Back from hiatus

I took a break from Trivia writing and research for The World's Largest Trivia Contest... and ended up staying away longer than I had hoped. But I'm back now, and will be working this back into our schedule.

Trivia (the contest) was a blast, as usual. Freshly Squeezed (my Trivia team) is a great group of people and we all know how to have fun even while we're striving for the top ten. We placed 15th this year. Last year was our all time high of 13th, and even though we slipped for the first time in 12 years, we're pretty pleased that we stayed closed to where we were last year.

There are over 400 teams that compete in the contest, so top 20 is a good level to reach. Top 10 get a trophy. Top 5 is nearly impossible and are typically held by the same teams with slight ordering changes each year.

The weekend of 54 hours of Trivia is fun, but exhausting. The following days or weeks are filled with conversations and reminiscences and planning for next year. All of that got me distracted from what I was trying to do here. Maybe I should define that better. But really, all you, as a reader, need to know is that I want to entertain people with a similar interest in trivial information.

So now back to Trivia One. Have fun!

Triva. THE Trivia. It's coming!

First article to appear in the lead up to Trivia in two weeks:

For 37 years, the self-proclaimed world's largest trivia contest has attracted thousands of fun-loving players to central Wisconsin. It will again _ thanks to some extra grit from the guru who writes the questions.

It goes into some personal information about Jim Oliva, the main contest writer, that he had alluded to in official communiques. Interesting to us long time players, I'm sure.

Less than two weeks now... it's getting busy here with preparations in full force.

St Cloud Trivia in the news

St. Cloud Times published an article about KVSC Trivia today. My trivia team, Freshly Squeezed, is mentioned in the article, which is mostly about the influence of the internet on the contest. Freshly Squeezed plays KVSC Trivia remotely - we have no players in St. Cloud. This means we'll probably never get the local questions. The local questions are a pretty small number, but enough that it'll keep us out of the very top teams.

But it's a good contest. We have lots of fun playing, and it gets us primed for the World's Largest Trivia Contest in April.

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.