Trivial Powerbook Pursuit

Bastard!

Récemment, en jouant une petite game de Trivial Pursuit Genus 6 légèrement arrosée, j’ai gagné un Powerbook.

Alex (lisant ma question): Wow. Man si t’a çà j’te donne mon Powerbook neuf! C’est impossible que tu sache çà.

Moi: Hehe

Alex: A pioneering sideshow performer, he was elected mayor of Bridgeport in 1857. (approx. text)

MJ (cachée derrière sa main et parlant à Alex) : shpshshp

Alex, très surpris: Non! Ca s’peut pas! Comment tu sais çà?!?? Esti!

MJ: :-D. Si je l’sais y’a des bonnes chances que Pat le sache.

Alex: … … … (“astonishé”)

Moi: P.T. Barnum

Alex: Quoi! ?! ?! Esti! Non mais calvert, comment vous savez çà?!?

Moi: Wooohooo!!!!! Free Powerbook!!! Ben j’sé pas. Educated guess.

Bref, je devrais avoir un Powerbook gratos mais Alex, utilisant la règle du “ca compte pas j’était saoûl” va garder son Powerbook et donc m’obliger à m’en payer un moi-même. Salopard!

Truc (ou comment se petter les bretelles en faisant semblant d’aider les autres)

Bon pi là j’switch en anglais. Which brings me to something I explained to him during the game and that I’m sharing here. An important trick in answering questions at such games; you don’t have to know the answer or even completely understand the question to in fact get the answer. Sometimes you have to forget some details of the question and concentrate on deducing from what you do know.

Case in point, P.T. Barnum. I had no idea he was elected mayor of anything and I barely know the guy. But, most Trivial Pursuit games are largely US centric and the question says 1857 so I’m thinking cowbows, far west, etc. Sideshows, traveling circuses, snake oil salesmen. If you’ve seen a few westerns and tv series based on the same period chances are you’ve seen at least one storyline with some of those folk and you might have heard of Barnum and Bailey and it’s founder… P.T. Barnum (he was indeed mayor).

Another example while I feel like being boring.

The question: Colorful comedian who might strike fear in those suffering from coulrophobia .

I have no idea what coulrophobia is (except for the phobia part of course) so I concentrate on the “colorful comedian part”; comedian, colorful, think, stand up, think, movies, colorful… clowns? Of course! Kramer was afraid of clowns! That must be it!

Point being, don’t always start by trying to answer the question as a whole, start with the part you understand and, possibly, know about, then deduce from there. Oh and watch Seinfeld, you can learn a lot from that show ;).

By the way, I didn’t win. MJ always wins.