POP CULTURE QUIZ ... all new trivia about theatre, TV, music, etc.

Tonight, Thumbs Up Theatre Toronto had another of those quizzes on, so I signed up again.

Really tired tonight, after a long and tiring day - but I made it. And this time, so did most of the participants - turned out that there was a mix-up with the Zoom link last time, and two different ones got sent out. Lordy though, talk about many cooks spoiling the broth.. isn't it insane how people can't do something as simple as follow instructions?

We were given the link for Kahoot, which about half of the participants didn't know what to do with. We had people who didn't know where the address bar was, people who thought they couldn't type over what was already there, people who didn't know where the internet was on their phone.. people with weird problems they didn't know how to describe - it was like trying to troubleshoot my mother's internet issues over the phone! At least we had video, so could see what they were doing. But it just took the biscuit when the host tried several times to share her screen, not realising that there were different things you could share, and kept showing us the whiteboard instead of the screen with the game PIN on it..

Fifteen minutes after scheduled start time, we were off. And I started ok - until she started putting up questions that weren't multiple choice. TV shows I had some chance with, got a couple. But, to add insult to injury, the last several were on Canadian / American brands. I hadn't a hope - stuck it out until the last question, just out of curiosity, and signed out. Well, my highest score tonight was sixth. And everyone complained about the non-multiple-choice: the host remarked that the feedback was useful, but for heaven's sake, who wouldn't prefer multiple choice! And it was fun, with a lot of banter - a number of people compared it favourably with another quiz they'd been doing, which was more rushed and a lot less fun. True, and I'd attend again..

On Saturday, reliable Cultureseekers has a quiz of their own: this time, name the Ladybird book whose cover I'm showing you! Well, I mightn't be able to identify them - but they're delightful to look at!

POP CULTURE QUIZ ... fun, entertaining trivia about theatre, TV, music, etc.

Midnight tonight, back with Thumbs Up Theatre Toronto for a quiz. We socialised over Zoom, but for the quiz itself, we used Kahoot, for which we were advised to have a separate device - I used my phone. And by the time we were supposed to log in for the chat, I'd already opened the game site. Organised, for once!

Well, people were late joining - indeed, fewer than half of those who'd signed up actually showed up. But as anyone familiar with free events will tell you, that's par for the course. We finally started, slightly late. Now, I'd never used Kahoot before, but she was telling the truth when she said it was easy! She'd set up the quiz there beforehand, and shared her screen with us, where we could see the game PIN that we had to enter. We then had to pick a username, and woo!

Excellent software for a quiz - our usernames appeared on the main screen as we signed in, and for each question (which we got 20 seconds to answer), we had a choice of four answers. When the time was up, we got to see how many had chosen each answer, and which was right - and then a scoreboard of the top five contestants, complete with scores. The faster you answered, the higher the score was - if you were right. The software also tracks how many you've got right in a row, and puts a little flame beside your name if you're on a roll. :-)

I was worried about how I'd do, particularly as this was coming from a Canadian perspective. But I needn't have worried too much - the questions were mainly about musicals, which the organiser has a particular interest in, and I knew a fair few! (Multiple choice always helps, too.) I had one run of four questions - for which the game gave me a nod - and a couple of runs of three.. and the game started to be more fun when, after a slow start, I climbed to fifth place, and made my way on the scoreboard! I actually made it to third at one point, but fifth was where I settled. She'd prepared 50 questions for us, which nicely lasted about an hour, with some chatting in between. All in all, very enjoyable!

She'd set aside time to chat after, but people weren't much in the mood to, and it fizzled out after about 15 minutes. Hey-ho, I wasn't sure about joining - it's been another of those days, and I was tired - but I'm delighted I did. It's ages since I had a midweek Meetup, and it did me a power of good!

For Saturday - nothing in particular, so I'll just spend the evening watching the Eurovision. Ah, we'd only miss it if it wasn't there - like last year!