Trivial Pursuit

This weekend is "Trivia Weekend" here in Appleton.



Lawrence University has held a yearly Trivia Contest now for 40 years. It's listed (apparently) in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest running trivia contest, since the last question of the year is used as the beginning question for the next year, thus making the contest ongoing and continuous. The contest period begins at 10:00:37 on Friday night and goes until midnight on Sunday, with questions asked every three minutes. In between questions we are treated to a wide variety of (mostly really bad) music, whimsical quotes, and, after three minutes, the names of each question's winners.



This year there are 80 registered teams, playing both locally (some on campus and others off) and around the country via webcast. The teams are whimsically named, including "Smarter Than The Average Bush," "Bean Curd in General McCloud's Sauce," "The Church of Bob Saget," and the everpresent "Skull Squadron" (always spoken by the announcers in a loud, gruff voice). Some of these teams have carried on intact for decades.

Susan went to high school with a group of people who have been running a team continuously now for 26 years. They've used the local library--with its T-1 internet connection--for 23 years, but finally needed a new home, and so our house has been taken over for the weekend. The jury is still out, but so far this seems a workable solution. Our team's name is always an elaboration on "Lucky Guess." This year, signaling the end of the library era, we're "Lucky Guess Unbound."



The action is fast and furious, with a number of people manning whatever computer is available, and others manning the phones to call in the answer before the buzzer sounds. Then, correct answer in hand, one moves on to strategy, which involves tying up the phone lines so that others may not get their answers registered in time (which is why we need so many people on the phones, each with a different cell phone carrier or on a land line).

The contest used to be broadcast on radio, and the skills needed were a vast store of assimilated trivial knowledge plus the ability (and resources) to find stuff quickly in paper form. Hence, the library. But over the years it has become almost entirely an internet searching contest, and the questions have changed to reflect this. Naturally, some people are better searchers than others--there's a definite skill in knowing how to look for stuff--and it helps to be working five or ten different search engines in search of the same information.



This year we're sporting 15-20 people at any given moment, and 12 computers stuffed in our kitchen (one of which--my old 12" Powerbook, above--is tasked with handling and broadcasting the contest feed).

We're currently in seventh place.