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Trivia, A FAQ
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Wiki-ness The Ward |
Wait, what exactly is trivia? | |||||
| First off, it's Trivia. Capitalized. It's a 50 hour marathon run by 88.1 KVSC. The question writers spend a year thinking of ways to stump teams. Jo and her team get (I'm guessing) a couple months to set up the logistics on their end; training DJ's and phone bank volunteers, setting up a system to track points, arranging food for volunteers, prize packs for the top three teams, and a bevy of other things I couldn't begin to think of. Then, beginning at 5:00 on Friday evening, teams get 50 hours to answer almost 500 questions at a rate of 9 an hour (18 during speed rounds, but that's getting picky). It'll test your searching skills, your communication skills, your networking skills, your volatile situation diffusing skills, your speed and endurance, and your stomach (how much caffeine and junk food can you consume in 50 hours vs. how much should you consume). | ||||||
| Searching Skills? I thought you said this was a trivia contest. | ||||||
| It is, but it's not about what you know, it's about what you can find. Google is King, but the question writers are always looking for stuff that isn't on the Internet. | ||||||
| What kind of questions do they ask? | ||||||
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There's a token question about religion (usually some form of Christian) every year. There are always questions relating to the theme. Sports, pop culture, sciences, history, news items, movies, books, celebrities, tv (usually something obscure from a show that only lasted four episodes), are all covered. There is a visual trivia packet that each team receives when they register. All you get is the image, the challenge is to find out everything about it that you can. They also have a neat trick where they play an audio clip of something and ask you about it. Examples: they play a song and want to know the lyricist or the performer or the next lyric, they play a clip of someone speaking and want to know who it is, they play an engine noise and want to know what it is (it was an airplane), they play 3 seconds of video game music and want to know what game it is. |
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| Yeah, but what questions do they ask? | ||||||
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What is the first and last name of the person who wrote the "Feed Stuff" column in the November 1974 issue of Horse and Rider Magazine? (Dr. Tony Cunha) Many musicians have day jobs ion their way to being full time artists, Christine Lavin had a job she described as horrible. What was that job? (String Bean Inspector) The plane Memphis Belle was named after whom? (Margaret Polk) Who was #19 on Mental Floss Magazine's list of the 20 most annoying people in history? (Pete Best) What was Jeanne Dixon eating for lunch on the day she predicted JFK's assassination? (Eggs Florentine) In Carly Simon's video "You Know What to Do," what kind of swimming stroke does she do? (Breast) According to the Chinese Zodiac what sign is it right now? (It was the year of the Dog) According to Avis the world's largest walnut is 15 feet high. In what year was it erected? (1963) |
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| What if you get the answer wrong? | ||||||
| First I should explain about communicating with the Answer Bank. You call the number and a volunteer answers giving their code name, you tell them your team number and which question you'd like to answer, give the answer, if it's wrong you try again, then you can answer a different question if you have any possible answers. You can answer two questions per phone call with two guesses each. So as long as the question is still open and you can get through to the answer bank again, no harm, no foul. | ||||||
| So you can just guess?! | ||||||
| Heck yes! There's sometimes quite a lot of guessing going on because you want to use both chances when you get through. This is also a good opportunity to try to make the Answer Bank worker laugh. | ||||||
| Where do you get information for answers? | ||||||
| Where ever you can. As mentioned previously, Google is excellent, but there are times when Google fails. This is when you call someone. This year Laura called John's parents to look through his dad's old yearbooks because he went to Apollo when it opened and they wanted to know what was the first show produced in it's theatre. | ||||||
| 50 Hour Marathon. Does everyone stay awake for all of it? | ||||||
| No. Over the years we have discovered that we get along and handle the stress better when we break away for some shut eye. There are a few brave souls who handle sleep deprivation much better than I do (this is June, by the way) who cut way down on their sleep, but it is by their own choice. | ||||||
| How many people can you have on a team? | ||||||
| Officially team size is unlimited, but a good rule of thumb is the number of people you can get along with for 50 hours. This can be helped by setting up a sattelite team so you don't have to see or hear them, they just produce answers. | ||||||
| This sounds interesting, but I don't know anything and am not very good with Google, should I still play? | ||||||
| Of course! Once the Ward is open there will be a wiki about strategies to use Google and other resources. We will also have the Question of the Week on our main page that you can sharpen your skillz on. | ||||||
| I can't commit to come to St. Cloud or for the whole weekend... | ||||||
| No problem. All you need to play from a distance is an internet connection to access our network and find answers. If the whole weekend is not possible for you just let us know when you expect to be there and we'll make sure the door's unlocked. | ||||||
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If you still have questions, ask your favorite team
member or email info@houseofinsanity.org.
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