
Il Forno Pizzeria in Frederick, MD
Just before the snow started coming down, we had a small bit of time to squeeze in our weekly trivia match at Il Forno Pizzeria in Frederick! A good turnout on a night that seemed like it might be all for naught, we saw double digit team numbers join us to make sure they got their trivia fix before getting snowed into their boring households for the next day or two! Thanks to everyone who made the trip, I hope you all made it home okay! Seemed we got out of there just before it started getting TOO bad!
The Jeff King Experience hasn’t lost a game since World Series XIV. They looked to keep the streak alive tonight, though it was just two of them playing, as the actual Jeff King lives south a bit and another teammate is out of the country for next two weeks. The duo looked strong against a tough field but still trailed by a small bit going into the second half as Much More Deeper had a very respectable 85 points after the first half!
The Jeff King Experience picked up the pace a bit in the 3rd and 4th rounds, picking some questions that many teams were missing, including our question of the night, the Shared Surnames. A popular bonus choice, we needed the surname shared by the villain in “Annie”, Paul Rudd’s character on “Friends” and an actress who began her fame on “Buffy”. Well, tricky this one was, because Sarah Michelle GELLER was on “Buffy” AND there are multiple GELLERs on “Friends”, so it may seem like an obvious guess. Unfortunately, there are more characters on “Friends”, more actresses on “Buffy”, and such a thing as Mrs. Hannigan in “Annie”. Hannigan is our correct response here. Only a few teams picking up points here including Off in Public who picked up a two-point bonus by knowing Michelle was Alyson Hannigan’s character in “American Pie”! A nice pull!
Going into the final, Jeff King XP led by a bit and would seal another win with a correct response. They had it almost immediately after I’d asked it so that was all she wrote. Chalk up another win for the JKXP! They’re legit. Come stop them if you dare! Second place went to Much More Deeper, a solid game played. Third place goes to Half a Brain, jumping up a bit getting the final correct. That’s a wrap people. Be safe, be warm! Until next week!
