My three least-favorite parts of our trivia league are multiple-choice questions, toss-ups (random numbers), and the betting of up to 40 points on the last question.  Today my bet landed us in a three-way tie for first, and I didn't realize that we'd end up with another toss-up to resolve the tie.  It really does usually come down to all or nothing as the best bets.

What city is the home of Batman?

How many stars on the flag of China?

What creature has a hyperphagia contest in Katmai National Park?

What percentage of U.S. adults with ADHD were diagnosed as adults?

In what letter-shape does a chess knight move?

What Danish toy manufacturer recently promised not to use AI designs?

What Harry Belafonte song was involuntarily sung in  Beetlejuice ?

How much is the first-offence fine for physical contact with an official in the NFL?

What store changed their motto from "Always Low Prices" to "Save Money.  Live Better"?

What is the Italian name of mural painting on wet lime plaster?

What Aboriginal Australian wind instrument makes a droning sound?

What clothing and shoe brand is named after a kind of antelope?

What K-pop band's fans are called Blinks?

What company created an assistant called Clippy?

How many contestants out of 750 beat the Green Line train in a Boston race?

What 1994 film based on a Stephen King novella is #1 in the IMDB Top 250?

What 2026 film with a one-word title stars Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson?

In what pub does Harry Potter first taste butterbeer?  The Three Broomsticks, The Leaky Cauldron, or The Hog's Head?

What percentage of U.S. adults read at less than a 6th-grade level?

What British sketch comedy team considered silly walks and a dead parrot?

Whose final public performance was "Nessun Dorma" at the 2006 Olympics?

What German potato-and-egg casserole is also the name of a Dutch rum-and-egg drink?

What is the name of one of the two men who twice served as Continental Congress president?

At what age did Charles II of England die?

Are you plagued by the feeling that everyone used to be nicer?

There’s some work by a guy named Richard Eibach on how people think the world has gotten more dangerous. And he finds that people believe this. And the people who believe this, especially, are parents. And when you ask those parents “When did the world become more dangerous?,” you get a date that is curiously close to the date of the birth of their first child.

The obvious implication being that nothing about the world changed. It was your worldview that changed. And now you have to, you know, protect this fragile life—and so you are much more attuned to the dangers of the world. That’s why you think there’s more of them.

Hm.  September 2001.  Curious, indeed.  But a pyschological illusion, right?

Circa 2002, Meredith Tanner posted a stylized version of this picture titled "BABY".  My son refuses to believe that he was a meme at such an early age.  Does anyone have a copy of the BABY icon?  Failing that, will you at least attest to the fact that you remember it?

Oh Wormie Boy, the Hive, the Hive is calling
From Earth to Mars, and in the Scarlet Keep
Oryx is gone, and all the Thralls are dying
It's you, it's you must go and I must sleep

But come ye back, for we are paracausal
And by Sword Logic you must always grow
So you'll be here when I am just a fossil
Oh Wormie Boy, Oh Wormie Boy I love you so

And when you come and all the Knights are dying
If I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And sing once more my viral song for me

And I shall hear, and thus begin an aftermath
So my revenge shall even sweeter be
For you will send my greetings to Xivu Arath
And I shall sleep until Immaru comes to me

I suppose that some percentage of this weirdness is genetic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Trpdhsajm4M

My son and I went to see "No Exit" at the community college theatre. It's a three-person study of the thesis that "Hell is other people."

What would you do in such a room for all eternity?

Me: “If for some reason NASA wanted to send me to Mars, I would go.”

Son: “You can’t even watch a 3-D movie!”

It’s true.  But hey, I survived Mission: Space at Epcot! (barely)