Clawing back

This will just be a wee-cap because I'm a big fan of the whole sleep thing.

Notable potables:

-Cheers to Gilbert and... oh dear, I think your name is Sheila. So sorry if I got that wrong. But cheers to you two for joining Ben and me to make it a foursome! Some fine, fine contributions from all tonight.

-We are by no means dominating and are nowhere near our former glory, but we are slowly, resolutely clawing our way back up the rankings. There's some stiff competition out there.

-If you want to piss Ben off, ask him about Germany.

-Some great answers and some terrible ones. We are once again paralyzed by the heart versus head dichotomy. When, oh when do we start trusting our guts? One beer in? Two? Never? So many right answers written down or suggested, only to be nixed and replaced with the wrong ones!

-Lots of flack for the whole religion thing as usual. At least we know they care.

-Poor the Joel. :(

-PHDTS was knitting tonight. Oy! That's our schtick! Well, okay, they were technically mending a knitted item, but still. And one of them has my CBC shirt. Perhaps the basis of our rivalry is that deep down, we are so similar. Or not!

-Next week, we will rock the set. We will have good attendance. We will trust our guts. WE WILL WIN BEER! RAAAAAAAAAAH!

etc.

So low

(work with me here and pretend it's Wednesday)

Well, here I am, sitting at the Owl, all by my lonesome. Thankfully, Grill took pity upon us and sent a message that there was trivia tonight. By the time I got my butt there, I had missed the first trivia round. They kindly offered to catch me up on the first round, but I remembered my Travisian ethics: no table talk; no special treatment (apart from urgent txt msgs). So I declined the help.

I should have accepted.

The best I can say about my score tonight is that it wasn't zero. There may have been a time when we could skip an entire night and retain our lead, but unfortunately now we'll be playing Las Ketchup for the rest of the semester.

Round 2- music.

Y'all ready for this? My score was zero point five. I just sucked so much bottom on that I can't even believe it. I began the semester for us as the laughing stock of the bar. Nowhere to go but up.

The drawback of sitting alone in a bar: some guy just used the world's worst pick-up line on me. How's this for romance: "Did you work in a potash mine?" Shmooth. And no, I would not like your creepy help on the next round. Yeesh.

Round 3 - trivia, theme-style.

If I had gotten more right, I probably would have made the connection: the answers were all Saskatchewan lakes. Still, I came out with 5 points. At least I can hold my head up because I got the Diefenbaker question.

Poor Joel is taking lots of tagline hits. I'm hoping this is an inside joke and not just general cruelty. If not, trivia is becoming a hard, hard place.

8 point winners (only three more points than me, bee tee doubleyou): The Bakerloo Bruisers. Kudos to them for referencing the best thing the Tube announcer lady says.

For other funny things the Tube announcer lady says, see here.

Round 4 - music covers and originals

Apparently you don't have to do your makeup or hair or not be wearing a wedding ring to get hit on at the Owl. Creepy guy number two has now swooped in. This time I dropped the husband bomb much sooner. He then went for the awkward complicated handshake and later the you're-a-long-lost-friend hug. *shudders* Apparently these guys have not been doing their homework with the excellent XBox program Don't B Nervous Talking 2 Girls.

The theme for this round was cover songs/samples - name the old and new artists. Now this, I can sink my teeth into. I didn't get as many of the original artists as I had wanted, and I did in fact correctly guess a Kanye song. Surprising. I even guessed Black Eyed Peas when it was Fergie, which really, for a fogie like me, ain't bad. 5.5 points outta my yizass; PHDTS got 6. The winners were the Bipolars, whom we salute.

Chad's Gramma gives us a beautiful a capella rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, including guitar imitation. Nyeer, nyeer nyeer nyeer nyeer na-nyeer.... They got a well-deserved pitcher out of it. Later attempts to sing Don't Stop Believing really humped the bunk, though.

Round 5 - Trivia.

I have popped a piece of melon mint gum. The jury is still out.

The beer cap map is up, it is beautiful, and it is extremely helpful for questions about Canadian geography. Yes, I referred to it for the question on the number of provinces bordering the Great Lakes.

A mid-round brawl breaks out at the Bipolars. Some brief fisticuffs, and then back to business as usual.

Being by myself, I'm noticing that the table talk starts to get really loud by this round. Unfortunately, none of it is helpful. And even though I sucked ding-a-ling on this round, I WAS NOT THE WORST. PHDTS got 4, and so did I. That's right -- one Travis brain equals all y'alls brains.

Uh-oh. Bad News. The Chad's Gramma team is comprised of engineers. This will lead to much tomfoolery.

More shitty bar singalongs. The Femmes Fatales seem to be flirting with Grill. Good work, buddy.

After the initial mint, the gum is decent.

Round 6 - music, the stop round feat. PHDTS stoppage

I completely was just terrible at this round.

God save us from the Femme Fatale who is singing an extended Karaoke version of the Power of Love. Oh God help us now. Please. Enough already with the lap dancing.

So that was my pathetic night of trivia. I had to take off abruptly to help James with a BP freakout, so I have no standings for you. The good news is that the dudes were moving so efficiently, I only had time to complete one round of knitting. Plus they were very punctual. We approve.

Could someone send or post the standings? Kthxbai.

Win, lose, and draw... without the losing part

Because Drew very sweetly expressed his deep sadness that there was no recap for final trivia of last semester (thorry) I now present an abridged version, followed by a recap of tonight's sad, sad showing.

Yes, tonight's.

Hey, did you know there was trivia tonight?

Yep.

There was.

Anyone else going?

No?

Just me?

Okay then.

Well, back to the glory days of full teammedness. Here are my notes from the night of ten big rounds of pure trivia fun.

Dec. 2 -- The Final Countdown

Round 1

So very close on the piano keys question. ouch. We should all note that even though he didn't get to it first, Ben would have known the Bible question.

6 pts for us. Rock n rollas made an impressive showing.

Round 2

Hard music round. 4.5

Round 3 -- Veektoreee!

Fun theme round - SK towns. Grill reminiscing about his Kismet childhood.

Round 4 -- More beer!

The isolation round feat. European cow. This was tough! Good idea, though.  James did us proud. 8 pts.

This one comes down to a Joel vs. Jimmy tiebreaker, and Jimmy wins a most excellent hog calling contest. Now that is a useful skill for an urbanite.

Round 5

Trivia straight up. Some good calls on this round. 8 pts. OMG, did PHDTS just win a trivia round? Their iPhones are fast tonight.

We were richly rewarded this round with a free elephant stencil. Well, it claimed to be a multi-tool, but we discerned its true use as an elephant stencil.

Round 6

Overheard at a nearby table, after someone gave an answer too loudly: "If we got it, everyone got it."

This was a video round. I have recorded that it was fun. It resulted in a 3-way tie (oh, dirty).

Round 7 - picture trivia

Yet more fun. Buchan on Mussolini: "I didn't recognize him because he wasn't hanging from a rope."

Our name-that-object failure: Buchan said "anglet." I said "agret." Correct answer: "aglet." Damn.

4-way tie, but our team brought home the buchan.

And then, it happened. The infiltration of the sports goons. Why does this happen every time?

Round 8 - Soundtrack.

Two bars in and Travis says, "I know it already!"

Round 9 - trivia about trivia.

Such good fun. Unfortunately, I had to go pick up our child at this point so I missed the tail end, but let me say that these ten rounds were an explosion of trivia goodness. We had a ton of fun.

Some quotables:

"I don't feel well but I'm drinking." - Steve Leslie's words to live by

"Bipolar Bears will drink Reverend Jim's kool-aid." Right on.

"Some excited nerds in the room." - Drew

Sorry my notes are sparse, but I was busy having too much fun. When Bruce takes a nap, I'll post the 'cap from this week.

Peace out, word to your mother.

Team Travis: Persecuted, Reviled, Awesome

Now that we're at the penultimate round of the season, it appears our complete and total awesomeness is rubbing a few people the wrong way. PHDTS took a shot at us in a tagline (and poor Joel's coif suffered as well) and the geers were reeeally giving us the gears. Grill, despite an extremely generous and giving offer from yours truly to inherit a beautiful piece of retro music technology for free, was particularly testy. Guess we need to ply him with beer at our kegger.

Our wonderfully inevitable kegger.

Break it down:

Steve, Travis, Buchan, Kari in attendance. Steve put in some serious loner hours waiting for us to get there. This shall not be the case this coming Wednesday, though, because trivs will be starting at 9:00 sharp in order to accommodate super extra bonus rounds. For our part, we will both be in attendance to help ensure total trivia domination.

Round 1: Some hits; some misses. 2TB won. PHDTS gained 2.5 on us. Ooooh.

Round 2: Obscure 80s/90s music. Well, obscure to the normal human; a piece of cake to Travis. 2TB win again. They are becoming a threat, so it gets dirty: "Two Tall Broads? Yeah - horizontally tall." OUCH, SL.

Round 3: Our perennial favourite, the themed trivia round. We managed to get all the answers without figuring out the connection between them! We were pretty close, guessing military vehicles when in fact they were all tanks. Let me say that what began to tip me off to the militariness was the fact that panther was one of the answers, which I assume to translate to panzer in German, which I knew was part of the name of the panzerkampfwagen because of our friend Cam's excellent TV commercial. Yes, folks. That's why it's called trivia.

This is where Grill got a little testy. Buchan may potentially possibly might have theoretically challenged our points total, which caused Grill to take away our points, which removed us from the tiebreaker, which deprived us of the sweet taste of victory beer. Steve-know coined the following, which I will kindly censor for the more delicate among us:

c*nt: [kʌnːt] v. trans. To treat unfairly; screw over. "Grill totally cun*ed us that round."

Of course he didn't really take our points away, so I guess he can still have my record player. I guess.

Round 4: movie production company themes. Very challenging; lots of fun. 6 pts.

Round 5: a tough trivia round.

Question: What was Lady Penelope's licence plate on Thunderbird 5?

Answer : Who the hell cares?

(courtesy of T-rav)

Question: What is the fruit with the most calories?

Answer: Grill.

(courtesy of SL)

This caused Grill to threaten to take away ALL our points. Eventually he had mercy on us.

7pts.

6. Grill's testiness continues, but at least other teams are feeling the wrath as well. I am mesmerized by the PHDTS guy's hideous sleeveless grease monkey shirt and his copious pit hair so I take no note of the content of the round. 7.5 points.

Quote of the night: "It's not about us getting free beer; it's about other teams not getting free beer." Buchan, I presume?

Has anyone else noticed that we have kind of a legwear theme happening in the names of our team members? Please pardon the funnery here, but I just have to point it out. There's (apologies) Cindy Pantalon, and there's Tr...avis H...auser. Tr...auser. Trauser. Say it out loud.

What of the other members, you say? Well, I'm working on that. How about: Craig Scott pants on. Craigscott pants on. (This is another one best enjoyed aloud.) Just saying, is all. Just saying.

And down to the the nitly gritly:

for the night -

1. Bite the Pillow - 45.5

2. PHDTS - 45

3. T-Rav and the T-babes - 43.5

4. 2TB and Boner City, tied at 42

5. BSB - 41

6. BPB - 39

and the cumulatives -

1. Travisse - 441.5

2. PHDTS - 409

3. BSB - 392

4. BPB - 380

5. Ses and the Wexlies - 378.5

6. 2TB - 374.5

This is it - the homestretch! Cruisin' into a kegger. Nice work.

There's a reason why we're called Team Travis

... although apparently tonight we could also have been called Team James, or Team Where The Hell Is James?

Despite the fact that the questions were all very sweetly tailored towards an absent player, we still managed to pull out a decent showing. Also, the T-rav was home sick. Get better soon, Travis. Please.

Attendance: SL, SB, KO and Mr. Ben Freitag, special guest and hopefully core membership inductee.

Toques worn: Just me. That's okay, guys. I don't mind looking like an idiot, I swear.

Pitchers won: three.

Pitchers we were ill-advised to drink: the last one.

Where Buchan went at the end of the night: No one knows.

Round one. The theme? Things James would have known if he were here.

Zero Pastor's Wife points to me for the land east of Eden. James knew it was the Land of Nod. I only know how to make Land of Nod buns. They're delicious. Next trivia breakfast, they'll be on the menu and you will forgive me.

This round gave rise to the most controversial question of the night, which was the number of inner metal rings on a dart board. The Joel got pissed enough to pull out his cell phone, afterthe round was over, to be sure, to challenge the ruling. However, by the end of the night, we had all resigned ourselves to the fact that there are just a lot of double rings on a dart board and that's the end of that.

When reading the scores, Drew demanded to know who Bite the Pillow are. "They're here every week but they never win," he said. Hooray for perseverance.

8 pts

Round the second. Movie soundtrack question. This was a deceptively easy soundtrack to guess, but our song knowledge was severely lacking. Fortunately, thanks to Newfoundland Television playing this with trippy graphics back to back for an entire day, I managed to contribute a bit. I believe it was Ben who put together the fact that this was the Wayne's World soundtrack. Party on, Ben. Party on, Steves.

We completely sucked at this round, getting 3.5.

Tag line: Travis misses travis.

No one else did all that well, though, so not to worry. When PHDTS got a whopping 1.5 more points than us, there was some fist pumping and someone made a "narrowing the gap" motion. Them's figtin' gestures.

Round 3. This round was Jimmy's birthday present: the theme was books of the Old Testament. Well, the thought was nice.

Tag line: this round is better for Jews.

Ben treated us to 'chos. They were good. Welcome to the team.

Steven Leslie's comment on the decentness of the 'chos: "Whoever's working tonight is not totally useless. That's the kindest compliment I've ever paid to them."

I pulled Samuel Coleridge out of my ass for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I am proud of this.

My Pastor's Wife chops were tested yet again during the tiebreaker, which featured us, BPBs, and Baby G and the G Babes who are pretty much all right kind of folks and share our anti-cheasting stance. Anyway, the first tiebreaker question was the meaning of "The Christ" which I shamefully didn't get. But the second question was my redemption, as I knew that the most common cause of death by crucifixion is asphyxiation. We poured a pitcher for Jesus after that one.

7 points.

Round 4 - Star Wars sound effects, and -- music to our ears -- "Not any of that new shit Star Wars." When asked to point to the table's biggest nerd, we dutifully did so, but revised our stance with another one of our excellent tag lines: "We all pointed at ourselves."

Steves were on the case for this one. Very impressive, gents. Once again, stuff James would know as well. This round, we learned that SL should go as this next halloween instead of a nipple-baring Wilma Flintstone, although I'm sure you two looked awesome. Also please note that next year James and I will be dressed as Dog the Bounty Hunter and Mrs. Dog as long as that is still culturally relevant.

There was a cruel, cruel bonus at the end of this round which was a Star Trek sound. Oooh, those sneaky bitches. This caused SL to wreck the entire bar with his nerd rage. Well, okay, it was just the railing on the stage, but still. It was epic.

"I will rape your nerd asses." --Drew. Too true.

The mystery team whose name had to do with chicken trussing won this round. We got 8.

Number 5 -- Pretty damn good one. Once again, James would have known one of the answers we got wrong, but we still did all right. Some Chemical Brothers playing between rounds got us discussing the fact that if you shove E up your butt you get high faster. Now that's news you can use.

Last round -- Just one shitty song after another, except "Two Princes," to which I'm still rocking out in my head. This was a very very painful round. My notes say "Sit down, drunken windbreaker man." I assume something like this was going on.

This round was won by elderly cell phone-cuddling men. They hemmed and hawed about whether to take their pitcher, which I think is a clear sign they were paralyzed by their guilty consciences. Bite the Pillow had an excellent tag line: "Next semester you will all fell."

4 big points.

Quotes of the night:

"This IS what a DD is in Saskatchewan." -- I believe it was Mr. Leslie. This of course refers to the fact that here, a DD is a drunk driver, naturally.

"I've spelled "if" wrong before." -- Buchan

"Any sport where you can chew something while you're playing is not a sport." -- KMO

"I might be the rookie on the team but I know what success is." -- Ben

"Go get your pitcher, muthafuckas." -- Grill

And now, what you've all been waiting for: confirmation that there is a keg party in our sweet, sweet future.

The night:

1. Rock N Rollas - 41

2. Sheldon - 40.5

3. PHDTS and Travis, together at last - 39.5

4. BPB - 37.5

5. Steely Dan? - 36

6. Bite the Pillow - 34.5

and overalls:

1. Travis - 349.5

2. PHDTS - 323

3. BSB and BPB - 306

4. RNRollas - 296.5

5. Ses and the Wexies - 296

6. 2TB - 286

Ta-da!

Also, to make up for the fact that there's no trivs next Wednesday -- some holiday to do with war or something -- we are offering to host trivia at our place on TUESDAY night. (That way we can stay in bed all day Wednesday.) If you're interested, let me know.

Two years ago this week....

Kari and I joined Team Travis. That's right. Halloweek was a good week for us, since we came dressed as these guys, and Craig was dressed as this guy. I know, hey? Hard to believe. But, in that time, we've been doing well. We've won several crowns, and only lost once since we've gotten together. Oh, I could spend all night looking into the past. Let's look at the present.

Round One:

Things I never knew? Roofies come in a pouch, and when you pour them into someone's drink, you stir it with your finger. Classy, Buchan.

We had a lot of questions that we sort of got right, and as you know, close doesn't count. Who knew that Rome was built on the Tiber? Or that Schick made the first electric razor? Not us! But we did know that Scooby Doo was based on a Sinatra Scat, and that Lester B Pearson was the first Canadian to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately, this was back in the day when you actually had to do something to win. We got five, the winners got nine. And this was the first appearance of the HiNi vaccinators, stopping the spread since '09.

Round Two, in which we learned that "My God can do anything but fail".

Music round featuring van Halen, Rob Zombie, U2, the Cult and not the cure, Alice in Chains and "still Dre" by doctor Dre. This is also where Craig stated his aversion to itunes: "It's like a virus, talking to my computer in ways I don't want it to." We also discussed briefly pot smoke in a concert - Travis: "Have you ever seen a security guard jump into a throng of people to grab a smoker." Buchan: "There was a guy kicked out of the centre for the arts for smoking pot. The opening act hadn't even started. The house lights were still up!"

Theme Round.


Yes, ladies, this was a tough theme. People who are on the album artwork for Sgt. Pepper. I totally understand how hard it was, and many people felt the same way I did, because it was cheat-city out there.
They asked about Bob Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, Fred astaire, Dylan Thomas, HG Wells, Laurel and Hardy, and so on. Cheaters were turned in, zeroes were awarded, and Buchan had the line of the night, to a cheating girl who made eye contact with him: "Was the internet slow on your phone?"

We got six, PHDTS got 8. Craig: "tough sled, tough sled."

Round 4 - Morgan Freeman quotes.

Oh boy. Where to start? There were 10 Morgan freeman quotes. There were probably as many lines in people's tag lines about Michelle's knitting.. More of people giving us a hard time for being old. But you know what age helps with? Remembering the dialogue from driving Miss Daisy!
If that doesn't seem quite right, well, nor were our answers....or were they? While Drew was busy asking Michelle if she would knit one massive toque to cover the heads of the whole team, we were busy winnin'. Quotes from Chain reaction, march of the penguins, war of the worlds, ten million dollar baby (which is what I hope to get for BP) and family guy. Also, from Unforgiven, which Craig failed to recognize.

We got an 8, and that was the winning score. As craig said, it's an ugly win, but a win. You don't know about world poverty night because you WEREN'T THERE!

Round Five:

Who had the best selling debut album of all time? Debbie Gibson or Tiffany?

Neither, pervs. It was Whitney Houston. We also found out that geocities disappeared today, and that the only way that "busty brazilian babes" should show up on your Youtube playlist after you've watched "who's on first" is if the sketch was performed by busty brazilian babes. Buchan: "Who's on first? I don't know, your boobs?"

Travis got a half mark for knowing about audio layer three, and the girl in a prom dress got a lot of remarks in tag lines. Our tag line was "best tag line ever."
Craig: "It's a tag line and the truth all rolled into one!" We got six, the winners got 8.5

Last round: The stop round. We did well. Vanilla ice is not queen.
We got nine, the BPBs got ten. Good show.

Scores for the night:

6 - 33.5 Sheldon.
5 - 37 2 Tall Broads and Wes 'n' the sexies.
4 - 40 Bi Polar Bears.
3 - 40.5 Broad St. Brawlers.
2 - 42.5 Travis.
1 - 44 Push her down the stairs.

Overall:

6 - 255.5 Rock 'n' Rollas
5 - 263 Wes 'n' the sexies.
4 - 268.5 The Bi Polar Bears.
3 - 271.5 The Broad St. Brawlers.
2 - 283.5 Push Her Down the Stairs.
1 - 310 Travis.

Good Night.

Hooray for early starts and fun theme rounds

After another delightful trivia breakfast feat. Cindy and Jud, and the two awesome guys who shingled our shed, plus a football game feat. Janelle, Team Travis is well bolstered to face another hot week of trivia.

this is going to be a brief recap because I have to go slave for the gubberment tomorrow morning.

Attendance: Leslie, Buchan, Travis, Craig, and me.

Start time: before Craig or I got there. Don't get me wrong - the early start time is awesome. Thank you, Travis and Steves for getting there on time.

Brief round recapz:

1- 7 points. Hamilton is the capital of Bermuda. Buchan would like us all to brush up on our knowledge of our fellow commonwealth countries. Tsk.

2- 8 points. Good effort from all (esp. Travis)

3- 11.5. Shhhh. Don't ask where the extra .5 came from. This was the movie plots in a few sentences round, which was great fun. Well done, Geers. Kudos to Buchan for getting the tiebreaker.

4- the backwards song round. Again, great fun. Songs sound surprisingly similar backwards and forwards, and as our tagline said, Hotel California is equally shitty backwards. Didn't get the tiebreaker but there's no shame in that. Some serious division in our team over the greatness or not greatness of Queen.

5- 7 points. We LOVE Clone High references and got quite excited for whoever was awesome enough to put "G Spot rocks the G spot" as their tagline. Team members who have not seen it: your homework is to watch it. There's only one season. You can do it.

6- Once again foiled by the ol' Phil Collins/Genesis confusion. Props on this round to Craig for Jesus Built My Hotrod and to me for sticking with my Power of Love guns. Props also to BPBs for kicking our butt this round.

Notable feature of the night: profusion of cheaters. Go Drew for calling them on it. Seriously, why do people think this makes them clever? I will never understand.

Bonus trivia: Krist Novoselic is in fact an elected representative: a State Committeeman (which sounds a lot like Town Selectman to me, but whatevr) and an advocate for electoral reform.

Memory lane cruise of the night: Craig and I both owned copies of the Elvis Musical Pop-Up which is rockin' awesome except that it misled us to think that GI Blues was his first movie. Oh well. At least we got to reminisce about 3-D renderings of the King in movable cardboard.

Quotes of the night:

1) "Angelina Jolie's got twins on the way."

"From Africa?"

2) "Did you hear about the AIDS vaccine?"

"What - condoms?"

3) "I don't think 'roids would help with trivia."

"No, but they'd sure help you with baseball."

And the standings:

For the night:

1. Wes and the Sexies

2. Travis

3. 2TB

4. PHDTS

5. Bite the Pillow

And overall:

1. Travis - 267.5

2. PHDTS - 238.5

3. BSB - 231

4. BPB - 228.5

5. Wes - 226

That was your thrilling recap. Libya has an all-green flag. Good night.