A Trivial Pursuit

Guinness @ Fado in Seattle, originally uploaded by Kell Bailey.

Oh, the heartbreak!

I recently started attending trivia night at Casey's Irish Bar & Grill in downtown with Davey and his friend, Brian. They have been going regularly but last night was my second time. Last week, my first, we finished dead last, and being the competitive guy I am I was looking forward to redeeming ourselves this week.

We got off to a great start last week, getting 24 out of 24 points in the first round, but then we fell apart the next round. We bounced back, though, but in the end we wagered the full 20 points and got the last question wrong, putting us dead last. No guts, no glory.

Last night we once again swept the first round. and it looked like we were once again going to tank the second round. We got the first two questions wrong but we wagered the lowest points possible. After that, we were on a roll. We missed a couple more questions wrong, but we were in the top 3 for all four rounds. In fact, at the end of round 4 heading into the final question, we were in first--ahead of the second place team by 11 points.

For the final question we could bet between 2 and 20 points. If we get the answer wrong we lose half of what we bet. The question: What port did the Mayflower depart from?

None of us knew the answer, but Davey had a great guess. Plymouth. Since we weren't sure we only bet 2 points hoping that the others also got it wrong.

Sometimes the song the quizmaster plays while we're answering is a clue. If we had paid attention we would have realized that the song for that questions was: Maxine Nightingale's "Right Back Where We Started From." As it turned out, a bunch of teams got it right too, but they wagered big. We managed to finish second, but another team leapfrogged over us. The agony!

We won bar bucks, though, and I have a feeling we're going to soon dominate. I can feel it! Chalk this one up to a lesson learned. Next time!