The pulse of Alexander Interactive

Tuesday night marked the reemergence of the Ai trivia team, newly named “First Order of Business.”

Competing against 25 other teams, First Order of Business stayed in the running for an outright win all night. After putting up four solid rounds, including a perfect 10/10 round three, the Ai crew was only 4 point (answers) out of the lead.

Sadly the last round proved perplexing for our persistent pixel pushers. With only two correct answers, First Order of Business toppled down the leader board. The bonus question gave the team a chance to make the podium, but the team’s last ditch effort came up incorrect.

Ai finished 11th, in the top half of the pack, but five points behind their one-on-one opponents,”Cliff Clavin’s Mailbag,” who finished fifth.

For a sampling of last night’s action check out the questions below (the Ai team got all five correct).

Name the following US Presidents by their middle names:

1. Simpson

2. Gamaliel

3. David

4. Earl

5. Wilson

Answers Here

Congratulations to ”Cliff Clavin’s Mailbag” and the rest of Tuesday’s winners (and to anyone who knew who Gamaliel was).

Over the last six weeks, Ai has had a team participating in a Team Trivia quiz league run by the New York City Social Sports Club. You may remember a previous post from the beginning of the season, but all that has come to an end after last night’s playoffs. The outcome? Ai won 2nd place overall in the league.

The season started off slow, with team Ai holding rank at 17th place out of 24 teams. As the weeks went by, we gradually made our way up the ladder to 13th place, lingering at 11th place, and ending up in 9th place before the finals. At each quiz night we would generally rank at about 5th or 6th place, however the spread of points between teams was very thin and most times there were still eight or more teams ahead of us tying for 2nd, 3rd, or 4th places. There are also sportsmanship points that count against each team member not wearing their league shirt. We always had our shirts.

All 24 teams attended the playoffs, but only the top 12 teams were competing for the grand prizes. Being in 9th place, Team Ai were in the running for the grand prizes. The quiz itself was as normal as any of the other weeks, but the cumulative scores from throughout the season didn’t matter for the playoffs. The top-scoring teams were the ones to take home the gold and silver, and I am proud to say that Ai came out in 2nd place!

One team received 1st place, and Team Ai was tied for 2nd place with another team. This meant a tie-breaker question given to one representative from each team, of which the first person to shout out the answer won. The question? Name the largest land-dwelling bird in the United States. Feel free to take a guess at that in the comments.

The 2nd place prizes included a certificate stating our placing, a $25 gift certificate to the restaurant/bar where the quizzes were held, and three free pitchers of beer. We also each received 2nd place medals. Congratulations to my fellow teammates: Benaz Hossain, Robert Gurdian, Josh Rusch, Isaiah Belle, and Richard Davy. Big thanks to the few substitutes we had fill in on a few nights: Katie Mericle, Marlen Bernardez, Mike LeDoux, Dave Knapp, and Anita Belle.

You are more than welcome to challenge Team Ai to a game of trivia. We will gladly oblige.

Media-based agencies in New York City often take part in extramural activities aside from the normal company outings and adventures. Often these activities involve kickball, dodgeball, bowling, ultimate frisbee, or other such “kid” sports that us “adults” play to keep a semblance of youth. Ai had no such team for any sort of activity like this, so I did some research into the possibilities of forming one. My search directed me to the New York City Social Sports Club (NYCSSC), where I noticed that most of the sports’ registration dates had closed. One of the only open sports for this season was, frankly, exactly what I was looking for – Team Trivia.

Ai is a collaborative company. We take pride in working with each to create the most vibrant and brilliant websites the world has ever seen. We are a family and we are a team. We are creative and we love solving problems together. These attributes seemed to make Team Trivia a perfect fit for us. And so, Ai Team Trivia was born.

We have a team consisting of six people (the maximum number of players on each team): Isaiah Belle (Technical Lead), Richard Davy (Senior Designer), Benaz Hossain (Associate Project Manager), Josh Rusch (Systems Administrator), Robert Gurdian (Analyst), and myself skottey forden (Front-End Engineer, Team Captain). We have a diverse team from all departments within Ai, all with one thing in common – a love for random facts and “useless” knowledge.

Last night we attended the first quiz, all six of us basically going in blind and not knowing exactly what to expect. Each quiz night consists of fifty questions – five categories with ten questions in each. There are normal categories, a visual category, an audio category, and a social round where two teams work together to answer the questions of that round. Some of the categories last night included: current events, and name the book title and author based on book cover photos with the title and author Photoshopped out. The most notable category, or rather the most ridiculous, was: Top ten methods of murder in the United States, per the FBI’s statistical list. Double points were given for getting each correct answer in the correct order from 1-10. Trust me, it’s harder than it sounds.

Did I mention there is no multiple choice for any of the questions?

The quiz was fun and the team is looking forward to the following eight or so weeks left in the season. There will be more to come on Ai Team Trivia in the coming weeks as the season progresses. Be sure to stay tuned.