Another place for Trivia

Ray Hamel, former Trivia Quiz editor for the NYT and current Special Collections and Reference Librarian for the Lawrence Jacobsen Library at the Wisconsin Primate Research Center, has a "Trivia Question of the Day" email list.

Sign up to receive Ray's Question of the day. Respond with the correct answer, and you'll be mentioned in the "kudos" list in the next email.

The Question of the Day is often pretty easy to Google, so I play it like Ken Jennings' suggests on his Trivia Quiz: I only answer when I know it off the top of my head. Even some of Hamel's more challenging questions can often be found with some digging, but my personal rule keeps me from spending half my day trying to find it.

Every so often (when Hamel goes on vacation), Hamel puts together a Super Trivia Challenge when you have to work a series of clues that often fit together some way in a word puzzle to solve. These are especially fun and challenging.

Ray Hamel is also a member of Network, the winningest team at the World's Largest Trivia Contest in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. My own team, Freshly Squeezed, is approaching the top 10 (out of around 450 to 500 teams), but doesn't hold a candle to Network's resources and record of success.

Check out Ray's Question of the Day for some daily trivia fun.

The answer is: The all-time leading scorer on "Jeopardy!"

Q: Who is Ken Jennings?

The champion Jeopardy player has a book (Brainiac), a website, and his very own weekly Trivia Quiz. It's a 7 question quiz run by email, and you can sign up here (in the little red box on the left hand side below the navigation).

I recently signed up myself. It's a good quiz - some easy questions, some tough ones, and the 7th is always a "what do these things have in common" stumper that takes some time to figure out.

As the intro to the email says, you're supposed to be on the honor system and answer the quiz to the best of your ability sans Google. That's the way I've tried to play Ray Hamel's Trivia Question of the Day (also by email). With that, I'll reply with my best guess. If I don't know it, I may do some searching to find out the answer, but then I don't reply. That way, I feel good about the ones I get, and then I'm not AS tempted to spend time on researching if I don't have the time.

Of course, once Trivia comes around, the Google option is back on the table. The World's Largest Trivia Contest is a whole different animal.

I don't know what's involved with the supposed "leader board" on the Ken Jennings site or if high quiz scores earn you anything but bragging rights on his message board. If anyone wants to fill me in, please post a comment.

Happy Trivia, everyone!