Being Amber Rhea

Joseph took this photo Wednesday night at trivia, with an old disposable camera. I thought it was hilarious and cute… no idea why Rusty is making that face.

• Apparently last night at trivia I left $25 instead of $10. This can be the only conclusion, because when I opened up my wallet to pay for lunch, instead of the twenty and five I was expecting, there were two fives. I like to think I’m a generous tipper, but damn. I could’ve used that twenty bucks.
• There’s an Of Montreal show in Athens tomorrow night, and Cari and I are going. That’s three OM shows in six months… I’m turning into such a groupie.
• My fingernails always look like shit. Other women’s hands and fingernails always look so nice and freshly manicured. What gives? (No, I don’t want you to give me an actual answer; this is purely rhetorical. And no, I’m not a nail biter.)
• Busy, busy, busy. I’m slumming it today with lunch from Krystal. Ugh.

At The Old Job, it had become a Thursday morning tradition for me to ask the previous night’s trivia questions to Ryan and Sam, usually over a Chick-Fil-A breakfast. Now, of course, the three of us are at three separate jobs; and while IMing them trivia questions isn’t nearly the same, it’s our attempt to recapture some of the magic of those halcyon days.

Here’s an outtake for you from earlier today:

Me: gemini and libra are 2 of the 3 air signs in the zodiac. what’s the third?

Sam: vertigo?

Me: that isn’t even a sign

Sam: what?

Me: you mean VIRGO? vertigo is being dizzy

Sam: gah, yeah, sorry

Me: it’s not the answer anyway

Sam: i lost my head for a sec

And in case you were wondering, no, the Olsen Twins did not win - or place at all, for that matter - last night. Damn you, Grinch song lyrics!

Update: Sam wants me to take this post down, because he claims it makes him “look like a dumbass.” I told him not to worry about it, because we’ve all had our share of dumbass-looking moments - [insert preferred deity here] knows I have. But as a friend, I should let you all know that Sam is actually a very intelligent and well-spoken person. And without him, y’all’dn’t've been able to see me descend into the world of booooze.

After the Olsen Twins missed trivia last week for the first time in a whole year, we were back in style with a first place finish last night. (Our team name, courtesy of yours truly: “The Olsen Twins: Better Late Than Pregnant.”) We had only a 5-person team, but our superior knowledge of animals, books (comic and otherwise), and the Dixie Chicks led us to victory. All this, in the face of a blatant attempt on our lives.

The photo to the right is of a warning label on a space heater that was right in front of Kelly (the trivia M.C.). In case you can’t make it out, the middle line says, “Using it in an enclosed space can kill you.” Alyssa claims she passed out due to giving blood earlier in the day, but I know the heater was at least partly to blame. I wonder if she could sue and make millions.

Other noteworthy points from last night include 1) this festive tree that was on the bar; and 2) this gentleman, whom I was fortunate enough not to see in person. I mean, Jesus. One of the most important reasons for wearing pants is to keep one’s ass out of sight and mind. I’ve never in my life seen a pair of pants fail so fast.

(P.S. The goddamn captcha has been temporarily disabled. I’ve gotta get to the bottom of that.)

A word of advice: when I tell you I’m so certain about what the smallest Canadian province is that if I’m wrong you can ass-rape me, don’t make some lame joke about “I think you might like that.” You get a 0 for Originality (or a 10 for Predictability) and a 0 for Humor. Also, if you make the following derogatory crack poorly disguised as a joke… “I think you’re obsessed with sex” …it would behoove you to make sure I hadn’t proclaimed that fact to the Internets only a day earlier. You get a 0 for Creativity and a 0 for Attempting To Smack Me Around With Your Dick.

Even though I was not in Atlanta Wednesday night (and therefore missed the one-year anniversary of the Olsen Twins at Mellow Mushroom), I did get my weekly trivia fix, thanks to Jen. And we won, bitches. (Jen blogged it, so go read her review.) Not. Even. Close. Back in the ATL, apparently the Olsen Twins took second place in my absence.

And that is my lame trivia post for the night. What can I say, time got away from me - I spent the past 3 hours looking up property information first on the Augusta tax commissioner’s site, then the Fulton County tax commissioner’s site. (It all came about because I was wondering about the ages of some buildings downtown… oh never mind. I took a bunch of pictures downtown today, and I’ll post them later, for your viewing pleasure.)

I wasn’t there last night, since I was too busy being a sick bastard at home. However, my team did me proud - a return to victory with only three team members present. Read the full review at Garrett’s site. (And Thomas has a version from where he was sitting.)

After a losing streak of several weeks, the Olsen Twins were back on top last night!!1!1 It was a highly competitive game, and we were neck-and-neck with the Douche Wranglers for most of it. (I think they were actually tied with the Hispanics [insert topical reference here] at the end of the first quarter, but we know how that turned out.)

We had a perfect third quarter - and then didn’t get one damn question right in the fourth quarter. This put us in second place - down by 14 points - going into the final question. I think most of us felt that we would take second place, not first, since several of us paid out before waiting to hear the results. That turned out to be a stupid decision, because the Douche Wranglers got the final question wrong, thus catapulting us into first place.

The category? Game shows. The question? “Once in The Hot Seat, how many questions must be answered correctly in order to win the million?” (The answer? 15.) The Douche Wranglers were off by one. That must’ve hurt.

Trivia - Last night, the Hispanics [insert topical reference of the week] were back and somehow managed to whoop our asses, with 112 points (and first place) to our 106 (and third place). They started out weak but came back in the second half. (The Goddamn Boyfriend, a.k.a. Trivia Slut #2, a.k.a. Trash-Talkin’ Vol, said he was instrumental in leading their team to victory. Gah.) There were a lot of upsets last night, as the teams that had been leading in the first half dropped abysmally in the second. It probably had to do with the third quarter, which consisted of all college football questions. Anyway, it was a good game all around, and we held our own for most of it. Oh, and Josh found out that he knows one of the Douche Wranglers, from back in the day (…which was a Wednesday, btw¹). How ’bout that?

Weirdness - Someone stole my doormat. Honestly… who steals a mat?

¹ Name the reference for five bonus points.

Almost 24 hours later… I am finally writing a trivia recap.

We placed second. We were three points behind first place, and I felt like a jerk, because if only we had bet 2 points instead of 6 on one question in the last quarter, we would’ve been able to win by one point. Update: see Garrett’s correction here. The team wasn’t pissed though (at least not too much); Hoover in particular was empathic. And it probably helped that the guy mentioned here wasn’t present last night. Josh was also conspicuously absent for the second week in a row, but we had two trivia sluts joining us.

My fuck-up accounted for, I will also say this: there were three questions for which my presence was integral. (If I’m wrong in saying that I was the only one who knew the answers to the following questions, I’m sure someone [Garrett] will correct me.)

• Aside from the baby, what were the names of the two children in The Incredibles?
• What are the names of Barney the Dinosaur’s two dinosaur friends? [ed. note: I babysat a 2-year-old when I was in college, that's my excuse for knowing that one.]
• Who wrote Superfudge and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing?

The fact that I was the sole representative of the Vagina Contingent may have had something to do with me being the only one to know that last answer. (Garrett: cue sexism arguments.)

Before I start to sound too damn self-absorbed, I should also point out that the team as a whole was solid and played a great game. Lots of good, varied knowledge all around. That’s why we kick so much ass so often.

Postscripts: There was a team who had a horrible name; it was a spoiler for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Fortunately I’ve already finished it, but Jesus H., that’s not cool! If Alyssa had been there I’m sure there would have been much headesking. ;) Also, in response to the question, “What is the name of the Roman counterpart to the Greek goddess Hera?”, one team apparently wrote, “There is only one God.”

Well, we won tonight - w00t! Second week in a row. Feels good to be defending a title!

Trivia was fun, as always. Nothing remarkable to, er, remark upon. The little kids weren’t there, but there was a noticeable abundance of frat-boy hair; fortunately it stayed a safe distance from the bar. Joeventures joined our team again… where are the Bus Huggers??

I will say this: I always have fun at MM trivia, but there’s this one guy on our team who always talks down to me as if I’m just some dumb girl. (No, it’s not you, Garrett!) The likelihood of him reading this is slim, but I don’t care if he does - it’s a fact, after all, and it pisses me off. As if his answers are somehow more valid than mine. (Even when mine are right.) Gah, I hate stupid people.

Good night!

I am annoyed, and I am going to blame it on not going to Chick-Fil-A or Starbucks this morning. Actually my Starbucks pal went without me. I am hungry and cranky. And if anybody makes a comment about me sounding whiny or snobbish, I will delete it. This is my blog goddammit.

Anyway, I didn’t go to trivia last night, but Garrett sent me an email with a good synopsis, and gave me permission to post it here, so here you go:

First place baby!!!

Final question: From which floor did Lee Harvey Oswald shoot JFK in the Texas Book Depository…

The carryover question was the one about what year women started to play at Wimbledon. (1884)

We were down 2 pts going into final, and bet 20 and won. Seat of our Pants was there, and I met a non-nutjob guy from the team; he was nice. They didn’t place, I think. Little Lebowskis were hot on our trail yet again, but we luckily kept them from three-peating (I hate that term).

We had a commanding lead going into the 10th question (bonus #2), but blew it betting 10 points that Lake Erie doesn’t border Michigan. (It actually doesn’t touch Indiana, out of MI, IN, OH, NY, and PA.)

All in all, a really good game. I think we ended up with 102 pts. We had at least 2 perfect rounds. Especially being so short-handed… (Karlo, Jeff, Hoover, Dean, me).

Thomas has already written a recap of the rampant asshaberdashery (see his post for a definition) at the ‘Shroom last night, so I will simply fill in the details of the Olsen Twins not placing.

We were feeling confident at the end of the first quarter. We’d gotten all four of the regular questions right, and despite getting only two out of four on the 4-part bonus question, we were in 2nd place (down by one point) at the end of the first quarter.

In the second quarter, we got all of the regular questions right - except our three-pointer, which was, “What is the most prevalent color on a female cardinal?” I disagree with the answer Kelly had (not going to post it here - already learned my lesson about doing that!). It is light red - or at least that’s how it has always looked to me. There were several pairs of cardinals that lived outside our apartment in Athens and used to eat birdseed off our back porch… we watched them for months, and the females (in addition to female cardinals I’ve seen elsewhere) were definitely light red. Now, we figured “light red” would not be an answer to a trivia question. But we couldn’t agree on what he would use - brown, gray, pink, orange… So we just put light red for three points, and nobody cried too hard when we got it wrong. (For the record, my Google image searching is turning up pictures of female cardinals with a wide variation in color.)

I think what really did us in was the wagering question at the end of round two… How many stories does the Sears Tower have? Again, not posting the answer, but suffice it to say, we got it wrong; and having wagered 10, that meant we lost five points. So our score at halftime was 28, and I don’t remember how much we were down by, but I don’t think we weren’t in the top three.

In the next two quarters, we missed our two-pointer and four-pointer in both. Even though we got the six and the eight both times, it just wasn’t enough to pull us back. We also once again got only two out of four in the four-part bonus at the end of the third quarter - that’s probably what did us in for good.

We wagered 20 on the final question, which was ridiculously easy (”The song American Pie refers to a plane crash in which three musicians were killed; one was Buddy Holly, who were the other two?”), so everyone else got right it, too. We finished with 84. I don’t remember what the teams that placed had, but I think it was in the nineties for all of them.

Oh well! Despite the asshaberdashery and us not placing, it was a good game. And we won a free pitcher of beer, which made Hoover pretty damn happy. Oh, I should also mention that Joeventures joined our team last night. That guy is such a trivia slut! Can’t commit. Next week he’ll probably be back with the Bus Huggers. ;) But hey, I’m not trying to talk smack… he’s going to let me write for Bloglanta!

That’s right… the Olsen Twins were the victors at yesterday’s one year anniversary trivia competition at the ‘Shroom!

We were kind of disappointed in the turn-out, as was Kelly; only 6 teams showed up, even though many more had RSVP’ed. The weather probably had a lot to do with it (there’s a hurricane on, you know). The Bus Huggers, My Bitches Were Late, The Douche Wranglers, and the team with the German-sounding name that I can never remember were all absent. But, Seat Of Our Pants was there, with Dirty Nutjob looking dirty as ever. Although, they tried out a new name (and one that didn’t incorporate our name)… “She can’t curl but you should see her snatch.” Too bad it’s lame. You can’t just throw in a vagina euphemism if the pun in which it’s cloaked doesn’t make sense on its own. Update: Cari informs me that “curl” and “snatch” are both weightlifting terms. Shows how much I know.

Final score: Olsen Twins, 94; Hispanics Nominate Judge Judy for Supreme Court Justice*, 93. It was neck-and-neck throughout. An exciting game, to be sure. (Seat Of Our Pants placed fourth, with something like 63 points. How sad.) I think both our teams have upped our reputations even further in Mellow Mushroom trivia lore.

Pictures: here and here and here.

Oh, and as it turns out, aluminum is the most prevalent metal element in the earth’s crust. Silicon, apparently, is semi-metallic. Bah.

* I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m remembering their team name incorrectly.

Honestly, I don’t feel motivated to write a big trivia recap at the moment. I’m kind of in a dour mood; I blame the weather (in case you didn’t know, it stormed like a mofo last night and it’s been gloomy and nasty all day). Suffice it to say, despite a high-scoring game all around, and a perfect second and third quarter for our team, we did not place. (Our [friendly] rivals came in 2nd. Dirty Nutjob was not present.) However, it was a good game, and we’re ready for The Big One this Sunday. If you plan to be there, remember: $5 per person; pre-game at 2:30; kickoff at 4:00. I’ll be wearing my new trivia uniform.

Second place last night, again. But the good news is, Seat of Our Pants (again, not their team name this week; but I’m getting to that) did not place. Their brief interlude as defending champions must’ve been nice while it lasted; I hope they savored it, ’cause it’s never going to happen again.

The Douche Wranglers took first place; we, of course, took second; and the Hispanics Playing Hide the WMD with the Olsen Twins (clever, guys) took third. Which is pretty funny in light of one of their team members coming over in the 4th quarter to talk smack about how it would be impossible for us to beat them.

This week, Seat of Our Pants called themselves The Olsen Twins Like it Greek - which, apparently, is a sex industry term for accepting deliveries at the service entrance. LAME.

I will just reiterate Thomas’s point here:

It is one thing to incorporate another team’s name into your own like we so skillfully did. It is quite another to just assume that other team’s name entirely.

I don’t freakin’ care if people want to try to villify us by putting “Olsen Twins” in their name (and plus, the Hispanics [insert topical reference] actually KNOW us, so it’s kind of different)… but at least put it in the latter part of your team name, otherwise it just causes confusion. Every time Kelly read the standings, he had to take special care to clarify, “They’re your defending champions” or “They’re the team at the bar.” Gah.

Now the question (posed by Josh) is: should we try to incorporate “seat of our pants” into our team name next week, or do we not want to stoop to their level? (Although, Dirty Nutjob probably has trouble with stooping in general… -oh, did I say that out loud? My bad…)

Your useless trivia fact of the day: the two types of barometers are mercury and aneroid.

That’s right, folks. It’s 10:30 PM, and I just got home from work. And I haven’t read any blogs all day (except for checking my comments occasionally), so that gives you some idea of the kind of day it was.

What I really want to do is fall into bed, but I feel an obligation to at least write something about last night’s trivia game. There are a few other things I’d like to write about too, but they can wait.

It wasn’t the best trivia night, for a number of reasons. First of all, we came in second - but more on that in a minute. The main thing was, my socialization meter had been pushed to the breaking point, and my natural introversion was verrrrry unhappy with me. This was not helped by the fact that it was shaping up to be a pretty damn stressful week at work. Ryan and Sam came with me to trivia last night (finally!), which I was happy about - but they didn’t seem to have a very good time, so that stressed me out, and I felt partially responsible for them not having a good time (well, Ryan moreso than Sam)… plus Cari was there with some friend I’d never met… and of course my blogger peeps (albeit on another team)… There were just too many disparate groups of people to find time for and attempt to integrate, and by the time the night was over I felt like I was going a little crazy.

As for the trivia game itself, it was an exciting game, and I would’ve gotten into it more if I hadn’t been feeling so off kilter because of everything else. Plus our team was unnaturally large… a bunch of people I’d never seen before had shown up. We didn’t do that well in the first quarter, but by the third we had pulled ourselves up to second place. Then, going into the final question, we were in the lead, up by (I believe) 12 points. (Josh or Garrett, correct me if I’m wrong.) Neck-and-neck with us the whole night was, mysteriously, Seat of Our Pants - although their name this week was These Questions Blow As Much As The Olsen Twins. Verrrry funny, guys. (The Hispanics [topical reference of the week] also villified us in their name, but that was more of an inside joke in reference to some commentage on Jen’s blog - specifically, Hispanics Spitting in the Olsen Twins’ Food.)

Anyway, I think Seat of Our Pants (as they will forever be known) must’ve had a ringer on their team this week - either that, or they were cheating. The did have one guy with them that I’d never noticed before, so maybe he knew everything. They were in second place going into the final question. Okay, long story short because my eyes are closing involuntarily: they won. Did they gloat? You know they did! I really feel like I’m not doing the night justice with this lame post, I should really be embellishing my verbiage a lot more… but I’m just going to throw this up for now and go to bed (without even catching up on blog reading, good god!) - maybe I’ll write something better tomorrow. And oh yeah, that’s another thing… tomorrow I’ll be in Athens for Athfest, w00t! So expect more on that.

And with that, I am off to Bedfordshire

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.

I’m late to the party, as last night’s trivia has already been blogged by Thomas, Tony, Nikki, and Jen. (I gotta say, I love how we all blog it afterward. There’s something very satisfying about expecting a regular, weekly post. Humans crave routine, etc.) We took first place this week; this is the second time that the team name “The Olsen Twins Back On Top” has been fortuitous for us.

So, the past four weeks at the ‘Shroom have been: Hispanics, Olsen Twins, Hispanics, Olsen Twins. -Oh wait, actually I think the Bus Huggers won three weeks ago. Anyway. It’s been a pretty regular thing for both our teams to win. Seat Of Our Pants was absent for the second week in a row. Maybe they finally decided that they can’t take the heat.

Next item of business: Trivia at Manuel’s, this coming Sunday, 7:30 PM. Practice for the big one-year anniversary match-up on July 17th. Who’s in? (I’ll be there whether y’all fools decide to show or not.)

Well, what can I say? With a final score of 67 points, last night was the third time in our history of playing trivia at Mellow Mushroom (we’ve been playing there since September or October) that we did not place. On top of that, the Hispanics Deep Throating a Crane took first place (although, according to Thomas, that was almost not the case).

What killed us? Two things, really. First, the 4-part bonus question at the end of round 3 (4 points for each correct answer) was: “Name the first four books in the Lemony Snicket ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ series.” We knew one - The Bad Beginning. It annoyed the crap out of me, because I was working at Borders when those books started to become popular, and we did a big promotion on them; and, I was in the Borders near my apartment about two weeks ago looking at a big display of the series, reading all the titles and thinking that the alliteration was getting out of hand (complete list). The team o’ bloggers got all four.

Second, there was the final question. Ghatdammit! Thomas recounts it as “The drug Valkyr is at the violent center of what video game?”, but I think it was phrased differently. In any case, we got it wrong. Three people on our team were positive the answer was Resident Evil. We wagered 20 - figuring that the Hispanics would get it right as well, but we’d at least take second. Well, imagine our suprise when the answer was Max Payne. There was shocked silence and gaping mouths all around.

But, even though we didn’t place, we played a good game (I’m looking over the score card and we did pretty damn well, it was just a few questions that hurt us) - and what fun is trivia without a little friendly rivalry? I also want to thank Nick for coming out in the rain for his first MM trivia night (even if he didn’t get free pizza out of it). I’m kind of disappointed that Seat of Our Pants didn’t show up last night; I wanted to point them out to Nick, and plus That Weird Guy would’ve been soooo freaking happy to see the Olsen Twins “go down.”

But next week? The Olsen Twins, back on top, baby!

Um, let’s follow that last really serious, pissed off, emotional post, with its polar opposite - a post about trivia.

Come on people. I can’t be pissed off ALL the time.

Anyway…

So! While the Hispanics [insert topical reference of the week here] were being lame-o slackers, my team and I took first place last night, as per usual. (Hoover and the rest of ‘em were pretty happy about the two free pitchers of beer, too.) Our team name this week was an extremely obscure reference, that really only Josh and I got - and really, we should’ve used it last week, as it was vaguely connected to Jen’s pseudo trash talk here - One Night in the Olsen Twins.

We dominated for most of the game, aside from a three-way tie for second place at the end of the 2nd quarter. The questions last night seemed to be of two varieties - ones that we knew without a doubt, and ones that we had no clue on but tried to make somewhat educated guesses. Niki, you will be proud - one question was, “What author has sold more books in pre-orders than any other?” (it was worded better than that). I won’t insult you by saying the answer.

The carry-over question was the Hardee’s Monster Thickburger one. A little dig there.

At the end of the 3rd quarter were were up by 8, with a total of 69 points. I was surprised at the restraint we all exercised with the gratuitous “sixty-niiiiine!” shouting (or lack thereof, then).

That Weird Guy was in rare form - fraternizing with the Douche Wranglers, a new team of regulars that started showing up about 3 weeks ago. I observed him standing by their table, appearing very animated in his speech and occasionally jerking a thumb toward the bar (where we hold forth).

The Douche Wranglers came in third, and a guy from their team did some awesome celebratory breakdancing. The Bus Huggers could not defend their title from last week - I believe they placed second. My Bitches Were Late were conspicuously absent. As usual, Seat of Our Pants did not place.

Surprise of the night: Earth is the most dense planet in the solar system.
Dammit! moment: Leprosy is accepted as the oldest recorded disease, not syphilis. It’s in the Bible, duh!
Worst question of the night: Was Ru-Paul born a man or a woman? Give me a freaking break.

Second place in trivia tonight. The fourth quarter was all Star Wars questions, and we got them all right. The final question? “What does ‘Vader’ translate as in Dutch?” (Come on, don’t disappoint the linguist in me… you do know it, right?) If I remember correctly, we were down by 9 points going into the final question. We wagered 20 - but it wasn’t enough. One of our rivals, Bus Huggers, won by 3 points.

Now, I’m not going to name names or point fingers; we don’t need any division within the team. But, if we had wagered 8 points on the question “What fast food restaurant menu item has the most calories?”, instead of 4 points, we would’ve been able to take first place. Instead, we wagered 4, got it right (the answer, obviously, is Hardee’s Monster Thickburger), and then got our 8 point question wrong. We came down to 4 points on the burger one because of one dissenting voice in the group. I was pretty damn vehement about it but I guess I wasn’t vehement enough. I should’ve played the WebMD card a little harder (we did a story about the Monster Thickburger a few months ago).

Oh well, there’s always next week…