Yeah, well, Matt Clement. Huh.

Bar trivia started late last night because of the game (which, after about the sixth inning, seemed a little pointless), but the members of Stupid Sexy Zinc persevered and put a White Sox-like hammering down upon the rest of the field. Going into the final question, we had 101 points while the second place team hadn't even broached 80. Given that you can bid up to 20 points (in even increments) on the final question and only lose half if you're wrong, we could have put anything down and still won.

But, of course, we got that question right, too. In fact, we only missed two questions all night, which are among these:

From what sport do we get the idea of winning "hands down?" Horse racing (Boggie) - as noted in the comments, it comes from the jockey's ability to finish without lifting his hands to work the reins. Which makes a lot more sense than any suggestions we had about the connection, which were few and mostly related to horses being measured in hands.

We wound up going with wrestling, based on the ref's hitting of the mat during a count. Made sense at the time, moreso than anything else we came up with.

At the start of Lord of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins is celebrating what birthday? Eleventy-first, or 111th (Greg) - We put down both a number and a word, which was actually not quite right but we got credit for putting 111. It was a good time to have our resident Tolkein expert around.

The meerkat is a close relative of what other animal whose name starts with the same letter? Mongoose - Pure guess, but a decent one based on the similarities that come to mind when you compare Riki Tiki Tavi and Timon (or is it the other one?).

What controversial 20th century author was married to a relative of the Red Baron? D. H. Lawrence - He came to mind in the most fleeting of moments, and went through again because I didn't realize he was 20th century. I think at least one other person on the team had the same thing happen. We went with William Golding, thinking that The Lord of the Flies may have dredged up some controversey, what with all the rampaging. I also thought that the song, "Superfly," may have been a clue.

It still might have been, depending on what Lady Chatterly's lover was using.

What US state is the flattest (in this case meaning having the smallest difference between its highest and lowest elevations)? Florida (Shawn) - We started out with the plains states, thinking about Kansas and that study that proved the Sunflower State is actually flatter than a pancake. Then the guy running the game noted that the answer was based on smallest difference in highest and lowest elevations, and we thought some more.

I remembered something from John McPhee's book Oranges about how the higest elevation in Florida is only something like 400 feet (close - it's apparently 345 feet). We talked about a few other states, but eventually stuck with Florida - not that it mattered, this being the last question of the game. Bow before our trivial prowess!