Tonight We Drink for Free (Again)

Requiem for a Jihad

2006-02-12T12:15:00.000-05:00

Yes, the rumors are true. The Trivia Jihad is no more.

A Report From The Field: Kitty O'Sheas

2006-01-30T14:16:00.000-05:00

For a while now, we have been getting reports from readers on how trivia is going at other trivia venues throughout Boston. Usually these get buried in the comments section and, really, who actually takes the time to read the comments? So, now, when the spirit moves me I will post them here. Also, at some point in the near future, I am going to start a tally of the number and nature of reports we receive from our field operatives, so, if you happen to have visited a particular bar for trivia and feel like commenting on your experience, send it on in.

Just to lay some already known knowledge on the Jihad, I had the pleasure of battling an ever-blossoming crowd of North Shore witches, warlocks, and fishermen at Kitty's in Beverly. Needless to tell you the Whooping and Hollering takes on a whole new meaning. The crowd that was there was strictly there for the Trivia. In at 8 out by 11. We arrived around 7:45 and besides the Waitress and the Bartender and The Trivia Jockey we were the only ones in the place. We shuddered to think a trip to the North was going to be all for naught.

Also, the TJ mentioned a possible future time change. 6pm sometime after the Superbowl.

As far as the Easy First Round, I think he is straying from that format. Although there were some "Gimmie" Questions, most of the night you really had to see through the Alcohol haze and think. For some of those fishermen it might have been too difficult, even though the TJ was sneaky hint dropping fiend.

Outing #36: Buttnuggets

2006-01-29T23:29:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Thirsty Scholar (Somerville, MA)

Day/Date: Sunday, January 29th

Trivia Jockey: I think his name is Mike. This is yet again a different Mike from Razzy's Mike or Newfoundland Mike. This is the Mike that figures prominently in many TJ's stories of how they came to join the Stump! Trivia fold.

Crowd: Somewhat thinner than usual due to Harvard's between-semesters break. But they made up in aural volume what they lacked in corporeal volume, let me tell you. There is a whole lot of whooping and hollering going on at the Thirsty Scholar over relatively trivial trivia achievements. Seriously, the first round is EASY, folks. That's on purpose, to suck you in and build your confidence and hook you into drinking for the entire two hours of the trivia night. Anyway, there really is no need to scream at the top of your lungs over the fact that you can identify that Memphis is the city in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot.

Food/Drink: Not much to say. I had the chicken fingers, per usual, and there appeared to be significantly fewer of them than on my last visit. But, it has been a while. Perhaps I am in error.

Ambience: Again, I have commented on this before so I will spare you. On a positive note, The Insufferable One did not appear to be there. Perhaps she has finally given up on the possibility of running into Shawn, playing trivia on his team, and making him 'fall for her' all over again.

Notable Events: We went to trivia after a full day of skiing and a whirlwind early-evening homemade-chicken-pot-pie eating session. (For the record, those of you considering taking a trip to Attitash in the near future may want to change your plans. There is no mountain left now that we are through with it.) So, needless to say, we were a bit tired for the event. Still, with the prospect of a $30 gift certificate well within our reach, and the help and encouragement of a very nice bouncer and a very creepy bar patron, we found the strength to stick it out for the entire game.

Razzy's

2006-01-25T22:41:00.000-05:00

My love knows no bounds
Now they have jumbo hot dogs
Draught beer still two bucks

Ruth, Nancy, Kelly
World's best proprietresses
Much too good to us.

Outing #35: Felix the Dog

2006-01-25T18:16:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Brendan Behan's (Jamaica Plain, MA)

Day/Date: Tuesday, January 24th

Trivia Jockey: Jennifer.

Crowd: Not much to say here. Pretty much the same as last week. The people there are quite nice, and the couple sitting next to us was a little chatty toward the end of the night. I like when people are chatty and neighborhoody at these places.

Food/Drink: The Chinese food from across the street was excellent. I went a little overboard on eggroll ordering, though. They were the largest eggrolls I've ever seen, and I ordered 6 of them. Tonight we used our gift certificate from the previous week. $25 bought us 2 glasses of shiraz, 4 Miller Lites and 2 Harpoon I.P.A.'s. Not bad.

Ambience: One thing that is nice about this place is that it is dog friendly. It is really quite adorable to see some of these dogs up sitting on the barstools next to their owners. The one thing I don't like about this place is the paucity of tables and table-like objects. Basically, a good portion of the bar is just benches, which means there's nowhere to put your drinks or food.

Notable Events: There was this lady at Behan's that looked *exactly* like the character 'Superstar' from Saturday Night Live. She even *talked* like her. It was kind of creepy. Superstar's dog totally wanted to be on our team.

Although we didn't technically win a prize, the bartender was under the impression that we were part of the 2nd place team and were therefore entitled to a free round of drinks and promised us the same as we left the bar. So, I think the next time we go to Behan's we may be drinking for free, albeit somewhat underhandedly.

Outing #34: Candlepinheads

2006-01-22T14:19:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: West on Centre (West Roxbury, MA) Tonight we attempted to return to the Publick House, but were thwarted once again by Trivia Jockey Ken's overwhelming popularity. Apparently, one needs to get there at 7:20 in order to secure a seat. Thank goodness West on Centre was just a quick drive away.

Day/date: Sunday, January 22nd

Outcome: 1st place, $40 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Mike. This is a different Mike from Charlie's/Razzy's Mike. This Mike does trivia at West on Centre and the Cityside (guess he's the guy that replaced Kitty O'Sheas/O'Neill's Chris, who used to TJ at the Cityside but, as one loyal reader informed us, no longer does so.) This Mike is also from Newfoundland. He did not like us very much. I'm sure those two facts are unrelated, but you never know with those crazy Canadians.

Crowd: It was a nice mixed crowd, all different ages. Not too townie, but definitely not a 'grad student' vibe either. There was this one guy off of whose ass I could not keep my eyes. His ass was absurdly small. Mind you, I'm not saying it was scrawny or skinny. It was...hmm, how do I say this...it clearly had a good deal of 'padding', it just happened to be only about 2" wide. Seriously, I think I've discovered some new type of dwarfism or midgetism or little people-dom. I'm going to call it midget-ass. (Or maybe he was an ass-dwarf?) Midget-ass dude was either on an extremely awkward date with or was randomly and ineffectively macking on this woman who looked like a total bitch. I commented to my teammate on her bitchiness and her complete non-responsiveness to midget-ass dude's flirtation and I think bitch-woman heard me because she turned around and gave me a real mean stare. But really, lady, you have to make up your mind. Either you talk to him and pretend to be having a good time, or you shut him down and move on.

Food/drink: The food here is really quite top notch. I had the Butternut Squash Soup and the Banana Bread Pudding for dessert. My teammate had the fish & chips. All were excellent. There was also a lamb burger on the menu that looked very tempting, too, but I was reined in by the physical limitations of my stomach. Also, I am happy to report that the bartenders at West on Centre are capable of making tasty and quite potent Carribbean Martinis. (They are also quite capable of pouring glasses of Shiraz, but that seems slightly less impressive.) Our wait service was unfortunately a bit slow, because our waitress was playing trivia with a group of her friends. I hate to be bitchy about this - about 85% of my friends have waited tables at some point and, trust me, I have realized by now that it's a shitty job and that most customers are dicks with unrealistic expectations of what you should be doing to earn your $2.75 an hour salary and I hate to fall into that category - but seriously, if you're the *only* waitress for the entire 15 teams that are playing trivia, perhaps it is not the best idea to spend 75% of your time socializing in plain sight of the 35 people who have empty glasses or are still waiting to place their food orders.

Ambience: Pretty nice. It has an urban/modern feel to it with a little bit of a contemporary country flair that you would not necessarily expect in the middle of West Roxbury. I was unduly fascinated by the color of the walls, sort of a sagey-goldeny-gray that looks modern and colonial-era at the same time. I'm already plotting to repaint my guestroom in said color. Apparently some members of my immediate circle of friends have issues with the artwork in this place, and I can see how this might be the case, since the 'artwork' is actually self-referential photographs of West on Centre on previous evenings. Only everything looks better in the photographs so you're left feeling let down that everyone appeared to be having a better time and eating much better food on some night other than tonight.

Notable Events: Not much to report here, although I think there was a team there that was working off of *very* recent 'life experience' to come up with the answers to the questions. They were just a *little* bit too enthusiastic when they heard they got each question right, like they were trying extra hard to prove that they didn't know whether they'd get the question right or not. Luckily, they came in 2nd place. It was close, though.

Also, while we're on the topic of Candlepinheadism (see team name), I feel the need to point out that Dave Barber is #1. Just in case you were wondering. Or if in the future you get a trivia question that asks "Who is #1?", now you'll know the answer. I'd also like to point out that, according to CN8 $30K-candlepin-challenge-announcers-extraordinaire John & Dan, I am married to a ponytail-sporting Candlepin bowler named Ken Spacone and Shawn's friend (who happens to live, oh, about 2,000 miles away from New England) is a Candlepin Bowling *legend* in the area and has won the division title 7 times since 1987. Don't ask.

Razzy's Buffalo-Wings Expedition

2006-01-21T15:56:00.000-05:00

On rare occasions, I will also use this blog to report on how the Trivia Jihad spends our hard-won trivia cash. As mentioned earlier, we won $25 by default at Razzy's on Wednesday, and last night we spent it on hot wings and booze. There was also karaoke. The hot wings were tasty, and pitchers of beer were only $7.

After Razzy's there was a little Calypso/striptease extravaganza at my place. The party involved has asked me to take down the racier photos, and I have obliged. But trust me, the ass shots (complete with $10 bill sticking out of half-pulled down pants) are priceless.

If impromptu coffee table stripteases aren't enough to entice you onto the trivia jihad / drinking for free scene, I don't know what is.

Outing #33

2006-01-19T15:35:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Razzy's

Outcome: 1st place by default, $25 gift certificate. No other teams showed up (see my plea below.) Since we only needed to invest ten minutes of our time to receive our cash prize, our compensation rate tonight worked out to approximately $100 per hour per person. Much better than our usual minimum wage. I'm pretty sure Nancy only gave us a prize because she knew, like moths drawn to a flame, we'd be back in the near future and spending more than the gift certificate's value. Indeed, plans are afoot to return to Razzy's on Friday for hot wings and karoake. I like that the gift certificate has an expiration date 12 months in the future though. As if it would take anyone that long to come back.

Trivia Jockey: Mike. I would like to clarify that my previous posting regarding Mike's musical taste and his choice to play "Piss Up A Rope" was intended to be a shout out to Mike's musical acumen, not a criticism thereof.

Crowd: Although the place pretty much cleared out by 10 PM, when we arrived there were a lot of people there. The front room was basically pretty well filled up. Unfortunately, the other bar patrons were more interested in hitting on girls than in playing trivia.

Food/Drink: Of course we stayed at Razzy's even though there was no trivia. Skating with the Stars was on TV. How could we resist? The apple pie vodka and chocolate cherry vodka were both in excellent form tonight. Nancy truly is the sorceress of alcohol, although how she manages to also make these fabulous beverages completely incapable of causing even the slightest hangover is beyond me. Also, Kelly was mixing some excellent Grey Goose cosmopolitans. On Friday a group of us will be sampling the hot wings with some degree of earnestness and I will report back on that. One member of our party had the Jalapeno poppers and pronounced them delicious.

Ambience: I believe I have spoken on this point many a time before.

Notable Events: OK, folks, listen up 'cause I'm about to land some knowledge on you: Razzy's is awesome. Why you are not forwarding this blog entry to all your Slummervillian friends RIGHT NOW and encouraging them not to miss trivia night on Wednesdays at 8:30 is beyond me. Even if you *lose*, with draught beer at only $2 you won't have invested much in the evening. Perhaps you do not know where Razzy's is located: it is on Somerville Ave, in the vicinity of Central St/Massive Video and the Gol!!!!!! Supermercado. Perhaps you have passed by Razzy's but think the bars on the windows and wall to wall neon signs make it look sketchy: make no mistake, this is the source of its charm. If you like the Sligo, you will like Razzy's. Perhaps you have passed Razzy's but don't realize it - indeed, the tiny 'Razzy's' is dwarfed by the glowing Bud Light promotional sign on which it is printed. Perhaps one Wednesday evening you intended to enter Razzy's but were distracted by intense existential contemplation over the source and meaning of the name: we have all been there, my friend. Shake it off. Perhaps you think that I am only going on and on about Razzy's because I am somehow financially invested in the business or related to one of the proprietresses: I wish this were the case, because it would help make me look like less of a dork for being so obsessed with this seemingly hole-in-the-wall neighborhood bar.

There. I've said my piece. Now get your ass down to Razzy's next Wednesday.

Outing #32: Bavarian Nut Men

2006-01-17T23:27:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Brendan Behan's

Day/Date: Tuesday, January 17

Outcome: First Place, $25 gift certificate.

Trivia Jockey: Jennifer. I don't think this was the same girl that used to do Behan's trivia.

Crowd: It was not too crowded early on, but the place did fill up. This one team (of, I believe, librarians) was really invading our personal space. Because 'our personal space' consisted basically of low, wide, flat benches that served simultaneously as seats and tables, some Andrew McCarthy yuppie-scum-looking guy I think got some sweet & sour sauce on his ass. Take that. And mind your personal space.

Food/drink: Brendan Behan's has no food. On past occasions, this has been a source of great frustration to me and the cause of several post-trivia, bad chinese food binges. Tonight I discovered that Brendan Behan's trivia and bad Chinese food are both much more enjoyable when said bad Chinese food is consumed concurrently with the trivia game. Also, Chinese chicken fingers (think, tasty chicken slathered in 1/2" of MSG-loaded batter) dipped in improbably red sweet & sour sauce may just be the tastiest food out there.

Ambience: It is pretty much your regular local pub. Not much to say. The musical selection during trivia tended toward easy listening classics ("Can't Get Enough of Your Love"), but it worked.

Notable Events: This was a particularly masterful victory, as we came from behind (sixth place, actually) to crush our nearest competitor by five whole points. Our fourth quarter was particularly ill-played (Chinese food coma), so the victory was extra sweet. Also, if anyone wants to propose some theories on the meaning of my utterly incomprehensible fortune cookie, I am all ears:

Now is the time to make circles with mints, do not haste any longer.

Outing #31: Stop the Bus And Let My Brother, Jack, Off

2006-01-11T13:47:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: The Joshua Tree

Day/date: Tuesday, January 10

Outcome: Third place, $15 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Eoin/Owen. Still not sure how to spell his name. We got a comment once from an 'Eoin' who said he was a trivia jockey, and I figure it's gotta be the same guy. Anyway, you'll recall that Eoin just recently got married. It seems to be agreeing with him. Also, Eoin recognized me and recalled that I had been on a winning team some months earlier. However, Shawn's absence may have thrown him off the trail that we are, in fact, the trivia jihad. The same trivia jihad that in an earlier, now deleted, posting compared Eoin to a child molester (Eoin, that was *all* Shawn.)

Crowd: What can I say. Mostly Tufts students. Soul patch dude was not there. I'm not sure if I'd be able to mock him to the full extent that he deserved if he was, though, since I sort of have a date with a guy with a flavor saver later in the week. I don't know. Maybe I'll back out of it.

Food/drink: I didn't have any food, since a) wait service was nonexistent and b) I'm only eating meat and there weren't many options for me. The Hendrick's cosmos were tasty, and my trivia teammate had a very, very dirty martini with extra olives - a classy choice.

Ambience: Not much. Unlike Razzy's, trivia is not turning me on to the Joshua Tree. It was too noisy and doesn't really have much character inside. Oh, and get this, they kicked us out at *exactly* 1 AM. It was absurd. Who has last call at 12:55 and then forces you to *chug* the drinks you just ordered? (Luckily, we didn't partake of last call or we'd have been in trouble.)

Notable Events: I'd like to point out that this trivia outing falls into a category on which we have frequently commented in the course of playing (but not on this blog, yet): a trivia date. Now, make no mistake, this was not one of those staring-sullenly-and-silently-at-each-other, girl-about-to-cry-when-she-realizes-trivia-is-two-hours-long trivia dates. It was an exemplar of how common ground (a love of pub trivia and familiarity with the Philly Quizzo scene) can be spun into a pretty fun evening. Also, although mine was not an awkward first date (it was a little slow at first, but you could tell he was still unwinding from a pretty busy day), I would like to point out that, compared to Quizzo, the Boston trivia format does lend itself to awkward first date conversation - little conversations that die out are rescued every 3 minutes by a new trivia question. My date was a storyteller, too. Bonus. One story involved stopping a pre-launch Acela train in the middle of the tracks to get snacks at a nearby 7-11 and asking store patrons if they'd like to 'see his wheels.' Although, I have to say, I was expecting a bit more of a masterful showing at trivia. He talked a big talk and mentioned his Mensa membership a bunch of times. Don't get me wrong, he was pretty good at the trivia, but he is no Shawn or Melissa.

Outing #30: Aaron Jonestown Massacre

2006-01-04T22:54:00.000-05:00

So, the rule was that we would only give official numbers to outings in which both members of the Trivia Jihad participated. However, considering that the other attendees of tonight's outing have been long time trivia devotees, I feel like given the circumstances this should count as an official outing. Indeed, until Shawn is back in town in February (I thought he was gonna be back for a few days in January, but not sure if that's still on,) all trivia outings will be numbered as official outings and all participants shall be deemed honorary Trivia Jihad team members.

Pub/Bar: Razzy's

Day/Date: Wednesday

Outcome: First place, $25 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Mike. See 'Notable Events' below for commentary on Mike's musical selections.
Crowd: Small, but moving in the right direction. As per usual, there were a limited number of teams participating. However, as we have gone to trivia and other events at Razzy's over the past several weeks and months I have seen a definite positive trend in terms of the type of crowd - both trivia participants and bar patrons. It is no secret that when the place was in its former incarnation (Jon's Place) the only type of folks that would go there were slightly skeezy, sketchy old men. The sausage fest was such that the only woman in the place was the naked lady on the screen of the naked lady trivia terminal (if you don't know what I'm talking about, best not to ask.) When Jon's Place changed names, the same old customers kept coming, which is the reason that the naked lady trivia terminal is still ensconced in its special space at the bar. Now, I'm the last person to take issue with old sketchy men drinking alone, but I'm sure you can imagine how this might not create a climate capable of convincing a younger (and more populous) crowd to frequent the place. However, everyone that I've brought along to Razzy's in the past few weeks has commented that the skeezy men are fewer and fewer and that the friendly, local, neighborhood folks (the kind of twenty- and thirty- and forty-somethings with whom one might actually want to strike up a conversation) have been appearing in greater and greater numbers. Also, whereas initially the trivia teams were only 2 or even simply 1 person that Mike seemed to have somewhat coerced to attend, now the teams have 2 or 3 or 4 friends who come to Razzy's regularly and know the proprietresses. So, I have to say that while the place was not exactly packed, things are looking better for Razzy's.

Food/Drink: I never get over the beauty of Razzy's $2 draughts. That means a trivia win can buy your team up to 12 beers. It was sort of a weird evening, though, since we all appeared to be drinking low carb beers. Not sure what that was about - I'm the only one on Atkins. As a result, no vodka was sampled. But I can tell you based on another Razzy's outing last week, there is a new batch of strawberry vodka and it is TASTY. My previous vodka rankings are now shot all to hell. Currently, the vodka rankings stand thus:

1. Applie pie vodka (while originally I was a huge proponent of chocolate cherry, apple pie has won me over. it has a low alcohol content, making it the sort of vodka you can sip and sip without waking up with a headache the next day. also, no matter how much you consume, it doesn't get old. its sort of like liquid applesauce.)

2. Chocolate cherry vodka (love the taste, but its starting to seem a bit too sweet and overpowering.)

3. Strawberry vodka (this new batch is absolutely delicious - more flavor and less sickening sweetness than the first batch I tasted. only drawback is that it seems to have a higher alcohol content than the other vodkas, meaning you really have to be careful with your consumption.)

4. Pineapple cherry (tasty, but I'm telling you, the new strawberry formulation is *tight*)

5. Plum raspberry (still not too thrilled with this)

6. Mango papaya rum (looks like this one is discontinued)

Ambience: As I was looking around Razzy's today, with its peach-colored painted-brick walls, its wood paneling, the crazy metallic accents that someone sponge-painted onto the bartop and the acoustic tile ceiling, and the circa-1960 tap station and promotional lighting, I realized if I owned the place I wouldn't change a thing. I was sad that I didn't get a chance to talk to Nancy and Kelly more (neither of them was there at last week's visit) but I'm sure I'll be back there soon enough. After all, I've got 25 more gift dollars to spend!

Notable Events: Today we got a little bit more insight into the breadth of Mike's musical preferences. One of the songs, I kid you not, was done in a country style and had a chorus that went something like this: "You ride my ass like a horse and a saddle / Now you're up shit creek with a turd for a paddle." There was also an instruction to "get on your knees and start sucking" somehow worked into the lyrics. Classy. The best part of it, however, was the fact that one member of our party (a country music fan) was blithely bopping along to the music for about 75% of the song before, at my suggestion, she started actually listening to the lyrics. At which point the bopping stopped.

In other news, I have long been troubled by the fact that certain of Shawn's stories have never been told on this blog, mostly because there has been no reason to do so. Lo and behold, today while wasting time and googling everyone I know, I discovered that the following story comes up as the number one result for the search term "meat slinging Shawn." Let me tell you: it is really uncanny to hear a story you've heard 50 times being told almost perfectly on some random person's blog. I don't know who this girl is, but she met Shawn at a bar some time last year and one thing led to another and the famous 'meat slinging story' was told. And it really, *really* stuck in her mind. Either the girl has a savant-like ability to remember tales, or (and this is entirely possible) Shawn was a little tipsy and told the same story four times. Although it may at first seem to be unrelated to the Trivia Jihad, I think taking a job selling meat out of the back of a truck and actually sticking with it for more than a week can give you some insight, however slight, into the type of man who would dedicate almost every night of his fall semester to pub trivia. (Unfortunately, I'm not really sure I have any similar explanatory narratives. Except maybe the thing about the lumberjacks and the strip poker.)

Trivia Jihad Featured in Johnny Goodtimes' 'Year in Review'

2006-01-03T13:45:00.000-05:00

Yep, that's right. The Boston Trivia jihad's whirlwind of destruction and mayhem in Philadelphia was listed by Johnny Goodtimes as one of the key events of December. Good to know we make an impression.

In other news, I have discovered another trivia savant (one of my friend's old roommates) against whom Shawn's apparently limitless font of knowledge pales in comparison. It is only a matter of time before I convert her to the dark side.

Trivia-Less Wasteland

2005-12-22T15:37:00.000-05:00

Readers will be shocked to learn that there is no pub trivia in Hightstown, NJ. In fact, I guess there isn't even really a pub in Hightstown, except for this place. It's not called the Court Jester anymore, it's called Tony's or something like that, but it looks just as sketchy. When I was little they used to have old ski lift gondolas out back as summertime seating, and I thought that was pretty neat.

Trivia Jihad - Holiday Calendar

2005-12-19T14:11:00.000-05:00

Loyal readers of Drink4Free may be sad to learn that trivia outings will be few and far between over the next 7 weeks. I will be visiting family over the holidays and living a monastic life studying for my general exams for the duration of January; Shawn will be traveling to New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, and London during the same. (Can you guess who's gonna be having a better time?)

Nevertheless, I will do my part to keep the blog updated with other trivia-related knowledge and analysis.

Outing #29: We Luv Frank Black

2005-12-19T13:03:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Our House East (Boston, MA) Initially we'd intended to go to the Publick House in Brookline, but when we got there the place was packed. Unbelieveably packed. The Publick House is Trivia Jockey Ken's Dojo. Faithful readers of our blog may recall we made some choice comments about Ken which have since been redacted but which Ken seemed to find amusing. We were eager to go to the Publick House and make sure that things were cool between us and Ken, but alas, his apparently overwhelming popularity as a trivia jockey thwarted our efforts. Luckily, we had enough time to drive over to Gainsborough Street.

Day/date: Sunday, December 18

Outcome: First Place, $25 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Chris. Chris seemed like a cool guy, and very dedicated to drumming up business for Our House East on trivia night. After our victory he came over and chatted us up and encouraged us to return after the holidays. Chris also seemed to either not be aware of the blog or not realize who we were, although there was a moment where he was like "Well, there's a reason you guys got first place..." and we were just waiting for him to say the magic words "Trivia Jihad."

Crowd: Not much of a crowd to speak of. There were only 4 or 5 teams playing, and most of them appeared to have been drinking since 9 AM that morning. There was one team that had a very loud and boisterous member who frequently voiced his frustrations to the crowd while downing about 5 cheeseburgers one after the other. It was impressive.

Food/Drink: Terrible. Our last experience at Our House East (on a thwarted night of trivia) was avocado-themed and was, in general, delicious. This night's experience was corned beef-themed and was generally a disappointment. Shawn's corned beef sandwich was slathered in mayo such that at one point he just took the corned beef in his hands (sans bread, tomato, or lettuce) and ate that. My Reuben was quite tiny and had the worst ratio of corned beef to sauerkraut to thousand island dressing that I have ever experienced. I'm not sure its possible to make a less tasty reuben. The beverage front was also disappointing, in the sense that there was no alcohol in our drinks. Don't get me wrong, I am all for non-alcoholic drinks, and truth be told wasn't really in the mood for tearing it up, but I sure as hell don't want to pay $5 for a glass of pineapple juice.

Philly Jihad Day Two, Quiz #2

2005-12-18T10:48:00.000-05:00

QUAKERS MAKE OATMEAL, NOT EDUCATION, AND IS DREXEL EVEN A REAL UNIVERSITY?

Pub/Bar: New Deck Tavern

Day/Date: Wednesday, December 15

Outcome: Utter defeat.

Quiz Master: Can't recall his name, but he spoke with a lisp. (There are three quizmasters at the New Deck, so I'm providing this information just to distinguish our guy from the other two.) Anyway, dude was a good sport about it. He obviously gets a lot of crap from Quizzo players in the form of tongue-twisting team names - for instance, one team named itself "There's No 'I' in Team, But There are Three in Narcissistic."

Quizzo Format: Same as Bridget Foy's. There were three rounds of ten questions each. Teams have the chance to 'joker' (e.g. double their points on) any one of these three rounds. There is also a bonus round involving the identification of 10 celebrity photos. The answers to one of the regular rounds follow a 'theme' and you get an extra point if you can identify this theme. Finding the theme can also help you guess additional answers.

Crowd: We arrived at 9 PM, an hour early, and were met with a line and a completely packed bar. Fool that I am, I had left my ID back at the hotel. No ID + college bar = bad scene. Ohhhh my goodness, let me tell you, folks: it looked grim. As we hopped in a cab to go back to the hotel, Shawn did his best not to seem exceedingly pissed off, but he wasn't fooling anyone. We ended up being able to pick up my ID and get back to the New Deck by about 9:30. There were no tables, and a long waiting list, but fate smiled on us (or, more specifically, the bouncer who had initially kicked me out smiled on us) and we got a table within about 30 seconds. The crowd seemed to be mostly Penn undergrads, with some grad students and some Drexel types milling around. A lot of regulars were there. There's this one team called 'Sofa Kingdom' that plays at the New Deck all the time, so there were teams named "Couch Dynasty" and "My Sofa Kingdom for a Horse." At the table next to us was a poindexter wearing a tie (really, who wears a tie to trivia?), and this attire was the subject of another team name. There were also some nerd team names, like "Cybertronic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future." All in all, it was a good scene.

Food/Drink: Since our appetites had already been sated at the 'Vous, we had the Irish Bread Pudding and some Bailey's for dessert. It was tasty.

Ambience: Hard to know. It was crowded, and our waitress seemed to hate us. The New Deck also had a drunken college student vibe to it. For example, there was one guy there who wasn't too steady on his feet and kept on going downstairs to the bathroom area (where it was quieter) and drunk dialing some girl who was clearly hanging out and possibly on a date with another guy. I think my favorite line in the conversation was when he said defensively "I'm not drunk! I mean, I can't see straight, but I'm not drunk..."

Notable Events: Once again, though we lost the game, we still ended up drinking for free. Or at least Shawn did (see previous posts re: our man Nate.) I was still getting over the Manhattan glut of the night before, so I was taking it easy.

Philly Jihad Day Two, Quiz #1

2005-12-18T10:46:00.000-05:00

A 40 FOR MY DEAD HOMEY TOOKIE

Pub/Bar: Locust Rendezvous

Day/Date: Wednesday, December 15

Quiz Master: Johnny Goodtimes, Philadelphia's only true man of leisure.

Quiz Format: This was the standard Johnny Goodtimes quiz. Four rounds of ten questions each, with the point value for each question equivalent to the round number. In each round, one question is worth double the points. After each round, Johnny Goodtimes takes in everyone's sheets and scores them in red pen. Sometimes, if you do really well, you get a gold star or a 'fantastic' sticker.

Outcome: Third place. There was no prize for third place, but I like to think of it as a moral victory. Even in situations in which winning is based entirely on what you know (rather than how well you execute your point-wagering strategy or what trivia games you've been to the night before,) the Boston Trivia Jihad was able to represent.

Shawn & Jen O. consulting on answers.

Crowd: First off, let me point out that our team included the intrepid Jen O., who had gone in to work late that day due to excessive tomahawkedness from the night before and who had to do an advertising pitch the next day for which she was ill prepared. That, my friends, is the type of dedication to a cause that we like to see. The rest of the crowd seemed to be mostly regulars. Jen O. introduced us to an older gentleman named Ern who apparently gets to be a bit of a raucous trash talker when his team wins. I pointed out to Shawn that, in all likelihood, that is him in 40 years.

Food/Drink: This was an old school pub with old school pub food offerings. It reminded me a lot of the Venus II in Marshfield, only without all the new-fangled 'ethnic' food offerings of the latter (and by new-fangled ethnic food, I mean fajitas, quesadillas, and nachos.) I had the "cheese ravioli" (more on this in a moment) and Shawn had the linguine with sausage and meatballs. Shawn seemed to enjoy his linguine. I was less enamored with my ravioli. Although I ordered the cheese ravioli (which I love - in fact, I'm tempted to go out to the store right now and buy some,) the pasta I received was decidedly meat-filled (which I despise.) This was more than just a simple misunderstanding of my order. You see, there was no meat ravioli option on the menu - cheese was the only option, and yet still I ended up with meat. I don't know why I find unsolicited and unadvertised meat so disturbing, but I do.

Anyway, the drinks were much more promising, in the sense that Shawn's Tanqueray & tonic was 100% Tanqueray - a good value for his money. I know you may think I am exagerrating about this drink, but I assure you I am not. No matter how vigorously Shawn stirred this drink, we could detect no evidence of carbonation, and a taste test confirmed that, in fact, he was drinking a tumbler full of straight gin. My Malibu and pineapple juice was equally strong.

The 'Vous

Ambience: I really liked this bar. It reminded me of the Sligo Pub in Davis Square, except with a greater proportion of old people and more dining options. The lady behind the bar had hair straight out of the mid 1980's, Pat Benetar style. It was truly impressive. Also the owner of the 'Vous (as the locals call it) walked around to every table asking us how we were doing. The only black fly in the chardonnay of our evening at the 'Vous was our waitress, who not only seemed to be unaware of our existence most of the time, but also managed to spill a Malibu and pineapple all over my lap. She didn't even give me a drink for free or, really, apologize more than just 'oops, sorry about that.'

Notable Events: I would like to point out that even though we did not win a prize at the 'Vous, we still achieved our goal of drinking for free. After the show, Johnny Goodtimes - Philadelphia's Best Local Celebrity himself - came over to our table and bought us a round. He was off to run another Quizzo a few blocks away, and we tried to convince him to join us at the New Deck Tavern later that evening, but when he mentioned needing to check with his lady, we knew the jig was up.

Philly Jihad Day One

2005-12-18T08:44:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Bridget Foys and Bard's (Doubleheader)

Day/Date: Tuesday, December 13th

(B. Foy's)

We started out at Bridget Foy's as it was the location of Jen O.'s Quizzo. It was pretty nice. There were only four teams so it was pretty low-key. It was up on the third floor of B. Foy's and there wasn't a lot of opportunity for foot traffic to join us. Hopefully things will pick up for this place as the people there are really nice. One thing that made the game sweet was the prize for first--yards. I guess in Philly they like to dispense with the formalities of a gift certificate and go straight for the booze.

People: While many people talk junk about Philly and its people, Jenn and I had a great time and everyone we met was really nice, even complete strangers. I guess the negative perception comes from the fact Philly is home to Eagle fans and it is tough to shake that image. Hard to assume good things about a city whose football stadium features a court and a jail because of unruly fans. Not everyone is an Eagle fan booing Santa Claus or booing Michael Irvin as he lay motionless on the field with a neck injury. Of course I was equally concerned that I would be surrounded by basketball fans who really believe that A. Iverson is actually good and not the most overrated piece of crap basketball player ever. But I digress.

Often I think the view that Boston people are shitty is wrong, but then when I go other places, I realize how crappy people up here can be. Anyway we had the chance to meet Jen O.'s husband, John, as well as the owner of B. Foy's and his wife. All were top-notch folk. As we were leaving for Bard's, I was worried about being late because the owner was just not going to let us go. He kept talking about cheesesteaks. It was damned impressive. I promise that if I ever have any questions about cheesesteaks, I am going to this guy. He broke it down pretty much every way you can. He even went so far as to instruct us on proper ordering lingo. Really a good guy. The group of four people sitting next to us during the game were really cool. None of the teams had any pretense, it was just people having fun and chatting it up with each other. Low-key but a lot of fun nonetheless.

The Setup: Quizzo is definitely different than Stump and there are things that are better about it and there are things that are worse. I foresee a day when someone brings the two together and creates an ubertrivia. To make a long story short, one of the best things about Quizzo is that it definitely moves faster. As a business model, I am not sure if this is good for the bar or not as I think the point is to get people in the bar and keep them in. Stump definitely draws it out more and thus probably leads to more drinking. At the same time, as a player, the Quizzo set up is much better. The biggest downside to Quizzo is that there is a lot less strategy involved.

Quizzo quizzer: Jen O. was very good. With such a small crowd, it is difficult to have a very high energy scene and that can definitely present a challenge to the quizzer. It was really good nonetheless.

Outcome: There was only a prize for first so we finished out of the money. I have to say in our defense that the winning team consisted of the following: the husband of the woman doing Quizzo, the owner of the place, his wife, and a waiter at the place. Sounds kind of fishy to me. If there is one thing I can't stand in trivia it is a team getting tipped off to answers in advance. I just won't stand for it. I am sure that we would have won were the obvious fix not in.

Food/Drink: No complaints here, it was a pretty nice restaurant and the food and service were both very good.

(Bard's)

After B. Foy's Jenn, Jen O., John, and I made it over to Bard's, one of Johnny Goodtimes' quizzo locations, for part two of our quizzo extravaganza. We finished out of the running there as well, but it was a good time.

People: The first thing I noticed about Bard's is that there was a pretty intense game of darts going on with numerous interested spectators. As someone who has thrown the occasional dart in the past, I could appreciate the love of darts, but I have never seen the game played with such intensity. These people were no fucking joke.

Apparently there was a team there that has established a bit of a reputation for Quizzo ability and I had the opportunity to talk with one of them, Nate. In addition to being a pretty nice guy, Nate wound up buying a T & T for me the next night at New Deck Tavern near Penn/Drexel. Needless to say, this did nothing to lower his status in my eyes. Bard's had a bigger crowd and thus there was a higher energy level and that never hurts.

Eventually we found our way to a corner of the bar which would be our base of operation for the next few hours.

Quizzo quizzer: Oooooh myyyy goodness!!! (To get the full effect you have to say this in a radio deejay kind of voice.) Johnny Goodtimes is a real piece of work. For one thing, Johnny G. used to be a dolphin trainer in Hawaii before giving that up and moving to Philadelphia to become that city's only true man of leisure as well as its best local celebrity. While it is unclear how one determines who is the "best" local celebrity, Johnny's website suggests that he is just that. Johnny's game is certainly different from the other quizzoes in terms of how the three rounds are set up. For one thing each round features a random question that is worth double the normal points for questions from that round. Of course, he could just announce, "Hey this is the double point question" but, as Philly's best local celebrity, there is a certain standard he must uphold. Prior to asking the double point question, he cranks up some old school hip-hop and then, over the music he declares, "Ooooh myyy goodness, looks like question number 6 is the double point question." Actually, I am not exactly sure what comes after the initial phrase as I am so moved by the "oh my goodness" intro. It is really pretty funny and Johnny is definitely good at getting the crowd going.

The word on the Philly street is that in January Johnny will have another one of his Quizzo Bowls where he rents out a large space and has a game that features about 300 teams along with live entertainment. He truly is a man of leisure and considering that his only real competition in the realm of local celebrities is the aforementioned piece of crap basketball player and the wussy Eagles quarterback, I think it is safe to say that he is indeed the best Philly celeb.

It would be interesting to bring Johnny up to Boston and see how his act plays up here. The Don of Boston trivia, Bob Carney, can make it happen. Of course, Johnny might have to kiss his ring and, in the future, Bob might come to Johnny with a favor and he would expect Johnny to remember this.

Food/Drink: Didn’t have anything to eat, but my T & T was fine and according to Jenn the Manhattans were tasty. Their tastiness probably go a long toward explaining Jenn’s tomahawkedness.

On a final note one interesting thing about quizzo is that there is no quizzo-guru like you see here in Boston. Quizzo is more of a generic term used for trivia. Each person is responsible for their own questions and can set the game up however they want. Due to this there is much variation from game to game. This makes it kind of fun because you never know what to expect as you go from place to place. It is trivianarachy.

Much love to Philly
Quizzo, a great game indeed
Ripe for sleeper cells

Tomahawked

2005-12-14T16:07:00.000-05:00

Plans to keep a running narrative of the Philly jaunt have obviously fallen somewhat by the wayside. I am sure there will be an epic series of entries in the near future, and when there is you can be sure that Jen O., hubby Jon, Johnny Goodtimes, and the great folks at Bridget Foy's will all be getting much love from the Boston Trivia Jihad.

I would write more, but I'm a little out of it. I just spent 6 hours poring over a scientists' personal correspondence from the '50s, most of which had zero relevance to my research and most of which also contained weird comments about how he wanted to spank certain of his correspondents and how he kept being "a bad little boy." Yeah. Fun times.

I can tell you this: last night we did a Quizzo doubleheader: Bridget Foy's at 8 and Bard's at 10. Even though we suffered utter defeat at both venues, it was awesome. Plans for another doubleheader are afoot. The plan is to hit the Locust Rendezvous for Quizzo at 6:15 and then head over to the New Deck Tavern at 10.

I would also like to point out that a member of the Philadelphia Trivia Jihad Sleeper Cell spontaneously used the word 'tomahawked' today. Clearly, our unique interpretation of the English language is infectious.

Philly Field Trip

2005-12-13T17:07:00.000-05:00

The view. Apparently, Ben
Franklin's grave is in this cemetery.

So, after a 5 hour car ride involving nearly 3 hours of listening to Johnny Cash, a gluttonous lunch break/candy run at Cracker Barrel, and an 'incident' involving the overconsumption of maple sugar candy, the Boston Trivia Jihad is now in the Philadelphia area. Through Thursday. The Internet situation at the lovely Holiday Inn Historic District is promising, although our view (of a graveyard, a parking garage and various heating ducts) is not. Expect regular updates as we investigate this mysterious, anarchic land of 'Quizzo' and 'quiz masters.'

Outing #28: Me Fail English That's Unpossible

2005-12-12T22:34:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Common Ground (Allston, MA)

Day/Date: Monday, December 12

Outcome: 1st Place (Jukebox CD player valued at, fucking get this, $133). This is sweet because as we leave tomorrow for Philly and its quizzo world, it is nice to go out on top and especially with such a haul as the CD player. It was also nice because the night did not seem to be going our way at the start. First, we were supposed to go to Waltham this evening. Unfortunately, when Jenn walked out to her car she beheld the sight that is the bane of every urban driver's existence. An object of such prominence that the Germans even made an epic film about it, which is strange because the set the movie on a sub (then again these are the same people who make shit-films so who knows what's going on in German cinema). I am of course talking about Das Boot. So now, once Jenn gets debooted tomorrow morning, we are off to Philly. After taking the bus down to Allston we wound up walking the wrong way down the street. Of course while doing this, we came upon a nice little puddle of icy slush/toxic sludge that is so common around here this time of year. While I tried to explain to Jenn that she might want to stear clear of it, Jenn decided to test its depth by sticking her practically bare foot in it. Its depth: many inches. Anyway, because we initially went the wrong way down the street we were late and missed the first two questions. We then got a horrific picture round that simply consisted of naming a bunch of actor's from the latest "Harry Potter" film. To give a sense of how bad Jenn and I did with this, we couldn't even get the name of the guy who was Harry Potter. After the picture round however, it was on like a mutta'fuckah and we rolled to victory and our sweet sweet jukebox.

Trivia Jockey: We showed up a bit late so we didn't catch the guy's name. I got the impression that he was not the regular guy. The replacement TJ was pretty good with the crowd.

Crowd: A pretty good crowd. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and such. This of course is not really good for the blog as I feed off of the idiots in the crowd. Jenn had been told that the Ground Round was a tough place to win because there were a lot of good and experienced teams. I agree there were a lot of teams and maybe some were experienced, but they were not that good. Overall it was a pretty young crowd, but there was at least one table of middle-aged guys. It is just fucking sad to see middle-aged guys puffing up their chests because they got a fucking trivia question right. Come on guys. Is your life so devoid of success that it has come to taking pride in such a ridiculously meaningless accomplishment. These are probably the same kind of idiots who somehow identify with the Patriots and talk about how "We won the Super Bowl." Sorry guy, unless you are on the payroll, you didn't win shit. Of course, the more acceptable but equally ridiculous variation of "We won the Super Bowl" guy is "We're pregnant" guy. Oh really? We're pregnant? Unless you are going to be squeezing something the diameter of a bowling ball or bigger out of your ass, you aren't shit except a guy whose wife/girlfriend actually is pregnant. God is that fucking annoying.

Food/Drink: The drinks were pretty watered down. Jenn's pineapple and Malibu was basically juice with a splash of rum. My T & T was not a fireball of potency either. Oh well. All was made good by the sweet prize. My burger was good. I decided to go with medium tonight as opposed to medium-well as last time I ate a burger, it was burnt. Tonight was tasty, but I can already feel the e. coli spreading or doing whatever it is that e. coli does.

Ambience: It was a good scene. Like I said, the crowd was pretty decent and of course that goes a long way towards providing the right ambience. Apparently Common Ground encourages some foolishness by giving a few pitcher to the team who it is determined has the best name. Not sure how this is determined but it certainly encourages some creativity.

Notable Events: Well, both Jenn and I took last night off after our separately experienced but equally long nights on Saturday. While I can't really speak for Jenn, I know that my Sat. night party experience was a shit load of fun. I learned a couple of things on Saturday night. First I learned that apartments in the South End of Boston are as nice on the inside as they are on the outside. Second I learned that if you are standing outside one of these apartments at about midnight and you see a marauding gang of about five gay men including one who is about 6'2" with a slightly receding hairline, for god's sake don't make eye contact. As this gang was randomly walking by the apartment, the 6'2" guy caught a glimpse of some guy from the party who was smoking a cigarette. What followed was just an awesome display of shall we say reverse gay-bashing. It was truly incredible. The 6'2" guy just started goofing on this guy for no reason and it was hilarious. While it only lasted for about 2-3 minutes, 6'2" was on fucking fire. I wanted to feel bad for the guy getting cracked on, but it was so funny that I couldn't help but laugh. It was fabulous.
On another note, Jenn has informed me that at least one TJ has informed the crowd of the blog as she got an email of support from another trivia player at an undisclosed location.
Finally, last week Jill (TJ from the Asgard and Newtowne Grille) informed us that I had been described to the TJs as having blonde-spiky hair. This still kind of chaps me. What the hell do you mean spiky? Spiky implies the use of product which, but for my fine "Bumble and bumble" shampoo and conditioner, I never do. I let my hair simply go free like the wind and it takes whatever direction it sees fit after the initial brushing. Of course, with the cold static electricity is in the air so it has a certain, shall we say, body. As for the blonde, well I am guilty of that. In fact I just went and got the roots redone the other day and it almost made us late to Clyde's. Can I just say that I love my stylist Lauren. She is truly fabulous. Over the two hours I was there we talked about life, love, and everything else under the sun. You have to know what is coming next.

Oh Rembrandt of root
Your skills know no bounds at all.
Is it natural?

Outing #27: Screw It

2005-12-09T12:34:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Clyde's Roadhouse (Walpole, MA) (in front of the Walmart)

Day/date: Thursday, December 8

Outcome: 1st place, $30 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Sean. Sean runs a tight game, which we appreciated. He also had a great attitude about patrons' whining about various questions they got wrong, which was basically to announce to the bar that if they didn't like the answer or thought the answer was wrong, it was tough shit. The Walpolians seemed to really dig this manner of TJ interaction. We also dug Sean's taste in music - it was a bunch of 80's old wave stuff. It went well with the crowd, which seemed to be half townies who work at the local cardboard factory or whatever and half yuppies who commute to Boston.

Crowd: Like I said, a mixed crowd, but not in a bad way. Everyone there seemed to more or less be regulars - the bartenders knew all their names - but there was no weird 'outsider' vibe like we experienced at Venus II. My favorite patron was the guy up at the bar wearing a muscle shirt despite the fact that it was 25 degrees outside. That's hot.

Food/drink: As roadhouse-style restaurants go, Clyde's was pretty decent. One of the items on the menu is an enormous 2 lb burger that costs $24.99. If you can eat the burger within 30 minutes, you get it for free. I think it is safe to say that there will be a return visit to Clyde's (possibly as part of a trivia outing to a bar close by in Canton MA) for the purpose of consuming said burger. Shawn is already planning his method of attack. I believe it will involve not eating for two days and at least 8 hours of gym time in preparation.

Ambience: I was an enormous fan of Clyde's Roadhouse, mostly due to our two bartenders, Johnny and Tommy. These two are basically the Click and Clack of the bar world. They spent the whole evening ribbing each other, chatting it up with the patrons. They even played trivia. To give you some sense of Johnny, first off, he was wearing a name tag that read Armando. He also brought us additional drinks without asking if we wanted another, and brought Shawn a whole range of fruity but quite tasty drinks involving unusual liquors. The highlights included an unnamed Absolut Peach concoction and a Key West Kamikaze. Tommy we didn't get to interact with as much, since he was working the other end of the bar.

Stump! Pub Trivia Explosion

2005-12-08T16:24:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to share this graph, drafted based on some historical information provided by Trivia Guru Bob. It appears that Stump has experienced exponential growth such that the number of Stump! Trivia Venues in existence at any given time is approximately equal to e to the 0.6963x power where x is the year of Stump! Pub Trivia's existence (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.)

Currently, the number of Stump! Pub Trivia locations that we have visited is approximately equal to 885.04ln(x) - 1583.9 where again x is equal to the number of years since the inception of Stump! (For simplicity, I have assumed that the 6th year of Stump! Pub Trivia began on the day that the Trivia Jihad began.) My rudimentary calculations indicate that if we can keep our commitment strong, and accounting for the anticipated growth in Stump! venues over the next year as well as various travel plans that may disrupt our ability to play trivia on a regular basis, we will achieve the goal of the Jihad (visit every Stump! trivia location) at 2:01 AM on August 21, 2006. Of course, our victory will be shortlived. At the time of this achievement, the rate of increase in Stump! trivia venues will be such that it will take only 108.1 hours before another venue is added to the list.

Outing #26: Flaming Amazons

2005-12-08T14:40:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Razzy's (Somerville, MA)

Date/Date: Wednesday, December 7

Outcome: 1st place, $25 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Mike. The view on Mike is already common knowledge.

Crowd: Not much of a crowd. This is a concern, but I believe in this place and it will take off. Anyone can go to an already established bar, but getting in on the ground floor with a bar and then watching it grow is something special. Mike brought a couple of folks, but the crowd was definitely sparse.

Ambience: Still awesome. The back room has a real basement feel to it and it works so well. There are no windows in the back and that makes it feel cozy and warm, not dark and disturbing. What really makes the place are Ruth and Nancy. While Nancy has the urge to kick my ass from time to time because I occasionally call her ma'am, I think we're in pretty good there. I try to tell Nancy that the ma'am thing is just a product of my upbringing, she responds by letting me know that she has been called worse. Both of them are the nicest people and, having talked with them some more last night, I know that they are working fucking hard to make that place go. I've been going to this place for only a couple of weeks and the when I left last night, I gave Nancy a hug. It is that kind of place. A couple of friends joined Jenn and me . Neither had been there before and they definitely liked the place. I don't know anyone who has been there who has a bad thing to say about it.

Food/Drink: As always the drinks were fantastic and I have to say that the Mozarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, and buffalo tenders were pretty fucking tasty. It appears that Razzy's can do no wrong.

Notable Events: As Jenn pointed out, Razzy's is getting better and better in terms of services provided. I think that many a non-Trivia night will be spent at Razzy's. Tomorrow is our departmental Xmas party. I am going to try to get a crew of folks to go there and take over the back room before we head off to another party. It's all about putting some money in their pockets. Of course you know that I must express my love in haiku.

Ruth and Nancy rock
That place is my second home
Cot in the back room?

Razzle dazzle Razzy's

2005-12-08T13:02:00.000-05:00

I am going to let Shawn handle the summary for last night's trivia outing to Razzy's, since he expressed a desire to start pulling his weight again on the blog front after his weekend 'off'. However, I just have to make a few comments about the ever-increasing awesomeness that is Razzy's.

First of all, I think we mentioned this elsewhere, but last Thursday we were able to get together quite a crew at Razzy's in honor of the birthday of another member of our department. I would guess it was about 10-12 people there. Maybe more. We basically took over the entire back room of Razzy's, working the jukebox, throwing some darts, etc. Good times were had. In fact, while trivia is fun, it does sort of give a structure to the evening and also the layout is such that it prevents you from playing darts unless your particular game of darts involves impaling trivia participants as they walk up and turn in their answers. Anyway, the point being, at this outing it was discussed with Ruth and Nancy that a) Razzy's would be serving up food in the near future and b) Razzy's was due to have an ATM machine installed.

I am happy to report that at our outing on Wednesday we discovered that both of these momentous events had occurred during our brief absence. No longer must we walk the 50 feet across the street in the freezing cold to access cash with which to pay for our tasty infused vodka. In addition, as wonderful as the bottomless popcorn bowls are, we can now supplement their corny goodness with all manner of tasty fried foods. Check it out.

A Marshfield Haiku

2005-11-26T10:11:00.000-05:00

Marsh Vegas awaits
Saturday trivia rocks
Is victory ours?

Outing #19: I, Mike, am the Man (T-Giving Message)

2005-11-24T12:31:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Razzy's (Somerville, MA)

Day/Date: Wednesday, November 23

Outcome: 1st place, $25 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Mike was, as usual, fantastic. Not much to say here that has not been said before.

Crowd: No kickballers this time. Pretty damn sparse. This is never bad in that it greatly improves our chances and greatly decreases the likelihood that there will be jerk in the crowd. The small crowd was quite nice. The people next to us were trivia fans and came to Razzy's because their bar was not having it on Thanksgiving Eve. They were good people and it seemed like everyone had a good time. Of course, I had quite a few in me before we even made it to Razzy's so maybe not everyone else was having as much fun as I.

Ambience: Same as before. I like Razzy's a lot. Others feel it is somewhat sketchy, but I disagree completely.

Food/Drink: As stated before, best drinks ever (infused vodkas). There was some controversy as a friend suggested that apple pie was better than chocolate cherry. Apple pie is very good, but I totally disagree. Of course there was also Razzy's world famous endless popcorn.

Notable Events: We roped a couple of more people into the event and a previous ropee told me that they wanted to do it again. Things are picking up here in Boston.

Special Thanksgiving Message: On this day I would like to say that I am very thankful for trivia and the fact that it has given me a reason to go to wonderful places like Marshfield. If not for trivia, I would have never ever gone to that place, but my life is so much better for the Marshfield experience. I am also grateful for Jenn and her incomparable willingness to not getting any of her work done. Here's to you Jenn. Finally, I would like to give a special acknowledgment to alcohol. As I prepare bourbon sweet potatos, I just can't imagine a world without it. Of course I can only truly show my thanfulness in haiku form.

Alcohol is great
You are my mistress/lover
Were the pilgrims drunk?

Outing #18: Tommy Lee's Third Leg

2005-11-23T11:43:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: O'Neil's (Salem, MA)

Day/Date: Tuesday, November 22

Outcome: 1st place, $25 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Chris. As mentioned before, Chris is the Cadillac of T.J.'s and tonight was no different. There was a brief period of time when his title was in danger, though. When we showed up he did not express any great shock or excitement at seeing us. This was quite different from Herb and Mike's reactions when we showed up at their other gigs. But I think this was due to three factors: a) Chris was pretty trashed when last we saw him and was probably uncertain whether we were in fact the people that had bought him a drink and had the same conversation with him four times on the previous Sunday, b) Shawn was going incognito and wearing a hat, thus making identification difficult (once the hat came off, Chris seemed to warm up a bit), and c) Chris is probably aware that he is the Cadillac of T.J.'s and has a whole host of groupies who follow him from place to place. Anyway, Chris quickly fought back to title status with his witty category names and friendly banter. Also, Chris gets mad props for distributing the prizes before actually announcing the winners.

Crowd: Kind of sparse, and not too cool. There was an annoying team sitting right next to us and I was happy to see that we crushed them mercilessly. I caught this one woman cheating in the bathroom and it really riled me up. This is why. I see a big difference between what we're doing and her behavior. It's one thing to go into trivia already knowing what some of the answers will be. However, in so doing you've most likely gotten the questions wrong somewhere else at some other trivia night, and have paid your dues either through not winning or through buying food & drink at the other bar or through simply putting in the time and effort to get out to that other bar and stay there for the 2 1/2 hours of trivia. So, what I'm saying is, no one gets hurt under our system. If you are crazy enough to go to trivia every night, you should be able to benefit from that effort. (Also, we mentioned to Herb at some point that we'd had some of the same questions the week before, and he seemed cool with it - more evidence that the T.J.'s really don't care.) On the other hand, going into the bathroom during the picture round and having your friend look up Judge Judy's last name on the Internet is just lame. That, my friend, is cheating.

Ambience: Pretty nice, although the place was enormous and had 14 foot ceilings. It's kind of hard to get a cozy local pub feeling going on in that type of surroundings. Also, the place was pretty empty. There was a whole section at the back of the restaurant that was closed off and darkened (as if that would make us unable to perceive the gaping cavern of empty tables therein.)

Food/Drink: So, tonight we did things a little differently. Namely, we had dinner at Kitty O'Shea's and used our gift certificate from the previous week, and then went to O'Neil's for trivia. So, I will comment on Kitty O'Shea's food since I did not get a chance to in previous weeks. Dinner at Kitty O'Shea's was on a strictly blitzkrieg basis, since we had about 35 minutes to eat and drive the 3 miles up the road to O'Neil's, meaning that our food choices were limited to dishes which would require the minimum preparation time. I had the Guinness Beef Stew (which was delicious, although in my eagerness to get to O'Neil's I did manage to burn my tongue pretty badly) and Shawn had a pastrami sandwich. I am not sure from what animal or part of an animal pastrami arises, but it is quite a tasty meat product. We had an Irish waitress, which was cool. To accompany my meal and use up all $30 of our gift certificate, I had a gin rickey made with the worst gin ever produced. Bad call. Seriously, I don't know what brand of 'bar gin' Kitty O'Shea's uses, but it tasted like I imagine the Body Shop's now defunct 'Juniper Breeze' line of bath products would have tasted, had I in a moment of indiscretion in my youth been retarded enough to taste said line of products on a dare. Anyway, O'Neil's looked promising in terms of food - they had a tapas menu. I could see, once more of the Trivia Jihad has been dispatched with, getting into a system of alternating between trivia at Kitty O'Shea's and O'Neil's and spending our winnings from the previous week on dinner at the other pub. Free food is definitely worth the 30 minute commute.

Notable Events: I think we are gradually refining our strategy for maximizing the amount of food & drink we get for free, and minimizing out of pocket expenses. The $70 tab at Johnny D's between just the two of us was the low point of the trivia jihad, financially. The conundrum with places whose gift certificates can only be used the following week is this: we have to order *something* (and I don't think two iced teas would be looked on too happily) but it has to be something that can be nursed throughout the trivia game. I think the ideal trivia beverage is Shiraz, or any other flavorful red wine other than merlot or cab. Unlike beer, it is supposed to be served at room temperature, so it can definitely sit out for a while. In fact, a little oxidation is never a bad thing for wine. Plus, it's only a buck or two more expensive than beer, and its very nature encourages sipping rather than hasty consumption.

Philly Update--Quizzo #1?

2005-11-23T10:48:00.000-05:00

I was just speaking with a friend of mine whose husband used to attend Penn (known in these parts as "the safety school"). During his time there she spent much time in Philadelphia. As we were speaking she asked how the trivia was going. She then said, "You know there is this trivia in Philadelphia called Quizzo and it is great. It is better than anything I have been to here in Boston." So I ask you Philly folk. What makes quizzo so great? I am looking to learn. My concern about quizzo in Philly takes the following haiku form

Many love quizzo
But then many loved Jim Jones
Philly has Kool-Aid?

2005-11-22T13:39:00.000-05:00

DISPATCH FROM MAYO EATERS ANONYMOUS

The Salmon O'Shea was, in my opinion, quite tasty. Oil-and-egg-yolk-emulsion-laden crab stuffing and all. If you are ever in the vicinity and feel like paying $15 for a dinner worth about $8, I recommend the Salmon.

It was odd to see the Purple Shamrock with all tables in it, and without the blood. I kind of dug it.

One of the other key failures of the evening (besides my failure to recognize the several orders of magnitude by which we underestimated worldwide cashew production) was the failure of our team name to produce even the slightest chuckle. I guess 'Tommy Lee's Third Leg' really was the way to go.

Outing #17: Tommy Lee's Tripod

2005-11-22T12:25:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Purple Shamrock (Boston, MA)

Day/Date: Monday, November 21

Outcome: 2nd Place, $25 gift certificate. This one hurt, more on that later.

Trivia Jockey: It was Herb from Phatt Boys in Cambridge. He had told us in a previous encounter that he did the PS. He did a good job of handling this one ass who kept yelling out answers during the game. In so many words Herb said that the guy was drunk or stupid. I was kind of curious about how much latitude the TJs had in dealing with jerks and it appears that they do indeed have some. Other than that Herb was his normal self. He kind of screwed up on the scoring at one point and there was some controversy at the end. It didn't go our way, but there is still nothing but love for Herb.

Crowd: It was a pretty interesting crowd. For one thing there was middle-aged, mullet, ponytail guy. Not quite sure what look this guy is going for. It is kind of that sweet Billy Ray Cyrus/aging hippie fusion thing. It is just so bad. The guy was dressed nice enough to where I think he is trying to pass himself off as respectable. Of course this effort was crushed by that horrible confluence of disasters on his skull. Guy really needs to check out Wesley Willis' classic ballad "Cut the Mullet." It was something. Right next to mullet ponytail guy was another middle aged guy with male pattern baldness and guy was a little too into the game. If you've lost all of your hair and trivia means as much to you as it seems to have meant to this guy, then it is time to give up. I know what you are thinking. Shawn, you are not going bald, but you seem to be way in trivia. My only response...exactly. Next to us was a team of six who I think normally finished first or second. Of course we displaced them last night and I took great pleasure in that. It was three guys and three women. First of all one of the guys, dressed in what I believe was a very fetching ensemble of black sweatpants and a black top, was softball guy. I bet my life on it. He was softball guy because he clearly fell into not one but two of softball guy categories. While there are multiple subdivisions, softball guy is at least one of the following, if not more: fat drunk guy, angry young guy, or dork. Clearly this guy was both angry young guy and dork. Of course, softball guy was accompanied by his female equivalent, rugby chick. No offense to you female rugby players out there, but let's just say that this woman was tougher than the three male dorks combined. The dorkiness of these guys was confirmed when it became clear that they were cheering for the Packers on Monday Night Football last night. Upon recognizing this, it took me exactly two seconds to announce to the world that the Packers sucked. This immediately got their attention, but it is true. The Packers do suck. Especially that crappy, overrated, and clearly dyslexic QB Brett Favre (pronounced Farve). One of the other guys at the table was sporting the very stylish 90210 sideburns. Hey guy, Jason Priestly called, he said that the 90s are over.

Ambience: The place seemed pretty respectable. Certainly better than Jenn's previous trips which always featured fighting and blood splatter. Really pretty non-descript.

Food/Drink: Holy shit. This where the crap started to hit the fan. When Jenn suggested that she was going to be ordering the "Salmon O'Shea" ($14.99), I checked it out and it sounded quite good, salmon filet with crab stuffing, so I decided to order it as well. The first bite of salmon was no problem and then I fucking hit the stuffing. Holy shit. It had in it the most vile substance ever known to man, fucking mayo. Fucking mayo. Like the sound of nails on a chalkboard the taste of ass cut through everything else immediately. I have to say that I fucking hate condiments in general and I think ketchup, or catsup as some of you wackos call it, is the work of the devil, but nothing and I mean fucking nothing can approach the pure evil that is mayo. How or why the fuck people acquired a taste for this crap I don't know. The only thing that might even be able to approach mayo's puke factor is that Aussie treat vegemite. At least vegemite has some nutriotional value that partially offsets its shag carpet like taste. Mayo can't even claim that. Oh my fucking God is that shit vile. The only and I mean only good thing about mayo is that its evil spawn, ranch dressing, is an excellent barometer of white trashiness. If you ever order a salad with an extra side of ranch dressing, you are in trouble and I assure you that you were the object of much ridicule at the waiter's station. The final straw was that when I ordered tea, what I received was, you guessed it, fucking sweet tea. That was so fucking sweet. I expected Lynnard Skynnard to break out at any moment and I expected the PS to instantly convert itself into a fucking Shoney's. It was awesome. With every sugary sip I found myself slipping further and further back into the Dirty South. I mean really I had to fucking check out a map just make sure I was still in Boston and not below the Mason-Dixon line. It is not just that they had sweet tea as an option. It was the only option. What the hell is that all about? Anyway, it was kind of fun and it definitely took me back to my childhood. Other details, Jameson whiskey straight up=$8.25, Guinness=$4.25 (?), Boston cream pie=$4.00.

Notable Events: This one fucking hurt. For starters, the first place prize was a very robust $50 tab. Both Jenn and I were very confident and we wound up with 143 out of a possible 145 points. We missed the very last two point question. This miss put us in a tie with some other group of regulars. We then lost first place on the tie-breaking question about the amount of cashews produce by Brazil and India. Once again I was completely off and bear responsibility for our failure. This one seemed to hurt more than most. For one thing 143 was the highest score we had ever gotten. In spite of this, we still finished second. Furthermore, to lose on a tiebreaker just fucking hurt. While we had various theories on where we went wrong, Jenn was particularly struck by my theory that our problem was that we wound up with 143 and that that number did not have enough prime factors. Of course, this theory was undercut by the fact that had we gotten the last question right and wound up with 145 we would have won and we would have done so in spite of the fact that 145 has the same number of prime factors as 143. Jenn does not seem to believe in my prime factor theory of victory, but I think it is clearly true.
Also, thanks to Ghost Dog our post about trivia locations around the world (the first post after outing #16) now includes the link to Pub Quiz PDX site for Portland, OR.

Not an official outing

2005-11-20T23:33:00.000-05:00

While Jenn is down in New Jersey, I took the time to go to trivia with my Indian roommate, Raj, and a friend of his from the old country. Our name: "Team Punjabi." Due to Jenn's lack of presence, this does not count as an official outing. I thought about not going but then I thought, WWJD? and I knew that Jenn would have gone. There was a high degree of overlap with the questions. I have come to realize that as much fun as it is to win free drinks, it is at least as much fun to see all these Harvard-types lose. I know that this has become a fairly common thing on this blog, but some of these people are really crappy. Of course, the $30 tab tonight did not hurt either. It kind of sucked at the end however. I was hoping to just get the tab and go, but the Trivia Jockey, Mike, felt the need to point me out to the crowd. He is a nice guy, but I could have done without the attention. To you snotty folks from Harvard I offer the following haikus:

It's only a school
Do not be so arrogant
Once again you lose.

Think Good Will Hunting
But uglier and dumber
Less violent too.

Trivia Classified Ad & The Best Pub in the World, Ever

2005-11-20T19:13:00.000-05:00

There was a time, once in my life, when I would fly down to North Carolina every other week just to go to this one little pub in Asheville, NC. My friends and I would spend the weekend there drinking pitchers of pub-brewed beer, eating bread, cheese, & chutney, sipping shots of Tullamore Dew slid to us on the sly, and listening to Sons of Ralph and Onion Creek Crawdaddies and whichever other bands were traveling through town.

Jack of the Wood was that pub.

I can say only this: since Jack of the Wood is in my opinion the best pub in the world, ever, I can only assume that their trivia night must be the same. If I ever get back down to Asheville, I will check it out and report back.

Asheville Pub Trivia
Love pub trivia?Live in the Asheville, NC area?Trivia nerds needed for winning team at Jack of the Wood downtown! Candidates must be OK with a nonsmoking environment, consistently free on Mondays from 8PM-10PM, **interested in having fun** (winning isn't everything, -- good friends and good times are more important -- SO LONG AS YOU'RE WINNING), SERIOUSLY good at trivia.No big egos, please!

Tomahawked and Talking Trash

2005-11-20T17:35:00.000-05:00

Not much to add to Shawn's summary here, except that Thursday night was a milestone night for us in terms of the number of people we were able to entice out to trivia. We actually had more people than were allowed on a single team, and had to instruct several members of our party to 'make themselves scarce.' Next time we'll have to split up into two teams and try to capture the top two prizes. Then we'll really be drinking for free.

Thursday night was also a milestone night in that we reached new levels of obnoxiousness as a trivia team. I think this was due to the unique combination of personalities that made up our team. Even without Shawn drinking, there was quite a bit of gloating, trash talking, and general noise-making - in part due to the Detroit and Cleveland contingents (the latter contingent heartily encouraging the rest of the party to 'drink up' on each correct answer.)

In other news, apparently my rhapsody on Razzy's infused vodkas has won some converts. I think a triumphant return to Razzy's this coming Wednesday may be in the works. Mark your calendars.

More trivia locations around the world.

2005-11-20T16:32:00.000-05:00

Thanks in part to a tip from Austin, TX I want to announce some other trivia locations for those of you who want to be a part of the jihad.

Domestic Locations
It occurs at Fado's Irish pubs around the country. Here is a list of places arranged by state. For the details on the various Fado's locations click on the above link.

California
For those in the Bay Area you can check out the Brainstormer website for various locations in that region. Brainstormer seems pretty serious. Pehaps it is even more so than Quizzo. Makes sense, the Bay Area is full of "I am the smartest person in the world" kind of assholes.
Healdsburg, CA: Bear Republic Brewery 6PM on Sundays.
San Diego: Stump Trivia is at Ocean Beach Grill on Wednesdays at 7:30.
San Jose: Trials Pub on Mondays at 8:30.

Colorado
Denver: Fado's, Thursday at 7PM.

Connecticut
Stamford: Fado's Tuesdays at 8PM.

Massachusetts
Boston: In addition to Stump Trivia there appears to be an alternative called Useless Trivia. That Boston has two only further throws Johnny Goodtimes' claim about Philly trivia dominance into doubt.

Minnesota
Minneapolis: Stump Trivia is at Tracy's Saloon on Wednesday's at 8PM.

New York
Poughkeepsie: Stump Trivia is at Hyde Park Brewing Company on Thursdays at 8:30PM.

Oregon
Portland: Check out the Pub Quiz PDX site. (Thanks Ghost Dog)

Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: Apparently Philly has a Fado's, but it does not appear to be the case that they have trivia. This suggests that perhaps, in spite of what has been claimed, Philly is not the #1 trivia city. What do you think about that Johnny Goodtimes?
For those not familiar with the Philly scene you can hit the Quizzo website.

Texas
Austin: Fado's, Wednesdays at 8PM.

Washington
Seattle: Fado's,Wednesdays at 6:30PM.

Washington D.C.
Fado's, Monday at 8PM.
Also at a different bar in D.C. there appears to be a trivia that caters more to the gay crowd, http://www.smartassdc.com/

International Locations

If you're in Ottawa, you can play on Mondays at the Barley Mow.
If trivia in Europe is more your style, check out the PubTrivia site.
There is also a site that breaks down trivia from an Australian perspective. This one is about more than trivia but there is some good info. to be found.

Articles about trivia
Pub trivia has also been the subject of various newspaper articles article #1, article #2, article #3 including a trivia classified ad

Outing #16: Tomahawked

2005-11-19T18:06:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Newtowne Gille (Cambridge, MA)

Day/Date: Thursday, November 17

Outcome: 2nd place, $15 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Jill is alright, nothing too fantastic but decent enough. I think she did a good job of handling one situation. In a question about cubism some fucking asshole felt she did not do a good job pronouncing Georges Braque's name. In spite of the fact that this jerk knew about whom the hell she was talking, he still felt the need to yell out her pronunciation while giving an exasperated laugh. Maybe she didn't pronunce it right, but why the fuck this asshole felt the need to humiliate her in public like that I don't know. Anyway, she simply said that maybe she pronounced it incorrectly and moved on to the next question. Pretty professional considering the fact that I wanted to punch the guy in the face and I wasn't even the one who was shown up. We have made note on previous posts that the pronunciation is sometimes a bit off, but calling someone out in front of others like this guy did is, in the words of Doogie Howser in "Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle", a dick move. Jill's taste in music could use some work, but I think part of that might be the fact that a lot of the crowd is older and maybe in to music that I don't find particularly appealing.

Crowd: A mixture of townies and dickhead students. Not much else to report on this. On Monday we are going to the Purple Shamrock. The crowd there promises to be a bit more colorful. To get a feel for the PS it helps to know that Jenn has never gone there and not had blood wind up on her clothes. The PS also features Herb as trivia jockey, so it will be nice to see him again. Within our own little crowd we pulled four new people into the mix. Among the new people is one from the Detroit area, one from the Cleveland area, and one from the D.C. area. Hopefully, if they return home for the holidays, they can establish sleeper cells. I suspect that Detroit is particularly ripe for Jihad-like activity. Furthermore, I think that any city that could have a river catch on fire the way Cleveland did is probably also fertile ground.

Ambience: As suggested above, it certainly has a townie feel to it. It is just a shame that some people have to be assholes.

Food/Drink: Here is where Newtowne Grille let us down. The service was pretty crappy. I couldn't drink that night due to a doctor's appointment the next day and that was a good thing because we probably had to wait 30 minutes between drinks. Our waitress was nice enough but come on lady. I did, however, learn something new about food. I learned what fried cheesesticks taste like when they are cooked in dishwater. I mean these things sucked worse than Bon Jovi.

Notable events: We were leading going into the final two questions, but we came from ahead to finish second. Kind of a drag but what can you do. On another note, I once again want to give some love to Jenn O. of Quitty McQuitter. Thanks to her efforts news of the Jihad has spread to Portland, OR. http://goneronin.blogspot.com/. Jenn O. has certainly obtained the rank of martyr in the jihad. Much love Jenn O., much love.

Outing #15: Sunday Morning Coming Down

2005-11-17T11:12:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Razzy's (Somerville, MA)

Day/Date: Wednesday, November 16

Outcome: 1st place, $25 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Mike is awesome, as was discussed in an earlier posting. He not only remembered that we had been to Charlie's Kitchen, but also recalled our team name. Which also forced us to name ourselves Sunday Morning Coming Down, but I suppose that's alright. Tonight we chatted Mike up quite a bit, and I think the only reason he did not join us for a drink was that he could perceive Shawn's state of tomahawkedness and his impending hasty departure. However, tonight was a special night because we were in the presence of greatness -- the Trivia Guru, Bob Carney, himself, who was toting the motherlode of trivia pens, pads, and score sheets. For a guru he was rather nondescript, sporting a somewhat portly aspect, red hair, and a scruffy beard.

Crowd: For the first 45 minutes, the 'crowd' was nonexistent. It was me & Shawn, some old lady who wanted to play trivia, and two non-players in a giant cavern of a room at the end of which was a slightly distraught Mike. Ruth, the owner of this fine establishment, asked us several times to wait until more teams came, and immediately we realized we had found our surefire Wednesday ticket to drinking for free. Finally, at about 9:10, roughly 40 adult kickball league players poured into the room, and many of them chose to play trivia. So within the span of 5 minutes it went from 2 teams to 10. The crowd was rowdy, dancing and trash-talking, but it was a good time. The shots were flowing freely, as they should do.

Ambience: Think 'Townie Bar' and you will begin to approach the appearance that Razzy's presents. We were in 'the back room', an acoustic-tile-ceiling, pizza-parlor-booth bedecked cavern of a room lit entirely by the sort of promotional beer lighting that was last produced in the 1970's. The room was 'decorated' in some sort of crazy silver and gold graffiti swirls which spanned the walls and ceiling. The only reason I go to such great pains to explain how sketchy the environment was is that I wish to contrast it against the tasty, tasty drinks served in said environment. I guess you can't always judge a book by its cover.

Food & Drink: I am exagerrating not in the slightest bit when I report that Razzy's served me the best beverages (alcoholic or otherwise) that I have ever tasted in my life. To put it simply, the worst-tasting infused vodka concoction at Razzy's was still the best thing I have ever tasted.
The available drinks were as follows (in order of tastiness):

Chocolate-Cherry Vodka. This one made me want to cry. Just imagine all the tasty goodness of Cherry Garcia ice cream, only concentrated 10,000 times and in liquid form. If it were possible to have sex with a drink, I would have had sex with Chocolate-Cherry Vodka on the spot, no questions asked.
Apple Pie Vodka. This one tasted like the sugary cinnamony apple pie juice that's left over after you eat the pie. It certainly did not taste like alcohol. This was Mike's favorite, but I felt kind of taken aback that he ranked this higher than the Chocolate Cherry.
Pineapple Cherry Vodka. Self explanatory, and delicious.
Mango Papaya Rum. Ditto.
Plum Raspberry Vodka. Ditto.
Strawberry Vodka. This was a little too sweet, but still delicious. I recommend starting off with this and working up to the more lust-inducing concoctions.

Another excellent feature of Razzy's is the bottomless popcorn bowl, which is refilled by Ruth on a constant basis. This is an awesome touch, and also lets her travel around to the various tables and chat up the patrons.

Notable Events: Not much to report here, although there was one poor guy who had come to play kickball but hadn't been chosen for the team who was chatting Shawn up for a while. Somehow, in the process of this chatting, an intense desire arose in Shawn, Ehren, and Elena to give the poor kid a wedgie. I don't know, he seemed like a nice enough guy to me. Maybe a little drunk and annoying, but generally a nice kid. I mean, you'd have to be, to be okay with being an adult kickball groupie.

The outing was also notable in that it was our first Wednesday victory. I can't speak for Shawn, except that at several times during the evening he said "I could see myself dying here" (not sure if that meant from bliss over the tastiness of the vodka or from a 0.45% blood alcohol level), but I will definitely be pushing for a return to Razzy's Trivia in the very near future.

Trivia Spanish Flu

2005-11-17T09:10:00.000-05:00

More on Razzy's later but I have to say in my defense that I think the problem was not that I was a lightweight but that my entire food consumption for that day was a piece of pizza and Razzy's world famous bottomless bowl of popcorn. Not exactly good preparation on my part. Anyway, in the opinion of Pale Horse Rider the Trivia Jihad is a metastasizing pandemic. Not sure what I think of our being portrayed as cancerous, but I'll take it. It certainly was the case that the infused vodka was top notch. I believe the wizardress of alcohol goes by the name of Nancy and she is the sister of Ruth the owner of Razzy's. More on this later.

Sunday Morning Coming Down (Again) (For the third time)

2005-11-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

More on this outing at some point tomorrow, but I feel compelled to report that Shawn and I just recently ended outing #15 to Razzy's (on Somerville Ave in Somerville) and it was AWESOME. Not only because we were victorious or because we got an inside view of the Somerville kickball scene (don't ask) but also because Razzy's serves the best infused vodkas ever. (Ever!) In fact, I would count them among the best beverages I have ever tasted.

However, in a strange twist of events, despite us both consuming the same number of shots of fruit-infused vodka (and trust me, the number was significant), when we parted ways at Razzy's door Shawn was stumbling down the street complaining about being 'in trouble' and I was not tomahawked in the least. In fact, I barely had a buzz.

Vodka is my drink
Not tomahawked in the least
Is Shawn a lightweight?

Out of Control

2005-11-16T00:28:00.000-05:00

It is slightly out of control that Shawn posted a draft of his summary of tonight's outing within an hour or so of actually completing the outing. It is even more out of control that I will also be adding my own comments at this time. That being said, I hope y'all can appreciate both the intense sense of panic that we are each currently experiencing related to our prolonged nonproductivity in regards to our graduate work and the shared desire to avoid increasing this nonproductivity by spending the first several hours of the following workday writing about trivia.

Regarding tonight's prize, I am a little less despondent than Shawn that it took the form of a six pack of Coors Light. It is still better than the nasty T-shirts that were the fourth place prize and are often the third place prize at other venues. Anyway, the Coors Light will come in handy. For a long time I have wanted to test whether or not Coors is indeed, as advertised, the coldest tasting beer. Of course, I could never bring myself to actually purchase the beverage. But now I don't have to.

I am also not too sad about tonight's lack of trivia cash because Phatt Boys is one of those places where you have to spend the money at some future date rather than on the night you win the money. While normal people might just spend the money to buy a free lunch or something at some point during the week, the trivia obsessed will of course use it to finance their dinner and drinks at the following week's trivia night. I am in favor of having favorite trivia places and trivia jockeys, but the whole point of the trivia jihad is not necessarily to play trivia every night, but to visit every trivia venue. Getting into a habit of revisiting old haunts, as has happened the past two nights, both prolongs the time it will take to achieve this goal and increases the chance that we will tire of trivia in general before this goal is achieved. Although, really, to borrow from my own work, saying that it increases the chances of tiring of trivia is sort of like saying that being male increases your chances of getting Lou Gehrig's Disease - i.e. it's still pretty damn unlikely to happen.

Outing #14: I, Herb, am the man

2005-11-15T23:54:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Phatt Boys (Harvard Square--Cambridge, MA)

Day/Date: Tuesday, November 15

Outcome: 3rd Place, 6-Pack of Coors Light Tallboys (Special Collector's Edition Patriots Cans). In other words, we basically didn't win shit tonight.

Trivia Jockey: Herb is super. A really nice guy. Jenn and I had this theory that Herb was, deep in his heart, an angry and lonely man. I for one figured that he went home after trivia and ate various dishes from Chef's Lonely Hearts' Dinners for One. Now I am starting to reconsider that. The last time we went there he chatted us up for a while and again we talked tonight for a couple of minutes. Really good guy. He definitely remember us from a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, I asked him how he got into the trivia game and he gave the standard response that he played for a while and then he asked the TJ about how to get in on it and then he contacted the trivia guru.

Crowd: For Phatt Boys the crowd was enormous. There were initially 13 teams playing and 10 stayed to the end. This place is normally a fucking library. It was huge. There was a group of guys playing pool that were just disgusting. It was amazing how trashy guys can be. Of course, some nasty girl was hanging out with one of them. It really is something how these dirtbags managed to find each other.

Ambience/Food & Drink: The ambience of this place is strange. Pretty hard to describe. Usually the place is so dead, it is hard to describe it as having any ambience at all. Even its physical space is strange. It is basically an atrium with a bar/restaurant in it. The food and drink were fine. I am starting to feel like I need to make a move off of Tanqueray and tonic and take on something new. That being said, tonight's T & T was fine. Prices are as follows Texas BBQ Chicken Sandwich=$8.95, Naked Burger w/ cheese=$8.70, Phatt Sundae=$5.50, T&T=$5.00, Red Wine=$5.75, Malibu and Pineapple Juice=$5.47

Questions: Some overlap. According to my trivia spreadsheet the overlap of the questions is as follows. Of the four quarters, i.e. sixteen regular questions, we had seen six in previous games. The picture round was new. The halftime question was new. The third quarter bonus question was new and one of the two final questions was previously used.

Notable Events: Not much to report on this. We were probably winning going into the second of the two final questions, but we missed it. We discovered that Herb also does trivia at the Purple Shamrock near Faneuil Hall in Boston on Mondays. I suspect that we will be heading over that way next Monday.

Unsavory Eurotrash Fuckers

2005-11-15T13:34:00.000-05:00

I feel compelled to chime in on exactly how out of control this one Eurotrash sleazeball was at Tavern on the Square last night. Granted, this has little to do with the actual outcome of trivia or with our review of said venue, but still, it needs to be shared. First of all, consider the scene with which this loser was presented: a guy and a girl, out at a bar, having some food and drinks and enjoying each other's company. There were no signs either way to indicate to him whether it was just two friends out or whether we were a couple, but there was no one else in our party and we clearly had not just met that night at the bar or anything. Basically, it was the kind of situation in which trying to pick up on the lady might not be the smartest thing to do. So, at some point, Eurotrash Sleazeball goes up to the bar for some reason (or maybe to turn in a trivia answer, I'm not sure) and on his way back passes by me. On his original trajectory, I would say he would have passed no closer than within 4 feet of me, and he had plenty of space in which to walk (it wasn't like he was squeezing in between tables or something.) However, as he's walking back, by some cruel twist of fate we make eye contact. He must have mistaken my look of disgust (he was not a pleasant looking fellow) and panic (I already could sense what was about to happen) for a come hither look, because he blatantly altered his trajectory so that he could 'accidentally' brush up against me while simultaneously giving me a nauseating 'hey baby' look. Then, no more than 3 minutes later, he again has to walk up to the bar area. I dutifully avoid making eye contact but am aware of him walking back my way, again dangerously close to our table. This time, instead of just 'brushing' up against me, he puts his hand on my *knee* and gives it a squeeze and then lets his hand travel up on my thigh as he passes by. That's right. Fucking Eurotrash Sleazeball hand-raped my knee. What the fuck is up with that?? Who does that?? Thankfully, Eurotrash Sleazeball quickly decided that our trivia jockey was a much better target of his affection and left me alone. Thank the fucking maker.

Incidentally, Shawn was unaware of both encounters with the Eurotrash Sleazeball. In his defense, I think this probably was due to his ongoing recovery from Sunday night's tomahawking and the fact that he was distracted by some very tasty chicken piccata. Or he could just be chronically oblivious. It's a definite possibility.

Outing #13: We Luv Wesley Willis

2005-11-15T09:54:00.000-05:00

Pub/Bar: Tavern in the Square (Central Square--Cambridge, MA)

Day/Date: Monday, November 14

Outcome: 2nd Place, $25 tab

Trivia Jockey: Rachel. She is pretty cool she works the crowd alright. Right next to her were these two total fucking Eurotrash dicks--more on them later. Anyway, the primary dick was trying to talk to her and she just smiled at him and turned the music up really loud. The way she did was really smooth, props to her.

Crowd: Not a bad crowd for one thing there was no excessive celebration that came with a correct answer. There was some but it was moderate. The general pleasantness of the crowd did have two huge exceptions-- two Eurotrash guys. For one thing the primary Eurotrash guy thought it would be fun to yell out answers to the questions. What the fuck is that all about? I mean really. I know it is just trivia, but what exactly is the point of doing that? When people do that, maybe they think they are saying, "Look at me world. I am smart." Really all they are saying, "Hey, I am a total fucking dick." So that is pretty much what happened with these two guys and one in particular. They were such fucking Eurotrash. Rachel said they were from England, but they had something other than a British accent. Who knows from where these shitheads came, but they were just disgusting. I love Europe. I've been there multiple times and it is always a good time, but there is something about Eurotrash. They seemed to be the worst kind of trash I have ever met. I guess it is that they have all of the qualities that one normally associates with trash plus the oh so attractive quality of that European smugness/arrogance. On top of everything the guys just looked unsavory. Let's just say rohypnol and GHB are definitely in their dating repertoire. While I was not witness to it, Jenn tells that the particularly sleezy guy brushed up against her leg once and then, a second time actually put his hand on her leg as he walked by her. Like I said, I was not witness to this so perhaps Jenn could offer more details about his unsavoriness. Eurotrash dick did do something that I thought impossible. He managed to displace soul-patch guy (see Joshua Tree post) from the top of my hierarchy of hate. This guy was truly loathsome.
Also there these four girls sitting next to Jenn and I. Holy crap were they fucking annoying with their inane banter, but they were only a problem because.
The only other thing of note about the crowd is that there is another team that always plays with the same name, The Crazy 88s. I am not sure if it is because they use the same name or what, but I take some extra pleasure in beating them. There is no real reason. They all seem like nice people, but just something about them gets to me. Of course we crushed them at the end and I took great pleasure in that.

Ambience/Food & Drink: Not a bad place. I don't know what it is like on other nights and I can see how the place might fill with pretentious asses. The food was fine. I actually had the chicken piccata last night and it was quite good. The only problem is that the menu advertises basmati rice and what you get is just straight up white rice. What the fuck is that? I took the night off in terms of drinking but Jenn seemed to offer no complaints about her frosty adult beverage. She seems to be sticky with her "beer-only-so-I-don't-get-tomahawked-to-the-point-of-falling-down-when-I-am-out" policy. Very impressive. Also, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Matthew Underwood for informing us that tomahawked is a synonym for drunk. Neither Jenn nor I ever knew this to be the case, but we both immediately recognized its beauty. Guiness=$4.50, Soda=$2.25, Chicken Piccata=$13.95, Pan Fried Mozarella=$7.95.

Questions: It was a tale of two halves. The first-half, up to and including the half time question, were 100% new. We did fine, but it did force us to think deeper about how the questions are distributed. Our ability to determine a pattern was challenged by the second half when almost all of the questions were identical to those asked by Chris at Kitty O'Shea's on Sunday, November 6. This is obviously prior to the Wed. switch, so I am not sure what is happening here. Just know that we continue to compile data about what questions are asked when and where.

Notable Events: Not much to report here. I will say that to date "Tavern in the Square" does offer the best tabs $40 for 1st, $25 for second, and $15 for third. This is not bad at all. The only other thing is that with this trip we were a bit lazy. We had already be to this place and there are a good number of options on Monday nights including the Purple Shamrock, but we went back to this place because, after Sunday's epic journey, we needed something local. Next week we will have to venture out into Boston. Perhaps Jenn has something to offer in this department.

2005-11-14T16:32:00.000-05:00

News from Philadelphia

Okay there seems to be some hostility or rivalry or something out of Philadelphia in the form of Johnny Goodtimes. He recently posted a comment said the following, "Quizzo in Boston, I'm quite certain, is like clam chowder in Philly. Worthless. If you guys have any balls, you'll make your way to the #1 quizzo city in the world. Philadelphia." Fucking ouch man. What's with the hostility? Where's the fucking love? Can't we all just get along? First, if someone can explain to me how winning bar tabs is worthless, I would love to hear that explanation. Second, I don't have any balls as life neutered me a long time ago. While I can't speak for Jenn, I guess maybe I won't be heading down to Philadelphia. Third, exactly how does one establish where the number one quizzo city is located? With all due respect to Philly, Boston is full of assholes who think they are smart and this kind of attitude is perfect for trivia. Johnny needs to take it down a bit. Perhaps a little haiku would be a calming influence

Jihad is for fun
Hostility from nowhere
Have a cheesesteak guy

2005-11-14T11:46:00.000-05:00

Trivia Grows: A Poem

Trivia expands
Many more bars to frequent
AA is calling?

Now near 70
It is a magic number
Look out my liver.

Marshfield Beverly
Game is all over the place
It grows like kudzu

Drunken revelry
Game is bigger than we are
Drinking for free works.

It goes national
Now found in Minnesota
Drunk tourism exists?

2005-11-14T10:47:00.001-05:00

Outing #12: Too Much Blood in My Veins Where the Whiskey Oughtta Be

Bar/Pub: Kitty O'Shea's (Beverly, MA)

Day/Date: Sunday, November 13

Outcome: 1st place, $30 bar tab. (Like Phatt Boy's the tab has to be used at the next visit). This is after we got there late and missed the first three questions.

Trivia Jockey: Chris reminds me a bit of Matt Harrigon (Another one of Jenn's great finds on the web.) It is not because he collects arthropods. I really can't speak to whether or not Chris does such things but one line that describes Matt is "My God, he truly is the Cadillac of men this Matt Harrigon." Chris truly is the Cadillac of trivia jockeys. He is the best For one thing the guy makes up different names for the categories. The names he uses tie in directly with either the question or the answer. It is not a big deal but it definitely is a nice touch. Also the songs he chooses tie in with the answer. It is really well done.

Another nice touch is his little commentary. For example one question last week was about the "Trail of Tears" and talked of how good we are to our own people. Basically I feel about Chris the way Wesley Willis thinks about Arnold Schwarzenegger only I don't think of Chris as a low down rotten man.

After the game we bought Chris a beer and he chatted with us for a while. Here we learned more about the trivia logistics--more on that later. I would love to say more about what we discussed, but by the end of the game I was pretty tomahawked. The gin and tonics were crisp and were flowing freely. Pretty much the limiting factor was the frequency with which our waitress came to us. For more on Chris I defer to Jenn. Chris also let us know that he does it at O'Neil's in Salem Tuesdays and at Cityside in Brookline on Wednesdays.

Crowd: All in all it is not a bad crowd. Although there was at least one choice lady. She had her jeans tucked into her cowboy boots. First of all what the hell is lady doing wearing fucking cowboy boots? I mean really for God's fucking sake. Maybe lady hasn't scoped out a map lately but she is in fucking Beverly, MA. Not exactly home on the range. There was one great moment of exchange between her and us. After the 3rd quarter bonus question concerning U.S. presidents the woman asked if anyone got all five right. I quickly informed her that not only did we get all five right, but that we put them in chronological order. Sure it was a bit arrogant but she was one of those idiots who fucking hoops and hollers when they get one right. It has already been made clear that this is just plain retarded and it is fun to crush these asses.

Ambience/Food & Drink: I suspect that Jenn's beer was fine, but she could not drink due to driving responsibilities. Of course I tried to compensate for her sobriety by getting doubly drunk and I think I succeeded. Maybe it was because of the bad experience at Courtney's, but the gin and tonics at Kitty's were extremely good and, more importanly, plentiful. For more on this check out Jenn's previous post about Kitty O'Shea's.

Questions: We missed the first three questions but all of the other questions were identical to those from Jeannie Johnston's in JP on Wednesday night. It was fantastic. If there was ever a case of money in the bank, this was it. It was pretty amazing. If the trivia guru writes 2.5 shows/week the odds of every question being the same are quite high. Who knows what is going on?

Notable Events: Well this was the 2nd half of our epic doubleheader. In the course of chatting with Chris we learned that the trivia jockeys receive the questions from the trivia guru, Bob Carney, in an email sent out on Tuesday/Wed. So it appears that indeed Wed. is the day of transition. It is kind of strange, however, that some of the questions have shown up over a course of weeks. Like last week we didn't manage to get there on time, but victory was ours. It seems that Sunday nights are among our most successful.

OUTING #12 -- SUPPLEMENTAL COMMENTS

2005-11-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

Indeed, as Shawn has mentioned, due to the driving issue I was far from tomahawked during our conversation with Chris, although upon our arrival back in Cambridge Shawn promptly remedied that situation with the aid of several tall glasses of a concoction that was 97% spiced rum and 3% ginger ale. Here is what I can remember about the logistics of trivia: The main trivia dude does in fact send out 2 1/2 shows each week. However, he is not coming up with all the questions himself. The trivia jockeys can submit shows that they create and head trivia dude will pay them a certain amount per complete show they submit. Also, each bar pays a certain set fee to have trivia night - most of this goes to the trivia jockey and a portion goes to head trivia dude. So, with 70 trivia games a week, I'm guessing head trivia dude is probably not doing too badly for himself just for writing up some questions and dealing with whatever other administrative shit needs to be dealt with. I guess that money also needs to cover the cost of equipment for each t.j. and pads and pens and such. So maybe it's not as sweet a deal as it initially appeared.

Anyway, the rest of our conversation with Chris basically consisted of a tomahawked Shawn asking the same set of questions 3 or 4 times, and Chris repeatedly telling us how not okay he (Chris) was to drive.

Somewhere, we have the contact info of head trivia dude. I feel like t.j.-ing may be in Shawn's future, but I encouraged him to stick with the jihad for a bit longer, if only to scope out the full range of laudable trivia jockey behavior.

2005-11-14T10:46:00.000-05:00

Outing #11: Whiskey River Take My Mind

Pub/Bar: Courtney's (Marshfield, MA a.k.a. Marsh Vegas)

Day/Date: Sunday, November 13

Outcome: 2nd Place, $15 bar tab

Trivia Jockey: Robert was fucking awesome. This guy was really great. We sat right next to him so I was able to chat him up quite a bit and we learned valuable information about the logistics of trivia--more on that later. Anyway, from the very start he was fun to shoot the shit with. When I offered to buy him a drink he said that he was already set at the time. By the end of the first quarter it became clear that dude was pretty drunk. He said that he had three beers during the Patriots game. By three I think he meant about 12.
Without question in another life Robert is a Vegas act. But for the Tom Brady jersey I would have sworn I was back in Vegas at a Wayne Newton act. This guy seemed to know almost all of the people playing and he worked the crowd like a pro. It might be shocking to reveal this, but he seemed to save most of his material for the ladies. He kept referring to Marshfield as Marsh Vegas. It was perfect. Robert revealed that he is also the TJ for the only Saturday trivia, also in Marsh Vegas at Venus II and he does it on Tuesday at The Playwright Bar & Cafe in South Boston.

Crowd: It was definitely a different kind of crowd. Older and filled with Marsh Vegas townies. It was a nice change of pace. Robert, knowing the crowd, gave a 5-10 minute smoke break for all the smokers. You could totally tell that if smoking were still allowed in bars, you would be able to cut the smoke with a knife. Of course, the mean age was brought down a little bit by the fact that at least one person decided to bring their infant. Very classy. It kind of reminds me of the woman in Wisconsin who recently smothered her child after passing out from drinking. Link

Ambience/Food & Drink: It was awesome thanks in large part to Robert's Vegas act. The food was okay. Jenn got a large pizza for about $6. There was a problem with the gin and tonic. At first I thought that they were not using Tanqueray, but Jenn suggested that perhaps it was the tonic. I am not sure, but the drinks were definitely off. The other thing that was sweet about this place was that when Linda, our waitress told us about the specials, she included the prices. As Jenn pointed out, any place that will tell you the price of the specials is always very classy.

Questions: Robert told me that he likes to tailor his questions to the crowd. Since it was an older crowd some of the questions were out of our time period. That being said there was a degree of overlap in the questions.

Notable Events: This was the first half of our epic doubleheader night. We also learned a lot about the logisitics of trivia. The most notable development was that it was discovered that the trivia guru rights two and a half shows per week.

OUTING #11 - SUPPLEMENTAL COMMENTS

2005-11-14T10:45:00.000-05:00

Not much to add here, except that during this outing we experienced quite possibly the most ridiculous trivia question yet asked, in which the category and the answer were basically the same thing. The category was "Space", the question was "Where is the Hubble telescope located?", and the answer was "space." Nice, huh?

2005-11-14T09:26:00.000-05:00

Trivia Jihad Sleeper Cells

As news of the Jihad spreads far and wide, we would like to know more about who the hell is looking at this blog. Drop us a line and let us know who and where you are. Viewers in other cities could form the nucleus of trivia sleeper cells throughout the land.

2005-11-13T15:38:00.000-05:00

Re: BATQA Ruling

According to a recent comment the Board of Auditors, Boston Area Trivia Quest (BATQA) [Hon. Wesley Willis, Chair] has ruled that our leaving Joshua Tree early means that we cannot count it off of our list. I have to say that I agree. My only question is the whether not BATQA has the authority to rule. I thought such decisions came down from the Boston Area Stump Trivia Arbitration and Rulings Division (BASTARD). That being said, I guess that we will have to return to the Joshua Tree. Lucky us. Inspired by this ruling I consulted the Wesley Willis song generator and apparently if Wesley were to sing about Trivia Jihad it would go something like this

I like Trivia Jihad a lot.
You can really get in the groove.
Right on brother.
I like Trivia Jihad a lot.

TRIVIA JIHAD!!!
TRIVIA JIHAD!!!
TRIVIA JIHAD!!!
TRIVIA JIHAD!!!

You can really jam harder like a magicist.
I like you well.
You really whoop a llama's ass.
I love you a lot in the long run.

TRIVIA JIHAD!!!
TRIVIA JIHAD!!!
TRIVIA JIHAD!!!
TRIVIA JIHAD!!!

You really whoop Saddam Hussein's ass.
I like you a lot in the long run.
Trivia Jihad is the best.
You are the best in the long run.

Rock over London,
Rock on Chicago.

Pontiac - we build excitement.

2005-11-13T15:27:00.000-05:00

To all of our detractors

Many of Jenn and my colleagues seem to think that there is something wrong with the Trivia Jihad. First, there are those who think it is unethical. That we are cheating in some way. To those I say, "bullshit." Think about it. The whole point of trivia is to answer questions using knowledge that you developed from previous experience, i.e. reading, TV, conversation, etc. That is all we are doing. We are using information gained from previous experience, i.e. going out the night before, to answer questions. It just so happens that our experience is a little more recent.
The second group of naysayers believe that we will get caught and banned from trivia. To this I say come on. Think about it, do you really think that these trivia jockeys are working in such close collaboration? For god's sake they're trivia jockeys.
The final group of detractors, my personal favorites, are those who believe that our going out every night with the purpose of drinking free is somehow indicative of a potential drinking problem. What the hell is that all about? Should we be going out with express purpose of paying a lot for our drinks? Of course, the counterargument is that we should just not go out. To me that is more ridiculous than the notion that we are cheating. Lest anyone think that any of these criticisms are working I refer you to the previous post that announces our plan to double-dip tonight.

2005-11-13T15:01:00.000-05:00

BREAKING NEWS RE: TRIVIA JIHAD!!!!!
Jenn, in her supernatural ability to sniff shit out on the web, has discovered that news of the Trivia Jihad has spread to Philadelphia via another blog, http://quittymcquitter.blogspot.com/. This is awesome. I suspect that this knoweldge was due in part to the efforts of Annie, who informed us of the $60 Philly payoff, or the efforts of Jenn O., who asked to be informed if/when we make it to Philly. Well Jenn O. I assure you that we will make it. Think when not if. I have to say that I feel a great connection with our Philly brothers and sisters.
Also, we are going to try something different today, Sunday, November 13. At Courtney's in Marshfield, MA trivia begins at 5:00PM on Sundays. From where we are that is about an hour drive south of Boston. Then at 8:30 at Kitty O'Shea's Beverly, MA, about 3o minutes north of Boston, there is also trivia. Jenn's car, aka the Red Menace, is ready to go and we are going to attempt something that has never been successfully achieved--the trivia doubleheader. We will be tearing up and down the interstate for trivia. It is kind of like ABC's wide world of sports, "Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety in sport. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat." Only hopefully we won't get all fucked up like that ski jumper who became synomous with failure. (For all you trivia buffs out there, the ski jumper's name was Vinki Bojgata [spelling?] and, at last word he lived in Lubljiana, Slovenia). I have a feeling that we can do this and I have to say I am more excited about this than I have ever been about my own research.

2005-11-13T12:06:00.000-05:00

OUTING #10: CRAZY WITH THE CHEEZ (SP?) WHIZ

Pub/Bar: Jeannie Johnston (Jamaica Plain)

Day/Date: Wednesday, November 9

Outcome: Tied for third going into final questions, but wound up fourth due to my bad betting strategy. Sorry Jenn.

Crowd: Decent enough crowd. The bar is not too big and the crowd was by no means obnoxious. There was one guy there who was sitting next to our table and he helped us with one question relatively early in the game. While others might not have felt this way, for me this caused a bit of problem. Because the guy did help us at some level, I felt obligated to acknowledge this and from time to time engage him in some chit-chat. Of course, I did not really have much to say to him beyond thanking him, so for a while there would be a certain uncomfortable acknowledgment of his existence whenever I would look in his direction which was pretty much all of the time given that I was facing that way. It's not that I felt uncomfortable acknowledging his existence it is simply that I had nothing really to say to him. The other problem was his initial help created an open invitation for him to contribute liberally and, of course, every time thereafter he was wrong. After almost every question he would look to me as if to ask, "Do you know this one?" More often than not, we did know it. Of course, that did not stop him from contributing his wrong two cents. All in all, he was a nice guy who was just alone and I felt for him, but then I started to realize why he was alone.

Ambience: Overall, in my humble opinion, I have to say that this was a pretty good place to do trivia. Of course, the upside that was the crowd and just the relaxed feel that seemed to come with the place was swamped by the tsunami of hate and frigidity that was Charity. The ambience was further compromised by her choice of absolutely shit music.

Questions: There were no repeat questions. It appears that Wednsday is indeed a day of transition. We have set up a spreadsheet that will keep track of all the questions for each day. Hopefully at some point in the future we will be able to divulge some kind of statistical correlation. It is times like this that I wish that I had not skipped out on statistics class in order to get high. Of course, our ability to compile data would be greatly improved if we had a series of teams who could fan out to various locations on the same night so as to assess the "same day deviation" of Stump trivia. If anyone would look to contribute to this cause, please let us know.

Notable Events: While unrelated to the event, I feel that one of the posted comments merits some attention. Apparently there is a place in Philadelphia that features a $60 payout. I know a number of people in that area and I think, at some point in the future, Jenn and I will have to scope out the scene down there and perhaps school those chumps. Some have tried to discourage such a field trip by saying that it will cost more than $60 to get down there. What the hell is their point?

2005-11-10T14:13:00.000-05:00

So, I am going to let Shawn comment on last night's trivia experience, as he has some choice comments on our trivia jockey. However, all you teeming masses out there who are acheing for a trivia blog fix should be aware that a vituperative rant on our uber-bitch Quiz Mistress may take a few days to appear. Shawn is out of town for a while actually doing work. (Yeah, what was all that bullshit about so and so being truly committed to the cause or not? At least *I'm* not actually off making progress on my dissertation.)

This also means that there will not be an outing #11 until Saturday at the earliest, maybe Sunday.

2005-11-09T15:36:00.000-05:00

OUTING #9: TRIVIA JOCKEY STALKERS

Pub/Bar: The Joshua Tree (Somerville, MA)

Day/Date: Tuesday, Novmeber 8

Outcome: Left at Halftime

Crowd: While some people were probably decent enough, it was hard to get past the people who made me want to puke. For one thing there was fucking soul-patch guy. This asshole was picking up on some Tufts co-ed and among other charming features, this jerk had a soul-patch, a fucking soul-patch. Who in this world thinks that shit is cool? Unless you are into the "I'm a retard who doesn't know how to shave" look, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to advertise to the world that you're an idiot. It reminds me of that Wesley Willis song, "Cut the Mullet", "Take your ass to the barbershop/tell the barber that your sick of looking like an asshole." Seriously, what the fuck? Beyond that was some crew of three girls and this guy. Guy was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Hey jackass this is New England...and it’s November. Of course what made this merry band of losers particularly endearing was their oh so not annoying habit of hooping and hollering each time they got the answer right. Of course, the beautiful result of this obnoxious behavior was that when they got answers wrong and were subsequently silent, there was some taunting from other teams over their failure. In short, not the worst scene for Trivia in terms of activity level, but the threshold for shitheads was certainly crossed.

Ambience/Food: Can't really speak to the food in that I did not have anything. Jenn had the chicken fingers and they seemed tasty enough. The T & T was tasty and according to Jenn the Caribbean Martini (?) of coconut rum, pineapple juice, and something else was quite tasty. As for the ambience, anyone who has ever been to the Joshua Tree knows what kind of place it is. One of those wants to be upscale places of the "Westside Lounge/Temple Bar" variety. This tends to lead to the gathering of a bunch of pretentious assholes the likes of which have been described above.

Questions: No repeat questions. This could be due to Owen’s seeing as again. We were doing pretty well when we left, but I felt uncomfortable being there. I would call the feeling of discomfort shame, but that would imply that I have shame and that is not the case.

Notable Events: Today was not a good day for us and especially for me. First of all, I set out for Kendall Square as Tommy Doyle’s was supposed to have Trivia at 6:30. The plan was for me to go there while Jenn tended to academic matters (I guess we see who is truly committed to the cause). From there I was going to proceed directly to Davis Sq. for my second round of Trivia in the night. Unfortunately, when I got to Tommy Doyle’s, it became clear that there was not going to be any Trivia. Apparently, some group with a name along the lines of “Boston web innovators” was having their “hook-up.” Indeed it was as bad as one might imagine.

Of course, the disappointment of Tommy Doyle’s was nothing compared to what happened at the Joshua Tree. As has been noted, it was the same Trivia Jockey as the night before. This put us in a bad spot, because a) it had the potential of tainting our completely legitimate performance from the night before, b) if so inclined, Owen could out us to the other Trivia Jockeys and thus lead to our banning which, while kind of funny, is not good until we are able to hit all of the other bars, c) it might give Owen the terribly inaccurate picture of us as two idiots who simply go from Trivia bar to Trivia bar every night. Clearly we cannot have this. Anyway, we had to try to play it off as mere coincidence. At one point Owen suggested that we not do Trivia more than three times a week. We immediately agreed with him and, in so many words, I indicated that doing it more than three times a week would be just plain retarded. This might be the first sign that we have a problem. We currently occupy the denial stage. Of course, this denial is more a function of not wanting to get blacklisted…yet.

Jenn did come up with the bright idea that we should leave at half time if our success was in question. This served many purposes, perhaps most important among them is that it tended to support our assertion that we had come up for drinks and Trivia just happened to be there. Upon our leaving I made sure to let Owen know that we were leaving so as to reinforce the validity of my earlier fabrication.

2005-11-08T14:09:00.000-05:00

OUTING #8: KRIS KRINGLE WAS A CAR THIEF

Pub: Johnny D's (Somerville, MA)

Day/date: Monday, November 7

Outcome: 2nd place, $20 gift certificate

Crowd: So, apparently, Johnny D's does not have a limit on how many people can be on a team. Thus, everyone else there had teams of at least 6 people, sometimes more. Our 2nd place finish as a team of only two people was thus all the more masterful, and was commented on by our tool of a trivia jockey. Also, there was an unfortunate incident with some spoken word open mic poetry slam bullshit going on before trivia. Never have 5 minutes lasted so long.

Ambience/Food: There was no food, because it was trivia night. (I still don't get the connection there.) But there was free pizza. Somehow, despite the total lack of food, we managed to run up an impressive $70 bar tab, which sort of defeated our aim of drinking for free.

Questions: Not a single repeat question from a previous night, and we still kicked ass.

Notable events: I got tomahawked. Properly tomahawked.

2005-11-07T13:11:00.000-05:00

OUTING #7: SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN (AGAIN)

Pub: Kitty O'Sheas (Beverly, MA)

Day/date: Sunday, November 6

Outcome: Defeat. But, in our defense, we did arrive 1 hour into the game and ended up with 87 out of 91 possible points for the time we did play. Had we been there from the start, we would have schooled those townie punks.

Trivia Jockey: Chris. Chris was awesome. After almost every question, during the time when you're supposed to be discussing and turning in your answers, he played songs that were somehow related to the correct answer. Thus, the Caesars were played on a question whose answer was Rome, U2's Beautiful Day was played on a question whose answer was '24' (the TV show,) etc.

Crowd: I think the team that won may have been underage. Definitely not as scary a crowd as I expected. The Newtowne Grill had a much higher MTTR (marginally toothless townie ratio.)

Ambience/Food: Mmmm, curry fries.

Questions: Jimmy Buffet was the halftime answer for like the 50th time in the past two weeks.

Notable Events: So, *someone* has the brilliant idea of picking up Shawn at the airport on the way to Beverly to save time. Which would have completely worked, had the plane not been in a futile holding pattern for 1/2 hour. And had the jet bridge not then broken. And had the plane not been parked in the 'annex' such that shuttle buses were required to reach the main terminal. We ended up rolling up on trivia at about 9:30, a full hour or so after the game had started. On the bright side, I did get to spend an hour at the airport talking with limo driver extraordinaire Mr. Michael Magee, who encouraged me heartily to drink Killians and regaled me with stories of driving gaggles of large, boisterous African-American women to nude male revue shows in Revere.

2005-11-01T13:18:00.000-05:00

The great Trivia Jihad will be on hold from Tuesday (Nov 1) through Sunday (Nov 6) due to out of state travel.

2005-11-01T12:28:00.000-05:00

OUTING #6: VULTURES ATE MY DEAD ASS UP

Pub: Tavern on the Square (Cambridge, MA)

Day/date: Monday, October 31

Outcome: 3rd place, $15 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: I don't know her name, but she was pretty cool. She seemed to have a cult-like following, possibly due to her endearing habit of heckling trivia participants and bopping along to the music up at her trivia jockey table. Her musical taste was excellent until the last 7 minutes, when it took a serious nosedive. When she used the words "awesome" and "Jamiroquai" in the same sentence, it was all over for me.

Crowd: It was Halloween. There was some jerkface in a tophat and jeans. There was also a pretty accurate Jack Sparrow and someone who was either the Burger King (awesome) or just some lameass king (not awesome.) The team that called themselves Hallo-fucking-ween (who eventually got first place) was clearly cheating somehow, using their cellphones or whatnot. They always took an extra long time to answer questions and had twice as many points as anyone else after the first quarter. Fuckers.

Ambience/Food: It would have tasted much better if we were eating and drinking for free.

Questions: Clearly, going to trivia on Halloween was a bad move. All of the questions were Halloween themed. Which meant they were all incredibly obscure. (For instance, would *you* have known what vegetable was used in the original Jack-o-lanterns?) Also, some of the answers to trivia questions were blatantly wrong, like when she tried to tell us that the Baba Yaga folktale was from Denmark. Fuck that. Everyone knows Baba Yaga is Russian. Right?

Notable Events: At some point, some dude ran up to the trivia table and violently slammed his team's answer down in the form of a crumpled up piece of paper. Not sure what that was about, but he looked like a tool. Dial it down, little buddy. Also, my Amstel Light was of the sort whose labels are impossible to remove. In the future, we may want to consider using the Amstel as a litmus test for the evening prior to actually starting trivia. If I can't peel the label off, the evening will go badly I'm sure.

2005-11-01T11:45:00.000-05:00

OUTING #5: SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN

Pub: Charlie's Kitchen (Cambridge, MA)

Day/date: Sunday, October 30

Outcome: 1st place, $25 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: Mike. Mike is the man. Until Sunday we thought Herb was the man (Herb, who seemed so endearingly beaten down by life.) But Mike not only got the Kris Kristofferson reference of our team name but also played said song. Unfortunately, this cost us 11 points since Shawn was too busy warbling blissfully along to the song to focus on the question (to which he definitely knew the answer.) But seriously, Mike's pretty cool. Even if he didn't join us for a drink afterwards. I hate being rejected. Sniff sniff.

Crowd: Mostly young. No shouting out of answers or bizarre behavior. There were some annoying looking people sitting in the corner, though. Dorks.

Ambience/Food: Our Charlie's experience would have been much more enjoyable had it not been 8,000 degrees inside. Also, a waitress that did not hate me and a bowl of pea soup that did not taste like a camel's nasty ass would have been nice. But perhaps I'm asking for too much.

Questions: I don't remember much about the questions given my intestinal distress (see below) but they seemed pretty easy.

Notable Events: Except for Mike's masterful song selection, the most notable event of this trivia outing was when I almost lost it halfway through the game (and by 'almost lost it' I mean 'almost redecorated Charlie's Kitchen with my recently injested camel's-ass-tasting pea soup'.) In my defense, I'd been going out (and by 'going out', I mean drinking heavily) every night for the past 7 days and staying up until 4 or 5 or 11 am. The fact that the pub interior was legitimately approaching the temperature of hell didn't help either. Luckily, an emergency Pepto Bismol run solved the problem. Ahhh, the things we do for trivia.

2005-10-29T08:22:00.000-04:00

OUTING #4: WITTY YET NOT JUVENILE

Pub: Newtowne Grille (Somerville, MA)

Day/Date: Thursday, October 27

Team Size: 4 (although, really only 3 3/4 if you factor in the fact that one team member had to go outside and call his girlfriend every 5 minutes)

Outcome: 1st place, $25 gift certificate

Trivia Jockey: I don't know her name, but she was wearing a strange train conductor's hat and had bad taste in music. Crazy Town and Dave Matthews and shit like that.

Crowd: Scary. Beset by townies and ogre-like women.

Ambience/Food: The Newtowne Grille (or the 'Socrates Newtowne Grill' as it's officially titled) really surprised me here. Inside it's really not so bad. And the food was edible. There were, however, a fair number of marginally toothless Somerville locals milling about, and our waitress looked like she might also have a job as a 'dancer'.

Questions: Mostly easy, but there were a few where having some additional team members around helped. Props to one team member for knowing that Danny Elfman was the person who used to be in Oingo Boingo and composed the theme song to Desperate Housewives. Mad smack to our other team member, who insisted that jazz (not calypso) was developed in Trinidad as a means of communication among slaves. Those two points would have meant Shawn owed me another drink.*

Notable Events: About halfway through trivia, one of the drunk, marginally toothless, overweight, middle-aged denizens of Somerville wandered over to our table. Heaving flirtily in one team member's general direction, she proceeded to ask us various details about our ability to answer certain questions, while we squirmed uncomfortably. She asked us our team name and, confused by our answer, wandered off to find her next set of victims. As she left, the object of her affection muttered under his breath: "What's our team name? Scared Shitless."

* Because winning trivia cash is so easy, a system of side bets has arisen. One person guesses the amount by which our team will be winning at halftime and the other person guesses whether the actual number will be over or under the first person's guess. If they're wrong, they owe the first person a drink. If not, its vice versa.

2005-10-28T08:51:00.000-04:00

OUTING #3: MARXISM - IT'S NOT JUST GOOD IN THEORY, IT ALSO WORKS WHEN APPLIED PROPERLY

Pub: Kirkland Cafe (Cambridge, MA)

Day/Date: Wednesday, October 26

Team Members: 5 (although, really only 3, 2 of them were just there to drink)

Outcome: Utter defeat.

Trivia Jockey: I don't know his name. Maybe it was Kevin? Anyway, he was somewhat lame - he had a groupie up on stage helping him tally scores. However, he did get bonus points for reading our team name in its entirety.

Crowd: Boisterous. We couldn't get a table. There were people shouting out answers, and many people with their annoying preppy button down shirts sticking out from under their sweaters, and also several teams of old people (no fair!) One jerk shouted out an answer and thought he was pretty cool. There was also a woman wearing the ugliest shoes I've ever seen. All in all, not that great a crowd.

Ambience/Food: I can't comment on the food, since we didn't have a table. Other people seemed to be enjoying it. However, I can comment on the Amstel Light, which came in new bottles from which it is impossible to peel the labels. The entire night I was scratching at my bottle, trying to deprive it of its label. I'm convinced this played a major role in our defeat.

Questions: Fucking hard, man, fucking hard.

Notable Events: I was surly and hung over from the previous evening and rudely (and very obviously) ignored Shawn's roommate. I guess that wasn't really so notable, but I did feel bad about it.

2005-10-27T20:03:00.000-04:00

OUTING #2: TONIGHT WE DRINK FOR FREE

Pub: Phatt Boyz (Cambridge, MA)

Day/Date: Tuesday, October 25

Team Members: 2

Outcome: 1st place, $35 gift certificate

Crowd: Um, what crowd? Seriously, you could shoot a semi-automatic weapon in random directions throughout the gaping Phatt Boyz auditorium and not have to worry about hitting a soul. There were maybe five teams there, all of us clustered in the booths along the wall. The center of the restaurant was empty, except for a 50-something couple engaging in a makeout session that would have seemed more at home in an amateur porn flick.

Ambience/Food: My Hendrick's Gin Cosmos cost $8 apiece. That sucked. Also, our waitress only came by twice in the 2-hours we were there, but then wouldn't bring us two drinks apiece when we asked. (It's okay, I got good and tipsy later on in the evening out of spite for her. I blame the next morning's wicked hangover entirely on her.)

Questions: Pretty easy. There was only about a 10 - 20% overlap between the night's questions and the questions asked on the previous night (according to Shawn, who drank for free alone the night before.) Nevertheless, the new questions were painfully easy.

Notable Events: After we won, Herb came over to make conversation. I think because he was desperate for some form of human contact.

2005-10-26T20:18:00.000-04:00

OUTING #1: MARXISM - IT'S WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

Pub: Thirsty Scholar (Somerville, MA)

Day/Date: Sunday, October 23

Team Members: 6

Outcome: 2nd place, 6 drinks

Trivia Jockey: I think this guy's name is Mike, too.

Crowd: There were a ton of other teams there, as always.

Ambience/Food: Nachos = yummy. Seriously, though, I've been going to trivia at the Thirsty Scholar for so long that I can't really distinguish one trivia night from another.

Questions: Pretty easy. None of us had been to trivia in a while but we still did pretty well.

Notable Events: Ahhh, what can I say? This one was a bit of a train wreck for Shawn. Let's just say he ended up running into and inviting to our table a potential lady friend (a 'dancer' no less), who was positively unsufferable. After we all stayed until long past closing time in a vain attempt to rescue him from the error of his ways (what on earth she talked about for two and a half hours, I cannot recall), he then proceeded to escort this lady friend home as part of an ultimately failed 'hit it and quit it' scheme, which resulted in a desperate 2 am text message from me containing, among other things, the phrase "abort, abort!" Considering that the Thirsty Scholar is her 'hood, I think Shawn will not be going back there any time soon. On any night.

However, I can't be entirely annoyed by The Insufferable One (as she shall henceforth be known), since the need to go to a different pub for trivia on the following Sunday played a role in spawning the great Trivia Jihad.