Monday, September 15, 2008

No Ken Jennings


Eggplant's are actually fruits? Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer? Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest? The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle?

It's my one true weakness: useless trivia.

This weekend, I signed up to participate in the first annual Quizmaster Cruise in Milwaukee. Trivia teams who compete weekly at local Milwaukee establishments signed up to compete. I filled in as one of the eight team members for my friend Kim on her team, Quizzers with Attitude.

With a free shirt, all-you-can-eat Usinger brats and beer for no charge, I had nothing but high expectations from the start. And it didn't disappoint.

For two hours we rode along the Milwaukee river in the Edelweiss. Each of the ten teams was asked the same six questions in six different categories, for a chance to win a number of different prizes -- another weakness of mine. First prize was a set of tickets for each winner to a show for the Milwaukee Rep.

After each of the categories, individual names were also drawn for prizes like a case of Bison Blonde Lager, an England soccer jersey, a bunch of gift certificates; and the grand prize -- a nice, crisp Benjamin.

Our team came in second with a total of 49 points. We had to compete in sudden death for a chance to win a pair of tickets each to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (2nd place) or a copy of the Beer Guide book (3rd place).

I think the question was "how many miles of subway does London have?" or something like that. We guessed closer than the other team, and took second. Holy crap. (I really wanted the beer guide book, though.)

After that, they announced the grand prize winner for the individual prize of $100. And I won!

1 comment:

Cerca Trova said...

Hot damn! How many people were in that random drawing for the $100? Pretty impressive...yeah, that beer book sounded like a better prize though, too bad you couldn't pick.