A while ago my brother and I played Motor City Trivia at a local pub in Novi. We won. Tonight, after the Tigers turned in yet another pitiful performance, we decided to go to Mixx and have some dinner. I had purchased a couple of vouchers from one of those 'daily deals' websites some time ago, so we had a $20 head start on the night. We ordered a pizza and began to watch the NFL draft. Then some broad came over and asked if we were interested in playing the trivia game. Sure, why not?
We won the first game even though we missed a few questions along the way. My brother got zero out of ten right. I got about seven out of ten. Then, during the second game, the stakes were a little higher. We had come from behind to win the first game with an aggressive wager on the final question. This time around, we were within two points of first place going into the final question.
We chose to bet the maximum. Go big or go home, as the saying goes. The question had something to do with the largest metropolitan area in the world to begin with the letter C. Chicago comes to mind right off the bat, obviously. So then you're left to think of other choices. Paris? Doesn't begin with C. London? Ditto. Rio de Janiero? Nope. We (and by 'we,' I mean 'I') went down the list. Moscow, Tokyo, Beijing, etc. Then we (meaning 'I') came to Cairo. That one starts with the letter C, but is it bigger than Chicago? Hard to say. My brother chimed in with the sort of insight that only he can offer. "There are a lot of Arabs in Egypt."
I took a monent to think it over... yep, I think he's right. There are a lot of Arabs in Egypt. We handed in our answer slip and waited for the results. Apparently everyone else, aside from one team, had guessed Chicago. That other team had guessed Calcutta. Shit, I hadn't considered India. Those bastards do have a lot of people. Over a billion, I think. Why hadn't I thought of this?
The trivia broad read off the final results. One team had 32 points. Another had 34 points. Shit, we had 57 going into this last question and 20 was the maximum wager. Neither of those could have been us. We waited for the final results. The correct answer was... Cairo. We won again.
I'll be a son of a bitch. Four trivia games. Four victories. First prize is only a $15 gift card for each game, but you know what? That's $30 that we didn't have before we went out for dinner... again. Four for four, mofos. Aided by my slightly mentally impaired brother, I'm undefeated. Winner winner chicken dinner.
Yeah baby!
I would have guessed Calcutta too. I know that subcontinent has one of the largest populations on the planet, only rivaled by China. Never would have guessed Cairo. So much for geography being my strong suit.
ReplyDeleteIt was a tricky question in the sense that they included the metropolitan area rather than just the city. There's a place like Caracas, whith ~6 million and then another 2 million in surrounding cities. (Wikipedia numbers) This would have been my next guess behind Cairo and Calcutta, but it actually comes in behind 'Chicagoland.' (~10 million total)
ReplyDeleteThe kicker for Cairo, and there's no way we could have known this, is that there are 10 million people in the surrounding cities, to go with the ~6.5 million in the city itself.
Calcutta apparently isn't too far behind, ~4.5 million in the city and another ~9.6 million in the surrounding area.
It was a lucky guess.