Let's see if you can answer the following question. The answer can be found at the bottom of this post.

What common garden insect can be born while pregnant with its own grandchildren?

This question cost my team over $100 in prize money a few weeks ago. We made it into the Final Jeopardy round of trivia night at the Green Dragon only to get tripped up by our lack of knowledge when it comes to all things invertebrate.

I'm a relative newcomer to the world of pub quizzing. My friend Adam invited me to join his team a few weeks ago. He's a veteran on the circuit and organizers still tell tales of the time he landed in second place at a quiz night at the Bridgeport while playing alone against over a hundred opponents. The man is, quite simply, a force of nature when it comes to pub trivia and is kinda, sorta like whoever got the A-Team together. He's been known to recruit two-time winners of actual Jeopardy to his fold.

My first night we landed in first place, earning everyone at our table a whopping $22 bucks. Not so bad for around 90 minutes of drinking...er, high-stakes competition. The following week we wound in second. Last Monday we had to settle for third place after getting tripped up by a final question involving Millard Filmore. Did you know that in the 1856 presidential election he failed to win as the Know Nothing Party and Whig candidate? Well, neither did we.

Quiz nights like this typically run just short of two hours and are hosted every Monday through Friday in bars around Portland. The first round consists of twenty-five questions followed by a bingo round for bonus points. A third round offers a series of rotating themes. Along the way teams can earn extra points for completing games like crosswords and bringing in stuff based on each week's central theme. Since I began, quiz nights have been devoted to questions centered around babies, presidents and smoking.

Is all of this fairly geeky and somewhat reminiscent of bingo nights in a church basement? Sure, but it beats sitting around in a pub on a weeknight and not potentially getting paid to be there.

Unfortunately, Pub Quiz Oregon was recently ousted from the Green Dragon. From what we've been told, the new owners weren't keen on the number of quiz players taking up tables on Monday nights. Or, to put it in other words, they're convinced that chasing dozens of customers away from their establishment on a slow weeknight will somehow boost business. Yet another reason to rag on Rogue Ale's takeover of the Dragon? Absolutely

PQO has since relocated their Monday night trivia game to CC Slaughters' "entertainment complex" in Old Town. Let me tell you, the bathrooms down there? Way more interesting than the ones at the Green Dragon. One sign advises patrons that the mens room is "for men and women who like to stand." The ladies room? "For women and men who like to sit." The establishment's light-up, trough-style urinal? Pure, unfiltered, freak the hell out of uptight straight gents like me, class. Another nice touch: table clothes that you can color on with Crayons. Local hetero bars? Take a tip from CCS. More Crayons, please.

Anyway, if you'd like to learn more about the world of pub trivia, feel free to check out the PQO's website.

ANSWER: Aphids. To learn more about aphids, click here.

Labels: trivia