It was a full assemblage of teams at Elbo Room Thursday night, as 14 different squads tried to garner more points to make it into the top eight for the finals.
Although Street Academy had a nice lead at the quarter and at the half, by nailing questions like “Who was the lead guitarist on Michael Jackson’s song Black or White?” (Slash), “How many verses are in the Star Spangled Banner?” (four), “In what decade did Amtrak offer passenger service?” (1970’s) and “What musical instrument takes its name from the Italian word for soft?” (a piano, of course), there were some questions that were kinda hairy.
The one question that tripped up everyone – it was a six-pointer – was “What medium-heeled shoe, worn by men and women, takes its name from a foreign country?”
Got me… I skipped it. So did many others, although some people hedged bets of Dutch clogs and other such matters.
Apparently the answer was “Cuba,” as in Cuban heels. That elicited a lot of groans from the assembled Elbo Room teams.
Still, at the end, I was in fourth place and things looked good.
The final question was on space exploration. I figured what the heck, it’s probably got something to do with one of the moon missions or the shuttle missions, or maybe the question will be a reference to Star Trek or Doctor Who or something along those lines.
“The precursor to NASA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, was signed into existence by what U.S. President?”
Yike.
Well, it had to be before Kennedy, because Kennedy talked about going to the moon in one of his early speeches, and you needed a NASA to go to the moon. I thought and thought… and came up with Eisenhower.
So did most of the other teams, although there were some scattered votes for Truman – one team went with Woodrow Wilson, and another threw in a guess o Taft.
And the answer – Woodrow Wilson, in 1915.
Most teams bet all their chips on the final and wiped out. The top three included the Big Red Machine (the only one to get the answer right), Stern Fans (who wagered only two points, their typical “safety bet”) and a new squad, The Wrong Guy, who got their first playoff point in the tournament.
Because Stern Fans and the Big Red Machine actually tied for the final, they were given four points apiece (the outright winner would have picked up five points and second place would have garnered three points), and since they were already ahead of Street Academy, no damage was done in terms of your man losing ground in the overall scoring totals.
After seven weeks, here are the standings, and remember – only the top eight squads get into the final round.
| Trivia Team | Points | Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stern Fans | 4 | 12 |
| 2 | Big Red Machine | 4 | 10.3 |
| 3 | Mayhem | 9.3 | |
| T-4 | Brown Van Experience | 5 | |
| T-4 | Street Academy | 5 | |
| T-4 | Clay Aiken’s Skid Marks | 5 | |
| 7 | Touched by an Uncle | 4 | |
| T-8 | The Third Wheel | 3 | |
| T-8 | Woo Hoo a Go Go | 3 | |
| THE CUT LINE | |||
| 9 | Monkey Knife Fights | 2.3 | |
| 10 | Dr. Occam’s Razor | 2 | |
| T-11 | The Wrong Guy | 1 | 1 |
| T-11 | Overqualified and Unemployed | 1 | |
Next week is going to be kind of tricky for Street Academy – I will actually be out of town next Thursday night, so I won’t be able to pick up any bonus points this time around.
Chuck The Writer 
I guessed Wilson. It had to be around the time when airplanes first became nationally used, i.e. during WWI. Thus, Wilson makes sense.
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Hey, this is Jeremy from the Big Red Machine. Thanks for pointing this blog out to me–nice to see everyone’s trivia misadventures from another perspective.
It’s also good to see that someone’s keeping track of the standings for all of our benefit.
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