Who Says This is Trivial?

So when Jaelle is crying, and Justus is playing and Nicole is upstairs doing something and I have to bounce Jaelle until she falls asleep, sometimes I get bored. So I was down in the basement of my mother-in-law's house yesterday and saw that she had purchased the new version of Trivial Pursuit.

Now, I know this might seem odd, but I am a fanatic when it comes to that game. When I was younger, my parents gave me the game and I spent hours attempting to memorize the answers so that when people came over to play, I would totally impress them with my intellectual prowess. I got out maps and atlases to see which rivers ran through which countries, memorized presidents and their vice presidents, and in general, devoted far too much time to the game.

What can I say? My parents refused to buy me a Nintendo. Some kids beat Super Mario World, I know what nation contains K2, the second highest mountain peak in the world. (answer)

So I was testing myself. Honestly, I wasn't doing too well. My average after about 300 cards was right at .500. The literature questions were killing me (which is surprising since I'm an English teacher). But the questions aren't about good books, they're about comic books, like The Tick. How is that literature? Batman, I can understand. But "The Tick?"

Anyway, eventually it got to the point where I just wanted to get all six questions right on one card. A couple of times I got five. It was as though the game itself was mocking me. But then, at long last, I got all six. I celebrated with a swig of orange Gatorade. Then I pulled out another card. You're not going to believe this, but I got back-to-back perfect sixes.

I know!

Here were the question. BTW - I am under no illusion that it was simply dumb luck that bits of knowledge I've accumulated just happened to be found assembled in these 12 questions. But here they are:

CARD 1:

• BLUE - What Asian city became home to the world's tallest building when the 1,483-foot Petronas Towers were completed in 1998? - hint, think "Entrapment."


• PINK - What love interest did Laura Dern meet on the set of Ellen's "coming out" special.


• YELLOW - What country saw three of its banks pay over $1 Billion to compensate Holocaust survivors for mishandling their wartime deposits, in 1998?


• BROWN - Which character apparently survived drowning in Les Miserables to appear in the 2001 sequel?


• GREEN - What celebrated gorilla groks an estimated 1,000 sign language signs?


• ORANGE - Who was the only college hoops coach to be named Sportsman of the Year by The Sporting News in the 1990s?

See how you do. Tomorrow, I'll reveal the answers and the questions for Card 2.