Trivia NYC/DSO Media

This past Monday night was the liveliest night at Shades of Green yet. Mark’s round on movie quotes went so well that I fully intend to steal it moving forward. (I told him. He can steal it back when he co-hosts again.)

Dear table of theater kids (the Pas De Bourés) - you guys were awesome. The thirty-plus-somethings in the room were iffy about youse, but let ‘em be iffy. You guys kicked ass.

The hardest part of going to any trivia night for the first time is learning the cadence and style of the questions (and, unless you’re going to one of those McTrivia teevee shitholes, the host). Everyone has a style, whether they admit it or not, and the first few times you see someone, there’s going to be a learning curve. Once you get used to the particular foibles and quirks that every host has, you can settle in and just dig the scene without stepping on unnecessary toes or missing out on whatever cool shit the night has to offer.

I’m just saying, I’m really grateful for everyone who has put that time in with me. My only hope is that I do enough to keep it being worth the trouble for you guys to come out. If I’m slipping on that front, like, ever, let me know.

• Cinquo de Mayans - 44
• Poodle-Flu Devastates Upper East Side - 38
• Omegawoman - 30
• Poppin’ The Monday Cherry - 28
• The Pas De Bouré’s - 25

Popularity: 93% [?]

It was an extra themey theme night on Wednesday. Janet’s round on Bea Arthur (or rather, various Beas and Arthurs) and mine on assorted hundreds (the Hundred Years’ War, Willard Scott, End Of The Century, the $100 Laptop Project) weren’t able to distract you guys from the pandemic at hand. Apparently.

• Quebecois: It’s Like Speaking French Through A Duck’s Ass - 47 (won tiebreaker)
• Air Force Swine - 47
• Fleeting F@!* Expletives - 46
• Team Caitlin! - 45
• Eughoogh, The Biscuits! - 45
• When Pigs Fly, Swine Flu - 42
• Neil Diamond Killed The Hipster Grifter To Get An Erection - 40
• The Champagne Of Teams - 38
• Swine Flu Over The Cuckoo’s Nest - 37
• Blood Pudding & Apple Pie - 37
• The Glass Sphincters (Best Dressed) - 36
• Ding Dong… It’s Your Mom - 33
• Swine Floozies (Best Of The Swine Names, As Chosen By Our Blue-Ribbon Panel) - 29
• Puppies - 28
• Here For Beer (Best Handwriting. That’s Right, A Team Called “Here For Beer” Won Best Handwriting. Chase Your Dreams, Kids.) - 28
• Freddie Y Los Gatos - 28
• The Kids In America - 23
• Swine - 22
• Fire Pie - 22
• Thapa’s - 6

I somehow doubt the theme is past. See you guys next week.

Popularity: 93% [?]

It was nice to see a healthy group of people come out to Dempsey’s on Wednesday. I figured the rounds on Earth Day (in which all the answers rhymed with “Earth” - Mary Worth, The Firth Of Forth, Alexandra Wentworth, The Birthday Party) were a little difficult for a Wednesday, but I was proven delightfully wrong.

The new waitstaff are going to work out fine, too. We’re not exactly a low-maintenance crowd, and the current waitresses handled the slightly off-kilter night with aplomb. I promise, things are usually smoother than that.

The final scores:

• Freddie’s CFO’s Dead, That’s What I Said - 52
• The Champagne Of Teams - 51
• Craigslist Killers - 48
• Whoopie Pies - 43
• I’d Nail Susan Boyle - 42 (Best Handwriting - seriously, it was perfect. Whoever wrote for this team, keep it up)
• Moon Pies - 42
• Captain Jack “Abduwali Abdukadir” Sparrow - 39
• Jareth Cutestory, Maritime Lawyer, Should Defend That Pirate - 38
• Helen Dodge/Mary A. Bingham - 37 (Best Dressed award winners)
• Who Wants To Sex Mutombo? - 35 (Best Team Name; I know it was old, but it’s still funny)
• Douche Nuggets - 34
• Bottoms Up - 34 (Best Team Spirit Award)
• If I Was A Woman, I’d Marry Miss California - 30
• O Solo Mio - 29 (playing by herself; this was really impressive)
• Puppies - 29
• Team Frankie & The Cruisers - 28
• Lindsay Lohan, Back On The “Opposite Marriage” Bandwagon - 27
• Ding Dong … It’s your Mom - 26
• Esoteric Egrets - 26
• Suicidal CFOs 0, SEC 1 - 25
• Day Release - 23
• Karla & Paul - 11 (ohhhhh, I just got this now)

Thanks as always to everyone for coming out. I have to say, I truly believe that ninjas are totally going to make a comeback, given the PR beating that pirates are taking these days. NINJAS ARE BUY! GO LONG ON NINJAS!

Popularity: 88% [?]

Everyone who braved the monsoon to come out to Shades of Green last night enjoyed a series of questions about Philadelphia, as well as our nightly sponsors, the year 2002 and the letter L.

Co-Host Billy Henehan’s round on “Lost” went over well with the small group, and I do believe we set a new record for people taking advantage of the 2-for-$5 Miller drink specials. Many thanks to him, and to all you guys for showing up. I wasn’t so concerned about the size of the teams, though I suspect that’s going to change soon.

Final scores:

• 4-20 is Hitler’s Birthday: Toke That, Stoners! - 43
• Teabagging Susan Boyle - 34
• Too Soon for Columbine 10 Year Reunion - 32
• Billy, You Rock - 31
• Kill Your TV Like Elvis Did - 24

Popularity: 45% [?]

Team names this week skewed slightly toward the Hillary/Obama developments of the last week, with only one team picking a Burmese disaster theme.

I’m going to start analyzing these things as if they were weather patterns, or stock market trends, or something. (I watch one episode of Meet The Press and suddenly I’m the Chuck Todd of trivia. Or something.

Congratulations to the winners:

1st place: Hill To The No!!!
2nd place: It’s Time To Put Her Down
3rd place: Euphemisms For Sex Acts

Followed by, in no particular order:

• We’d Put Our Lot In An Elite Economist Any Night
• Turbo Power Team, Go!
• Two Man Army Of Darkness (& Lightheartedness) (or, Death To The Sickoids, Stat)
• Team Woot Pwned Your Ass (not affiliated with these guys, who are ace)
• The CC Cocks
• Douchehat
• Best Dressed (who, narrowly, weren’t.)
• Live Every Week Like It’s Shark Week
• The Rangoon Typhoons
• Me Myself & I (later, Two’s Company)
• Sweatpants Boner!
• Redcoats (winners of the Best Dressed award; they came late and did very well)

Popularity: 4% [?]

Because I didn’t do a recap last week, I’ll give youse two for the price of one this time through. Here are the teams who contested for the golden coaster these last two weeks. First, from last Wednesday:

1st - Reduce Reuse Re-Suck My Dick
2nd - I Feel God In This Dempsey’s Tonight
3rd - Hillary Clinton Says: Hoosier Daddy?

Followed by, in no particular order:

• Jonathan Taylor Thomas Jefferson Starship Troopers
• Fried Pig’s Ears
• David & Tully
• WH Auden
• Drunk On The Blood Of Christ
• Apparently We Suck Ballz!!
• Smart People Are Out Enjoying The Weather Today, So We Might Have A Chance
• Quizadillas
• Templehof & Don’t Call Me Shirley
• It Ain’t Easy Being.
• TBR
• A Girl Named Sue
• Tim O’connor Has Manboobs
• It’s Getting Hot In Herre! Really!

And this week:

1st - Communist Bloc Party Of Five
2nd - Two Man Army Of Darkness + 1 Evil Dead
3rd - Team Cram It In Your Cramhole

Followed by, in no particular order:

• Sweatpants Boner
• Paprika 5
• We’re So Bad, Jimmy Carter Won’t Even Talk To Us
• Turn Your Head And Cough
• How To Beat A Bitch
• Forget Coachella, I’m Going To See Neil Diamond
• Jem & The Triviagrams
• We Don’t Know About Asses, But We Stole Penises In Africa
• North Dakota Rocks! (formerly The Naked Pygmys!)

Popularity: 4% [?]

This isn’t the formal recap of last night’s festivies, but a few people asked about the data for the Scrabble Solution question. I understand the skepticism, but I swear, I wasn’t making it up: although Facebook’s numbers were way up, MySpace still accounted for 76.35% of all social networking traffic in the United States last year.

No diggety, dog. (I have a MySpace account, though I just leave it open so people can find other people through me. Unless someone can give me a reason to get a Facebook account, though, I’ll sit that one out.)

Popularity: 4% [?]

What last night may have been missing in numbers, it made up for in volume. Having done this over two Thanksgivings now, it’s clear that there are a whole new group or two of people who seem to come in just for the one week and get a little crazy. It’s nice. There were a couple of helterskeltery moments, but for the most part it was a nice rowdy time.Last night’s rounds:

Round 1: On This Day - Happy birthday to Chris Moneymaker, Rene Magritte, Walt “Clyde Frazier” and e=mc², which itself was born 102 years ago today.

Round 2: Audio round - Tickets To The Gun Show - In a week where the Second Amendment is the main topic of discussion at the Supreme Court, I figured I would put together a set of songs about … ehh, it was a coincidence.

Round 3: Thanks

Round 4: Giving - The chair designed as a birthday gift for Billy Wilder by the Eames brothers is an amazing piece of design. Also: Roland Gift, Robin Givens, and some O. Henry short story about a couple who didn’t text each other before making big-ticket purchases on opposite sides of town. lol.

Round 5: Name 3’s - three brother-sister acts, three actresses who played men, three shades of yellow, and three turkey-related things.

The questions seemed tougher this week. Sometimes the group brain can conjure answers where a quorum just won’t, but 43 points won the night, which is rather low. I monitor this stuff.:

1st: Aw, Hell, I’ll Coach The Knicks
2nd: Fuck The Kiddie Table
3rd: It Ain’t Cool Bein’ A No Jive Turducken This Thanksgiving

followed by, in no particular order:

• Thunder!!!
• The Carleton Colts
• Your Tofurkey Ain’t Got Nothin On My Turducken
• Got My Kindle - Now I Can Burn All My Mitch Albom Books
• Millionarios
• The Bang Maids

Janet & I are truly thankful for the fact that you guys continue to give a damn about this thing.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Well, that was funner than usual. If last night was your first time, welcome. We’re here all the time. (Check the podcast for more of this stuff.)

I know I didn’t post the recaps last month. I will pick them up later. (At the risk of sounding like a lolcat: I has a inbox.)

Round 1: On This Day - I have to admit, it was kind of a thrill putting Billy Graham between Dana Plato and Tom of Finland.

Round 2: Audio round - Talking Heads - Not featuring songs by Weymouth, Harrison, Byrne and Frantz, or even spoken-word pieces, but rather songs about talking. There are many of these; I’ll be doing another chapter of this at some point.

Round 3: In The Papers - In a shoutout to the nice folks at NY1 (who also featured in the Name 3’s round later on), Janet did a round on news items torn from today’s papers.

Round 4: The Letter K - In which the konstruction of the kategory was kind of high-koncept. Kafka, Kalashnikov rifles, the Kama Sutra, and the lyrics to Kids In America.

Round 5: Name 3’s

Lots of teams this week, and hell yeah for that. The winners:

1st: Craig’s Angels (3/4 of whom were first-timers; step up your game, locals!)
2nd: How ‘Bout Those Loonies, Eh?
3rd: We’re Too Old For This Shit And Can’t Come Up With Snarky Team Names, So Just Call Us TSC And Then Get Off My Lawn, It’s Time For My Stories

followed by, in no particular order:

• Chemical Death
• Illegal Aliens
• Show Dogs (who, unsurprisingly, won the best-dressed award)
• Rafret (Rafi & Margaret)
• Big Ups To The 7th
• Auction House Dames
• The Guantanamo Three
• Chungking Express
• Newsflash: Arquette Flies To Bombay To Film Eight-Legged Freaks II
• Big Red aka Blue Eyed Babez
• 5-0 Creepin’ (Tony, Where Do Babies Come From?)
• Powered On Puppy Love
• Cap’n Curly’s Motley Crue
• The Marble In The Oatmeal
• [no team name] I’m on strike
• The Flying Sacs
• Blackball! The Musical
• We Could Write Most Of The Shit On TV Anyway

Popularity: 3% [?]

Round 1: On This Day

Round 2: Audio round - Broadway Lyrics - We weren’t sure if there was going to be a working PA system, so I figured I’d try something I’d been meaning to for a few months. The only problem with this was that I used lyrics that were way too easy. It happens.

Round 3: Lips & Tongues - Featuring Hal Linden & Ralph Lauren, Doctor Tongue’s 3-D House Of Beef, and these lovely people:

Round 4: Numbers - Janet did a round of questions about things with numbers in the title.

Round 5: Name 3’s - [Rock Your Body, My Love, What Goes Around Comes Around]; [Morgan Freeman, Alanis Morrisette, Val Kilmer]; [Romano Prodi, Silvio Berlusconi, Giuliano Amato]

The winning teams this week:

1st: Macarthur Park Grant: Someone Left A Genius Out In The Rain
2nd: The Artist Formerly Known As The Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia
3rd: The Mahmoudy Blues

followed by, in no particular order:

• Blue (We’re Gonna) Moon You
• Columbia 610: Gender Studies With Ahmedinejad
• Drunk Cuban Cheetahs
• I’d Be Autistic Too If I Could Suck On Jenny McCarthy All Day
• Herpes Filled Condoms
• Hmmm, Not Sure. Let’s Ask The iPhone.
  (Obligatory note: This is not encouraged.)
• Crabby Rangoons
• DL Hughley & the Phallic Conquistadors
• Reading “The Joy Of Gay Sex” In Teheran
• We Hate Musical Theater!
  (Obligatory note: They got 7/10 on the musical theater round.)
• Poochie’s NASCAR Smoke By Numbers

Popularity: 3% [?]