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February 17, 2009
Thirty Years of Trivia Lovin'
I really don't feel like doing any Google searching for awhile. I did more than enough of it this past weekend to last me quite a long time. For those of you who weren't aware what I was doing all weekend long, I was participating in the annual KVSC 50-hour Trivia Marathon. KVSC is a campus radio station at Saint Cloud State University in central Minnesota, and they've been putting on this trivia marathon every year since 1980, and I've been participating in it ever since Carl introduced it to us physics nerds back at Gustavus a few years ago. This year's theme? XXX: Thirty Years of Trivia Lovin'. So that, combined with it being held on Valentine's weekend, made for quite a few love-related questions. There was even one round where the answer to every question was the title of a TV show that had "love" somewhere in the title.
Though I've been helping out Carl with the trivia contest for a few years now, we haven't ever had the manpower to cover the entire 50 hours. This year was different - we got organized! Our team, "Knee Deep In Theses!", was made up of almost entirely grad students, and had two hubs - Cornell University (Ithaca, NY, at Carl's apartment), and Penn State (at Walter's apartment). Here at PSU it was mostly me, Walter & Kent, but Petters and Jacob both came by for a bit on Friday night, and Bob stopped by for awhile on Saturday evening. 
We were hoping for a better turnout, but oh well. At any rate, every few hours we switched off which location was "in charge" of calling in our answers to the trivia hotline, keeping track of the questions, etc. At any given time, we had anywhere from 5 to roughly 15 people on our team (not only at the hubs, but also in faraway places like Seattle and Switzerland) researching the questions and supplying guesses, hints and clues in a team chat room. Carl had also organized a Google document that we continuously updated with written copies of the questions, point values, answers, and names of the operators at the trivia hotline who answered our calls (in case we had to challenge our official point total at some point). We worked together pretty well as a team.
Here is a smattering of sample questions and answers, so that you all can get a feel for the difficult, and sometimes just plain bizarre, nature of the questions:
Q: (30 pts) According to this Bakers Dipping Chocolate ad, there are four serving directions. The first is to melt it in the microwave. What are steps 2, 3 and 4?
A: Dip, dip, and dip. (we didn't get that one)
Q: (75 pts) In Sparky's book, "Your Dog Plays Hockey," Sparky's story states that this dog was injured, and tried to claim to his owners that his injury came as a result of being tripped by Wayne Gretzky in a hockey game. Give the name of the dog, and how the injury really happened.
A: Snoopy, tripped by a waitress in a coffee shop (I managed to find that one!)
Q: (60 pts) In the "Star Wars: Episode II" cereal adventure game on the back of the box, there was a planet on the four corners of each of the two different game boards. Name each of the planets.
A: Coruscant, Hoth, Geonosis, Tatooine, Kamino, Endor, Naboo, and Tatooine (Tatooine appeared on both game boards) (we got that one!)
Q: (30 pts) Al Neff [a long-time employee of KVSC Radio] was once challenged by Bravo Burrito to eat a burrito of nothing but hot peppers. What was the name of this burrito?
A: The Burrito of Eternal Damnation (we didn't get that one)
Q: (40 pts) Where you have penciling you have erasing. The 1985 "How to Draw Comics" comic shows the eraser that works best for those extra tight spots. What is the name of the company and the type of eraser shown?
A: Eberhard Faber, kneaded eraser (we didn't get that one)
Q: (100 pts) What fictional breakfast cereal uses the slogan, "For A.M. Pep, Yet Don't Forget!"?
A: Grunchy Crunchy (we didn't get that one)
Q: (100 pts) Nick and Fetcher use a tin as their suitcase to sell items to desperate chicks. What's the name on the tin?
A: Thorne's Extra Super Creme Toffee (Carl popped in his DVD of "Chicken Run" to find that answer!)
Q: (15 pts) What's the longest river in Ireland?
A: The River Shannon (we got that; there were usually one or two easy, small-point questions in each round)
Q: (15 pts) What is Todd Davis' social security number?
A: 457-55-5462 (we got that one; you've seen the LifeLock ads, right?)
Then there were some questions, like this one, that were totally Google-proof, even after knowing the answer:
Q: (100 pts) What fictional character was known as "The Toughest Bee in Bugburg"?
A: Two-Sting Stinson (what?!? even my entomology grad student friends Dan, Tracy & Amanda had never heard of that)
And now for perhaps the craziest question of the contest, referring to a visual trivia that had black-and-white pictures of 30 couples from various movies (most of which we were totally unable to identify, by the way):
Q: (250 pts) Visual Trivia #30: Use the standard mathematical order of operations, (a*b) + (c*d) + (e*f), where:
a = year in which each movie shown was released, added together
b = difference in years between newest and oldest movie shown
c = ZIP code of the residence of the 6th youngest actress shown
d = number of movies shown that were nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture
e = 83rd prime number in the ascending sequence
f = current age in years of only living actor in the picture born on Valentine's Day + current age of only living actress in the picture born on 14 Jan.
Once you calculate that number, dial that number, preceded by the area code 815. Name the business at the other end of that phone number.
A: Sent With Kisses (815-474-0669) (uhhh... yeahh... about that...)
Every round usually had at least one or two "audio trivia" questions, where they'd read a question, and then play an audio clip, and usually you had to identify the source of that clip. And then of course there was the obligatory "creature feature" hour, which had audio clips of monsters from really, really bad horror films, where we had to identify the name of the movie. Example:
Q: (70 pts) These people are being chased over the river and through the woods by a mutant monster. [audio clip of some monster roaring and chasing screaming people] Name the movie.
A: Prophecy (and yes, we did get that one, haha :-)
Q: (100 pts) These kids are about to be unpleasantly surprised as they picnic on their farm in this campy old creature feature. [audio clip of kids picnicking, then screaming as some monster starts roaring behind them] Name the movie.
A: The Godmonster of Indian Flats (didn't get that one)
Anyway, it was 50 hours of trivia like this, with 9 (or sometimes 18) questions per round, and our team finished in 29th place (out of 76) with 8,700 points (the winning team had over 14,000 points, and there were almost 18,000 points possible). I think that's a fantastic finish, especially considering that nobody on our team was alive to remember events asked about in many of the trivia questions (such as the sponsors of some old TV show). And our team also won "Best Team Name" in this year's contest!!
As for my part, I did 27 of the 50 hours: hours 1-8 (6pm-2am Friday night), 16-30 (9am-midnight Saturday), and 44-48 (2pm-6pm Sunday). It was fun, but very tiring (especially the 15 straight hours on Saturday!). But we've already marked our calendars for next year's trivia marathon, 12-14 Feb 2010, when we'll try to improve upon our 29th-place showing! We're always looking for new members to help out, whether here at PSU, or at satellite locations around the country and around the world! Even if you can only help for an hour or two, extra Googlers are always appreciated. For now though, I'm glad that I can get back to my regularly-scheduled life!
Posted by Jared at February 17, 2009 12:33 AM
Comments
"Your Dog Plays Hockey" sounds like a book I want to read. Is this Snoopy the canine of Peanuts fame?
Posted by: Ben at February 17, 2009 10:52 AM
Yeah, that's a Peanuts book. Sparky was apparently Charles Schultz's nickname. I'm sure Schlow Library has it. For the longest time, all we could find about the book was that Charlie and the gang "learn something very important about dogs" when they find out what really happened to Snoopy. Even though we eventually did find the answer in the nick of time, I still don't know what that very important thing about dogs was that they learned. So if you read it, be sure to let me know what it is!
Posted by: Jared at February 17, 2009 10:59 AM
Those questions look insane! In the defense of entomologists, had you asked us about some obscure non-fiction insect we would have totally gotten it :-) Actually, considering all of the library visits we did last year I'm surprised we didn't run across that book. Maybe I'll brush up on my Google skills and help you guys out next year.
Posted by: Amanda at February 18, 2009 08:58 PM
Hello, I play Trivia for the House of Insanity and ran across your blog researching last year's questions (I'm obsessed), and I think that Two-Sting Stinson is from a bug's life, but I haven't been able to verify it because I'm at work.
Good luck this coming year!
Posted by: June at December 14, 2009 05:26 PM