Monday, January 24, 2011
I really don’t know how to describe today’s Trivia session other than, possibly, kooky. The room was packed—at one point, I counted 25 people, the most I’ve ever seen at a Trivia session, with an unusual number of volunteers, staff members and visitors chiming in. People were coming and going, maneuvering for good spots, laughing among themselves and tossing out some completely random answers.
The questions might have had something to do with it.
Some were plenty tough (apparently I do not know my sea captains), but toward the end Bob picked up an old trivia book that was not only a little easy, but also a little outdated. (The former: “What’s the capital of the United States?” The latter: “What’s the capital of West Germany?”)
Ken Levick, David Fox and Billy were on a roll, and at one point Danny wheeled in just in time to declare San Juan the capital of Puerto Rico. I stunned the crowd with another out-of-left-field answer during the Acronym segment: No one else guessed that SETI stands for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Of course, no one else works at Town Hall Seattle, where we hosted an SETI taskgroup speaker not long ago.
The room almost spun off its orbit when Bob asked, “Can any four odd numbers be added to equal 19, and if so, which numbers?” Although Mike immediately answered a simple “no,” most people fell for that “which numbers” part and were doing math on their hands, in their heads, out loud or all three. I thought I had it figured out with 9, 7, 5 and -1, until I said it out loud. Nope. That’s 20. Naturally, Mike had been right all along.
A couple times, I felt bad for the residents who take their Trivia seriously: It actually was kind of hard to hear, and to be heard. But otherwise, it’s awfully hard to fault a game room full of fun.
Afterward, Mike escorted me to the door, and I thanked him for taking me to Trivia.
“It’s funny how you forget things you think you know and know things you think you’ve forgotten,” I told him.
“That’s exactly it!” Mike said. “It’s very interesting, isn’t it?”
It is. And maybe … that’s an even better word than “kooky.”
I really don’t know how to describe today’s Trivia session other than, possibly, kooky. The room was packed—at one point, I counted 25 people, the most I’ve ever seen at a Trivia session, with an unusual number of volunteers, staff members and visitors chiming in. People were coming and going, maneuvering for good spots, laughing among themselves and tossing out some completely random answers.
The questions might have had something to do with it.
Some were plenty tough (apparently I do not know my sea captains), but toward the end Bob picked up an old trivia book that was not only a little easy, but also a little outdated. (The former: “What’s the capital of the United States?” The latter: “What’s the capital of West Germany?”)
Ken Levick, David Fox and Billy were on a roll, and at one point Danny wheeled in just in time to declare San Juan the capital of Puerto Rico. I stunned the crowd with another out-of-left-field answer during the Acronym segment: No one else guessed that SETI stands for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Of course, no one else works at Town Hall Seattle, where we hosted an SETI taskgroup speaker not long ago.
The room almost spun off its orbit when Bob asked, “Can any four odd numbers be added to equal 19, and if so, which numbers?” Although Mike immediately answered a simple “no,” most people fell for that “which numbers” part and were doing math on their hands, in their heads, out loud or all three. I thought I had it figured out with 9, 7, 5 and -1, until I said it out loud. Nope. That’s 20. Naturally, Mike had been right all along.
A couple times, I felt bad for the residents who take their Trivia seriously: It actually was kind of hard to hear, and to be heard. But otherwise, it’s awfully hard to fault a game room full of fun.
Afterward, Mike escorted me to the door, and I thanked him for taking me to Trivia.
“It’s funny how you forget things you think you know and know things you think you’ve forgotten,” I told him.
“That’s exactly it!” Mike said. “It’s very interesting, isn’t it?”
It is. And maybe … that’s an even better word than “kooky.”
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