by Tim Rich
I recently caught up with letitsnow's Alexanda Wax who made TOTW in Week 2. She has been making many TOTWs but this is the first chance I got to interview her. I caught a virtual flight to Space City and met at a Vietnamese restaurant named Kin Son.
Rich : You made team of the week in Week 2. What stood out for you and did you Britney any pair?
Wax: It was a fun set! I definitely have areas of trivia I’m weaker in (I consistently literally embarrass myself in anything geography related), but this one had stuff I tend to like, and I Britney’d the women in country music pair–only fair, as a Texan!
Rich: How did you first get into trivia?
Wax: The very first time I did bar trivia, we won on the last question, and I happened to be the one who came up with our answer. (It was that Hasbro was the company behind Mr. Potato Head, and I lived for awhile in Rhode Island, where Hasbro Children’s Hospital literally used Mr. Potato Head as a logo for a bit.) The prize covered our whole dinner and bar tab, so it was all in all a super fun experience: sign me up for anything where I get to both be right about stuff and drink for free.
Rich: How did you first get into OQL?
Wax: I was vaguely aware of it in what I think must have been the first season, but then someone started a thread in the Women of Jeopardy! Facebook group about putting together a scratch team. I didn’t really know any of the other people who responded–in fact, at least one of them at the time super intimidated me! But I jumped in, and we formed a team, and I’ve been doing it ever since. My team has become an amazing support system: because we are talking all the time and scheduling we know a lot about what’s going on in each other’s lives, and have become close. It’s been an incredible gift, honestly. I think we all feel really lucky to have stumbled into this together.
Rich: Have you ever been on any game shows? Are you currently trying out for any?
Wax: I’m one of those weirdos who did Jeopardy! first and didn’t discover until afterwards that there’s an amazing trivia community. At that very first time I did bar trivia, it transpired that all of the people I was with (who I knew in their context as fellow Rice alumni) had been on Jeopardy…except me and my then-husband. I decided that clearly I needed to remedy this, and took the online test at the next opportunity. I failed it that time, I think, but the second time I took it I was lucky enough to get an in-person audition and then the call literally the next business day.
It was the most fun I’ve ever had, so I’ve auditioned for a few since and I was on Master Minds in 2020 (Ken beat me by one question head to head!). As for currently, I’ll just say that if I were in the running for anything, I certainly couldn’t say so here. Insert winky face emoji or something.
Tim: What other online leagues do you play besides OQL?
Wax: I play LearnedLeague (except when I accidentally forfeit! I’m sorry, friends!) and OQL UK. I did the league Lee DiGeorge was running back at the start of COVID and that was really fun, and I’d love to do more, but scheduling gets in the way because I also work for myself and my work hours tend to be nights and weekends, so it’s hard to make time!
Tim: What is the live trivia scene like in Houston? Do you play regularly at any particular places?
Wax: I wish I got out more (see above about work hours!) but I try to make it out occasionally when my lovely letitsnow teammate Dani Stillman hosts! We have a lot of places that do Geeks Who Drink here, but I haven’t really been able to make a habit of going. I’d love to do more and find the most competitive places, honestly.
Tim: What are your other hobbies besides trivia?
Wax: I sing karaoke, cook, read, bake cheesecake, and watch figure skating, which complements my role as Rink Mom–my kiddo, Asher, is a figure skater as well as a trivia enthusiast, so we do a lot of both. A lot of OQL people have met them when they pop up on our Zooms, and they proudly know the answer to at least 2-3 questions per game. Oh, and I like to knit/craft when I have a chance but I’m bad at it.
Tim: What is the restaurant scene like in Houston? What are your favorite places and what is your favorite cuisine and beverage?
Wax: Houston has maybe the best restaurant scene in the country–everyone eats out a ton in part because things are still cheaper here than basically every other city of much size, so there are a million restaurants. The city is incredibly diverse, too, so there’s almost every type of cuisine. As a proud Houstonian, I have to shout out Ninfa’s Original on Navigation (a Tex-Mex place that invented the fajita–yes, really!) but I also love that Houston has recently had a real renaissance of adventurous and interesting sushi restaurants. I got married in October and our wedding dinner was at a non-traditional omakase place, 5 Kinokawa, which is one of many here. My other favorite go-to is Vietnamese, especially pho.
Tim: What sports teams or athletes are you a fan of? What are your top five sports moments as a fan?
Wax: I’m a big figure skating nerd, and have been lucky to witness some incredible national and international competition in person. (If you want to understand why the sport is so amazing, Jason Brown’s Riverdance program at Nationals in 2014 is a great place to start…I was in the building and I’ve rarely experienced a more electric crowd.)
I was also raised as a proud Red Sox fan, so at least 3 of my top 5 fandom moments have to be from the 2004 ALCS and subsequent curse-reversing series win. I admit to watching the video of Mariano Rivera blowing the ALCS Game 4 save….kind of often. I honestly love sports in general, and will watch almost anything.
Tim: The 2004 ALCS is one of the most painful sports memories I have.
Tim: Have you ever been to SporcleCon or Geek Bowl?
Wax: I have not–went as far as getting tickets, but haven’t actually managed to go. The year Geek Bowl was in Austin, I said I’d go in the future…but then, Covid. But I’m coming to SporcleCon this year! Come find me in Detroit and say hi!
Tim: What kind of music do you listen to and who are your favorite artists?
Wax: I grew up in the world of classical music, including studying voice pretty seriously at one point, so I listen to a lot of classical music and opera, as well as musicals. But I’m pretty eclectic: anything from Lil Wayne to Lilith Fair is likely, depending on my mood.
Tim: If you could play trivia and have dinner with any 5 people in history, dead or alive, whom would you choose?
Wax: Teddy Roosevelt (he read a book a day and was such an incredibly driven person, but also so completely wrongheaded in some ways that he fascinates me), Julia Child (just a really interesting life!), Hedy Lamarr (inventor! Movie star!), Mo Berg (basically an international spy while also playing major league baseball), and honestly, I’d probably add my dad. I miss him terribly–he died before I got into trivia, but he’d get a huge kick out of my trivia community and adventures.
Tim: What are your favorite Broadway musicals?
Wax: I love classics like The Music Man, am a die-hard Rent-head like every 90s theater kid, and sing a lot of Kander and Ebb stuff, like Chicago. One of my friends, Shaina Taub, recently opened her show Suffs on Broadway, and I am loving everything I’ve heard of it and looking forward to seeing it. I also saw a great show, Noir, written by Duncan Sheik, which premiered here in Houston, a couple years ago, and am hoping it is brought back to life at some point.
Wax: I get to the movies embarrassingly rarely, so I think the answers are, like, Kung Fu Panda 4 (not Oscar worthy, though surprisingly not-terrible) and Dune 2. I support the candidacy of that one giant sandworm for Best Supporting Actor, obviously.
Tim: Thank for your time. I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.
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