Next Sunday I'm off to London, England for almost three weeks. I've been there a couple times before but always for just a couple days max on the way to/from Europe, so I've hit most of the main highlights but will now actually have time to breath and visit at a leisurely pace. I have a full page of scribbled notes (and then some) from a combination of guide books and blogs (mainly Londonist) where I scoured for unique things to see and places to go while I'm there. Here's my Top 10 of most anticipated things:
1. The BFI National Library
The driving force behind this entire trip is my two-week library school practicum to be completed at the British Film Institute National Library. I had been trying for months to secure a unique practicum experience that aligns with my personal interests and goals (there are not a heckuva lot of dedicated film libraries out there), so I was absolutely thrilled when I found out I was accepted for this stint at the BFI Library!
2. John Barry Memorial Concert
My obsession with the world of James Bond theme songs started in grade 7 when a school friend gave me a Best of James Bond 30th Anniversary CD for my birthday and little did he know how influential that would become in my developing music tastes. When I checked the London concert schedule (always a vacation must), I saw that there was to be a memorial for the late, great Bond composer John Barry who passed away in January. I knew I had to be there if at all possible. Barry composed 11 of the first 14 film scores for the Bond series from Dr. No through The Living Daylights, including the signature James Bond theme, a source of never-ending controversy (it's officially credited to Monty Norman, but it's supposedly Barry who transformed the arrangement into what we all know and love). But there's not doubt, the big brassy, lush sound that permeates the Bond series is all John Barry who, in addition to the actual film scores, co-wrote the classic themes to Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, just to name a few. It cost a sweet (money)penny to score a ticket to to this memorial concert at the Royal Albert Hall(!), which will feature Dame Shirley Bassey, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Dodd, and tributes by Sir Michael Caine, Sir George Martin, and Timothy Dalton, among others. Should be brilliant.
3. Canada Day in Trafalgar Square
I won't even have been gone two full weeks at this point, but in case I get homesick there's a big Canada Day celebration (reportedly the largest outside Canada) for Londoners and ex-pats in Trafalgar Square. The all-day event will include some sort of Visit Canada pavilion, a street hockey tournament, mounties, imported Tim Hortons, and presumably overpriced poutine. There will also be a number of musical performances from the likes of Oh My Darling, Alex Cuba, Lennie Gallant, and more. I'm excited to see former Philosopher King guitarist James Bryan (apparently now based in London) who will be performing with jazz singer Tammy Weis. Plus, the reliably excellent Blue Rodeo will be headlining. As if that's not enough CanCon, the next day The Barbican is hosting Canadian Blast: A Celebration of Canadian Sound and Vision with Devon Sproule, Chilly Gonzales, Mantler, Ryan Driver, Sandro Perri, The Hidden Cameras, and Woodpigeon. Some of that is ticketed but other performances (such as the awesome Maylee Todd!) will be free.
4. Free museums & galleries
One of the amazing things about London is the glut of free (or rather, by donation) world class museums and galleries. The National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery (way cooler than I expected last time I went), Tate Britain, Tate Modern, British Museum, Serpentine Gallery, and so on. I also just found out a couple days ago that the Andipa Gallery is also having an exhibition of Banksy works while I'm there. Again, free! Of course, if I'm bored I can go on a free scavenger hunt for Banksy street art that hasn't been painted over or removed.
5. Phantom of the Opera 2: Die Harder
Ok, so Andrew Lloyd Webber's 20+ years later sequel to the Phantom of the Opera opened last year to mixed reviews and, really, I haven't actually heard anything good OR bad about it (simply nothing). But I'm morbidly curious and loved the original musical. Of course, throw in half-price tickets from the tkts booth and I'm there!
6. You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat Film Quiz
Over the past year, I've become enamored with the pub quiz tradition, which of course originates in the UK. They take things seriously over there (an estimated 22,000+ pubs have weekly quizzes), so I knew I wanted to take part and what better than an all-film pub quiz?!
7. Deathly Hallows, Part II world premiere
Yeah, I'm a bit of a nerd. It'll probably nutso busy (I've already read about people planning to camp out days in advance), but it'll be fun to see the spectacle, stars, and all that. The whole red carpet and all will be happening in and around Trafalgar Square. I'll be popping by after work, probably way too late but we'll see what happens.
8. Jamie Cullum Under the Bridge
Not long after my London dates were already confirmed, I caught word via Jamie Cullum's newsletter that he'd be playing an "intimate full band show" while I'd be there. At 2am on a Sunday, full details were announced and I was able to secure tickets to this late addition to the BluesFest London at the newly built Under the Bridge, a 600-capacity club under the Stamford Bridge stadium, home to Chelsea FC. Score!
9. Olympic Park
I am told there are free tours of the under construction Olympic Park. I'm particularly curious about Anish Kapoor's Orbit Tower (he also did the giant bean in Chicago).
10. London
Ah, who cares what I'll be doing. Knowing me, I'll simply be wandering the streets and riding the tube aimlessly until I stumble on something interesting. I'm in London!
Showing posts with label pub quiz hotshot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pub quiz hotshot. Show all posts
June 13, 2011
February 10, 2011
The Vancouver Pub Quiz Circuit, Part 1
Last fall, The 654 made its first foray into the world of pub quizzes, a venerable British tradition that has quite successfully migrated to Vancouver. For the uninitiated, a pub quiz involves a room full of teams independently answering trivia questions on a scoresheet with questions read out by an emcee. There are usually multiple rounds with questions ranging from general knowledge, pop culture, geography, current events, to really anything (though there is an art to a well-constructed trivia question). Scoresheets are marked between rounds (often peer-marked) and answers read out. Of course, surreptitious Googling of answers is forbidden and simply bad sportsmanship. At the end, prizes are awarded for the top team or sometimes top three. Being a pub quiz, free pitchers of beer are naturally a common prize. Merriment is had by all.As previously documented, our first experience was at The Cascade Room as a non-competitive team in their Quiz of Champions. Over the next few months, we continued to frequent their trivia nights on Monday nights, though a new night class this semester unfortunately put an end to that. But I do want my trivia fix like Sting wants his MTV! I was aware of other trivia nights running throughout the city and I've recently made efforts to compile a master list, try each of them out, and see how they compare. Here's a sampling of the pub quizzes that The 654 members (plus compadres) have visited so far:
The Cascade Room
On Facebook: What The #!*@? quiz
Where: 2616 Main Street
When: Every 2nd Monday starting at 7pm. Team registration between 6-6:30pm.
Registration details: $2 per team member. Max 4 members per team. Your team may actually go over but will be deducted 3 points per extra team member (based on our experience, that'll basically take you out of the running). All the money collected gets donated to a local charity, which is chosen out of hat of suggestions submitted by all the teams.
Prizes: For first place, $25 Cascade gift certificate and possibly beer (can't remember)
Format: Three Rounds of 10 questions (many are multi-part questions). There is always a Name that Tune/Artist section. Often there are picture-based clues handed out too.
Mussels: Amazing coconut curry mussels served in a huge bucket ($13) with sesame flatbread. I love even drinking up the broth, it's so good.
Tips: This is maybe the most popular pub quiz (ranked Best Pub Quiz by the Georgia Straight in 2009) and fills up fast and early. Arrive ~5:30 for a decent spot. If you arrive around 6, you'll probably get a spot but you'll have to stand around for 45 minutes waiting for an opening. Questions can be quite challenging and the competition is fierce here. Once we managed to pull out a 2nd-place finish, but generally we average 3-5 points out of the top 3.
The Cove Pub
On Facebook: The Cove Pub
Where: 3681 West 4th Avenue
When: Every Monday starting at 8pm.
Registration details: No team size limit and no registration fee! Inconceivable!
Prizes: $40 cash; beer. Prize distribution is unique here. After every round, keys are distributed to the top three teams of that round (three keys for 1st, two for 2nd, one for 3rd). Even ties earn keys. Keys are also given out to the top three teams overall at the end. On every key is a number and if it matches the key randomly drawn at the end, your team wins. The idea is the better you do, the more keys you collect and thus more opportunities to win the $40 cash prize, though you're still in the running even if you only collected one key. We actually came in third overall, but managed to win the $40! The top team got a free pitcher of beer as consolation.
Format: Three rounds of 10 questions each. Straight up asking questions, writing down answers. Very rapid-fire with almost no time for team discussion.
Mussels: Quite tasty combo of red curry mussels and fries ($11.95) or moule-frites as they say in Belgium. Unfortunately arrived cold, but I'd give them another shot.
Tips: The organizers always give out one free answer on their Facebook page usually the night before (sometimes same day). Apparently if everyone on your team "likes" their Facebook page you also get a bonus point though I don't know if they really check this. At one point, a rep from every team was called to the front in a race and the first person to name 4 out of 6 members of the Brat Pack got something. A key? Bonus points? I wasn't really paying attention. I arrived for a table just before 7pm and there was lots of space. It didn't really start filling up until about 7:40-ish.
The Anza Club
On Facebook: Anzabonanza Pub Quiz
Where: 3 West 8th Avenue
When: Last Friday of every month starting at 8pm.
Registration details: $10 per team. Max 5 members per team.
Prizes: A pitcher of beer for each of the top 3 teams (plus bonus prizes of dubious value).
Format: Four rounds of 10 questions. 5th question of each round is an audio-based and the 10th question is a video-based.
Mussels: N/A. The only food in this place is a vending machine with potato chips and vegemite.
Tips: Last year apparently the first and last questions of every quiz were James Bond and Star Trek: The Next Generation-themed. This year, the first question is about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the last question is about Monty Python. Note: to get in, you'll have to buzz in at the nondescript side door. There's also a slightly off-putting grandparents' basement in the 70s vibe to this place.
Relish Gastropub & Bar
Where: 888 Nelson Street
When: Every Tuesday starting at 7:30pm. Start time changes if there's a Canucks game on (see quiz schedule).
Registration details: $5 per team. Max 4 members per team.
Prizes: $50 Relish gift certificate for first place, free pitchers for 2nd and 3rd.
Format: This was sort of grouped into chunks of related questions (e.g. movie quotes, current events, general knowledge) without really formal rounds. There was an intermission for marking scores midway through. There were also two separate pages of Name that Tune & Artist questions.
Mussels: N/A
Tips: That day's Vancouver Province provides fodder for the 10 question Current Events category. I arrived just before 7pm and got the last table.
On the agenda (if my sources are correct):
The Academic (Mondays)
Three Lions Cafe (Tuesdays)
The Calling (Wednesdays)
Darby's Pub (Thursdays)
To be continued...
October 18, 2010
Pub Quiz, Round 2
3/4ths of The 654 crew returned to Cascade Room for our first official participation in their Monday quiz nights. You may remember last time, we showed up on Championship Night and only got to play along out of competition. Unfortunately, we did not bring our 'A' game and finished with a disappointing 47 out of 68. For some perspective, first place scored 58 and third place scored 53. We were done in by some second-guessing on our part and just plain ignorance in other areas. We were short one player, but I'm not sure that affected our score too much.
If you knew anything regarding:
A) taphephobia
B) ratites
C) chinche, redcoat, mahogany flat, and the crimson rambler
D) former BC premiers
E) 70s SNL
...you could've helped us out! We've got geography, music, and movies down pretty well, but are lacking in the history department. We'll be back in a couple weeks for their special 100th quiz.
If you knew anything regarding:
A) taphephobia
B) ratites
C) chinche, redcoat, mahogany flat, and the crimson rambler
D) former BC premiers
E) 70s SNL
...you could've helped us out! We've got geography, music, and movies down pretty well, but are lacking in the history department. We'll be back in a couple weeks for their special 100th quiz.
September 23, 2010
Pub Quiz, Hotshot!
A friend of a friend suggested we try Monday Quiz Nights at The Cascade Room on Main Street. For perhaps only the second or third time ever, the entire 654 crew went on a field trip. As luck would have it, the night we chose was Quiz of Champions night for all the previous winners, so we were out of competition but we still got to play along (for the most part). Perhaps this worked out for the best since we got to get a taste of the trivia format and gauge ourselves against future competition. Typically, you'd pay $2 per member for a team of four. If you have more than that, you get points deducted. There are three rounds of 10 questions each in a variety of formats and for this championship game there was an extra round. Normally there's a prize for the winning team (a gift certificate I think) and all the money raised gets donated to charity. This being the Quiz of Champions, there were prizes for the top 3 and one for the worst.
Ponytails hates it when I do post-game analysis, but I'm going to go over the questions we got because I'm obsessed with things like this. I realize most of you will also find this utterly boring, so feel free to skip!
Round 1
1. First question was to arrange from North to South: Bahrain, Bhutan, and Qatar. We half-guessed our way to 1 out of 3, except now that I can actually look at a map it appears we may have actually got 3 out of 3 . . . Alas, it's actually stated in the rules "Even when I'm wrong, I'm still right".
2. The question was about Sir Francis Walsingham and under what English monarch he serve as spymaster. Ponytails and the Loner 654 member (henceforth to be referred to as Sideburns) both knew this. Ponytails remembers it specifically from Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602.
3. Other than 0 and 1, what is the lowest number that is both a perfect square and a perfect cube? The engineers figured this one out while I felt stupid because I couldn't remember exactly what these definitions meant. What's an imperfect square or cube? Clearly my minor in Mathematics failed me.
4. This question was about a ranking of world's top universities and which country came in 18th, the first entry outside of the UK or US. We were given the options of Switzerland, Canada, or Australia. We got this, but it was a guess.
5. At this point, all the official teams were handed a cocktail and asked to identify the four ingredients. Based on long distance visual analysis, we got 1 out of 4. Half of The 654 crew are non-drinkers so actually having the drink may have had little effect on the result.
6. Can't remember the question, but the answer was pulmonary artery and we got it wrong.
7. What is the original meaning of "pontiff"? Given three choices, we were wavering between "bridge-builder" (the correct answer) and "deep thinker". Ultimately, I got argued into the latter as our final answer.
8. Who has the distinction of breaking up with both the 2001 and 2007 Oscar hosts? I realized immediately that the hosts were Steve Martin and Ellen Degeneres, except my mind jumped to Portia de Rossi instead of the correct answer Anne Heche. That was one of those shouldahaddit questions.
9. Something about the most googled 4-letter word in 2004. We guessed "wiki", but it was "blog".
10. We were given a sheet with 6 trios of athletes and we had to match them to what they had in common. The common bonds were "Most games played in their respective sports", "Jewish-American athletes", "all died in plane crashes", "all wore number 42", "openly gay major league athletes", and "all nicknamed Moose". We managed 6 for 6.
Our round score: 11/20
Round 2
We were given a sheet with ten photos from comedy films, which we had to match to a list of quotations while also identifying the movie.
Our round score: 20/20
Round 3
1. Who did Billie Jean King defeat in the "Battle of the Sexes" match sometime in the 70s? We turned to our resident tennis expert Baleener. He let us down.
2. We had to identify the actresses who were Oscar-nominated for their first screen roles in Mary Poppins, Children of a Lesser God, The Piano, and Funny Girl. We got 3 out of 4.
3. We needed the French term for "know-how" that is commonly used in English. Got it.
4. We needed the first rap song to hit #1 on the Billboard Top 100 given the choices of Vanilla Ice (Ice Ice Baby), Run DMC (Walk This Way), and something else I can't remember. I actually thought the answer was Rapper's Delight, but that was simply the first to crack the pop charts in 1979. We went Walk This Way, which seemed pretty obvious but the answer was actually Ice Ice Baby! Turns out Walk This Way was the first rap song to hit the top 5 (at #4), but Vanilla Ice has the distinction of being the first rap song to hit #1. Yikes!
5. Here we had to identify six provincial/territorial flags. We went 5 for 6.
6. This was a number sequence that we had to figure out what came next, which we did (multiply by 3 and add 1).
7. This pasta is Italian for "little worms". We guessed macaroni and smacked our collective foreheads when we found out the answer.
8. We had to determine that "gerrymandering" was a political term. I can't remember the other two options, but we got this right.
9. From a list of six films, we had to pick the two that were on the 1996 Vatican list of all-time best films. We got both right (Ben-Hur and A Man for All Seasons) but they were pretty lucky guesses since the other four choices were more or less plausible.
10. What was George Michael under the influence of when he crashed his car and was recently sentenced to 8 weeks in jail? None of us had paid any attention to this story so we guessed wrong here.
Our round score: 13/19
Round 4
1. The Majestic 12 committee of scientists, the military, and government officials was supposedly created by Harry Truman in 1947 to investigate what? We guessed extra-terrestrialism, but the exact answer they were looking for was UFO activity.
2. We were given eight celebrity quotes and we had to fill in the missing word from a provided list (there were more words than blanks). We got 5 of 8.
3. How old was Lolita in the Nabokov novel? We were too conservative with our guess of 13 years old. I actually read it in a Russian film class, but I forgot she was actually TWELVE. Egads.
4. This was a question about whale hunting, so we turned to our resident whale expert Baleener. Answer: Faroe Islands, no hesitation.
5. This was a sneaky one. What do the following have in common: Dutch politician Geert Wilders, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Straw Dogs, and beef short ribs. You can ponder that and leave a guess in the comments (no googling!). We were close to getting it right, but were not specific enough...
6. They played a mini mix of ten Beatles songs that we had to identify. Right up my alley, 10 for 10.
7. Which original M&M colour was replaced by blue in 1995? I actually knew it was tan from a recent Sporcle quiz. Thanks Sporcle!
8. What's the only anagram of the word English? I'll let you figure that one out.
9. What old master signed his works with his full Cretan name Doménikos Theotokópoulos? Go ahead and google it. We did not know this.
10. Finally, an NHL question! We turned to our resident NHL expert Baleener. Except this was a real toughie.
a) What Bay area team joined the NHL in the 1967 league expansion?
b) What city did they move to in 1976?
I had never heard of the original team and did not know the city they moved to ever had an NHL team.
Our round score: 18/27
Grand total: 62/86
The tie-breaker question: How many times was the word f*ck used in Goodfellas?
It was the team who guessed closest, but one team got it exactly right with 246. Except when we looked it up later, we found varying counts of 300 and 296. In the quizmaster's defense, someone out there is propagating the count of 246.
We stuck around for the final tallies. Third place got 65 right, second had 67, and there was a tie for first with 69. There was even a prize for the last-place team. Said the Quizmaster, "I won't embarrass them by telling you their score (cough) fifty-two (cough) . . ."
All in all, I had a great time. Ponytails was fading by the end, but she was battling bronchitis. Sideburns left halfway-- he always has laundry to do when he's had enough of us! Baleener and I figure our team could challenge for a winning night. The only issue is that The Cascade was quite pricy for food. It was tasty, but not cheap at all. I opted for bison flank ($18) while the other three all got a burger & fries ($15 +$2 if you upgraded to polenta fries). Maybe next time we'll try to pre-eat and then nurse a couple plates of polenta fries.
Quiz night is on hold for several weeks, but mark your calendars it returns October 18th. Now accepting applicants to replace Sideburns. Join our team!
Ponytails hates it when I do post-game analysis, but I'm going to go over the questions we got because I'm obsessed with things like this. I realize most of you will also find this utterly boring, so feel free to skip!
Round 11. First question was to arrange from North to South: Bahrain, Bhutan, and Qatar. We half-guessed our way to 1 out of 3, except now that I can actually look at a map it appears we may have actually got 3 out of 3 . . . Alas, it's actually stated in the rules "Even when I'm wrong, I'm still right".
2. The question was about Sir Francis Walsingham and under what English monarch he serve as spymaster. Ponytails and the Loner 654 member (henceforth to be referred to as Sideburns) both knew this. Ponytails remembers it specifically from Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602.
3. Other than 0 and 1, what is the lowest number that is both a perfect square and a perfect cube? The engineers figured this one out while I felt stupid because I couldn't remember exactly what these definitions meant. What's an imperfect square or cube? Clearly my minor in Mathematics failed me.
4. This question was about a ranking of world's top universities and which country came in 18th, the first entry outside of the UK or US. We were given the options of Switzerland, Canada, or Australia. We got this, but it was a guess.
5. At this point, all the official teams were handed a cocktail and asked to identify the four ingredients. Based on long distance visual analysis, we got 1 out of 4. Half of The 654 crew are non-drinkers so actually having the drink may have had little effect on the result.
6. Can't remember the question, but the answer was pulmonary artery and we got it wrong.
7. What is the original meaning of "pontiff"? Given three choices, we were wavering between "bridge-builder" (the correct answer) and "deep thinker". Ultimately, I got argued into the latter as our final answer.
8. Who has the distinction of breaking up with both the 2001 and 2007 Oscar hosts? I realized immediately that the hosts were Steve Martin and Ellen Degeneres, except my mind jumped to Portia de Rossi instead of the correct answer Anne Heche. That was one of those shouldahaddit questions.
9. Something about the most googled 4-letter word in 2004. We guessed "wiki", but it was "blog".
10. We were given a sheet with 6 trios of athletes and we had to match them to what they had in common. The common bonds were "Most games played in their respective sports", "Jewish-American athletes", "all died in plane crashes", "all wore number 42", "openly gay major league athletes", and "all nicknamed Moose". We managed 6 for 6.
Our round score: 11/20
Round 2
We were given a sheet with ten photos from comedy films, which we had to match to a list of quotations while also identifying the movie.
Our round score: 20/20
Round 3
1. Who did Billie Jean King defeat in the "Battle of the Sexes" match sometime in the 70s? We turned to our resident tennis expert Baleener. He let us down.
2. We had to identify the actresses who were Oscar-nominated for their first screen roles in Mary Poppins, Children of a Lesser God, The Piano, and Funny Girl. We got 3 out of 4.
3. We needed the French term for "know-how" that is commonly used in English. Got it.
4. We needed the first rap song to hit #1 on the Billboard Top 100 given the choices of Vanilla Ice (Ice Ice Baby), Run DMC (Walk This Way), and something else I can't remember. I actually thought the answer was Rapper's Delight, but that was simply the first to crack the pop charts in 1979. We went Walk This Way, which seemed pretty obvious but the answer was actually Ice Ice Baby! Turns out Walk This Way was the first rap song to hit the top 5 (at #4), but Vanilla Ice has the distinction of being the first rap song to hit #1. Yikes!
5. Here we had to identify six provincial/territorial flags. We went 5 for 6.
6. This was a number sequence that we had to figure out what came next, which we did (multiply by 3 and add 1).
7. This pasta is Italian for "little worms". We guessed macaroni and smacked our collective foreheads when we found out the answer.
8. We had to determine that "gerrymandering" was a political term. I can't remember the other two options, but we got this right.
9. From a list of six films, we had to pick the two that were on the 1996 Vatican list of all-time best films. We got both right (Ben-Hur and A Man for All Seasons) but they were pretty lucky guesses since the other four choices were more or less plausible.
10. What was George Michael under the influence of when he crashed his car and was recently sentenced to 8 weeks in jail? None of us had paid any attention to this story so we guessed wrong here.
Our round score: 13/19
Round 4
1. The Majestic 12 committee of scientists, the military, and government officials was supposedly created by Harry Truman in 1947 to investigate what? We guessed extra-terrestrialism, but the exact answer they were looking for was UFO activity.
2. We were given eight celebrity quotes and we had to fill in the missing word from a provided list (there were more words than blanks). We got 5 of 8.
3. How old was Lolita in the Nabokov novel? We were too conservative with our guess of 13 years old. I actually read it in a Russian film class, but I forgot she was actually TWELVE. Egads.
4. This was a question about whale hunting, so we turned to our resident whale expert Baleener. Answer: Faroe Islands, no hesitation.
5. This was a sneaky one. What do the following have in common: Dutch politician Geert Wilders, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Straw Dogs, and beef short ribs. You can ponder that and leave a guess in the comments (no googling!). We were close to getting it right, but were not specific enough...
6. They played a mini mix of ten Beatles songs that we had to identify. Right up my alley, 10 for 10.
7. Which original M&M colour was replaced by blue in 1995? I actually knew it was tan from a recent Sporcle quiz. Thanks Sporcle!
8. What's the only anagram of the word English? I'll let you figure that one out.
9. What old master signed his works with his full Cretan name Doménikos Theotokópoulos? Go ahead and google it. We did not know this.
10. Finally, an NHL question! We turned to our resident NHL expert Baleener. Except this was a real toughie.
a) What Bay area team joined the NHL in the 1967 league expansion?
b) What city did they move to in 1976?
I had never heard of the original team and did not know the city they moved to ever had an NHL team.
Our round score: 18/27
Grand total: 62/86
The tie-breaker question: How many times was the word f*ck used in Goodfellas?
It was the team who guessed closest, but one team got it exactly right with 246. Except when we looked it up later, we found varying counts of 300 and 296. In the quizmaster's defense, someone out there is propagating the count of 246.
We stuck around for the final tallies. Third place got 65 right, second had 67, and there was a tie for first with 69. There was even a prize for the last-place team. Said the Quizmaster, "I won't embarrass them by telling you their score (cough) fifty-two (cough) . . ."
All in all, I had a great time. Ponytails was fading by the end, but she was battling bronchitis. Sideburns left halfway-- he always has laundry to do when he's had enough of us! Baleener and I figure our team could challenge for a winning night. The only issue is that The Cascade was quite pricy for food. It was tasty, but not cheap at all. I opted for bison flank ($18) while the other three all got a burger & fries ($15 +$2 if you upgraded to polenta fries). Maybe next time we'll try to pre-eat and then nurse a couple plates of polenta fries.
Quiz night is on hold for several weeks, but mark your calendars it returns October 18th. Now accepting applicants to replace Sideburns. Join our team!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)