My brain hurts
Maybe there'll be some bracket talk on here. Not sure. I'm just wondering if I can get out of organizing the office pool again. I've got enough friendly contests to worry about anyways.

Instead, I spent a good part of a beautiful weekend here playing Team Trivia, albeit for a lot of cash on the line. That bar trivia group has been doing a "league" concept where your team amasses points over the span of a few months. So if you're going to a place seemingly every week (and score well), like I used to do, and a number of others still do, you'll have a good shot of qualifying for a final tournament where the grand prize is $5,000 (in actual cash, not just bar cash). In this case, the top 100 highest-scoring teams qualify (not sure how many teams there are, but given the company runs shows in about 150-200 places around town, there's bound to be a lot of competition).

My schedule precludes me these days from doing bar trivia on a regular basis, but thankfully my friend Dave had a team and was able (thanks to some holes in the qualifying process) to get into a play-in/consolation tournament on Saturday for the final 25 spots in the big tournament (and play for a $500 first prize). Only 22 showed up there, so we all made the big show, but we eventually finished like fifth or sixth (only three places pay off) after leading at the half. We played it conservatively in the final round, which cost us in the end. Then again, while $500 cash was the first prize, second and third prizes were $250 and $150 in house cash. For a sports bar, that's a bit much money to be playing around with.

The big show was at the 755 Club, the exclusive restaurant above left field at Turner Field. Given that the season hasn't started yet, it would seem it would be easy to park at the stadium and head in. Wrong we were. At the same time the tournament was to start, we hit traffic for a Hunger Walk around the stadium. It made for some interesting cell phone conversations with my teammates as we tried to figure out where to park without running over some of the participants.

We eventually got in, and it was an impressive setup. Once we got through some early registration snafus, there were 120 teams playing for the big prize. The amusing part of the whole thing, though, was that even at the 755 Club, we were still getting typical bar food but at stadium prices. But hey, chicken fingers look slightly better on nice china.

The competition was pretty intense and the questions were really tough. It really was trivia. And while my team was happy to have a sports person on board, I was consistently getting stuff wrong. Yet, through the half, we were tied for fourth out of 120 teams. And like the day before, we stumbled badly in the second half, falling down to a tie for 10th before the final question. However, we cleaned up nicely on naming People's Sexiest Men Alive (we named 12 of the 16 without getting anything wrong -- there are penalties for wrong answers) but ended up falling a point or two out of a tiebreaker for the money (name as many of the 15 American Idol contestants who had a hit on any chart). We didn't get the big cash, but it was a fun time and we got a cool view of the stadium.

But anyway, here are some of the best questions over the past couple of days to test your brain:

Saturday's questions
1. What state's entire eastern and western borders are both rivers? Iowa (Greg) -- We got this one. First thought Missouri, then realized Iowa would have similar rivers bordering it and have shorter borders.
2. At 3.75 pounds eaten per person per year, what is the country's most popular seafood? Tuna (JD) -- We missed with shrimp, but tuna makes a lot of sense once we heard it. That weight sounds like an average eight or nine cans per person per year.
3. Name either of the two teams that share the record for appearing in the most NCAA tournaments without winning the title. Notre Dame/St. John's [27 each] (Flax) -- I guessed Missouri, but the Tigers have the record for most tourney appearances without a Final Four. And yes, that's a tough question, but it's a great way to separate the field.
4. What composer could only write music and play piano in the key of F?

Sunday's questions
1. The snowglobe was first created to commemmorate the building of this structure. Eiffel Tower (Mark) -- My friend Alyson thought of this right away, but we ended up guessing the Statue of Liberty as we tried to associate it with something wintry. This would've vaulted us closer to the lead heading into the final bonus question.
2. Who is the oldest living First Lady? Lady Byrd Johnson (Mark) -- Jeopardy! helped and hurt me on this. We guessed Pat Nixon after all the hubbub over the sorta-hose on a Daily Double last week. Both Johnson and Nixon were born in 1912. Forgot that Nixon was dead. Whoops.
3. What is the only state whose capital contains none of the letters in the state's name? South Dakota [Pierre] (Mark) -- We got this one. Just have to go through all the state capitals. The question is: Can you do it in less the length of one song (and what song? Stairway to Heaven or The Letter or something in between)?
4. What day of the week is the only that's an anagram of another word? Monday [dynamo] (Mark) -- We tried to challenge our guess of Friday [fraidy], but otherwise, we couldn't jumble around Monday quick enough.