This weekend, I’ll participate in The World’s Largest Trivia Contest^TM. I’m a little preoccupied with preparations for that, including some significant travel. To provide some sense of the madness of minutiae that dominates my mind this week, I’ll return to a bit of a tradition around these parts and share a few personally memorable answers from the twenty-five years or so that I’ve been involved with this contest, in one way or another.

Not every story of Trivia woe revolves around a major injustice. Sometimes there are just small irritants that have a greater-than-reasonable impact when they hit after hours of sleep deprivation. When a question arrives that asks what current television program includes certain unique items in the opening credits, and we correctly answer Parks and Recreation (a television program on which we’ve taken countless notes which have never truly factored into the content, which adds it own scratchiness to the irritation relayed in this story) only to have the deejay give the answer as Parks and Rec, a commonly used shorthand for the show’s title but not actually the show’s title, it’s frustrating. Calling the complaint line to check and make sure we’ve received the points due us only to find that we hadn’t, the phone operator apparently decided the lack of a complete and total match with the answer they’ve been given was sufficiently problematic, the irritation escalates to full-blown maniacal fury. Well, it’s not really that bad, but we are in emotionally fragile states at this point you understand. Yes, our lack of points was rectified almost immediately, putting this story deep into no-harm-no-foul territory. But in the moment, it was tough to take. Hell, I’m still mad about it now. I have no excuse for that.

More information can be found at the official Trivia site or try to get your hands (and eyes) on a certain documentary. You can also listen in to the radio station that hosts the contest. In order to see how things are going with the team I play on, Twitter is your best bet.