Last night my dad and I went to BW3's in Kent to play NTN Trivia. The main game last night, played simultaneously by 10 to 20 thousand people in bars across North America, covers science, geography, “shows” (plays, TV, movies), history, sports, and the arts.

Dad is excellent with history, science, and, in particular, geography. I am worthless with everything but the occasional science and Japan-related question. We sat with trivia regulars Ted, Bill, and John, who are truly awe-inspiring in their depth and breadth of knowledge. They can effortlessly deal with questions on 1960s American TV, ancient mythology, who won what kind of literature prize when, and for what, famous (and less famous) painters, anything about Broadway, the most arcane details of middle-ages British royalty, and most everything else. If such a depth of knowledge were limited in scope (e.g. as with a film buff, etc.) I would be less impressed, but it covers pretty much everything.

The main hour-long game consists of 36 questions covering the six subject areas. By themselves, Ted, Bill, and John would have done just outstanding, but since Dad and I were there, they (and hence, as a group, “we”) were able to do just a bit better. Dad helped out on quite a number of questions, but my highlight was to be able to help out these luminaries with two questions that they would not have otherwise known (I could match up six Asian countries with the names of their currency, and I happened to know that the name of the big ferris wheel in London is called “the London Eye”). These two answers (along with the 34 that they knew) allowed us, as a group, to be the #1 group in the nation. As individuals, none of us had the best score in the nation, but we had #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6 (among more than 10,000 players).

It was fun.