12/27 Recap: This... Is CNN.

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.

Tonight: Season Two Finale!

If there was any question as to whether we are on tonight, it is going down like the Hindenberg, like the US Dollar against the Euro, like Jessica Simpson's sales figures, like yo momma.

Hope y'all had a good holiday and stuff, and that your family didn't drive you to homicide.

In honor of the Godfather of Soul, we'll be listening to this excellent record between the rounds.

[Programming Note: Tonight is the twenty-first and final episode of Season Two, but we won't be skipping a week or anything before we begin Season Three next Wednesday, January 3. (For reasons that hopefully will bear fruit later, I'm going to start counting these weeks as episodes; DSO Season One had 25 episodes between February and the August hiatus, and Season Two ran from August 2 until tonight).]

12/20 Recap: Freeze! Drop! Bass!

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.

One Of This Week's Prizes...

...will be my Christmas Bonus from work. For real.

12/13 Recap: "No Man/Does It All By Himself"

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.

What else happened?

One Of The Prizes This Evening

...will be a firearm. For reals.

Also, knowing what city Gertrude Stein was referring to when she mentioned that "There is no 'there' there" might be useful to you.

Tonight

If you're interested, DSO Friend Kory Skeete is hosting the last night of his trial run of trivia at Mo Pitkins' House of Satisfaction (34 Avenue A, between 2nd & 3rd Streets). There's a $6 cover, but winners get $50 in cash, and who doesn't need that during this crucial season.

Anyone care to maybe join me for a drink? I'll go if someone else is up for it.

And... Yes,

I'm fussing with the template of this blog. I know it's taking long to load, and I'm sorry about that. The hamster is tired today, and isn't running that wheel fast enough to generate the proper power.

Post a comment if you find any problems with the new layouts. I'm no genius, but I'm not afraid to tinker with the thing to make it look good.

Can't Get Enough?

Just to reiterate: We will be hosting the DSO trivia through all of December (Decemer 13, 20 & 27), just like normal, so if you're in town for the holidays and at loose ends, come on down and hang out. We will not be skipping any weeks. Trivia continues apace.

And if for some reason Wednesdays don't fully scratch your trivia itch, there are a few other nights out there, which I recommend you give a look at, should you be so inclined. (I don't think of these people as competition for our business; first of all, they're all friends of ours, the city is big enough for all of us, Wednesdays are pretty much our night at this point, and I happen to like our brand of trivia best, and if you disagree, well, commenting is on for a reason.)

Anyway, I've set up a rolling public New York trivia calendar on Google system. (If you have a gmail account, you can subscribe to it here.) If you run a trivia night that isn't listed on that calendar, it's simply because I don't know about it; post a comment or email me and we'll fix that right up.

(Although... if you go to one of these other nights, and you see something we can do better, don't be afraid to tell us.)

12/6 Recap: Grays, Garys, And Puns For Days

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
  
  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.