It’s a great read!

• John Doyle, our host going on three big years now, arrived at 6:30 with the quiz firmly handcuffed to his wrist, to assure everyone that the quiz was totally unknown to anyone but him.
• 135 people at $5 a pop = $675 Pot to split! 
• Started at about 7:15 pm. J.P. Pullen our Monkey, this Quizmaster’s favorite team name of the night,  started the quiz in the lead after the big Bingo round.
• Round two was NAME THAT TUNE, everybody’s fav! Lots of great scorers, though Tom Peterson & the Glory Holes really kicked butt that round, as did Clarification Please and Laird Creeger.
• Teams in the top spots included Laird Creeger, Clarification Please, Spoonful of Whoopass, I Smell a Clambake, and Beige Food. In the end, it was BEIGE FOOD who took home the big $500 prize! 

Here are a few photos from the night (more to come):

Seems that the warm weather and spring break conditions did not effect the attendance at the Thirsty Lion last night, where we had a whopping $216 pot and a standing room only crowd.  As always, it’s great to see new teams at the quiz, like Three Girls and a Little Man, the McFlys, and Space Juice. Naturally we had the regulars, like Yahtzee, the (variations of a) Monkey (team), and Your Tax Dollars at Work. But it was the team Kim and the Jong Ills, a long time regular team of Thirsty Lion, that FINALLY get their long awaited win!

Yes, that's a $50! Kim and the Jong Ills team

Yes, they knew the video clips of the Georgia Satellites, Linkin Park & Jay-Z, and even the boat capsizing on the ocean was from the remade movie Poseidon.  See what happens when you keep on trying? You eventually WIN!

I have to admit that the Thirsty Lion Bar Team really kicked some butt this week. They did better than they had EVER done, finally making it into the top five teams of the night, only to LOSE it on the question about Rip Van Winkle (one of their team members admitted that he thought it would be a Madeline L’Engle question about her book A Wrinkle in Time).  For the folks that don’t know this, the bar team runs interference every week, playing for free so that if they should win anything, the cash that they would’ve won rolls over into the next week’s game.  Bar team, you were SO CLOSE!

A little shout out to the new management team over there at TL– Luke and Cheryl. They had some trial by fire last night with the crowd management. A daunting task when there’s that many people to keep happy and they’re still in training. Good job, guys!

Hey guys: only one more week for the THIRSTY LION standings. One more week to see who is going to take home the $100 gift certificate to Grand Central Bowl.  Check the big board (next to the stage) for the current line-up. With last night’s win, the Kim & Jong Ills team is on the board, but I believe Hangin’ Brain is still the team to beat.

ONE FINAL NOTE: Quiz Against the Quizmasters is NEXT MONDAY! If you want to compete against we brilliant-minded trivia royalty, the annual big event is the only time to do it, with a guaranteed $500 CASH PRIZE to the winning team! BOO-ya! Of course we want you to come so we can fund the pot. After all, the QM’s are gonna TAKE it this year!

• a bottle of champagne for the team closest to the correct answer to the Thirsty Lion Question of the week.
• a BONUS challenge question, the winner of which gets a chance to spin the Thirsty Lion Wheel of Fortune, and win a prize like 20% off your check, an order of nachos, a slice of decadent chocolate cake, or even a 5 point bonus for next week’s quiz (or in this case, two weeks from now)
• the losing team gets a reach into the Thirsty Lion Box o’ Fun (t-shirts, hats, flags, you name it)
• the weekly standings, a MONTHLY game that pits team against team by the month for a $100 gift certificate to Grand Central Bowl
• a kickass VIDEO quiz every week featuring visual rounds, video clips, and interactive pub quiz rounds, and the winning team wins COLD HARD CASH!

What quiz is better than THAT??? Well, let me tell you about March 10th’s quiz and you can judge for yourself.

We had 58 very excited quizzers buzzing with anticipation for the Wednesday night video quiz, of which a good 20 people had never played the quiz before. It’s always great to meet new players, and new team names like the Geriatric Dragons, Sneaky Jesuses and Marshmellow Happens, along with some familiar faces (Your Tax Dollars at Work, Yahtzee, and Kim and the Jong Ills). I finally changed out that DVD scroll that we’ve had rolling since last summer, so folks were happy to laugh at new pics, like this one:

Our SEAWORTHY theme brought out no less than four ships in bottles, our bonus point op of the week. My favorite was a little tiny paper folded ship inside a 1-1/2″ bottle. It wasn’t the object itself as much as the story behind it- it was made by her boyfriend just for her (cue the “awwww”!). (Not on the email list? EEK! Go here, pronto!)

The quiz went great! Lots of fun questions about squids, Captain Marvel, and Popeye. The best question of the night is below. Before I get off on that tangent again, a big CONGRATS to the winning team, Elephantastic! You got yourself a whopping $124 and are now on the big board in the running for that $100 gift certificate, joining Yahtzee and Hangin’ Brain.  Hangin’ Brain also got themselves a bottle of the bubbly by guessing that the deepest part of the ocean was 35,000 ft. (the Mariana Trench is the deepest point in Earth’s oceans, 35,840 feet).

AND NOW……….. the video of the night. Question 10: Who is this actor?

Zod popped into question 12, 15, 18, 20….. then thanks to good spirited, possibly inebriated teams asking to repeat #10, the room got it’s share of ZOD.

HOWEVER, guys, there’s more to this. This is for you, my Thirsty Lion friends. Oh, and remember, NO QUIZ NEXT WEDNESDAY at the Thirsty Lion.

And I think this is just…. well, bad!

We started our terrifically fun WIDMER FIST OF KNOWLEDGE standings all over again for the month of March. The prize? A $100 gift certificate good for fun, food and games at Grand Central Bowl, plus your pub quiz team name engraved on the Fist of Knowledge trophy, and a reserved table for the whole month of April. To add to the fun, the Thirsty Lion now has its own BAR TEAM, who are planning to play every week and run interference for all the other teams. They won’t be able to win any money,  so should their team win any given week, the money pot will ROLL OVER to the next week, making the cash pot just that much more sweet.

Folks, I’ve never seen a REAL Emmy in my life, but tonight a guy brought in the real deal as his “fake” Oscar for bonus points. I was blown away! It was the coolest thing ever! Just wish I had the instinct to grab the camera, or you’d see a big fat real picture of an Emmy. But in lieu of what I really saw, here’s a facsimile:

With a pot of just over $130, we began the night as we usually do with BINGO.  Great questions, as usual, with some related to the theme and others not. For example, “Edith Head has been nominated for an Oscar 38 times, more than any other woman in history. What category was she nominated for?” (Best Costumes), and “The Suez Canal connects what two bodies of water?” (the Mediterranean and Red seas). As a big hint to the question about what movie Meryl Streep was first nominated for, I popped a big picture of a deer in the sight of a gun.  Figure it out?

Round two, I have to say, was a work of art! I plan to post the video for the Round 2 shortly. The 100% video round consisted of questions from past Academy Award shows, along with clips from Academy Award-winning movies.  You will LOVE it!

After round two, we presented the Thirsty Lion BONUS question, a question with a numerical value. The team closest to the correct answer without going over wins a BOTTLE OF CHAMPAIGN. The question:  If you were to drive from the Thirsty Lion to the Kodak Theater in L.A., how many miles would you drive? The answer: 958 miles. The SQUIRT LOCKER won! Next week, we’ll have another question and give away another bottle of champaign, so come on down and try your luck. This bonus question is totally outside of the main game, so ANYONE can play!

Another twist to the night: the question that is not chosen by the top three teams is now being put out on the floor for ALL teams to answer. The winners of this question get to spin the BIG wheel of prizes! Unfortunately we didn’t have a winner for our bonus question, but that doesn’t mean that next week will have the same result. Prizes on the big wheel include free food, gift certificates, and bonus pub quiz bucks, good for another week of quizzing. How fun!

In the end, a big KUDOS to the winning team, Last Monkey in Paris! They make it to the top of the big board for the first week of the Widmer Fist of Knowledge standings. And the funny thing is, they were originally a team of two and another team of two joined them, for the brain power. What a great way to work together and meet new friends!

Until next time…. keep on quizzing!

• announcers reference Peyton Manning was born in New Orleans
• any time they zoom in on Archie or Eli Manning
• anyone references Hurricane Katrina
• they show a close up of Drew Brees and you can see his birthmark
• they show how you can donate to Haiti (eat/drink, then donate)
• they mention Pierre Garcon is Haitian
• they reference the Colts beating the Patriots
• a commercial comes on for the beer you’re currently drinking
• The camera zooms in on a someone dressed up as an animal or Kim Kardashian
• Brett Favre is mentioned for any reason

The props of an ambitious film-goer taking in the latest Robert Downey Jr. flick? (Maybe trying to make a buck, Kramer style?)

No, just a few of the bonus-scoring gizmos brought in for the ‘Television Crime Series’ themed Pub Quiz Tuesday night at Biddy McGraw’s! Eight teams played, each summoning their own inner Sherlock as they pondered the motivations of Dexter and the deeds of Fox and Scully, while humming along to the musical stylings of….of…yes, it’s The Who, but that’s that singer’s name….ummm….Pete, no…. Roger Daltry! You surely knew it all along.

The regular cast of characters was joined by a few new (and a few old, but familiar) faces, from near and far. Would you come all the way from Vietnam to come to Pub Quiz? No? One quizzer did. So what does that say about YOUR dedication?

A new team, “82nd Street”, bragged and boasted, purporting the ability to rack their brains with the best of ‘em. They showed a lot of promise, and even a bit of dedication. (To what, though, we’re unsure. Those pints and nachos seemed to occupy a lot of attention.)

The ultimate kings (and queen) of the Castle? Rake of Blood! Taking a page from the underachiever’s guide to succeeding in trivia (NOT written by Ken Jennings), this team barely squeaked into the final round by holding onto 3rd place by merely a few points. With such bravado and gusto, though, they wagered minimally, while the top two squads, supposedly vying with one another for all the glory (and the cash), went in all or nothing. Surprise, surprise – nothing is just what they got, and Rake of Blood backed into the evening’s title.

The evening was also notable, as a new Quiz Master was introduced, Kevin Parks. Taking the reins from Alisa, Kevin’s ready for a weekly challenge and is looking forward to stumping each and every one of you. (And also to doling out the mullah when winning teams flex their mental muscles.) Bring it!

Wine & cheesy night ran very smoothly. 53 peeps played the quiz, with a pot of $159 to be had. By the time round 2 was done, only 20 points separated the team in first place from the team in 9th. Rake of Blood, in first place for the final challenge round, chose the wine option for the final challenge question. Borg 9, Moose en Sein, Green White Army, and Schadenfreude rounded out the top 5 teams. Only one team got the correct answer. They had bet it all, and their bet paid off. Congratulations Moose En Sein!!!

Go MOOSE!

Beethoven would be proud!

See you next week!

Although I came prepared to quiz, I did not happen to have a PA system with me (though often I do!). I had to use my big theater voice all night to project into the crowd… extremely coincidental, if not ironic, for a curtain call (theater)-themed quiz! I could tell after seeing all the Playbills that folks were really geared up for a fun night.

And fun it was, mostly for the Turds in Hell team though. They commanded a HUGE lead from the get-go, scoring huge in ALL the rounds, from winning the Bingo to acing the Broadway Characters handout. The Friends of Soundheim team really did a great job at catching up to them, but the challenge round question (about the original language that Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot) couldn’t stop the Turds. Friends of Soundheim ultimately lost by 1 little point. Ugh I HATE it when that happens!

As I bid farewell, the crowd erupted with calls of, “what was the other question” and “Jeremy always reads the other question. You want to be cool like Jeremy, right?” Well, of course I do! Jeremy is cool. So I read the question about the fictional setting (the state) where the film Waiting for Guffman was set. As it turns out, that indeed would have upset the balance had the Turds only picked that option. Doh! Oh well. Here’s a cool picture of Jeremy to cheer them up.

Jeremy the Cool Pirate

In the end, it was a great night and fun was had by all. A big CHEERS to all for the end of 2009 will come tomorrow…. so I leave you with a big o’ Shakespeare. (Why I memorized a man’s part, I just don’t know):

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

- Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, 19-28

Happy New Year Everybody!