TEAMS: Mother Nature and the calendar seem to be conspiring against our fledgling Trivia show at the Tillicum. A few weeks ago freezing rain kept Dice stranded at home; then there was no show for Thanksgiving; and tonight, we were back battling Mother Nature's wrath again as the entire Portland-Metro area was under severe wind warnings. Dice and several Trivia squads dodged downed trees and power outages, and braved the weather to enjoy a great contest. BRICK (80) jumped to an early lead and conservatively wagered to kept this contest looking closer than it really was. SEXTING WHILE DRIVING (75) took a little while to get started, but flexed their mental thumb-muscles and snatched second with a perfect 15 point final round. Tilly Club regulars, 6TH SENSE (59), needed the tie-breaker to take down newcomers, SCRABULOUS (59) for tonight's final prize. DECK THE BALLS arrived a week early for Dice's holiday spectacular, and DRAKES arrived a half late, but each stayed and played and knocked on the door of Trivia stardom. Best of luck at the Finals BRICK...
TRIVIA: Figuring out the oldest fermented beverage in the world, especially when you've consumed a few of said fermented beverages, can be a chore. Tonight's question was simple in its request, but very difficult for several of our teams. After having several teams answer with wine, I was more curious than ever about mead and did a little digging of my own. According to several more reputable studies than Wikipedia cares to cite, a honey-based fermented drink with rice, hawthorne berries, and grapes was the first intentionally fermented beverage in the world. Chemical analysis has been conducted on jugs from Jiahu, a neolithic village located in China's Yellow River Valley that provides strong evidence that these mead-type beverages were dated from 7000-6600 BCE, at least 500 years before any evidence of grape-based or wine-type beverages. Beer or fruit-based beverages have been frequently cited as the oldest fermented beverages, but this historical evidence, a better understanding of the ease of making mead versus the difficulty of brewing beer or wine, as well as consideration of the ease of access to honey that these early civilizations had, give researchers enough to give mead the title of oldest. Additionally, studies have shown that a signifcant majority of wild yeasts are present through flowers, thus giving our pollenators a head start at providing the necessary ingredients for making the "Nectar of the Gods." In fact, it is highly probably that the bain of our Trivia contest, Mother Nature, provided the final ingredient needed for making mead...flood. When flooded, large hives, which would takeover the interior of some trees, would provide the storage vessel for the now flooded honeycombs which were already ripe with wild yeast just waiting to ferment and give us mead. Think about that. Mead trees. Yeah. Like syrup, but better.
Thank you Mother Nature...you're pretty great and we're all sorry we bitched about you earlier!
TUNES: I was all over the place tonight! Three songs (one, two, three) from Elvis (Presley, not Costello), "The Marriage of Figaro" from the Shawshank Redemption, several previews of next week's Triviamas playlist, and George Ezra's incredible song "Budapest."
My favorite song of the night has to be The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." For you music trivia fans, the Beatles failed to credit guitarist Eric Clapton's solo work on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," on the White Album (Now known as "The Beatles."). In fact, Clapton had to be talked into performing on the song by his friend and the song's writer, George Harrison. Clapton and Harrison, conveniently enough for tonight's Trivia, each played a Gibson guitar for this recording. Clapton actually plays Harrison's now legendary red Gibson guitar "Lucy" for the uncredited solo performance (Interestingly, Clapton had gifted the guitar to Harrison merely weeks before.).
For everyting you could possibly want to know about "Lucy," click HERE.
Listen to this...It's Clapton's guitar track on "While My Guitar..." isolated.
Saturday is the League Tournament Final at BWW-Lloyd Center starting at noon...See you there.
-Dice
RIP George Harrison (25 Feb 1943 - 29 Nov 2001)
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