So while not as vaunted as the Big Quiz Thing that Boggie keeps mentioning, I have been playing in a pub trivia game at the Elephant & Castle with the wife, some former Babsonians, and assorted others. Last night was my third time playing, and we collected our second third-place finish (sandwiching our one win, which qualified us for a Tournament of Champions come October).

In the spirit of having something to write that calls for your comments, and in the way of telling the story of the night, here are some selected questions from the evening. Take your best guess in the comments, with plaudits going to the first one to get it right. Looking up the answers, of course, isn't really in the spirit of things. I'll never know, but you run the risk of whatever post-mortal punishment you think might exist (unless you think it's none, in which case we'll all talk at your wake about how we thought you cheated at trivia).

As questions get answered I'll share in how they were significant for the evening.

Anyway, the questions:

* The Star of India is the largest example of what kind of gemstone? Sapphire (OTC) - This was the first question of the night, which we missed. The wife, we discovered later, knew this. Had she attended, we'd have finished second. So we're blaming everything on her for not being there.

* In 1918, 97 people died in the deadliest rapid transit accident in history. In what US city did this occur? New York City (OTC) - We had a very short list for this question including NYC, Boston, Philly, and Chicago. We discounted Boston as I'd have known about it if it were here, and Philly for no real reason. I then engaged in some song clue analysis (the song played after the question is often a clue), and theorized that the line "Well the Illinois Central/ and the Southern Central Freight" from the Doobie Brothers "Long Train Running" suggested Chicago. We went with it, and were wrong, losing 5 points.

I generally over-analyze one song per game. Too bad this time it was on a round-ending bonus question.

* Name the four US Presidents from the Whig party. William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore (Paul) - This question ended the first round, and we only got Taylor and Fillmore. We said Martin Van Buren (which in retrospect I should have caught as wrong) and Franklin Pierce, forgetting about Tippicanoe and Tyler Too.

The interesting wrinkle here is that Tyler got booted from the Whigs not long after taking office, so he spent most of his Presidency as a Democrat (which I guess doesn't even make the question technically wrong; from what I first read I thought he was a Democrat elected on a Whig ticket). Paul's conviction that John Quincy Adams was a Whig does have some merit - he was elected to the US House as a Whig after his run as a Democrat-Republican President.

* In the movie The Shining, what baseball player's signature is on the Louisville Slugger Wendy Torrance uses on her husband Jack? Carl Yazstremski (Paul) - We got halfway there, figuring it for a Red Sox player given King's fandom. Rather than go contemporary, we went classic and said Ted Williams. Had we thought about it for another 30 seconds... we'd probably have still said Teddy Ballgame.

The wife knew this one, too. More room to blame her, then.

* What is the only state without a national park? Delaware (Shawn) - Apparently, Caesar Romney's house doesn't qualify.

This was the final question of the night, where you could bet up to 20 points (and risk losing half if you're wrong). I knew this (from writing a question and from being a national parks geek), so we bet the max. But so did the team we were tied with at the time, requiring a tie-breaker question!

* How long is a regulation bowling alley? 62 feet - Our tiebreaker question, which we were a little stunned to get given that we didn't expect all that many correct answers to the final question (there were at least two others, as the team we tied and the winner both got the question right).

We started off with 60 feet, based on a TV commentator saying something about "60 feet to victory." I thought my teammate said baseball at one point, so I thought there was some confusion. This led to us thinking if I could lie down 10 times on a bowling alley (being 6' 3"), and I didn't think so.

If nothing else, this confirms that I can't judge distances worth a damn.

So we went with 40, which in retrospect is clearly too short. The other team in the tiebreak went with 75 feet. So instead of getting a $25 gift certificate that'd have covered a large chunk of our tab, we got free Sam Adams Black Lager beer (we could have also gotten hats, but passed as we'd gotten hats a couple of weeks before). I wound up drinking two of them, and to be honest I'm not a huge fan. It's OK, better than the typical mass-brewed lager but nothing that would turn me away from ales... which now makes me wish the trivia game was sponsored by Harpoon.

I suppose that's what we get for ignoring the first rule of trivia games - trust your first answer. Then again, we did that a couple of other times in the game and got burned. So maybe the first rule is that there are no rules. Except that seems a little anarchic for something as geektacular as bar trivia. So maybe we just have to learn how to use The Force.