Capitol City Brewing in Arlington, VA

Although Monday night’s snow failed to live up to the media hype, Tuesday night trivia at Cap City never disappoints!  Neither sleet nor snow nor slush could keep Northern VA’s best trivia diehards away from their weekly showdown.  We started the night with a double-dip of basketball questions, in a nod to the impending start of March Madness, and continued on to tour the famed banks of the Seine and less-famed eastern Maryland counties.  The halftime puzzle page sported more crackers than a Wes Anderson movie marathon, as well as a “double” themed bottom half.  By that point, Hillary Did Harambe was just crushing it, holding first place, with Three Million Moose Lambs and Rehab is for Quitters rounding out the top three.

Things Nobody Knows: Where Frederick Douglass was born, Tyler Durden’s “you are not a beautiful or unique snowflake” monologue, John Lennon’s later work, how to spell Suze Orman’s name.

Comedy Honors: No real gut-busters, but “oprah lol” was a chuckle-worthy shrug at the question about the aforementioned Ms. Orman.

In Round 3, we swooned over kitschy pastoral artwork, “ground-breaking” science, and heroines swept away to the Scottish highlands.  Team Harambe faltered here, missing their 5-point bonus category, while Menace 2 Sobriety and the Valley Girls surged – this was a real rollercoaster night for the scoreboard, with the lead teams constantly shuffling.  Excitement was in the air!

Life of the Party: Newcomer team “Winners” barged into the proceedings about halfway through, too late to really contend, but nevertheless made their presence known by enthusiastically singing/rapping along to my entire 2000’s playlist.  Even the hostesses couldn’t help but join in on the fun!

In Round 4, more than one team wagered high and came up dry on the “SoundJam MP” question.  This software would, as we now know, eventually become iTunes, but “GarageBand” and “Pro Tools” were both eminently good guesses.  And I was legitimately impressed by the crowd’s performance on the Name Translation, which found a surprising common bond between a frightening NFL lineman and an Italian opera composer.  The Final was a tough one, which had the squads scratching their heads, with only three teams coming up with the right answer.  The Valley Girls were not one of them, unfortunately, but their conservative wager meant they only dropped to 3rd place from 1st.  Hillary Did Harambe found redemption, leaping up into 2nd place – and locking down the win were Cap City mainstays Menace 2 Sobriety, recording their first win of the season!  To recap:

First Place:  Menace 2 Sobriety

Second Place:  Hillary Did Harambe

Third Place:  Valley Girls (playing as “Go Big Blue”)

Next week’s first category:  “Taboo”

~ Austin

Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD

Champions!  Tonight was all about the diehards, thank you for joining me on this snowy night.  I know many of you had the day off, and I was happy to give you some place to escape to once the shoveling was done.  We all know how good the beer here at Champions is after a hard day’s work.  Or a hard day’s napping.  Whatever.

The story of the night was the tale of the underdogs!  Teams were lining up in the top three spots all night who are not usually up in lights.  So much fun to see the celebration – yeah, Hoof Hearted – I’m looking at you!  Party on with your bad Justin Timberlake lovin’ selves…  You guys fought the good fight but that fourth round threw you some hits (I know I’ll be googling “garage band” now) and you just couldn’t recover.

Want to talk about a recovery?  Personally, I don’t suggest you try Zima.  I know it’s coming back out, but trust me, that stuff tastes like broken hearts and lost dignity.  Not to mention what a rough day after…  Stick with the Uno game and Bud light (Huzzah, sponsor plug!) and wake up happy.

Our final tonight was a good one, only two teams picked up the correct answer!  Last Call used the snarky, sassy Robert Downey, Jr. to secure their win tonight!  Impressive, and very well-deserved.  You guys and gals logged some serious brain hours looking for that one.  For our second place team, it was another damn good showing – Racks and Sacks!  You’re getting so close!  You won the Mean Joe Greene tiebreaker with Wiseacres and put yourself right in the middle of our podium sandwich tonight.  For the record, you jumped up from fifth place on the final question in order to be in that tiebreaker.  Wiseacres settled in to third place, but no complaining from them on that one.  Next week we will be snow-free, and we’ll begin our game with a question on the TV series “Little House on the Prairie”.

Stay safe out there and I will see you then!

~ Sam

Cugini’s Restaurant in Poolesville, MD

Orioles Nest in Frederick, MD

Tonight we had a special snowy edition of trivia here at Orioles Nest in Frederick, and things were interesting right up until the final question.  We kicked things off with a question about bourbon, talking about the brand that seals their bottles with red wax.  Of course we were talking about Maker’s Mark, which most teams knew pretty quickly.  The audio question was about sound effects in music, and was as good an opportunity as any to ask about “Paper Planes” by M.I.A., I love that song.  We also asked a question in the second round about the historical figure with possibly the greatest hairstyle of all, none other than Mr. Frederick Douglass!  Turns out that he was born here in Maryland in Talbot County.

In the final round, we featured a question that seemed to completely change everything, when we asked about a computer program that Apple bought in 2000 and renamed.  Turns out teams were split between iTunes and GarageBand as the two answers, but the correct answer was iTunes.  We also asked a question that was deemed by We Need An Adult to be a “hidden sports question” when we asked about two people who essentially had the same name after translation.  One of the two people was Mean Joe Greene, and the other was the composer Giuseppe Verdi.  Mean Joe Greene would prove to be relevant to the end of the game as well.

The final question of the night was about Box Office nubers, and asked about the actor who earned top billing in a movie that earned $500,000+ each year from 2008 through 2013.  Only one team managed to get the right guy, who pulled off this feat because he was in all the big Marvel movies as well as two “Sherlock Holmes” films.  That’s right, your answer was Robert Downey Jr!  One team getting it right led to a major shift in scores as we actually had to break a tie for the win!  However, the tiebreaker between We Need An Adult and Suck It Trebek was to guess how many regular season games Mean Joe Greene played in his career.  The tie ended up being broken in a big way, as We Need An Adult guessed too low and the win went to Suck It Trebek!  Our final standings included Fill Stick in third place, with We Need An Adult taking second place and Suck It Trebek taking the win!  Congrats!

Next week’s first category: “Big Little Lies”

Until next time…

Tilted Kilt in Frederick, MD

There was no trivia tonight at Tilted Kilt.  Nick returns next week with an opening question on Technical Theatre.

FireFlies in Alexandria, VA

Once again, the snow could not keep these teams from playing some trivia!  Eight teams braved the cold here at Fireflies n Alexandria, and the opening question may have made them regret their decision.  Only three teams could name Celine Dion’s first #1 hit that was actually a cover: “The Power of Love”.  A similarly named song by Huey Lewis could be heard in Back to the Future.  Even though this might not have been the easiest start, it seems this crowd is a real fan of pop culture.  Question 3 about hyphenated movie titles was a hit, all but one team easily named all three for a two-point bonus.

In Round 2, every single team was able to name all three musical acts by the sound effects used in their songs.  However, the bonuses would get progressively harder in this round.  No teams knew that the film “Fight Club” was the originator of the now popular slang term “snowflake” to refer to an emotionally fragile adult (multiple teams guessed Matt Damon movies, sorry Matt).  Also, no team knew that Frederick Douglass was born in Talbot County in Maryland.  As for halftime, identifying different types of chips proved to be easy for our teams.  The bottom half only had a couple misses, so overall these teams averaged an 18.  Up to now, Finkel is Einhorn and Let Them Eat Pi have been tied at first place.

If there was an award for best made up answer, I would have given it to Last is a Blast, when they guessed that the album title that contained Justin Timberlake’s song “Cry Me a River” was “Bye Bye Bye Britney”.  The toughest question of the third round came at the end, as we asked about a current TV series following Claire Randall, a combat nurse swept back in time.  One team was so close in guessing “Highlander” – but it was OUTlander we were looking for.  And the bonus about the author of the novels the series is based on?  Only one team was close to getting Diana Gabaldon correct.  Round 4 had another tough question – one that sounded like it was surprisingly difficult across all venues – which music-themed computer program was known as SoundJam MP before it was purchased (and given a new name) by Apple in the year 2000?  The majority of teams answered Garage Band instead of the wildly popular app iTunes.

At the end of Round 4, it seemed as though Finkel is Einhorn was securely in first place and Let Them Eat Pi was a practical shoe in for second.  But only half of our teams were able to answer the final question correctly, and Pi did not fall into that category tonight, slipping to fifth place.  Your winners were:

First Place:  Finkel is Einhorn, Einhorn is Finkel

Second place:  Barflies

Third place:  Donkey Kong

Next week’s first category:  Famous Bartenders

See You Next Tuesday!

~ Kate

Shuckin’ Shack in Frederick, MD

Your humble host and seven teams braved the worst cold and snow that Frederick has thrown at us this year to rock trivia here at Shuckin’ Shack.  The game proceeded relatively predictably, with the newest team, Sweater Hugs, and perhaps the senior team, Bowling Green Massacre, trading places for last place.  But it’s a long game, and we’re glad these teams did not too discouraged…

Mother Shuckers absolutely dominated the first half, including having the only perfect score on the puzzle page. Alas, persistence paid off for Donner Party, who made a strong move in the third and fourth rounds to firmly ensconce themselves as leaders moving into the final, final, final question.

But wait!  A clandestine assault was being conducted by Sweater Hugs, who played well enough in the second half and OWNED the final question to move, improbably, into second place!  They themselves were shocked, I assure you. 🙂  A great game on a bloody cold night. See you next week, my pretties.  Here is what our medal podium looked like at the end of the night:

First Place:  Donner Party

Second Place:  Sweater Hugs

Third Place:  Mother Shuckers

Next week’s first category:  Calculus (Blame Donner Party, not me.)  Get out your slide-rules!!

Fair Winds and Following Seas,

~ Chief

Primanti Brothers in Hagerstown, MD

The Valley Mall may have been closed due to the snow, but Primanti Brothers was open for Tuesday night Pour House Trivia!  Plenty of teams (including new ones!) came out after winter storm Stella to answer the call of Pour House Trivia.  Welcome to The Killers and The Cardinals!  With these last-minute additions, we played an intimate game with our teams huddled near the fire feature.

Our first half featured a stellar performance by the Arrondissements of Ouagadougou, who were going for a bit of history this week.  After wins on both Sunday and Monday, they are hoping to become the first team in PHT team in history to win FOUR games in one week!  Well, they did not miss a wagering question in the first half, picked up 20 on the halftime page, and sauntered out to a very impressive 86 points.  But the Cardinals were just four points behind!  Would a rookie team ruin the fun?

The third round did not provide much separation, but we had a very interesting 6-4-2 question.  There were many confident early answers, but unfortunately all of our teams whiffed on this one, and we had no change in the score between the final two rounds.

No matter, the question brought the game to an end with a great question about movies.  The Legends and The Killers traded places when The Legends cinched the right answer to take third, their first time in the top three!  The Cardinals played a great game and came in second.  While AoO kept a tight lead all night, and with one of just two correct responses on the final, they took the win.  Three wins on three straight nights!  Wow!

Next week, we’ll start off with a question on the Lakes of the World.  So… not these then.