Trivia shirt

I got a new t-shirt at Trivia night Monday. Notice I said "got" and not "won". Darrel from my team won the shirt, the last prize to be selected in the 'quarters' contest.

The shirt is a large size and Darrel - being a truly large guy - can only wear shirts that are extra or double extra large size. I wear a large so Darrel gave me the shirt. There hadn't been many takers as most people in the bar wanted a shirt size larger than large. Hmmm... does that give you a clue as to what lots of beer drinking does to a person's body size?

The shirt is not much of a prize as it is promotion for Crown Royal whiskey and a Spring 2008 race at Richmond. The shirt is black and has a logo with an image saying "Your name here". I thought it was a pretty lame image. Even after finding out Crown Royal had a "Your name here" contest last Fall to name the 2008 NASCAR Richmond race after a contestant winner, I still think the image is lame. The shirt will come in handy around the ranch when working on my fences.

Mona won two 'quarters' questions including the final question. The money in the bucket for the final question totaled $13.75. For her other prize Mona won a small handyman utility tool with a led flashlight. It was very small and we all had fun looking for, and making fun of, the gadgets the tool contained. Even Mona joked that it would take her 8 hours to use the tool's saw to cut a branch for making a campfire.

Other than a couple t-shirts the remaining prizes were mystery bags. One bag winner (the guy from Hawaii) said his bag's contents were pretty lame and that the contestant organizers in the future could come over to his garage to get odds and ends to make up better mystery prize bags.

This night, for once, I arrived before the trivia contests started. Between my earlier arrival, and the sun setting later, that would explain why it was still twilight outside during my walk to the Landing Bar. Yet another sign that Spring is coming.

I discovered that Rod and Al were "no-shows." It is too bad as I believe our team would have won if Rod or Al were there. In the first contest 4 teams tied for first place including our team. We all got 16 answers correct. The tie breaker question was:

"In what year was Glen Campbell born?"

I remembered Campbell was 70 or more and lobbied for 1935. Another team member agreed with me about Campbell being 70 or more, and Mona thought he was in his 30s when he had his hit songs and TV show, but we couldn't sway the others. I didn't push it considering I was wrong the previous time we had to answer the tie breaker question. Remember, the "Edsel" question?

Our team members guessed 1940 and 1942 and the team went with 1942 which I felt was wrong. The other teams guessed 1943, 1940 and 1938. Campbell was born in 1936 and the 1938 answer by the lawyers/judges (argh!) team was the closest. Darrel and Mona were frustrated as this made 6 straight tie breaker questions the team has lost. If they would have gone with my answer...

For the second contest our team got 15 correct, which is more than I expected as we struggled for answers. Our team took second place. Another frustrating week at being so close.

All we needed was one more question right and we would have won. If Rod or Al were there I know we would have won. Here are some of the questions we got wrong.

1. "What actress was originally named 'Francis Gum'?"
2. "In the Blondie comic strip, what are the first names of their neighbors, The Woodleys?"
3. "What brand of cigarettes did Humphrey Bogart smoke?"
4. "Copper and Zinc together form what alloy?"
5. "What was the name of the Sargent in the Phil Silvers show?"
6. "In 'Deliverance', how many people were in the boat?"
   

1. Judy Garland
2. Herb and Tootsie
3. Chesterfield was the preferred brand of Humphrey Bogart and Lucille Ball.
4. Brass
5. Sgt. Bilko
6. Four
   

We knew Herb but could not come up with 'Tootsie". My answer for the cigarette was Chesterfield but it was a hunch without conviction. Again considering my wrong "Edsel" answer I didn't push for it and went with the team's answer of Lucky Strikes.

For the "Phil Silver's" Sargent question, Ed (the host) phrased the question strange and some team members thought Ed wanted the Phil's Silver's boss's name. I pushed for Sgt. Bilko as I knew Silvers had played Sgt. Bilko, but was overruled as they wanted Silver's boss's name. If we thought logically we could have decided a Sargent is not the boss of a Sargent.

And why did we think it was only three people in the boat? Four makes more sense.

After the trivia contest were over, our team socialized. I found the team (named SOL) consists of two former teams that joined together. I finally remembered the names of the Native American couple: Darrel and Mona.

Mona was funny as she reminisced about embarrassing events in her past. She grew up in a small South Dakota town on an Indian Reservation. To liven things up while bar hopping she and her friends would play truth-or-dare. Mona told a funny story about her friend's dare to moon the checkout person at the local drive-thru restaurant. It didn't go as planned. Instead of the old lady who typically worked at the drive-thru, a young friend of Darrel's worked that night. And instead of speeding off, another one of Mona's friends popped the car's clutch stalling the car.

The bad thing about my team is that three of the (six this night) team members smoke. Walking home in the cool night air did little to eliminate the smoke from me and my clothes.