This was meant to be posted on Monday but after only getting the typical 8 hours of sleep from Friday Morning to Sunday night, needless to say the last few days have been for recuperation. Add in the fact that I decided to start P90X this week and I feel like one big sore Rip Van Winkle, but more on P90X another time.

For those of you who don’t even know what Trivia is, let me do a quick rundown. Every year the college radio station WWSP 90FM puts on this little contest for 54 straight hours of some of the most obscure, challenging, and insanely thought out culture questions known to man. The contest begins Friday night and goes straight on until Midnight on Sunday. On the outside, the comprehensible contest looks like a comic-con convention. A demographic mostly consisting of couch potatoes who live in their parents basement, taking notes on every television show they see… hardly the case. Those more serious teams may help the stereotype of the hardcore nerd, but don’t knock this thing until you’ve tried it. Trivia is some of the fun you may ever have.

This year was the 41st contest and brought in a total of 414 teams, representing over 11,000 players, located mostly in the heart of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, but not limited to the world via online play. My team was located in Plover, which is a few miles south of Stevens Point, a very doable drive for running questions, stones, or most importantly, the downtown bars. It is an intense weekend, not for the faint of heart. I moved two Friday appointments to the following week specifically so I could get into town in the afternoon rather than the evening. Cue up Friday…

Friday 4 P.M.

I arrived at HQ. No one being at the house, I found out they had head into Point to watch the Trivia Parade (Yes, there’s a parade) and catch up with some of the 90 FM staff. I forgot to mention this… my team is called the “90FM Staff Infection” specifically known for being a team of former 90 FM staff members and alumni. While they are gone I proceed to check out our digs. It was our team captains’ mom’s house, which was proceeded to be shelled out because she was in the process of moving. Ton’s of space and working internet, very clean… not your typical college house by far, I was already nervous about spilling my beer on the floor.

I drop off a few of my things and look in the garage. Stacked up are roughly 15 cases of beer and two mini kegs of Grolsch. Fun fact #2, one of our team members works at MillerCoors. Boom, beer is set for the weekend and I proceed to pop open a high life bottle. After feeling kind of awkward drinking a beer by myself in a house where the owner probably has no idea who I am yet, I decide to quickly finish and head into town. I just miss my team as they have already head back to the house (great timing) so I catch up with a few 90FMers at the station. After a while I head back to HQ to see what’s up. The team is there and we’re ready to go.

Throughout the entire weekend there probably was anywhere from 9-12 people participating, but there was a general core besides myself that never left. They were as followed:
Cdubyatron: Team captain, also provided the swanky pad that we would be housed in over the weekend. 90FM alumni now living in MKE
Megatron: C-Dubya’s girlfriend and former 90FM alumni. Lives with C-Dubya down in MKE
Meathorse: Remember all the free and plentiful beer I talked about earlier? All thanks to him. Works at MillerCoors now, former 90FM alumni.
Amanda: Meat’s GF, lives with him down in MKE
Sarge: I don’t know how Sarge got talked into playing but he was there the entire weekend, coming up from Madison. Friend to all, likes to drink.
Dan M: I personally don’t know Dan too well, but he was probably the most hardcore about the contest out of everyone. Without a doubt, if not for him, we wouldn’t have placed nearly as high as we did.
JMFH: JMFH drove in from Minnesota. Former 90fm alumni. The only one of us from the station that actually works at a major corporate station. Tells me the corporate world is brutal. I don’t doubt it.
Shanda: JMFH’s girlfriend.

Friday: 5:58PM
What better way to start the contest than shotgunning a beer. What better beer to do it with than a can of Mickeys. Fun fact #3: Mickeys does come in 12 oz cans. Shotgunning one was a poor choice.

Friday 6:00PM
Hour 1 Question 1: We didn’t even listen to the question. The answer is Robert Redford. In tradition with the contest the first question of the contest is ALWAYS Robert Redford. It could be asking what actor was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ,who is banging your mom, who is jumping out of a 12 story building. Always Redford. Congrats team, we are 1 for 1 and batting 1000. We will never get to say that again for the rest of the contest.

For the next few hours it’s the fairly typical, eat, drink, and play trivia, fairly standard among almost all teams. I have decided to break open a bag of sunflower seeds and see if I can fill an entire cup before the end of the weekend. More on that later. JMFH decides to break open a bottle of Goldschlager, and about half of us take shots. JMFH, then proceeds to take two more. We’re all on our way and a few more people show up to visit and see how we’re doing, it’s a good time. More shotgunning beers. Then JMFH has to do a trivia focus.

Friday: 10:00 PM
A trivia focus is simply put, the stations way of breaking up the end of each hour. They will randomly call a teams phone number and interview them. Afterwards splicing up the interview in a way that makes it a little more humorous and then places it on the air. Seeing how most of us were former staff members, this call was surely to hit us at some point. JMFH finally gets a call and he proceeds to answer the questions being laid out for him. Keep in mind, most of his bloodstream by now has tiny gold flakes running through it as well. Now I didn’t hear all of the focus but the parts I did hear consisted of JMFH saying that the first person to pass out in the house gets TBagged by everyone else. Then I heard the jokes on them because all of our nuts would be touching. Interesting thought process. Either way, I wasn’t going to be the first to pass out. Trivia focus was a great success. JMFH says nutsack on the air. Win.

Saturday: 2:00 AM
Sarge and I are trying to keep our sanity. Not sure why but our logical answer to this was watching Lady Gaga music videos. I am utterly horrified and stop watching. We agree that the Lady Gaga drinking rule is still established for this weekend. (Lady Gaga drinking rule founded by Boomer, a friend in Madison, if a Lady Gaga song ever comes on you MUST proceed to slam your drink in hand. No matter how full, or if freshly bought, you need to finish). Oh yea, we watched a lot of the Thundercat’s Snarf on youtube as well… like I said, we’re starting to hit the wall here.

Saturday 3:00 AM
JMFH has already passed out hours ago. Not sure if he got T-Bagged or not. Either way I was on my 4th cup of coffee and I was still falling asleep. Meathorse and Amanda had just cashed out a little bit before hand. Sarge was falling asleep on the keyboard, and I was about to do the same. I decide to pack it up and call it a night. I was sleeping at another friends house which was back in Point so I proceed to drive back into town. Not the most convenient but at least I got my own bed this way. I get back and instead of zonking out, the four cups of coffee decide to kick in now. I laid in bed staring at the ceiling for about an hour until I pass out, alarm is set for 7am. Three hours later, its time to get up and do it all over again.

Saturday 7:30 AM
I actually beat my alarm clock up and I head out the door. When I get back to HQ I find most of everyone is asleep yet minus Dan and Megatron. Apparently they pulled the all nighter shift and did the questions all night long. Hats off to them, I enjoyed my sleep. The two then headed to get some rest while everyone else proceeded to wake up and get back to trivia. I quick go grab a cup of coffee, which I then thought in my head was my 5th and 6th cup in the past five hours. I’m a goddamn animal by this point and apparently I’ve drank so much coffee that I’ve seemed to have warped it’s ability to put any effect on me.

Saturday 8:00 AM
Enough Coffee. I crack open a high life. Sarge, Meathorse, and Cdubya follow suit. Sidenote: Morning beer is awesome. Not only do you look like a badass but I think the beer tastes better as you watch the sunrise, and feel the cool morning air float in through the windows and hear the birds chirping. Total bliss.

Saturday 8:30AM
Scratch Morning beer as best thing ever. Cdubya just sacrificed an entire pig and made everyone bacon and eggs. Bacon and Morning beer. Best. Thing. Ever.

This morning was probably the best trivia I knocked out over the entire weekend. Now I usually am a good google searcher and can find the answers but someone usually beats me to it. Not that morning. I was on the ball and knocked out a crap ton of questions. One hour we even went 6 for 8 (eight questions per hour). I credit all my morning beers to my success.

Saturday 10:00 AM
Cdubyatron “Oh channel 7 is here”. This is how big the contest is, the news team from up in Wausau came down to interview a team. Why would they pick any other team? Of course they pick us and they interview Cdubya and take some awesome footage of the rest of us. I’m really glad they don’t show what time they came though, as if you watch the video of it, you’ll notice beer bottles everywhere. These aren’t bottles from last night either. These are freshly pounded or currently drank bottles. Miller really should just straight up sponsor our team because we just gave them free advertisement for the entire central Wisconsin area.

I later find out one of the coolest nerdy things ever. One of our teammates is on google earth. Yes, during one of google earth street camera views you can see him walking to class. Evan, who will soon come into the story, is a good friend of mine and I am so excited about the fact that he has been forever captured into google earth, I proceed to take a snapshot of it and post for the rest of the world to see. I think this is so cool mainly because it is one of my goals to be caught on camera if I ever see a google vehicle recording their streetview. I have yet to even SEE one of these cars and yet, Evan has been immortalized without even knowing.

Saturday 12 PM:
We break 100th place. This is a HUGE deal. Last year we placed 219 out of 430 teams. To break 100 with 414 is amazing, especially since our team is approximately 10 people and mostly drunk.

Saturday 2 PM
We unfortunately fall out of the top 100 and will never recover the rest of the weekend.
Sarge and I decide to go grab some stuff to grill. I introduce him to the mustard Arizona Heat. Yes, this mustard is so tasty that it deserves a piece in this article. Buy some now, thank me later.

Evan arrives. I praise him for his spectacular feat of being on google earth. He later tells me that, it has become his pickup line. “I have been on TV and google earth, wanna fuck?” By this time I am probably one of the least productive members on the team as I have now introduced the youtube video “160 greatest Arnold Schwartznegger quotes” to the group. The group is amused, but Sarge proceeds to quote the Arnold lines from that shitty Batman movie for the rest of the day.

Saturday 5PM:
By this point I have gone between participating from trivia questions, and yelling out random Arnold Schwartenegger quotes all day. I have had at least 6 different kinds of beer, (High Life, Coors Light, Hamms Golden Draft, Mickeys, and my weekend favorite Tyskie) and we proceeded to crack open the first mini keg of Grolsh. See kids, trivia isn’t just for nerds. It’s a heavy drinking weekend.. a weekend in which I’ve opened up my pallet to new beers!

Saturday 5:40:
Flipcup trivia break. Of course my team wins. Flip-flip-flip-a-delphia.

Saturday 7 PM:
I decide to take a quick power nap. An extra 30-45 minutes can be the difference between life and death during this contest. I find an air mattress upstairs in the room where everyone else was sleeping. It’s a long room that could be described as a livable attic space. It’s so far back from the rest of the living quarters I can’t hear a thing. I feel like Ann Frank.

Saturday 8PM:
Another 90FM alumni comes in for a visit. This time, through video Skype. Our old station manager Becca phones in from Colorado. It is all well and good to see her again, but Evan decides to take it to the next level. I have now seen Evan’s balls three times… and so has Becca.

Saturday 9 PM:
FRANKLIN ARRIVES! Backstory on Franklin Feltzberg real quick… Franklin was born 2 years ago when Cdubya got him. Frankin is a puppet. Two years ago our 90fm staff went to Las Vegas. When we were at the New York, New York everyone was doing there own thing. Most people were spending their money on little souvenirs or blowing it on the craps tables. Cdubya bought a puppet. Ever since he’s been around hassling people and being the unofficial mascot for 90fm. About a year ago, Cdubya let him free into the world for other people to use and share. After a year of being gone, Franklin returns home.

Saturday 9:03 PM
Franklin discovers Chatroulette. Any other day, chat roulette is dumb, and a good way to be grossed out for seeing far too many dicks. But with Franklin on camera, Chatroulette, was AWESOME. Me, Cdubya, Sarge and Evan easily spent an hour on Chatroullete while putting Franklin on camera. If you want people to laugh or actually keep them on camera for more than 5 seconds, a puppet chugging a beer is the way to go. Highlite of the event though was Franklin got flashed by a good looking girl because she thought Franklin was funny. Success.

Saturday 11:00 PM
Sarge, Evan and I decide to head back into Stevens Point and go to the bars. Evan is particularly animated about the idea. Before doing so we all finish the first Grolsch mini-keg and hit it with a baseball bat until it looks like a stepped on soda can. Time to go to the bars.

Saturday 11:30 PM
The three of us arrive at the first bar and the bouncer immediately says he’s this close into kicking Evan out. The funny thing is that Evan works at this bar. We later find out that the bouncer is a douche and nobody really likes him. I proceed to make fun of him the rest of the night. In retrospect, all three of us (Evan in particular) were a little out of control, but still, where does this guy get off saying he’s going to kick him out before we stepped into the door. Asshole. We ordered Point 2012’s which is Point’s newest flavored Black Ale, which by the way… DELICIOUS. Evan then proceeds to say the beers slogan “Enjoy it while there’s still time” after every drink.

Sunday 12:00 PM
On to the second bar… More of a club type setting, not my favorite but the drinks were cheap and the ladies were out. I caught up with a few friends that I saw while there and later discovered Evan tried his Google earth pick up line and failed. Onto the next bar.

Sunday 12:20 AM
Third Bar, more Point 2012’s. I decide to grab a Miller Lite to add to my beer list for the weekend and buy the three of us a round. The bartender forgets to take my money, score. Her loss for being stupid, but since I still feel for the working class, I tip her anyway. Now for as many girls as there were at the last bar, this bar is where all the guys mustve gone instead. Guy to girl ratio was easily 10-1. Sargest dream bar, I proceed to pick on his sexual preferences. (Note: Sarge isn’t gay, in fact he somehow pulled in a GF as of recently. Someday I hope to see her in person so I know she’s real).

Sunday 12:40 AM
Bar number 4: We need to get Evan back to the radio station by 1:30 so we set a goal of 2 more bars within the last hour. We arrive at the next bar only to find a jello shot girl. I distract her as Sarge sneakily takes some jello shots off of the platter. We’re assholes. I tell Evan and Sarge we need to head to the last bar if we’re going to get Evan back to the station in time, so we take off. Sarge takes more jello shots for the road.

Sunday 1:00 AM
Final Bar: Sarge orders us a round of Rum and Cokes. The drinks barely had a chance to hit the bar table when Lady Gaga comes on. Lady Gaga rule being enforced, we slam our freshly ordered drinks. Afterwards, I buy us a second round and order the bartender to give me the roll of stickers that have the bars logo on it. He does not comply, but compromises by giving my an armslength of stickers. This will do, as I place them on everyone I can see.

Sunday 1:30 AM
We get Evan back to the station in time. The reason we needed to get Evan to the radio station by then was because he volunteered for a phone shift from 2AM – 6AM. Phone operators are like what you would see during telethons, only they sit there and record peoples answers to trivia questions that called in. That’s right, for the next four hours, the guy that just told some girl he was on google earth and wanted to fuck, is now answering phones for the worlds largest trivia contest. Awesome.

Sunday 3:00 AM
Sarge and I head back to HQ and I head back to my friends place to crash for a few more hours. Night number two was another success. I fall asleep quickly this time around and get a solid five hours of sleep in. By trivia standpoints, five hours of sleep in a row is like 12 hours normally. I feel like I let the team down for sleeping that long and I rush back over to HQ to get some work done.

Sunday 9:00 AM
I arrive to see Evan passed out in the living room. Apparently he successfully handled his phone shift, and then biked back to HQ at 6AM, what a trooper. JMFH offers me some a morning beer. I take one but not as nearly as enthusiastic about it as I was at this time yesterday. I later compromise by pouring some whiskey into my morning coffee.

Sunday 2:00 PM
Team flip cup break. Again, not nearly as fun as it was at this point the day before, but none-the-less I man up and my team wins. You can’t expect anything less from me. Flip-Flip-Flip-a-delphia.

After this the rest of my story gets starts to fade into mediocracy so I’ll just stop there. I end up leaving around 7ish at night even though the contest didn’t end until midnight. I had those appointments that I moved from Friday to Monday so I needed to head back. Oh yeah, remember how I said one of my goals over the weekend was to fill an entire cup with my sunflower seeds I was spitting? Well one of my appointments on Monday included a dentist appointment. By Sunday my mouth was so raw from the salt from the sunflower seeds I had canker sores on my tongue. When I went to the dentist, they saw the cankers thought I had mouth cancer. I told them what was going on and why they were there (later they confirmed I was telling the truth) and they let me go. Fun times.

Our team ended up taking 143rd place out of 414 teams, a 76 place improvement from last year. Grand total of 8 hours (and some change) hours of sleep between Friday and Sunday. After one of the greatest weekends of the year, I was exhausted, but it is, and forever will be worth it. Its great seeing all my friends again and trivia is a time that can bring us together. Next year’s goal is to break 100 which we know is a very doable goal.