Being Amber Rhea

Wow. So much to cover from tonight’s trivia. But first, a public service announcement, for those who don’t care to read the whole long-ass spiel.

The big 1-year anniversary trivia competition has been moved from July 17th to July 10th. (Incidentally, that is also Garrett and Heather’s first wedding anniversary. What better way to celebrate than with a day of hardcore trivia?) Timing remains the same: pre-game at 2:30, kick-off at 4:00. Entrace fee is $5 per person; there is no limit on team size; the winning team will receive half of the total cash paid, and the other half will go to charity. And for those who are interested in such things, apparently there will be lots of free beer available for the winning.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way…

First of all, I had to do a double-take when I glanced over toward the main pseudo-patio area and saw none other than Joeventures seated at a packed table. I went over to talk to him and found out that he was there as a member of one of our rival teams, the Bus Huggers! (No, he hadn’t been on their team all along; I’m not that dense.) So there I was, face to face with the Bus Huggers. I asked Joe if his team would disapprove of him fraternizing with the hated Olsen Twins, but he said he thought it would be okay. And finally, after months of speculation, we now know the meaning of the name “Bus Huggers” - they’re members of Citizens for Progressive Transit.

Speaking of “the hated Olsen Twins”… tonight there was a team named “What’s the Good Word?”, and when they were first announced, there was a lot of booing all around (never mind the clapping from Hoover; we don’t need division within the team). Trivia Master Kelly’s response to this was, “It looks like they may have surpassed the Olsen Twins as ‘Most Hated Team.’” (He later rescinded this statement.)

Seat of Our Pants returned this week - although they had a different name. Something about the Dalai Lama. They had only three people on their team, and going into the final question, they had a glorious 16 points. We were confused for a while as to what their team name was, since at the end of each quarter they clapped enthusiastically for the leading team (not us at any point in the night). That Weird Dude (newly dubbed Dirty Nutjob) kept shooting dirty looks our way all night.

At the end of the second quarter, we were down by 18 points. Things were looking rough. We had a good third quarter (can’t remember if we got them all right, or if we missed one), but what really pulled us back into the game was the 4-part bonus question. Given the following band member names:

• Boyd Tinsley
• Peter Chris
• Larry Mullins Jr.
• Taboo

(forgive me if I’m misspelling any of those; the only one I knew was Larry Mullins Jr. [whom Kelly referred to as Larry Mullin, actually])
…name which bands they are in. Well, we got all 4, so those 16 points catapulted us into -oh, you want the answers? Alright, alright:

• Dave Matthews Band
• KISS
• U2
• Black Eyed Peas

Other noteworthy questions of the night:

• Mike the Bartender RULES for pulling this one out of his ass:
  Q: Name the band that did the entire soundtrack for the movie To Live or Die in LA.
  A: Wang Chung. (1 big point, baby! But for once, late does not mean wrong! That made Kelly exclaim, “Dammit!!”)
• Awesomely appropriate: Jeff was wearing a “More Cowbell” t-shirt. And the question… In the now famous “More cowbell” SNL skit, which band was being parodied? Jeff took the answer up and made sure to show off his shirt.

So there we were. Going into the final question. We had pulled ourselves out of the muck and were down by 7 points. It was about this time that Joe came over to extend an olive branch in the form of a leftover cinnamon pretzel. I was touched by the gesture, but some of my teammates were suspicious: “Is it an olive branch… or a hemlock branch?” (Whatever it was, it was yummy.)

And then: the final question. “The movie based on the book The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants comes out this week. What is the name of that book’s sequel?”

Well, the answer is The Second Summer of the Sisterhood. However, there was much debate and stressing out as Kelly not once, but twice told us that only the exact title would be accepted. The first time that was easy; replace the shorthand “2nd” with “second.” The second time was harder, and stressed me out big time. Was it an issue of missing “The” at the beginning of the title? Or was the full title actually The Second Summer of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? I argued with Kelly that “the” shouldn’t matter, since it is not used when alpabetizing book titles. He replied, “But it’s my game.” Based on this, I added “the,” and fortunately the song ended before a few vocal team members could push through the addition of “of the Traveling Pants.” With tension mounting, the final scores were announced…

And the verdict is…

The Olsen Twins*, defending their title, with 103 points! w00t!

On the way out, That Weird Dude/Dirty Nutjob accosted Hoover and demanded, “so what’s y’all’s secret?” Gah!

* As a final note, I would like to point out that our full team name was “Happy 19th Birthday to the Olsen Twins (We Stopped Counting at 9).” Not once did Kelly read the part in parentheses. How disappointing.