In OQL USA Season 16 Week 4, nine players got full houses, a high number indeed. I caught up with Smarter How’s Dan Blim after he achieved a 21(8) full house against Sunday in the Park With George Costanza. Tim: Is this the greatest individual performance in your Trivia career? Dan: It’s definitely up there, particularly in terms of individual performance! There’ve been some memorable wild guesses, like randomly picking the name Kevin as a given member of the Pentatonix (just seemed like the name of a kid in the 90s who’d join an a capella group?), some deep cut knowledge I’m really proud of pulling, but on a larger scale it’s pretty high. But I also like the team aspects of OQL, and my Smarter How? colleagues have all had amazing games, impressive pulls, and as the 3rd member to get a full house, I’m now pulling for the other two! Tim: During the game, did it cross your mind that you were headed towards perfection? How much pressure were you feeling during round 8? Dan: It ...
I recently caught up with Josh Hill who made TOTW in Season 13 Week 11 of OQL USA. He recently celebrated a birthday and I met up with him in Little Rock, Arkansas for an interview. Hill was on the first Friendly Writer's MTT team for Team USA and is a Season 34 seven time Jeopardy! champ. Rich: How did you first get into trivia as a hobby? Hill: Thanks Tim! I have been quizzing for most if my life, going back to junior high school and on into college. I have always loved learning about the world and the people in it, and trivia sort of sprung from there. I unconsciously stepped away from trivia after leaving college, but my quizbowl captain Andrew Wehrman invited me to LearnedLeague, and I was soon hooked again. Rich: How did you first get into OQL as a player? Hill: I saw posts on the LearnedLeague message boards about the Online Quiz League at the outbreak of the pandemic, and I decided to give it a shot. Great call, that! Anyway, the commissioner at the time formed a scratch ...