She's been crying, and I've been thinking
The good part of this entry will be out in the open:
Bar Trivia contests are cooler than karaoke (and karaoke's really cool). This weekend, Cassie and I came up to Bel Air to take care of some business, and last night after Cassie left me for the night, I was bored. So I took a shot that somebody in Bel Air would be available to hang out. Fired up AIM, tried the first active name I saw, James Baker (jcbfortytwo), and before you can say "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy," we were off to Duclaw.
We chose Duclaw because we figured it'd be a lot more sane than the bars in the town of Bel Air proper, and we'd actually be able to sit down and talk a bit. What we didn't know is that there was a DJ at Duclaw that night (and every Saturday night) who runs a Bar Trivia game. It's free to enter, and placing in the top three knocks some money off the bar tab as a prize, so we figured why the hell not. I mean, damn, James is a History major, and I had graduated with a PoliSci degree, and we're both huge TV, movie, and music geeks. Between us, there is a world of knowledge of thoroughly useless crap. We're the perfect weapon.
First half of the game, we just don't do so hot. Our highlight is James knowing the answer to "Which Hollywood and TV star had a role on Twin Peaks as a cross-dressing FBI agent?" (David Duchovny). But between that and a few easier questions, we're middle of the eight-team pack.
Second half, we TEAR IT UP. Two of the three rounds, we get all three of three questions right, and get bonus points as a result. Highlight answers included "The Taurus Mountains are located in this European country" (Turkey), "This group initially released the song A Whiter Shade of Pale" (Procol Harem), and "Epistaxis is the medical term for bleeding out of..." (the nose).
For the biggest points of the night, the last question of the regular rounds, we have to put our heads together and take full advantage of our educations: "These two US presidents died on the same day, July 4 1826." Right away we both know Jefferson's one of them. I remember a famous deathbed quote from the other president, "Thomas Jefferson still survives," though cruelly enough, Jefferson had actually died earlier that day. So we go process of elimination to figure out the other speaker. We know it's not Washington right off. John Adams was #2 (a strong maybe). Then Jefferson. Madison (maybe). Monroe (doubtful). Quincy Adams (no way, getting too late, we can just disregard everybody else after him). Adams or Madison? We psyche ourselves into being reasonably sure on Adams, maybe 80% sure. Turn it in to the DJ.
And we get the question right. Ends up putting us in a tie for first place with 48 points going into The Final Question, which is the only question that a team can lose points on. Like Final Jeopardy, you can wager anything between zero and a max amount. In this case, the max is 20 points. And unlike Final Jeopardy, we get to hear the question before we wager our points. The question comes: "Within 50 miles, give the shortest driving distance between Indianapolis IN and Minneapolis MN." Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!? We pull an answer out of our butts (350 miles), and wager nothing. The other team in first makes their guess, and bets ten points. Both teams are spectacularly wrong (the right answer: 535 miles), and because James and I didn't lose any points for our wrong guess, we win.
We win $30 in Duclaw Gift Certificates. Between our beers and a crab dip we shared, our tab came to $22 and change. Effin' ROCK. We put down $20 of the gift certificates, each toss a $5 bill onto the bar to cover the tip, and take home a $5 certificate as a souvenir of our awesome nerdiness, beating teams with twice as many members, and all older than us. We are as unto Gods.
The bad part is behind a cut (which even if you don't want to see it, you sort of have to if you wish to leave a comment on the good part):
We came home to bad news Saturday afternoon. One of the neighbors' three sons shot himself the night before. Their family is as close to ours as any two families. In Cassie's words "they share a cat, that's how close they are." It doesn't seem germane to go into details, especially with the suicide so fresh. Needless to say, there have been a lot of people thoroughly destroyed this weekend. I still don't know what to say, other than hollow echoes of "What a senseless tragedy."
As always, I feel awful that I can't feel awful enough to cry over something as wretched as this.
Bar Trivia contests are cooler than karaoke (and karaoke's really cool). This weekend, Cassie and I came up to Bel Air to take care of some business, and last night after Cassie left me for the night, I was bored. So I took a shot that somebody in Bel Air would be available to hang out. Fired up AIM, tried the first active name I saw, James Baker (jcbfortytwo), and before you can say "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy," we were off to Duclaw.
We chose Duclaw because we figured it'd be a lot more sane than the bars in the town of Bel Air proper, and we'd actually be able to sit down and talk a bit. What we didn't know is that there was a DJ at Duclaw that night (and every Saturday night) who runs a Bar Trivia game. It's free to enter, and placing in the top three knocks some money off the bar tab as a prize, so we figured why the hell not. I mean, damn, James is a History major, and I had graduated with a PoliSci degree, and we're both huge TV, movie, and music geeks. Between us, there is a world of knowledge of thoroughly useless crap. We're the perfect weapon.
First half of the game, we just don't do so hot. Our highlight is James knowing the answer to "Which Hollywood and TV star had a role on Twin Peaks as a cross-dressing FBI agent?" (David Duchovny). But between that and a few easier questions, we're middle of the eight-team pack.
Second half, we TEAR IT UP. Two of the three rounds, we get all three of three questions right, and get bonus points as a result. Highlight answers included "The Taurus Mountains are located in this European country" (Turkey), "This group initially released the song A Whiter Shade of Pale" (Procol Harem), and "Epistaxis is the medical term for bleeding out of..." (the nose).
For the biggest points of the night, the last question of the regular rounds, we have to put our heads together and take full advantage of our educations: "These two US presidents died on the same day, July 4 1826." Right away we both know Jefferson's one of them. I remember a famous deathbed quote from the other president, "Thomas Jefferson still survives," though cruelly enough, Jefferson had actually died earlier that day. So we go process of elimination to figure out the other speaker. We know it's not Washington right off. John Adams was #2 (a strong maybe). Then Jefferson. Madison (maybe). Monroe (doubtful). Quincy Adams (no way, getting too late, we can just disregard everybody else after him). Adams or Madison? We psyche ourselves into being reasonably sure on Adams, maybe 80% sure. Turn it in to the DJ.
And we get the question right. Ends up putting us in a tie for first place with 48 points going into The Final Question, which is the only question that a team can lose points on. Like Final Jeopardy, you can wager anything between zero and a max amount. In this case, the max is 20 points. And unlike Final Jeopardy, we get to hear the question before we wager our points. The question comes: "Within 50 miles, give the shortest driving distance between Indianapolis IN and Minneapolis MN." Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!? We pull an answer out of our butts (350 miles), and wager nothing. The other team in first makes their guess, and bets ten points. Both teams are spectacularly wrong (the right answer: 535 miles), and because James and I didn't lose any points for our wrong guess, we win.
We win $30 in Duclaw Gift Certificates. Between our beers and a crab dip we shared, our tab came to $22 and change. Effin' ROCK. We put down $20 of the gift certificates, each toss a $5 bill onto the bar to cover the tip, and take home a $5 certificate as a souvenir of our awesome nerdiness, beating teams with twice as many members, and all older than us. We are as unto Gods.
The bad part is behind a cut (which even if you don't want to see it, you sort of have to if you wish to leave a comment on the good part):
We came home to bad news Saturday afternoon. One of the neighbors' three sons shot himself the night before. Their family is as close to ours as any two families. In Cassie's words "they share a cat, that's how close they are." It doesn't seem germane to go into details, especially with the suicide so fresh. Needless to say, there have been a lot of people thoroughly destroyed this weekend. I still don't know what to say, other than hollow echoes of "What a senseless tragedy."
As always, I feel awful that I can't feel awful enough to cry over something as wretched as this.