This coming weekend, I’ll participate in the fifty-sixth staging of The World’s Largest Trivia Contest^TM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about trivia answers that have been especially memorable for me over the years, in that contest and now from another weekend-spanning events of quirky questions.

It’s challenging to explain what Trivia Weekend is like to someone who has never participated in it. The closest comparison, bar trivia, isn’t all that helpful because that boozy pastime’s common mandate to abstain from any external resources when coming up with answers to the questions doesn’t apply. After the question is read over the radio, participants can consult whatever reference they like, including the entirety of the web that stretches worldwide.

One of the ways teams try to gain an advantage over their competitors is by generating their own unique sources of knowledge on the subjects that they believe are likely to be asked about. This approach is especially advantageous in the trivia contest staged annually by WWSP-90FM, the student-run radio station at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The scoring system is based on how many of the hundreds of teams participating manage to call in the correct answer, so having accurate, detailed information that eludes everyone else is key.

When AMC debuted Breaking Bad, I decided to take extensive notes on the series, strangely confident that the Trivia Weekend staged just a couple months later would include a tough, deep-dive question about it. This wasn’t really the kind of show that usually caught the attention of the people writing the contest at that time. It was on a cable network and had a dark sensibility, making it far different from the bland sitcoms that were more typically Trivia fodder. Still, I persisted, exhaustively documenting every persnickety detail I spied in the frame.

Trivia Weekend arrived. Sure enough, right in the middle of the fifty-four hours of the contest, a Breaking Bad question was cast out onto the stations’s airwaves. Eagerly ready for the sort of query that left other teams perplexed and helpless while I used my encyclopedic efforts to deliver a massive haul of points to my cohorts, I was immediately deflated when the DJ read, “What does TV character Walter White teach?” This was about as easy as a question could be, drawing on the most fundamental knowledge of the series. The detail was readily found in any log line about Breaking Bad. Compounding my disappointment-laced ire, at the conclusion of the question the DJ stated that while the correct answer was “Chemistry,” they would also award points for the far more vague response “Science,” a big concession from the famously exacting Trivia writers. Why not “School,” “Lesson Plans,” or “Pupils” while we’re at it.

I gave up on my quixotic question to earn a points jackpot by amassing trivial details from Breaking Bad. Within a couple years, the series would become one of those cult hits that was painstakingly covered online by an army of obsessives. I suspect that anything I wrote down is now available from another source to anyone with artful internet searching skills. At least Breaking Bad was rewarding in its own right. My poor teammate spent that winter watching episodes of According to Jim.

More info about 90FM’s Trivia can be found at its official website or at the radio station’s online home. More info about KVSC’s Trivia can be found at the radio station’s website.