It doesn't pay to be a Gentile at trivia night

Thursday trivia was no fun - we didn't miss anything that made an interesting trivia question, and the final was another "guess a number and we'll tell you if you're close" question - so you get Saturday trivia, which I continue to insist is better anyway. There is a significant probability that there will not be trivia this week, in which case, I'll just make something up.

1. In which EU nation is the primary National Language spoken fluently by less than 10% of the population?
2. What is the only stadium to host consecutive Super Bowls?
3. Street lingo: What is "Adam's Ale?"
4. What are the capitals of a) Somalia b) Australia?
5. A Jewish boy has his Bar Mitzvah at 13. At what age does a girl have her Bat Mitzvah?
6. In the iconic photo, how many soldiers are raising the American flag at Iwo Jima?
7. What African nation is home to the militia known as the Janjaweed?

Back in the saddle again

The nasty throat/chest virus seems to be gone, so I was back at trivia this week. Things looked bad when we started blowing our five-pointers in the middle rounds, but then we wound up winning the thing at the end, by being the only team to correctly guess how many tons of jellybeans the White House purchased during the Reagan Administration. Seriously, I can't stand that type of question. They said to get within two, so we figured it couldn't be very high, but unless you happen to have just read 101 Completely Random Facts about Ronald Reagan, there's no further reasoning that can get you any closer to the correct answer; the question might just as well have been, "I'm thinking of a number between 2 and 30, what is it?"

The rest of our misses:
1. What television personality claimed that he was fired as a local weatherman after joking that a storm had hail stones "the size of canned hams?"
2. What is the name of Felix the Cat's girlfriend?
3. What was the name of Melissa Etheridge's first album after announcing her homosexuality?
4. Which country had a record turnout of 315 million voters during its 1991 elections?
5. Who wore a suit, instead of his standard military fatigues, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations?

Why there was no trivia this week

I have spent the last week waylaid by a virus, which started in my throat, moved to my chest once I started taking prednisone for the throat, then moved back into my throat once I ran out of prednisone and started taking cough syrup. Today, I feel well enough to move around, and can even talk for several minutes without straining my voice. But, obviously, I had to skip both Thursday and Saturday trivia this week. Maybe I'll get to alternate content (I do have a nice onion spaghetti recipe I could share), maybe not.

Why I prefer Saturday Trivia

As I have mentioned before, the hard-and-fast rule of Thursday trivia is, "Don't miss your five-point questions." So when we managed to blow a five-pointer on the very first question (mis-counting the number of molars in the human mouth - incidentally, I only have 25 teeth in my mouth, which is somewhat disconcerting), and then missed another five-pointer in the second round, we knew this would not be our night. We were dead last at halftime, made a big comeback in the second half, but would not have placed even if we had gotten the final question right. That's okay, because, as is too often the case, the trivia writers asked an ambiguous question with a difficult-to-verify answer, which a brief Google search would indicate they got wrong.

1. What is the more common name for the chemical compound epinephrine?
2. Which planet takes 84 Earth years to complete its orbit?
3. Which golfer bid a tearful farewell to fans after playing his last U.S. Open in 1994?
4. To whom did Herman Melville dedicate Moby Dick?
5. For which Biblical figure did the Sun and Moon stand still? (sorry if this one is worded badly)
6. Which country is home to the oldest active brewery (which has been running since 1040 A.D.)?
Final:
7. What is the average length of an African elephant's trunk?

Good luck.