Pretty much every Wednesday night, from 8:00 to about 9:45, you will find me at Buffalo Wild Wings on south Hover. Here is where Trivia Sharks, run by Jim Dornan, presents a weekly trivia competition. I like it because the questions are my type of questions… leaning more toward academic or Jeopardy type questions, rather than pointless ‘trivia’ types of questions.
Here are the questions from October 2. Our team (consisting of Bill, David, & myself) were in first place going into the final question. But we missed the final question, so finished out of the money. (we would have finished 3rd if we had chosen to bet zero on the final).
It costs nothing to participate (although I’m sure Buffalo Wild Wings would love for you to buy something to eat or drink). There are food coupon prizes for winning the first or second round, and also for finishing in the top three teams at the end of the evening.
Stop by and say ‘hi’ to the Longmont Streetwalker if you want… or, if there’s room available, play on our team for the night. Or bring a team of your own… usually there are 10 or 15 teams or so playing.
Here’s the questions from the October 2 night, at least as much as I can transcribe from my notes. If you go to the Trivia-Sharks web site, you can also see questions from recent weeks (although they’re usually a few weeks behind).
Trivia-Sharks web site
OCTOBER 2 questions. (if we got it right, I won’t comment… if we missed it, I’ll put in our incorrect answer). Answers are given below the score sheet photograph.
Round 1
1. Is Tom Landry (Dallas Cowboys football coach) Dead or Alive? (the first question is always a “Dead or Alive”, so you have a 50/50 chance to start out). (1 point)
2. What river has the most outflow volume? (2 points)
3. What actor played James Bond in the 1963 movie Dr. No? (2 points)
4. What sea is bordered by Finland, Sweden, Poland, and Russia?
5. What is the heaviest internal organ in the human body?
6. Remember the Year. (question # 6 is always to give what year the three given events happened. If you get it exact, you get 4 points. One point is deducted for every year off you are… down to zero… you can’t get negative points)
Pope John Paul II was shot. Donkey Kong arcade game was released. MTV was launched.
7. (2 part question). Give the former names of these cities… Ho Chi Minh City. St. Petersburg (5 points for each correct answer)
ROUND 2
8. What physicist (with neuro-muscular dystrophy) wrote “A Brief History of Time”?
9. What outlaw was supposedly shot and killed by Pat Garrett?
10. What 15th/16th century Polish astronomer said the sun was at the center of the solar system, not earth?
11. (Script Tease… you are given a few lines from a movie. You get 5 points if you correctly identify the movie. After a minute or two, the actor who said the line is given. You get 2 points if you then correctly identify the movie. If you go for the 5 points, you can’t then again go for the 2 points if you’re wrong).
Let me tell you something, boy. You can march like the white man, you can talk like him. You can sing his songs, you can even wear his suits. But, you ain’t NEVER gonna be nothing to him, than an ugly ass chimp… in a blue suit.
Hint after a few minutes — Denzel Washington is the actor who said the lines.
12. What singer issued the platinum album ‘The Icon is Love’ in 1994… their last platinum album before that was 1974?
13. Closest To (this question asks you to guess the age of a celebrity. 6 points if you get it exact… one point less for each year off you are (can’t go negative)).
Denzel Washington
14. (3 part question). What are the top 3 food crops in the world as far as tons produced each year (according to some U.N. figures?) (5 points for each correct answer)
ROUND 3
15. Who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia?
16. What is the primary alcohol in a Tom Collins?
17. The Commander-in-Chief trophy… awarded to the top military academy football team… was won by which branch of the military in 2012?
18. What country has the world’s longest coastline (islands included)?
19. What element is between nickel and zinc in the periodic table?
20. What two late 1950’s Broadway musicals each had a song titled ‘Maria’?
Scores of the top ten teams going in to the final question. 33, 49, 53, 60, 61, 64, 66, 67, 71, 74. As I said above, our team was in first place going in to the final question.
FINAL QUESTION. The only question you wager on. Bet from zero to 20… gain that much if you get ALL FOUR answers correct. Lose that much if you miss any part of it.
21. Name any 4 of the last 5 Best Picture Oscar winners.
The answers are given below the score sheet picture. The answers are on the score sheet, so if you’re playing yourself… don’t peek!
ANSWERS.
ROUND 1.
1. Dead (died of cancer in 2000)
2. Amazon river
3. Sean Connery
4. Baltic Sea
5. liver (answer would be ‘skin’ if it didn’t say ‘internal’)
6. 1981
7. Saigon and Leningrad (Petrograd should also be accepted)
We won this round with 25 out of 25… so won 6 buffalo wings!
ROUND 2.
8. Stephen Hawking
9. Billy the Kid
10. Copernicus
11. Glory (our first miss… I don’t remember what wrong answer we put down… perhaps A Few Good Men?)
12. Barry White (we put down Barry Manilow)
13. 58 years old (we put down 50, so got no points)
14. Sugar cane, corn, and wheat (rice is # 4). We put wheat, rice, and (I think) bananas, so got 5 points. I’m not sure if I like the ‘sugar cane’ answer to this question, since although I’m sure the sugar cane weighs a lot, I’m don’t know how much of that converts in to actual sugar (food). I guess it depends on how the question was worded exactly.
We got 14 points in the 2nd round… the top team scored 24 points.
ROUND 3.
15. C. S. Lewis
16. gin (I would think they should have to accept ‘ethanol’ for this, but obviously that’s not what they’re going for)
17. Navy
18. Canada (we debated between Russia & Canada for this, but decided Canada has a lot of big islands up there).
19. Copper (although we luckily got this right, I don’t think it’s a very good question. Seems awful esoteric to know the periodic table to that detail. But we figured the answer was going to be a fairly well-known element)
20. West Side Story and The Sound of Music.
(so we scored 35 out of 35 in the 3rd round (there’s no prize for that, though)).
FINAL (wagering) QUESTION
21. Argo, The King’s Speech, The Artist, The Hurt Locker, and Slumdog Millionaire. (we bet 10 points… and got 3 out of the 4, so lost 10 points. We got 3 out of the 4, but put ‘No Country for Old Men’ instead of either Argo or The Artist.)
We finished out of the money with 64 points. The top 3 places were 67 (betting zero), 84 (betting 20 and getting it), and 91 (betting 20 and getting it).
So we had a pretty good night, but that last question can make or break you!