21 posts from 2006

Mirrored, as always, from here.

Craziness. My voice is somewhere around the register of James Earl Jones this morning.

The Season Two Finale (and year-end blowout) was kind of messy. Nineteen teams, more than a few of whom changed their names at random without telling anyone (please don't do that; if you change your name, please put your old name on the answer sheet so we know who you are), and it wound up being our second-largest night ever. Woot!

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - When the wrestler formerly known as Chyna shares her birthday with Sarah Vowell, Howdy Doody and Louis Pasteur, you know it's a day for all ages.

2. Audio Round: The End Of The Innocence - A round to commemorate the end of aught-six. I didn't do anything so déclassé as use Don Henley (not yet, anyway), but there was Styx's "Don't Let It End," the Kinks' "Till The End Of The Day," and "Endicott," by the vastly underrated Kid Creole and the Coconuts.

3. Not James Brown - in which Janet called back James Randi & asked about James Brown's last backing band.

4. Not Gerald Ford - Featuring The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Lita Ford's old band, Ford Prefect's home star, Harrison Ford's Oscar nomination, the dystopian religion of Brave New World, Richard Ford's third novel in the Frank Bascombe trilogy (an advance copy of which will be a prize next week), and the New York area university formerly known as St. John's College. (Hint: its current name fits in this round.)

5. Name 3's - You know, aside from being provinces that have food specific to their regions, Champagne, Vidalia and Feta really are all shades of white.

After a few weeks of top-notch team names, this week's infusion of new players meant things were a little uneven. Still, there were some gems:

• 1st Place: If I Had Known, I Would Have Made Him A Partner
  
• 2nd Place: [A Drawing Of A Polar Bear] (literally, that was what their team name was: a drawing of a polar bear, asleep on the top of a hill, with stars all around. It was positively pastoral)
  
• 3rd place: 99 Red Debloons! (props for the aggressive pirate noises, which could be heard throughout the bar, even though they sat in the front alcove)
  
  
  
  Followed by, in no particular order:
  
• God Finishes What Squeaky Couldn't
  
• Inigo Montoya (I made them change their name from 'Team We Can't Think Of A Team Name'))
  
• The Drunken Inquisition
  
• Kara & Darren
  
• Sara & Dave
  
• Shit, My Brown Ford Died On Me
  
• Bearded Clam Chow-der (Say It French!) (I assumed ze h'instrokshions were part of ze team name, oui?)
  
• Killer Red Ant Brigade (I thought this read 'Killer Red Ant Bridge' for the first two rounds. Sorry)
  
• Orchid Avenue #209
  
• Kevin Bacon 4 EVA
  
• JAM/Jenn, Adam, Marcel (not Maurice, as I misread the first time. I had a rough night in the reading-handwriting department)
  
• 4D
  
• Hokey Birds
  
• Off Their Rockers
  
• One Of Us Is Not Wearing Their Own Underwear
  

Prizes this week included some piggybanks made from recycled denim, as well as the last of our last batch of prizes from the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

You know, this silly little pub quiz thing really turned out to be the greatest thing I personally was involved in all year, and I know Janet & I are both grateful you continue to choose to come and wonder what the hell we're going on about every week.

Thanks. See you next Wednesday for the start of Season Three.

[Mirrored here.]

It was a lovely night. The fact that we're not having anything close to winter so far this year maybe helped goose the mood of some of youse this week, and certainly the return of the most excellent and raucous posse from Human Rights Watch (who apparently have won a Nobel Peace Prize, go figger!) brightened our day in ways that defy adjectives. Really, though, I'm happy to see you guys. The unexpected success of the DSO is easily the best thing to have happened in my life this year, and I'd buy you all Cadillacs if I could. (Will you settle for some fridge magnets, the occasional book and a few drinks? Maybe dinner for two at CremCaffé Ristorante next door, or a little something from our favorite Broadway show?)

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Happy Birthday to Branch Rickey, Simone Beck and Kate Hudson, and props to James Randi and Grand Funk Railroad.

2. Audio Round: Not All Christmas Songs - I was hoping to put together a round of songs about wintery themes that weren't about Christmas, but sometimes when you're cutting and pasting song clips for these rounds, things just don't go together the way they should. So I fudged the original idea and made it half-Christmas music (the Carpenters, the Ramones, Band Aid, the Vince Guaraldi Trio) and half songs about snow (Johnny Cash's "Snow In His Hair," the ever-ubiquitous Duran Duran version of "White Lines," They Might Be Giants' "Snowball In Hell"), ice (Jonathan Richman's "Ice Cream Man") and other seasonal themes (The Decembrists, Jay-Z, I think that's everyone).

3. The Fall - Janet marked the last day of Autumn with some questions about Camus, Yeats, Bowie, merkins, some band and the lyrics to "American Pie."

4. 'For Hanukkah, Hans Handled Hank's Handicap Handily - I know some people spell it "Chanukah," but I'm not some people. Also, the round was about things that started with HAN (Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, Hannibal Smith, The Handmaid's Tale, the House of Hanover, Hannah And Her Sisters, and the two states where hanging is still on the books as a possible form of capital punishment), and so that wouldn't have made sense. Also, truth be told, I'm not all that Jewish. As in, I'm not Jewish.

5. Name Threes - in which I named three organizations who'd won the Nobel Peace Prize that weren't Human Rights Watch, three Phil Collins #1 hits, three cities in the Star Wars universe, and Hans Arp, Benvenuto Cellini and Camille Claudel.

This week's team names were top loaded for quality:

• 1st Place: Big Daddy Kandy Kane and his Ho-Ho-Hoes! (they changed their name to Noel L. Cool J and his Ho Ho Hoes and then Doug E Fresh & Slick Nick, thus getting all their yuletide ya-yas out at once)
  
• 2nd Place: Tara Trumps Mark Foley: Only One Queen Keeps Their Crown! (an excellent example of bringing your parents along for extra payoff)
  
• 3rd place: Britney Spears Nolested My Dog! (Yikes!)
  
  
  Followed by, in no particular order:
  
• Buddy Lembeck, Go Long!
  
• The Go-Tards, Holiday Edition
  
• The Christmas Gymnastic All-Stars
  
• Bitchass Pretentious Ranch Hands
  
• The Little Giants Rock!!
  
• Lunch Crüe Plus Two
  
• HRW: AWOL, WTF? (Seriously, welcome back)
  
• The Brawling Isiah Thomas Olympics
  
• Is That A Black Hole In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Disappointed To See Me?, and
  
• Kiss Me Under The Cameltoe
  

Prizes this week included my Christmas Bonus from work (as advertised; it was a $15 gift card for Starbucks, but still), a flowery tablecloth, some chocolate comfort food, and as usual, plenty of swag from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, whom we love and from whom we would really like to get a few pairs of tickets starting in Season Three.

Did everyone get what they wanted? More or less?

Oh, and watch this space as I'll be giving something special away through this blogspace in the next couple of days.

I thought it merited mention that Evel Knievel is suing Kanye West over his latest video, in which Kanye does some wacky daredevil stuff dressed as "Evil Kanyevel" (clever, eh?).

According to a statement from Evel's publicist, "Evel is a world icon who has built his name and brand incredibly over the years and this is a slap in the face of his accomplishments. Unfortunately, Kanye West’s music video did not properly project the brand and image Knievel worked so hard to build throughout his illustrious career."

Does Knievel have a case? Well, probably. Watch the video; it's not awful (especially if you're one of the ever-shrinking number who still find Pam Anderson to be all that). The homage is both deliberate and faithful, and actually, Knievel comes off fairly well compared to the Cosell and Pam Grier characters, both of whom seem kind of dim. Evel Knievel was a rock star 30 years ago, and to have him portrayed as a rock star, by a rock star (fronting a band at his own event, having the fly honeys fighting over him right up to the moment of launch and beyond, the microphones & cameras following him all the way in and out of the scene, with generous use of crane & helicopter shots for dramatic and hagiographic effect) seems loving, fair and appropriate. If I were him, I'd only be pissed that I wasn't involved.

And not to give the spoiler ending away, but The Snake River Canyon didn't get any narrower.

Also, yes, this is the same video he threw the shitfit about last month.

[via]

Mirrored, as always, at the actual trivia blog.

 

Now see, that's how it's supposed to work. A raucous night full of heckling nutcases, some new kids on the block who came and finished in the middle of the pack (every trivia host has their own style, and once you learn how we roll, you'll move up the boards just as a matter of course), the nice people at Samuel Adams came by and gave away a mess of beverages at the beginning of the night, the scores were high, and so was I. Oh, and no tiebreakers needed, which is always a relief.

I wore a bowling shirt that said DAN on the front, so people were calling me by that name, especially when I was giving them bad news. Which was rather less often than usual this week.

Rounds were as follows:

1. On This Day - Happy birthday to the second black major leaguer to break the color barrier, to Dick Van Dyke, the guy they call Deadly Tedly & Theodocious Atrocious, and the Salvation Army. And a fond farewell to Peter Boyle, who did the best version of 'Puttin On The Ritz' ever committed to celluloid.

2. Audio Round: There, There, There - Songs with "There" in the title, featuring hits by the Velvet Underground, Naked Eyes, the White Stripes, the Zombies, the La's, Eddie Holman, the Beatles, Steve Earle, the New York Dolls and (that's right) Bon Jovi. I have enough different versions of "There She Goes Again" and "There She Goes" that I might be able to make another round of just those songs up, but it would only work if you've heard of, oh let's say just as a litmus test, the Beat Farmers.

(I apologize for forgetting to ask the bonus question: Of what city was Gertrude Stein speaking when she said "There is no there there?")

3. Islands - in which Janet asked two questions about "Islands In The Stream," and worked in a gratuitous Scarlett Johanssen reference with no prodding from me whatsoever.

4. One Letter Words - What great punk band did Ray Manzarek produce? Which NYC Subway line is the newest? What is South Africa's currency? How well do you know the lyrics to "YMCA?"

5. Name Threes - including examples of father-son movies, famous cartoonists, among other things.

This week's team names:

• 1st Place: Mental Machine Muzak!
• 2nd Place: Nicole Richie Blew .23, Or At Least That's What She Thinks His Badge Said
• 3rd place: The Beerocracy
  
  Followed by, in no particular order:
  
• The Staten Island Beer Belt
• Matt's Late, So We're Suffering Matt's Here, And We're Still Suffering
• Get Your Dreidel On!
• Yuletide Yids! (these two teams were tied through each of the first two rounds. Six more and it would have been a miracle)
• Dan Sucks! (see above.)
• Shark Truck
• The Creationists
• Fighting Violets (first timers who did actually real well)
• Seek-Roy, or See-Kroy (winners of the longest-traveled, they came in from Cleveland to play with us. I'm sure that was the only reason they came to New York, and I'm grateful for their level of commitment.)

Prizes included some shirts & sweaters courtesy of VH1 Classic, two workout DVDs (one a gospel one, the other a bhangra-for-kids workout) and a trigger-loaded punching machine, but everyone left with something, because quite frankly I'm sick of these prizes piling up in my apartment, and some of you have secret santa packages you need filled, right?

Just let 'em know where you got your cool schwag.

I set up a bookshelf on Shelfari, which seems like a book version of the music compiler/custom radio app Audioscrobbler/Last.fm, on which I'm rather more active these days. I find Last.fm to be pretty useful and interesting (and you can listen to my stuff on it too; I don't know how that happened, but I'm certainly okay with it. Go nuts.)

Both are free services, both benefit from more people getting on and sharing what they like, and I'm happy to help out as best as I can if you have any questions.

Tom Delay's new blog looks exactly like you'd think, and by itself wouldn't merit mention in a anarchocommiefied lieberal tubespace like this one. But see, for an hour an a half or so, his first attempt at a launch got a rather less moderated reaction from the blogosphere at at large.

The comments are varying degrees of pretty funny.

[via, um, Nashville I Stalking]

Mirrored here.

 

Well, that went smoother this week than last week. Also, I drank more, which was nice. Wednesdays are certainly the one night I crawl out of my haystack and pack up my needle* and talk to you guys. I'm always game to hang out.

Oh, and in case you were curious: We will be running the DSO through the holiday season, so if you're not leaving town to go to Ibiza with your harem or wherever and you have no other plans, you are always welcome to come chill with your brethren & sistren at the same bat-time and bat-place. We'll be ordering pizza for everyone who shows up the next week or two, so don't load up on transfats before you get there.

Rounds were as follows:
1. On This Day

2. Audio round: the Big, the Bold, the Badass, the Beef, the Brisket, the Bratwurst, the Bellydancer, the Barium, the Barracuda, and the Beautiful (which included tracks by the Band, Barry Manilow, the Beastie Boys, Big Star, Barry White, and others. To clarify, we won't be running through the alphabet for the next 26 weeks, but I'd be lying if I said we'd not be visiting this theme again. The goal is to cover more than one kind of stylistic ground.)

3. Garys (with Gary Cherone, Gary Burghoff, Gary Gygax, Gary Bettman, Gary Dell'Abate, Gary Glitter, Gary Gilmore, and the voices of Roger Ramjet, Powdered Toast Man, and Space Ghost. Oh, and the Ambiguously Gay Duo. Of course.

4. Grays

5. Name Threes (What are the Schlong, the Ape Drape and the Missouri Compromise all examples of?)

Second week in a row with primo team names. The best name was a rare three-way argot that was topical and lurid in equal measure. I fucking love that shit.

• 1st Place: God Is My Co-Pirate
• 2nd Place: Waiting For Godot To Exhale
• 3rd Place: Transfatuals
  
  
  

  Take me, man meat!
  followed by, in no particular order:
• Manx_x On The Beach (who lost the third-place tiebreaker)
• The Replacements (winners of a Ricky Martin video collection)
• Catcher In The Wry (best dressed award winners)
• Percy Bysshe Shelley Winters
• Daddy, Can I Borrow Your Iraq Study Group Notes?
• Desperate Jobwise
• The Go-Tards! (Not Fakin' It!) (Still Less Filling!) El Tards Del Go!
• San Andreas Westfault
• (and the best team name of the night:)
  Evidently, Britney Spears No Longer Supports Bush!
  

Comments & further heckling after the jump.

* This is a metaphor. The only needles I'm using are when I'm on the mic, busting on you beautiful people.

So many wonderful ideas for the Yuletide season, from the smoothest-talking love man this side of the Dick Cheney hisself, or maybe Genghis "Smoove B" Khan. Some real gems throughout, and never let it be said that the Great Gazoo misrepresents his desired clientele:

Mr. Gallo maintains the right to refuse sale of his sperm to those of extremely dark complexions. Though a fan of Franco Harris, Derek Jeter, Lenny Kravitz and Lena Horne, Mr. Gallo does not want to be part of that type of integration. In fact, for the next 30 days, he is offering a $50,000 discount to any potential female purchaser who can prove she has naturally blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyone who can prove a direct family link to any of the German soldiers of the mid-century will also receive this discount. Under the laws of the Jewish faith, a Jewish mother would qualify a baby to be deemed a member of the Jewish religion. This would be added incentive for Mr. Gallo to sell his sperm to a Jew mother, his reasoning being with the slim chance that his child moved into the profession of motion picture acting or became a musical performer, this connection to the Jewish faith would guarantee his offspring a better chance at good reviews and maybe even a prize at the Sundance Film Festival or an Oscar. To be clear, the purchase of Mr. Gallo's sperm does not include the use of the name Gallo. The purchaser must find another surname for the child.

Don't be fooled by the list of crap that reads more like Deuce Bigelow's garage sale; these are HOT BIG-TICKET ITEMS. Act now. Supplies are limited. Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear. And dude, I saw the Brown Bunny, and if you're eight inches, then I've been selling myself short my whole goddamned life.

Note: mirrored, as usual, from the official Wednesday Trivia Blog.

 

 

Okay, let's get this out of the way right now: As god is my witness, I have no idea why I thought bureau was a seven-letter word.

We pride ourselves on having the best-written questions in the city (we know you have a choice of trivia nights, and we're thrilled you choose to fly with us week after week), so when I brain-fart seven letters out of a six-letter word, I take it a little personally. (Although I gotta admit, it is kind of a rush to be booed unmerciful by 75 drunk people all at once.)

Rounds were as follows:
1. On This Day (Happy Birthday to not just one of our players last night (see below), but to Mariano Rivera, Pong, and Mean Gene Okerlund.)
2. Audio round: Ask Any Audiophile About Anthony's Asshole Attitude, the theme of which was apparent and also acutely apocalyptic.
3. Watching The Detectives!
4. Two Countries Separated By A Common Language (Okay, this requires some explanation. The questions stood by themselves, but I started with this list, and figured there'd be enough questions buried in the stories behind some of those words to put together a round. Well, I got four or five questions in, and realized I would have to travel slightly further afield. The only real problem with that is it dilutes the theme; the questions still stand on their own, and nine of them were still pretty much okay. I do understand the abuse, though. Like Jane Austen* used to say: some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you.)
5. Name Threes

The team names rocked this week, like, even more than usual.

• 1st Place: Shootin' For 3rd! (who apparently failed miserably)
• 2nd Place: Honey, I Thought You Packed The Polonium-210!
• 3rd Place: Crunchy Frog
  
  and then, in no particular order:
• Stroker Aces
• Go-Tard Reloaded
• Fu Stags
• This Team's Name Is The Best
• Flynn
• 12 Inches Of Taint
• Testocles: The Greek Nut (who won best team name)
• Clueless
• Special People
• Sweat, Anger & Shame
• and finally, Happy Birthday To Liore! (I hope you enjoyed your 24th birthday screaming at us about Opus vs. Milo.)

*and by Jane Austen, I mean Commander Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation