Triviateer, 3rd Class

Just before the big holiday weekend last month (that would have been Memorial Day), The Friends of the Coquille Library (FotCL) hosted the 193rd Annual Trivia Battle to the Death...oh wait that last stuff was just a dream I had. What the FotCL did host was the Spring 2011 Trivia contest, where local citizens compete in teams of up to eight persons each in a 10 round, 100 question contest for bragging rights. While 'door prizes' were given away throughout the evening, the prize for first place is a warm fuzzy feeling for being slightly (or greatly) more geeky than your neighbors.

The winner of the contest, and champions at least until the autumn event, were the "Awesome Name Goes Here" Team. Which was the fantastic name I came up with, as a joke at first, but we ended up using it. In spite of or perhaps because of our team name for as it turned out we were the only team that named ourselves, we were victorious with 745 (out of 1,000) points. Our closest competitor had 710 points while the team in last place had slightly less than half our total. Someone mentioned at the end that we may have had the highest total ever, but I can't help but think we only earned a "C" on our exam.

I'd like to post a link to the news story for which pictures were taken of the group of us. But, it has yet to be written. The digital photo is somewhere...perhaps I can lay my hands on it.

Our team was captained by Elizabeth, the newest librarian here in Coquille, along with two other librarians who formed our strong foundation, Steve and Mary. Our scribner and Elizbeth's boyfriend Jake along with Paul and I were the non-library staff half of the group.

I would love to say that I was the star of this team, or at the very least that I was as strong a member as the rest, but I will have to be satisfied with saying that I wasn't the suckiest player on our team, but I won't say who that was. Well, would we have won if I weren't there, ignoring for the moment that it couldn't have been a we without a me? There were four questions that I knew the answer to, which totalled 40 points (well I knew the answer to quite a few more, but these were the ones where I was the only person that knew the answer). Two of these Mary guessed at, but wasn't sure. We won by 35...it seems like I helped with victory. But, I also talked the team out of a correct answer, well with Paul's help. Without listing the questions, here are the four answers that define me as a person, if you will: Charlie Sheen, road runner, Fort Clatsop, Columbia and Snake rivers. The answer that I talked the team out of was: 50 miles. There was one answer in the last round that I knew, and didn't say anything about because I let the others convince me that it wasn't correct, was: Emily Dickenson.

If we had played with a full contingent of eight, perhaps we would have totally kicked ass. We'll have to see if that can happen in the fall.