Bean trivia

For reasons that may seem elusive, the Sailors and I are rather trivia-oriented. I won’t say that we’re trivial, but we do like to demonstrate whatever knowledge we happen to possess in public forums, especially as that knowledge might be, say, useless. Hence, we occasionally play trivia games. (Side note: My “Jack: The Ride” disappeared from Little Elvis’s PC alterego, as I discovered chez O’C in the Bronx. My crest fell [whatever that means—presumably crestfallen has something to do with dropping your shield, but if you’ve come here for etymologies, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. This is the home of nested parentheses, not secret origins. To wit:] ) (which means the period at the end of the last sentence was lost, and since this is a fragment, it probably requires no period, and, all right, maybe we don’t do etymologies but we do have some interest in good writing, but not enough to fix this sentence) (or put a period at the end of it, for that matter)

Okay. Enough of that. Here: . Now we’re caught up.

We have been known to play Debate Jeopardy a couple of times a year. Participants are selected from the levels of Sailordom, i.e., a novice, a jayvee and a varsity, and are pitted against each other in a relatively traditional Jeopardy session. I make up the questions, and at least one category is debate oriented, and more often two categories. The crappy prizes fly at these events, although mostly in consolation. The questions tend to be hard (although they always strike me as easy when I’m writing them). How much money does O’C get for each of his WTF posts, for instance, seems to me like a no-brainer. Who is the author of John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty, asked in exactly that fashion, has occasionally stumped the odd novice, but then again, we have always had some pretty odd novices. Other categories should be accessible but nonetheless semi-relevant. American History, art, Disney, that sort of things. Stuff I figure the Sailors, or any high school student, ought to know.

Bean trivia, explained in a comment to a recent post, is an attempt to create a trivia game with an extra level of strategy and competition, to bring out the ever-present vicious streak lying close to the surface in all of us. The entire team plays. Each person starts out with three beans. We go from person to person. You pick a category, and can get your question either hot or cold. Hot, you have to answer it. You gain or lose a bean with a right or wrong answer. Or, you can choose to get it cold, which means you can pass the question to anyone of your choice. They must answer the question correctly, and get no bean for it; if they answer incorrectly, they lose a bean. The game proceeds from the next person after the hot answerer, if it was taken hot, or the cold answerer, if the question was passed. The game ends when one person is left with any beans. The use of beans arose because I needed something as a marker, and I was in the kitchen at the time, and, well, there were these beans…

For our District tournament, I am thinking a game of bean trivia, perhaps modified. All questions in one general area, however (to be revealed that Saturday), with plenty of sub-areas. Just to keep you on your toes, today’s trivia question: how many presidents of the US have had direct descendents also become president?

(Sub-question: how many presidents of the US do you wish hadn’t had direct descendents also become president?)