Bruce Campbell (cult favorite actor beloved by horror fans) hosts a traveling “live game show experience” called Last Fan Standing. It came to Seattle last night at Benaroya Hall, where my friend Chris and I attended with about 400 other people. They have everyone in the audience answer trivia questions on their phones, and then the people who get the most right get called to the stage to compete in a buzzer trivia game. The questions are all “geek trivia” – sci-fi, fantasy, horror, superheroes, etc.

To my surprise and delight, I won. I think the other contestants were just as knowledgeable as me (at least in these categories), but I had a real advantage on the buzzer. I figured out that you could ring in anytime and Bruce would still finish asking the question before he called on you, plus there was no penalty for wrong guesses. So I just started buzzing in super early whether I was sure of the answer or not, and it gave me a huge speed advantage.

I also was a bit lucky with categories – I got a five question category about director David Lynch. I’m not really a geek culture guy but I am a giant film nerd and was able to run that category in short order.

At the end, Bruce awarded me a “Doctor of Useless Knowledge” that is definitely going on my office wall. Great night!