18 posts tagged “trivia”

A few days late due to technical issues (my home computer in the the hospital with third-degree overuse), last week's trivia recap is finally up and in full effect.

We asked a question about banksy this week. Here's a wonderful piece from Channel 4 news showing him outting up the pieces on the Palestinian/Israeli dividing wall:

This Saturday, the good people at Unique New York are hosting The Panorama Challenge, an evening of New York-themed visual trivia to benefit the City Reliquary, a museum in Williamsburg dedicated to memorabilia and artifacts of everyday city life through history. It's really a cool place, and now that they have an actual space to display things, it's time for them to start ramping up their notices.

Our museum collection displays thoughtfully arranged artifacts of New York City’s rich history, which entice viewers to learn more about the five boroughs. Some of the highlights of the collection include architectural remnants of city buildings, Statue of Liberty memorabilia, a geological display of New York’s underground composition, and a 1939 World’s Fair exhibit...

A central part of our mission is to plan and host public events, which provide neighbors and visitors with a place to meet, exchange ideas, and celebrate the diversity of our community. Some of our annual events include Bicycle Fetish Day, Collector’s Night, and The September Tribute to Our City. We maintain a commitment to neighborhood beautification and restoration at and around the City Reliquary Museum as a way to provide a pleasant and safe place for people to gather, relax, disseminate information, and enjoy the camaraderie provided by a city of over eight million people.

It's $25 for tickets but that includes two free drinks (Brooklyn Brewery is also a sponsor), and hey, it's a Saturday Night. You were going to shell out that much for a good time anyway.

Details and ticket information at the Reliquary's website, or you can call them at 718-R U CIVIC.

Edit: [gracias, vidiot]

By the way, just because I don't always repost the recaps from the trivia night doesn't mean I don't still post them at the DSO site. Because I do, and I am, and here's the latest one.

Well, again, if you weren't there, you really missed something.

It was large group night, with two excellent and boisterous groups dominating the action and the scoresheet. That might have been because you would have needed to build a critical mass of people to want to brave the snowstorm, never mind that there was definitely a Fuck Valentine's Day vibe to the evening; even the people who were encoupleded really weren't interested in the corporate ooeygooeyness of the alleged "holiday."

We gave away more prizes per capita than ever before as well. I got down early, and went to the Jas Mart on St. Mark's and went a little apeshit with the Japanese snacks. If it had chocolate on or in it and was shaped like a bear, I picked up a couple of boxes. Chocolate because, hey, who doesn't like chocolate, and bears, because like Mister Colbert says, bears are godless killing machines hell-bent on our destruction. And who am I to contradict that. Exactly.

So yeah, this week's rounds:

1. On This Day

2. Audio Round: Now We Are One II - More songs with "one" in the title, including Howard Jones, the Scorpions, John Lee Hooker, Blondie, and the mighty, unstoppable sonic beatdown that is Air Supply. The mosh pit? Is open.

3. Hearts and Stuff - Questions about hearts, because, fuggit, 'twas the season. Purple hearts, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, The Tell-Tale Heart, Kitty Carlisle Hart, and the guy who came up with this logo.

4. Dogs - The name of the dog that won Best In Show at the Westminster Kennel Club show this week was...? (I am obsessed with that competition, by the way. I don't know what it is about it, but god damn, I can't stop watching. Often, by the end, I'm brought to tears. And I have no idea why.)

5. Name 3's - Three dudes who schtupped Ava Gardner, three of Anna Nicole Smith's best acting performances, three Hawaiian Islands, and Leilani Kai, Wendy Richter, and Joanie Laurer.

Like I said, big groups this week (we'll be enforcing that five-a-side rule again next week, aight? You've been warned), but the names were solid:

• 1st Place: Heartbreakers, Dream Makers, Love Takers, around with whom you ought not to mess.
  
• 2nd Place: ACLU & Friends
  
• 3rd place: Roy G & the Death Machine (They were Roy G. & the Bivs for a while, but I like the last-round amendment)
  
  Followed by (in no particular order):
  
• You Are Lonely If You Are Alone
  
• Anna Nicole Wordsmiths (They won Best Name, but they didn't get the Anna Nicole question in the name threes round! How soon you forget, you -- you capricious celebriphiles!)
  
• AXE Body Spray (Your name made me think of guys like this. No offense.)
  
• Pretty Pathetic (which, they hastened to add, was a song by the Smoking Popes. I figured the Smoking Popes would have been a better name, as team names that talk about how much you are going to suck are the only team names I can't stand. But I understand.)
  
• End All Carbon Subsidies and Find Life On Mars!
  

Prizes this week included a series of Valentine's themed books, including one on the history of prostitution and one on the trafficking of body parts. Both, I hope, will be enjoyed by their recipients and someone they love very, very deeply. Or at least wish to fuck.

At the risk of quoting John Edwards: I was wrong.

I thought there would be more team names involving crazed astronauts wearing diapers, but the trend went the other way, as thoughts strayed toward the freaky guy masturbating like Darling Nikki, behind a sheet, backlit thirty feet tall, in front of a screaming cheering live audience of sixty-five thousand and a viewing audience of a billion or so. Janet Jackson shows a nipple with a hat on it for a quarter of a second and society almost falls to its knees, and then Prince has himself a nice long lock-the-doors scream-all-you-want wank in the rain, and everyone breaks their fingers talking about it being the best live stadium show since Cheap Trick played Budokan. You puritans are so cute when you're being selective in your outrage!

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - where we celebrated the birth of the Puerto Rican rapper Laura Ingalls Wilder, and mourned the death of the children's author known as Big Punisher.

2. Audio Round: Now We Are One - Commemorating the one year anniversary on the DSO, we pulled out all the stops, ordering pizza and doing an audio round featuring One Song Each from Murray Head, the J. Geils Band, the Fixx, Madness, and Johnny Cash covering U2. We weren't going to make it too easy. Also, we'll be doing another One soon.

That's a hint.

3. Inside the Box - Lots of box questions, including a question each about Joyce Carol Oates and Salman Rushdie, both of whom, in case you haven't for some reason been sick to death of my namedropping in the last 52 weeks or before, I have spoken with. One I took a writing class with, the other one I think is the greatest living writer in the English language.

4. Super Excellent Round Of Super Superness! - In which talked about the city at the near end of Lake Superior, the editor of Superman's newspaper, the NHL team Super Mario owns, and the lyrics to Liz Phair's Supernova.

5. Name 3's

A few less teams this week (because of the cold - if you want to win some prizes, this is the slower season, so you've got a better chance than in a month or two when it picks back up), but the quality of names was high as usual:

• 1st Place: Houston, We Have A Problem -- And She's Wearing A Diaper!
  
• 2nd Place: Tony & Me (actually, a series of vaguely stalkery drawings that quite frankly creeped me out)
  
• 3rd place: Fox Force Five (none of whom looked like Mia Wallace, but considering what happened to her in the movie, that may have been not the worst thing)
  
  Followed by (in no particular order):
  
• 

  What is, sexytime?

  3 comments
  Nicky's Angels
• The Straight Guys Who Work In Cosmetics
• Alex Trebek Is My Bitch
• JD-4-2
• Jarvis Cocker Is Not Joe Cocker's Love Child
• 95 2nd
• Scooter's On Ice
• It's My Birthday Too, Biotch!
• Prince's Phallic Shadow
• Purple Reign Stick, by Dave Grohl
• Bess and Dana Say, "Summer Never Has To End If You Still Wear Sunscreen During The Winter!"

Prizes this week included a pair of Tanya Tucker self-help books and a special Thanksgiving holiday 5-pack of Jones Soda (Turkey & Gravy soda, Sweet Potato soda, Dinner Roll soda, Pea soda, and Antacid soda). And as well, every person received a special thank you postcard and a fridge magnet courtesy of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, who we are happy to continue having sponsor us, if they're game.

Thanks, everyone who's come out even once (and especially those of you who've made it part of your social life), for making this thing into a fairly big deal. If you've had half as much fun playing as we've had making up the questions, then we've had twice as much fun making up the questions as you've had playing.

[mirrored from here.]

Yesterday started with Janet being a guest on Howard Stern, and ended with closest Scrabble Solution near-tie ever, in two wild guesses as to the distance from Uranus (2,735,555,035 km = 1,699,795,070 miles) that were less than 9,000 miles apart. Yow.

Last night's celebrity spotting: A man who used to make sure Warren Zevon's bottle was always full while on stage. And on Warren's birthday and everything! (More on that below.) Yes, the Charlie Hodge to Warren's Elvis Presley, his Vodka Fluffer, was in the hizzy last night. Right On.

That said. This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Big ups to Yakov Smirnoff and Ray Stevens, as well as the Emperor Hadrian (who turns 1,931 today) and his childhood buddy, The Great Ernest Borgnine.

2. Audio Round: Warren Zevon's Collaborators - a compilation of acts with whom Warren has collaborated, from the Everly Brothers and the Turtles to Steve Winwood and REM. (And someone asked about this, and I wasn't sure, so I had to look it up: John Waite ["Missing You"] was a guest vocalist on Zevon's farewell LP, The Wind. It's not the closest connection, but it counts.)

3. Burn - You know who did well on this round? Your mom. She says hi. Burrrrrrn!

4. Earthquakes - Earthquake, the standup comic? He's not bad, actually.

5. Name 3's - Three soles, three vampire movies, three kinds of sleeves, and something about a dirndl.

I'm noticing the team names get better and worse like the stock market. Team name futures are way up this week, so sell high:

• 1st Place: The Harpo Marxists
  
• 2nd Place: The ACLU (personal to you guys: are you actually with the ACLU?)
  
• 3rd place: Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza! (Which always reminds me of the WKRP episode where the Russian defector communicates his forbidden love for Bailey Quarters through an Elton John song. Och, I'm tearing up.)
  
  
  
  Followed by (in no particular order):
  
• The Remanders
• Hillary and Obama: Jungle Fever! Do The Right Thing!
• The Brain Machine
• The Resolvers
• Rob Torfleson's Armada Featuring Herman Menderchuck!
• Please Don't Call (845) 641-[last 4 digits redacted], that's (845) 641-[last 4 digits redacted]! (If he gets any actual phone calls, they're from someone at the party last night. I can't help you with that part, my friend.)
• The No-Tards! (a solo act for most of the night, she finished tied for 12th, which is pretty solid)
• Touched By An Uncle (who would have won best team name but they booked as the final scores were being read. Stay to the end, people. You'll win stuff.)
• The State Of The Onions
• Hokey Birds (whom I didn't mention the first time around, which was good, because they moved up four spots by the next reading round)
• The Fart Sandwiches (who drew the best doodles of the week; scans to come)
• The Twinsters
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Pirate.
• Wonder
• The Penis Mightier
• Nice & Thrifty!
• The Comeback Kids.
  

Prizes this week included a paddle with LEVITICUS 20 written on it, as well as a few different special items from TV Guide, including a commemorative Elvis interactive CD-ROM and a portable trivia gameboy-type thing.

Some new pictures taken by Vidiot have been added to the DSO Flickr group already, so have a look, and bring your camera next week!

Podcast and potential new sponsor information (!) coming up.

I know there was more. What did I miss?

[mirrored, as always, from the official DSO blog.]

 

I'm not sure if it was the sudden and way overdue explosion of cold, or the impending State Of The Union Address, or a collective hangover from watching the Golden Globes (I feel like I'm one of five people walking the Earth who didn't see them; I had no idea), but it seemed like a relatively chill room last night. Usually you rowdy freaks bring a mighty noise, but you were almost... well behaved.

That was unnerving. Please don't.

Also, I was thinking about changing the way I read the scores. It takes a lot of time to read the scores by rank, and we're running later and later these days, which is not the direction Janet & I want to go with this. Would it bother anyone if I took a page out of these recaps (and the Last Exit playbook) and gave the top three scorers in order and then just gave everyone else's team name and score? When it was a tiny, close-knit group back when we started this, it wasn't a big deal, but nowadays it's kind of become an issue.

Let me know what you think. If you like hearing the rankings in order, I'm fine with keeping on with it. It just feels unnecessarily long, is all.

That said. This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Happy birthday to Vidal Sassoon, the late great Andy Kaufman, and fellow baldy Don Zimmer.

2. Audio Round: Pleased To Meet Me - I tried to balance off the Kenny Loggins clip with Sam Cooke and Death Cab For Cutie (a band I'm still warming to), but god, what a terrible song. That somehow many of you got anyway. Seriously, it's like I don't even know who you are sometimes.

3. Monkey Business - Not just the Marx Brothers movie and Gary Hart's yacht, but a question about marmosets. Marmosets! Who says we don't stretch your minds, even just a tiny bit!

4. Let's Talk About Chicks, Man. - Questions about Chickens, chicks, cocks, cock-a-leekie soup, and the album that hatched the single "You Never Met A Motherfucker Quite Like Me." (I don't even think of "motherfucker" as a cuss word anymore. To me, it's the new "golly.")

5. Name 3's - In which I gave you the three all-time best-selling Chick Tracts, three Beethoven symphonies, three Rockys, and something about the Pineapple Express.

Team names were better this week:

• 1st Place: Pluto Nash Won A Golden Globe? It Should Have Been A Grammy For "Party All The Time!"
• 2nd Place: Hurricane Brangelina
• 3rd place: π(RATE)ARRRGH² (I had to look up the right codes to get this to render right. You're welcome.
  
  Followed by (in no particular order):
  
• Googies
• How The Hotter Half Lives
• If It Wasn't For My Horse, I Wouldn't Have Spent Those Two Years In College
• Hamster Huey & The Gooey Kablooey
• MDIXM37UT* (they changed their name to "Please Count Our Score" after the first round)
• Kick Your Ass
• Norfolk & Chance (this name has been used before, both times by a team visiting from the UK. Is this some kind of British in-joke I don't know about? I mean, I get the pun, but is there any more than that to this?)
• Mango Chutney (good job on the scrabble solution question, guys)
• Sexual Chocolate VIII (don't assume there were seven before you, baby. You're the only Sexual Chocolate this party's ever seen, gurl, you know it's true.)
• Silver Fox
• Penguins Don't Surge!
• IOWA (where they were actually from. geographical shout-outs always rock)
• I'm Missing Top Chef For This?
• Run Obama Run! (later, Run Osama Run!)
• Schindler's Lisp
• Disheveled
• The Gordon Shumways (later, the Smashing Shumways)
• The Resolvers
• Army Of Brians (and Matt)

Prizes this week included a special prize pack from the show 24, consisting of a large photo-album book with an accompanying DVD.

I ate all the pizza. Sorry.

And pictures will be uploaded to the DSO Flickr group tonight, as soon as I can pull them out of my camera.

As a first-anniversary present (if you can call this a present; I feel a little like I'm buying you a bowling ball with my name on it, and then letting you know in advance, but still), I was thinking about putting together a weekly podcast, to try and, I don't know, spread the word or something. Anyway, to say I took advantage of the MLK holiday to work on the dream I have, a dream where every child, no matter their color, creed, sexual orientation, country of origin, proximity to New York, ability to hold their liquor or make friends, literacy level, current level of incarceration or severity of medication needed to function in society, every child could participate in Janet's and my stupid little trivia thing... to say that? That would be kinda messed up.

But here's the first pass at what I think I could do every week without going apeshit. I don't listen to podcasts barely at all, so especially those of you who do, if you could give this a listen and let me know what you think is missing or clunky, I'd be most grateful.

(UPDATE: It's back up, hopefully fixed. Give this one a go, and let me know what you think.)

I'm trying to keep the feel of it fairly clean, but I'm not above the occasional sound effect if it helps. And I know the reading is a little clunky. That will hopefully fix itself as I do a few more of these things.

Any ideas?

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.