The Drunken Smartass Olympics

Okay, we've moved!

2007-08-22T14:40:00.002-04:00

Since I lost my job a couple of weeks ago, I decided I'd do something constructive with that time, and the product of that toil is DSO Media, the new blogspace, record label and all-around attempt to expand the proverbial brand.

Before trivia, I used to spend my creative efforts putting out records and the like, and I really want to get back to that, both with my own projects and with others (where possible or convenient). So there's that. I also suspect that there will be more trivia-themed recordings, as well as other things that fit more cleanly into the way things are going to be done moving forward.

We can actually do podcasts now, as well as maybe the occasional online audio round or whatever else comes to mind. And the increased functionality of the new site means you can subscribe to RSS feeds in any combination, from any category, that you wish. I'm excited about this stuff, anyways.

Anyway, this space is going to fade away a little bit, so move your pointers over to

DSOTrivia.com

Okay. Finally, An Update On Dempsey's (& more)

2007-08-20T16:03:00.000-04:00

So we had a kind of impromptu dry run last Wednesday (thanks to everyone who came by and played), and despite a few glitches, I think it went pretty well. They've really made the place a lot nicer, and though we'll not be able to split the place in two liike we used to anymore, I think it'll be a good thing anyway. What the hell, optimism is free.

I've been spending the last five days working on setting up a more permanent blogspace than this one, and I'm very close to being finished. It'll go live by tomorrow (I hope I hope I hope), and at that point I'll point you-all over that way. It's going to have a lot of things that this space just doesn't. Like a working podcast feed, extra audio rounds and regular questions, video and audio feeds, and um, me posting more regularly. It's just a wacky new thing I'm trying.

Good News, And A Sign Of Life

2007-08-08T13:44:00.000-04:00

Hi.

I just spent a month crossing the country before getting fired from my job last week, and suddenly I'm getting all geeked up about starting up with our DSO night again. Some things:

1. We looked at some other places to run it in case Dempsey's doesn't work, and we found a couple of places that were quite interested. If we get a confirmation or any further developments come up, I'll let youse know.

2. I've heard from a couple of different sources that Dempsey's itself has actually opened. (I'm skeptical of this, given the state it was in last week, but unless they've just set up milk crates and have bus tubs full of ice and MGD or something, then this is a very good sign.) If they managed to convert a miracle and the place is inhabitable and has a working PA system again, then we're officially on for Wednesday, September 5, and unofficially on for next week (I'll bring some old trivia rounds and we'll have a check-the-new-digs-out party.

Details on both of these as they progress. Until then, I'm hitting temp ag3encies and trying to get my sense of discipline back after a month of sitting on planes and wallowing in the self-pity of having been fired. That kind of thing really takes a toll on you.

Details to follow.

Do you know who this is?

2007-07-18T10:01:00.001-04:00

From Overheard in New York:

"You know me -- I always try to be a professional and a gentleman... until I'm in a trivia contest."

Aren't You Guys Paying Attention?

2007-06-26T21:21:00.000-04:00

Allow me to correct my own typo: that should be "all your DOGS have rabies and scabies." That was kind of like the old joke about "dog is my co-pilot." Or something. See you all tomorrow.

We're Bow-Wowed by Four-legged Trivia Players

2007-06-26T09:38:00.000-04:00

The Dog Days of Summer are here...not because it's sooo hot, but because a few teams have been bringing their pups to play trivia. Those dogs are adorable and smart! Some of last week's team names: "Woof Woof," "Both Your God Have Rabies & Scabies," (no!!) and "Baby Dog!" along with the non-canine "Cants" (there's an umlaut over the "a" in Cants, but I still haven't figured out how to do that fancy punctuation stuff), and "It Will Make You A Sexual Tyrannosaurus aka Dug in Deeper Than An Alabama Tick."

Having been to Alabama a lot in the past (and not planing to go again in the future) I will say that is pretty darn deep, y'all. As usual, we asked you a bunch of stuff that is not as deep as an Alabama tick. For "On this Date" I noted that Danny Aiello and Olympia Dukakis not only shared a birthday, they also both appeared in "Moonstruck," and that it was the birthday of playwright/prevaricator Lillian Hellman (regular players know my love for Mary McCarthy and her quote about LH that "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'" I asked a few questions about some Staten Island stuff (the ferry scene that opens "Working Girl," our local weather-predicting groundhog Staten Island Chuck, and Geraldo Rivera's TV reporting career before he became a big parody of himself) and Tony queried you on "Mirrors." (He thought I was gonna write a round called "Smoke." Sometimes it works out and sometimes it don't.)

BIG NEWS: We will be on hiatus July 4th and July 11th while Dempsey's gets some snazzy renovations. If it extends beyond that, we'll let you know ASAP, but for now, we will be playing on June 27th, back on July 18th. Tony may have a tan!

No Such Thing As A Valid Excuse, Only Reasons That Mean Nothing In The Larger Term

2007-05-30T09:51:00.000-04:00

I'm fully aware that I've taken a couple of weeks off from the blog, and without notice, which I know makes me not only less of a hero in the eyes of the sweet, innocent little children who come out every Wednesday night and keep Kym busy running back & forth ordering pitchers of Shirley Temples & Hawaiian Punch and who keep Facebook's servers glowing with the latest gossip about Janet's hair or what exactly I was trying to say in my fractured pidgin Irish two hours after trivia was over and I was way past my bedtime, but also (for those of you who don't subscribe to the RSS feed and still come here every day hoping to read something here, like a recap or whatever) kind of a dork.

Well, guilty as charged. I am a dork. In fact, we are all a dork, a student, a journalist, a comedian, a human-rights worker, a wii enthusiast, and a drunken smartass. (Does that answer your question?)

What I can safely promise, though, is that tonight I will be giving away some excellent prizes, and all of them by, for, about or to the douchebag in your life whom you love the best. Amber waves of douchebaggery tonight! Long may they wave!

I have the recap material here, and I'll be getting them up once I get on top of this new job I got. (Oh yeah, I got hired, which is great, but I have to make sure I don't look like I'm conducting trivia business on company time. Much.)

See you tonight.

Hey, An Actual Excuse To Go Outside And Do Something Else On A Sunday Night

2007-05-17T13:10:00.001-04:00

A few DSO people have put together a group for kickball in McCarren Park in Greenpoint on Sunday evenings. It's allegedly a little hipster-heavy, but fuggit, we could be the answer to that.

This seems to be only slightly competitive, if that (there will be beer, and while some teams seem to be going apeshit with the uniforms, we can work something appropriately, uh, trivial in our own time.) There are about six or seven of us, so we need another three or four people to make a full team.

It's kick baseball. With beer. In the park on a Sunday afternoon. Seriously, what's not to like.

Interested? Email me or leave a comment.

(Recap is coming later tonight. I had two job interviews this morning, and I have to catch up.)

Tonight @ the DSO: Drugs, Juice and other Intoxicants

2007-05-16T12:00:00.000-04:00

Kind of a hint

I've been sitting on this amazing reference book for a little while, just for educational purposes, but tonight it goes into the prize pouch for one of you lucky people to use as your new favorite handy-dandy reference work.

Illegal Drugs is the first comprehensive reference to offer timely, pertinent information on every drug currently prohibited by law in the United States. It includes their histories, chemical properties and effects, medical uses and recreational abuses, and associated health problems, as well as addiction and treatment information.

Thanks to Karen for that prize.

Also going to one lucky team: Not just one, but two (yes, two) copies of Jose Canseco's dishy tell-all about steroids in baseball, Juiced. Even if you don't like baseball, it's still a fun read. Jose has clearly enjoyed his time at the top of the sporting world, and he no longer gives a shit. It's a lovely thing to see, really. There are parts where he's running off at the mouth like any other junkie, but it's remarkably coherent considering where it came from. And if you are a real baseball fan, then this is really a must read.

I said there are two copies of Juiced to give away. One of them is the Spanish version, El Hombre Quimico (!). Compare and contrast, and see what asides are in one that were tastefully omitted in the other!

Oh, and that's not all! We also have a DVD of Il Divo Live at the Greek Theater! (They're the opera version of 'N Sync! They're so dreeeeamy!) This could actually make someone you know very happy. (That's true of all these prizes, come to think of it.)

We'll see you tonight!

Tonight: Spelling Bee In Brooklyn

2007-05-14T08:24:00.001-04:00

We are always down with spelling bees, and given how the last year-plus has gone, that will probably never change as long as there is breath in our lungs and twenty-six letters in our alphabet of choice.

To that end, they're throwing one tonight at Freddy's Backroom to benefit a new play, The Late Education of Sascha Wolff, which they're workshopping for some festival. Having thrown a few benefits like this in our time (and we will again, maybe soon, just to give you a heads-up), so you kids get on with yourselves.

Also, given the line of work we're in, we're always pretty much down with anything involving alcohol and "education" too, so there you go.

5/9 Recap: This One's For My Momma

2007-05-10T17:42:00.001-04:00

I'm actually wondering if Dempsey's has done some work in the last year that I didn't know about.

One of the reasons we took last July off was that the place would just get unbearably hot in the summertime, but with the temperature staying up around 80 last night, the extra ceiling fans really made a difference. The air was still a little funky, but it was a little cooler, and with the coming further renovations next month (if they involve Dempsey's being closed on a Wednesday, I'll let you know as soon as I know), this summer could be rather more pleasant than last year.

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - In which Janet namedropped Rosario Dawson, the African National Congress, and Prince Rainier, as well as commemorating the publication of the de facto bible of a fruity little cult.

2. Audio Round: One Song Leads To Another - Okay, here's the deal. I could make up a story about how this round was exquisitely conceived out of whole cloth during a peyote binge inspired by the arrest of Paris Hilton and the retirement of Tony Blair, but the story is that my CD burner died, and so I frankensteined together an audio round out of duct tape and kleenex this week. I am a slave to technology, and every once in a while, Technology yanks the leash to let me know who's boss.

3. Because I Can - Cannery Row, the Cult Awareness Network, "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better," and the number of cards in a full game of canasta.

4. Mothers - Because not only is this the week of Mother's Day, but two teams brought their parents to the game, thus winning these cool mesh hangy down container things from IKEA. (I recommend bringing one's parents to the DSO. Team trivia is a great bonding exercise, and they tend to know shit you don't.)

5. Name 3's - Between last night and today: a correction. James "Scotty" Doohan, Gene Roddenberry and Timothy Leary have all had their cremains launched into orbit, but it seems the Scotty has become the man who fell to Earth.

Team names this week:

1st Place: Xes For Eyes (This may be the name of my band, and I know the First Rule of the DSO is No attempt is made to make this game fair, but they won fair and square, no diggety.)

2nd Place: Please God, Don't Make Me Work For Rupert

3rd place: Coney Island Tenement

Followed by (in no particular order):

It's Not A Bald Spot, It's A Solar Panel For A Sex Machine

I Love My Mom & Dad & Fan Boy

No Talent Ass Clowns

The Hilton Cell Block Inn

↑↑↓↓←→←→BA[Start]

White Water Rupture

The Wetbacks

Awesome^{∞ ^ 2}

Ups Syndrome

Dana, Making It Work In '07 Without Sam!

The Wall Hungarians!

Table For Juan

I am looking forward next week to a batch of chili (enough for everyone, apparently) cooked using a recipe from the Canned Soup Cookbook we gave away this week. See, that's the kind of thing that makes this shit fun. Feed us, is what I'm saying here.

What did I miss?

Good News, Bad News

2007-05-09T11:57:00.000-04:00

First, the good news: tonight's audio round will not have a theme. I know that completely changes the way you plan on studying for it, so I figured I'd give you a heads-up. (Actually, this is a crush week at the day gig, and while I put together a good round, I'm not going to be able to get home and collect it before tonight, so I've got next week's work mostly done already, which will be a welcome relief. For me, I mean. You guys are on your own.)

The bad news is that one lucky winner tonight will get the three movies in the Scream trilogy in splendiferous DVD format! (There's also a canned-goods cookbook and some extra trinkets courtesy of IKEA, as well as the usual bar tab prizes and whatnot.)

It's going to be a gorgeous evening. Come spend it indoors with us!

5/2 Recap: Smell The Love

2007-05-03T16:04:00.001-04:00

Thanks to a nice mention in the Gothamist and on Freenyc.net, there was a nice influx of folks who hadn't come before yesterday, which was nice, because the rivalries between the warring factions were kindasorta heating up last night, and it would sure be nice to feel a little love between the tribes every once in a while. (Which was why I threw in those how-to-love books as prizes.)

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Big ups (or whatever size ups are appropriate) to Senator Russ Feingold, home run great Josh Gibson, the late Roscoe Lee Browne, and the cast of the upcoming film version of Mamma Mia.

2. Audio Round: Where The Streets Have No Clue - Songs about roads and streets, not including XTC's Respectable Street, Dire Straits' Telegraph Road, or anything by this guy.

3. May I? - A clever pun about May 1 and other Mays, including Elaine May and Rollo May, though nothing about Wilfred "Wop" May, who was reputed to have shot down Baron Manfred von Richtofen, who would have celebrated his 117th birthday today, and about whom I did not ask a question in Round One. Call it synchronicity by omission.

4. The Daily Show - Questions about days, though it only seemed like hours. (As a followup to the debate raised by the question about what was part of the new "Recommended Daily Allowance," the MyPyramid site contains details on the eight different pillars of healthy living, for those who were interested. Exercise is represented by the guy going up the stairs, and alcohol is the little white patch at the top of the triangle. (I am sure that Big Pharma would be thrilled to have medications count as a food group, but uh, yeah, no.)

5. Name 3's Inventors, puppeteers, and Bernard Malamud novels!

Team names this week:

1st Place: Pennsylvania 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0!

2nd Place: Lacking Alps, Goats Settle

3rd place: Where's Gibbons Now!

Followed by (in no particular order):

Taylor Hansen Has 3 Children

Danny De Veto's My Timeline For Withdrawal

Barbaro's Blue Suede Horseshoes

Mendel Says "Peas Out Yo!"

646-413-6*** For A Good Time (digits redacted; not the first time someone's done this, and I'm saving someone a world of hurt)

The Ladies! (And A Man)

The BK Hawks

Britney's Happy Backup Dancers (It's Been Three Years)

Hancock, Take The Wheel

The Millsted Boys

Anna Nicole's Baby Daddies (Jenn, Dana & Sarah)

I Really Hate My Girlfriend (who came in, played the last round, and left. Table for one, sir?)

Aside from the belowmentioned books and the usual bar tab prizes for the top three finishers, we also gave away a copy of Kinky Boots, a startling comedy about British footwear, which after looking at the reviews, actually doesn't look half-bad.

Tonight, We Show You How To Love

2007-05-02T13:49:00.000-04:00

Tonight is going to be all about the love. Not just the normal we-love-you-do-you-love-us-mark-X-yes-or-no stuff that all us preteens go through until well into our seventies, but in terms of actual prizes.

A few months ago, we gave away a copy of the galley proofs of Make Love The Bruce Campbell Way, a how-to of the highest order, as could only have been written by the star of the way underrated Bubba Ho-tep himself. Well, now we have a fresh hardbound copy, with far fewer flyaway pages (and hopefully a few more rounds of proofreading)!

(I've heard that Mr. Campbell is a great guy, and if he should ever be interested in coming down to enjoy an evening of the trivial arts, he would find an appreciative and adoring group of fans at our little to-do.)

Oh, and we're also giving away a copy of Carmen Electra's How To Be Sexy. Question her skills in front of a camera or in any discipline that requires her to keep her clothes on, but really, the whole "being sexy for beginners" thing is the one arena in which she is a generally acknowledged master. (Personally, I think the coolest thing about her is that she's from Buffalo. After that, give me a chronic reader who hasn't schtupped Prince. I know that's not a large group to choose from, but I gotta be me.)

My point is, regardless of whether you prefer 'em with innies or outies, there's something on the table for you lucky people tonight.

There will also be Pocky and some excellent B-grade DVDs, the latter courtesy of a special friend at Miramax.

See you tonight.

Passing this along: The International Game Show Congress, June 2-3

2007-04-30T11:18:00.001-04:00

I've become involved in this to a certain degree, and I can vouch for that the people behind this are not only very cool, but are the cream of the cream of the game show community. Not only will there be Jeopardy! and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire people at this thing, they'll also be trying out new game show ideas and showing people how best to get on these shows in the first place. If you want to get on teevee and answer questions far easier than the variety we offer on Wednesdays for much greater money, I'd say check this out.

THE USA TAKES ON THE WORLD IN TRIVIA

NEW YORK - On Saturday, June 2nd, game show contestants, trivia players, and other know-it-alls will gather at the New York Athletic Club to test their wits against others across the globe during the World Quizzing Championships. The event will be part of the Game Show Boot Camp, a training session for people interested in honing their skills towards participation on television and radio shows, internet contests, and local events such as pub quizzes.

The two-hour written test taken by individuals will cover popular and academic trivia in the areas of culture, entertainment, history, lifestyle, media, sport, science, and world topics. Questions included in the quiz have been submitted by Belgium, Estonia, India, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and USA and voted upon by representatives from those countries plus Finland, the Netherlands, and Norway, Sri Lanka. Additional countries that will be participating in the quiz include Australia, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Liberia, Lithuania, and New Zealand, with more being added over the coming weeks.

The USA is new to the World Quiz competition, but recently participated in a warm up event. In the inaugural Transatlantic Quiz Challenge on April 14th, trivia buffs on both sides of the Atlantic tested their grey matter to the limit. The top score was by Donna Jackson of Florida. Seven Brits and three Americans featured in the top 10, including Jeopardy legend Ken Jennings and World Quizzing Champion Kevin Ashman.

The USA event requires pre-registration at www.gameshowcongress.com for a fee of $30 and there is a limit of 100 participants at the Olympic Rooms of the New York Athletic Club, 180 Central Park South, New York, NY 10019.

For more information please see http://iqausa.googlepages.com.

4/25 Recap: Never Too Many Boobs

2007-04-26T18:56:00.001-04:00

I'm not usually the kind to prepare overly much for anything. I procrastinate and put things off until ten seconds before go time, and then I run like a crazed banshee through the halls, leaping suitcases and screaming DON'T CLOSE THE PLANE DOORS with the tails of my jacket flailing behind me. It's why I learned to be a very fast eater, a fast walker, and a generally impatient person. It's not that other people are slow. It's that wherever I am, I usually am expected somewhere else.

Case in point: last week's recap. I know. They all used to be that late. But I'm trying to set a better example these days. Y'know, for the kids.

Case in point number two: last night's questions. I left the folder containing my two non-audio rounds on my desk at home, and did not realize it until Janet was well into her first round. Fortunately, I had saved the notes I had made on my phone, and so instead of having only three rounds and everyone has a drink on me, I was able to reconstruct my research for you people.

I do not wish to make a habit of this, though. I'm going to start emailing myself the finished questions as well, so they'll be reachable from anywhere, even if I putz out again. Clearly, I need a full-time Secretary. I'll accept applications in the comments. Base salary will begin at coffee and cake, with bonuses of, oh, I have an extra copy of this Beastie Boys album. Really, let's negotiate.

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - During Janet reading the answers about which country exercised ownership of the Faroe Islands, someone yelled "Fuckin' Denmark!", which brought a good laugh, because really, the Danes have way too much influence on modern American culture. I mean, it's Kierkegaard this, and Hamlet that, and those huge dogs, I mean, it never ends. We get it. A thousand years of culture, the oldest flag still in use, and Hans Christian Andersen. It's enough to make a nation feel inferior, fergodsake.

2. Audio Round: Sign of the Times - Songs about Time, including selections from Bjork, the Zombies, Marshall Crenshaw, the Police, Leonard Cohen and XTC.

3. Billionaires - We could do another round on famous billionaires, there were so many excellent and colorful examples since the first modern one, J. Paul Getty, topped the first Forbes list a half-century ago. (There were billionaires before that, just not that I cared about.) (Unless Santa Claus counts.) (Which he does, Virginia. He so does.)

4. Lions & Tigers & Bears - I couldn't believe virtually no one got Bear Stearns as one of the answers. There aren't that many financial institutions named for predatory animals, even if they all claim to act like such beasts when it comes to managing your money.

5. Name 3's - What now-legendary record did Roger Connor once hold? Most of you knew that one, which was nice, but the fact that many of you couldn't name three of the US Attorneys currently involved in this Gonzalez scandal kind of saddened me. Oh well!

Team names this week:

1st Place: Every Day Is A Winding Rove (who, had they not won, should have won Best Team Name for their triple-argot of Karl Rove twisting away from Sheryl Crow's reedy leftist touch)

2nd Place: Keep Him On The Balls!

3rd place: Tony's Got 3 Boobs, But His Legs Ain't Cutting It! (I think this is unfair, as I work very hard on my legs; I did have three boobs to give away, though)

Followed by (in no particular order):

Lauren

Alpha Male Shitheads, and the Women Who Love Them! (they won the copy of Leadership by Rudy Giuliani, which seemed entirely appropriate)

Voyage Of The Mimi

Dodge Darts

Charter School's Is Edjukashun @ it's goodest!

Parks Sucks!! (later they added: A Lot!!!)

Girls Just Want To Have Rum! (welcome back!)

The Rusty Gromets (who traveled all the way from Austin, TX to play, and dressed up for the occasion besides)

The Baby Comes Out The Hinder

The Jam

Lubricators

I Am The Walrus

Please Kill Me!

We did, in fact, give away three eerily real-feeling breasts this week, and there are more where that came from. However many boobs you've got, you can never have too many. We also gave away a copy of National Lampoon's Sunday Newspaper Parody, which is still very funny, but oh so very 1978.

Thanks for coming out this week. It was rainy and cruddy and there was American Idol and hockey and basketball on, and it was really nice to see you guys.

There is news in the pipeline about a few special future events, so bookmark us or add our RSS feed to stay on top of such things.

4/18 Recap

2007-04-24T15:33:00.001-04:00

Some weeks, I have to keep my day job people happier than other weeks. Apologies. Lots of events are coming up in the next few weeks, though, so I'd at least add this blog to your RSS feed so you can keep up. This is going to be a busy summer for trivia folk, and you guys could be making a few bucks if you're willing to stick with it. (Seriously.)

This recap will be comparatively bare-bones, but here you go:

1. On This Day - In which I dropped some small science about Heroes, the late great Kathy Acker, Clarence Darrow, Albert Einstein and Max Schmeling's greatest moment in the ring, even if it was a loss.

2. Audio Round: Devil Or Angel - Ten songs about Devils and/or Angels. INXS, Massive Attack, Juice friggin' Newton, the Charlie Daniels Band, Beck, Beth Orton and X made the cut.

3. Get Fuzzy - Not the sometimes-funny cartoon. Think Fuzzy Zoeller, Fuzzy Math, that sort of thing.

4. Spears - I tried for an hour to come up with a suitable question about Albert Speer, one of the architects of the Nazi regime, but I kept getting sidetracked into questions about Spearmint-flavored Altoids (which are definitely not vegan-friendly) and the "Big Four" beauty pageants.

5. Name 3's

Team names this week:

1st Place: The Don Imus Negro College Fund

2nd Place: Canadians Can't Skate (I must respectfully point out that as of this typing, Vancouver and Ottawa have advanced to the final eight in the NHL, you smartassed twerps.)

3rd place: Tiny Tim & the Dickensetters

Followed by (in no particular order):

Malaysian Ghost Fatwas

Ginger Ale

On This Day In...

Dude, Where's My Team

2 Man Luge

Thrashers

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/did gyre and gimble in the wabe/All mimsy were the Borogroves, and the Momraths outgrabe" (3 times fast)

Larry Birkhead's Long Lost Cousins

Check, Check, Sibilance...

See you guys tomorrow.

Joe Dimaggio, Juan Peron, Sally Ride & Santayana

2007-04-18T15:53:00.001-04:00

Hard questions at Ken Jennings' blog today. My guesses inside. I know two, and have crap guesses on the others.

Baseball and Body Parts: We Know What Brings You Back

2007-04-17T19:39:00.000-04:00

Today kicked my ass like I was wearing my special mankini with the big target on the back (which, that reminds me, I must get cleaned before the next time I head to the beach), but I'm looking forward to tomorrow more than normal. Not for any reason other than I'm happy to be doing something semi-meaningful with my week.

Prizes this week include some special squishy human body parts (it sounds gross, but it's actually kind of cool. Well, maybe a little bit gross), and for first place, actually an amazing book:

Baseball Between The Numbers: Why Everything You Know About The Game Is Wrong, by the nice people who do the Baseball Prospectus, is a really fun read that debunks much of the conventional wisdom about how the game is and should be played. It's big (450 pages) and stat-heavy and breezily written with lots of snark and goofy asides, and it belongs on the toilet tank of some Yankee hater somewhere.

(I used to be a baseball nerd until the 1994 strike, after which I swore I would never spend a dollar on a major league team again. I've kept my promise, but that doesn't mean I don't pay attention to what's going on.)

Anyway. They apparently showed the episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent that takes place in Dempsey's during trivia this week, so you might want to consider getting there a little earlier if you want the table of your choice. (That really feels like bragging. Sorry.)

Virtual Spelling Bee

2007-04-16T14:53:00.001-04:00

You want to know how you'd have done in the 2005 Spelling Bee? If you've got five minutes, you can take the test yourself and find out. It's got pronunciations, definitions and sentence usage, and I still only got six out of fourteen right.

Someone, beat me at this so I can confirm my suddenly low self-opinion on the spelling tip.

In Which Ken Jennings And A Bunch Of New Yorkers, Including A Small But Fervent DSO Posse, Beat The Intellectual Crap Out Of Some Belgians

2007-04-16T14:31:00.001-04:00

The Transatlantic Quiz went down on Saturday morning, and it was a real treat. 240 questions (generally harder than our Wednesday variety) in eight categories, in a boardroom at the New York Athletic Club.

I don't think I had nearly enough coffee beforehand.

We got to the 10th floor boardroom, and they ran the thing kind of like an exam, with cover sheets and sixty-minute halves. I'll post some of the questions at some point (I got an extra sheet); since the test was going on simultaneously in a dozen or so American cities, as well as in Canada, across Europe (well, the UK, Norway and Belgium) and in India, the questions were pan-continental to reflect that. My Canadian-American upbringing finally served as a plus, as they asked questions about such cultural esoterica as defunct hairstyles of the rich and ethnic and the Crazy Canucks!

It was kind of a preliminary event, as less than 20 people were there (and only three women, including Kari (represent!)), a few of whom had flown in from other parts of the country to participate. And true to form, the New York chapter of this worldwide thing did pretty good; I haven't seen the truly final numbers yet, but it looks like we put a half-dozen people in the top 20 (possibly including your humble correspondent, which I'm kind of happy about if only because I don't get to actually answer questions all that much these days).

After two hours of answering questions, everyone was thirsty and exhausted. We left the palatial Central Park south opulence and wandered over to Kennedy's on West 57th street, where a bunch of Scots in kilts were running off some tunes on bagpipes (Oh, it was the Tartan Parade on Saturday, which is plumb unfortunate for everyone concerned, weatherwise.)

It was a gas, and these people are very cool. I hope some of them come out on Wednesdays and mingle with the rest of you fine people, and make it harder for us to do our jobs as quizmasters.

Oh, and they'll be doing it all over again on Saturday, June 2nd, this time with recruiters for game shows and other showbizzy types in the house. (I hope to rub shoulders with some of the greats.)

Oh, and I like Ken Jennings' idea of holding this stuff in Barbados next year. Sign my pasty self up for that action.

**** Update: The North American Results are up; I finished 11th, which I'm fine with. (Kari finished 3rd overall in the "Lifestyle" category. Yess!)

Knowing Esoteric Crap Is Its Own Reward

2007-04-16T10:28:00.001-04:00

Ellen Barry of the New York Times did a nice piece on last weekend's Panorama quiz, as attended by our friend (and substitute host) Vidiot.

As a bonus, it seems he & Kevin Walsh of Forgotten NY are the central point of the story, and as the victors, they get a double-plus tribute from one of the other contestants:

The night in Queens — being near the true masters — had been thrilling, he said. Here was another lesson: “Living in New York, you have to get used to being around people smarter than you are.”

So this fine, glorious Springtimey Monday morning, I raise a glass of Kenya's finest with my sopping monsoon-wet arm to you, Vidiot, a true master of New York arcana.

4/11 Recap: Hello, Imus Be Going

2007-04-12T15:42:00.001-04:00

I was expecting maybe a little more than a few allusions to Don Imus' troubles, as well as more allusions to Grindhouse, which was phenomenal and not only a bargain, but an edge-of-your-seat thing that cooked with gas, even in the draggy middle bit where Quentin Tarantino tried to foolishly write dialogue for women. Don't knock yourself out, Q. Stick to the wacky camera angles and the killer soundtracks underneath slam-bang holy-shit boyzoney funny stuff, and kids of all genders and ages will flock to your movies like conservative politicians to cranky old racists.

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Happy birthday to Ethel Kennedy, Joss Stone and everyone's favorite manwhore, Vincent Gallo!

2. Audio Round: Let's Talk About Our Feelings - In which I dropped pieces of Feely songs by Blue Swede, the Gorillas, Carole King, Samantha Fox, Foreigner and Chaka Khan. It was one of those rare rounds where I actually liked all the songs I used. (If you hear Rush or Zeppelin, you know that's not always the case.)

3. Famous Cultural Catchphrases - Where I asked about stinking badges, "Mission Accomplished, "By any means necessary," "Amandla," and "It's the economy, stupid."

4. Charlies - Janet asked about Charlie the tuna's hat choice, Charlie Chaplin, Charles Manson, Charlie Bucket, and Checkpoint Charlie (but not the perfume).

5. Name 3's - So many people thought that "Postmortem," "Body Of Evidence" and "From Potter’s Field" were all written by Sue Grafton. Or maybe they were all copying off each other. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

The team names this week veered between the topical and the slightly surreal, which is a trend I wholeheartedly endorse:

1st Place: DON'T

2nd Place: The Original Nappy-Headed Hoes

3rd place: Lisa Kudrow's Cask of Amontillado (I love this name)

Followed by (in no particular order):

Please Tell Me Where I Can Get Generic V1@gra Online.

Santorini Deckhands (formerly, A-Rod's Steroid Source)

Whole Foods Market, Bowery

Fabulous Four

B.A.R.K.

Your Highness, Don Imus

Larry Birkhead Of The Class (I was expecting more TWANS jokes, but I guess that's just so damned played out by now)

!Fuck Foucault!

Teenage Mutant Tina Turner

Kym, Please Buy Those Two Gentlemen By The Fireplace A Pitcher On Me

The Running Deer

WACK'R (Wes, Annie, Chrissy, Katie, Rachel)

Thinking With Our Mouths

Sam I Am

Prizes this week, aside from the shiny future book and the bar tab goodies, included some Emergency Chocolate (it only looked Swiss) and some teeny mousepads courtesy of Yahoo!. There was more, but I can't remember. What else happened?

Tonight!

2007-04-11T12:28:00.000-04:00

Tonight's prizes include:

Where's My Jetpack? A Guide To The Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived, a book detailing the whereabouts of such eternally anticipated items as robot maids, underwater cities, mind-reading devices, space colonies, universal translators, and teleportation. And not only is it informative, it's very shiny!

another prize pack from the now-defunct WB network, including a cap signed by Garcelle Beauvais, who is apparently quite attractive and was on NYPD Blue for a while, so yay her;

and lots of other geegaws and doodads, including neat stuff from Yahoo!, as well as a mix CD containing tonight's audio round and the usual array of incredible edibles, courtesy of my secret Japanese connection.

See you tonight!

Queens Museum Panorama Challenge: Update

2007-04-10T10:37:00.001-04:00

If you didn't go to the Panorama Challenge on Saturday (I had a last-minute hockey-related issue that could not be avoided), it sounds like it was a pretty cool time. Vidiot was there to recap the festivities, and what a shock, he did extremely well.

I seriously am looking forward to the next time they do this.

More On Banksy

2007-04-09T20:35:00.000-04:00

In the Faces round last week, I asked about who defaced Paris Hilton's album by putting 500 copies of a remixed version into record stores, with new art and songs like "Why Am I Famous?" and "What Have I Done?".

It was, of course, this guy. Here's an excellent piece from Channel 4 about his graffiti campaign along the West Bank of Palestine (showing rare footage of him actually doing his thing):

[via Joey Skaggs]

4/4 Recap: Happy Ether For Everyone!

2007-04-09T20:17:00.001-04:00

You know how some weeks it doesn't pay to get out of bed? Well.

After leaving all the results and scoresheets from last week at work over the long weekend, my laptop, on which all trivia everything is stored, shit the bed this weekend, and while I have almost everything backed up in places, for some reason I left my folder of emergency rounds on the hard drive. Which I can't get to at the moment. My sweet baby is in the hopefully capable hands of a bunch of Russian grad students who could be selling all my ~~music~~ ~~porn~~ impeccably researched writings and trivia notes to swarthy underground middlemen, thus unwittingly abetting the Global War On Terror.

I'm kidding, of course. I'm sure they're great guys. They came very highly recommended, and whatever it was I said about them on the Don Imus show, I totally didn't mean it. It was 6:30 in the morning, and I was still pretty ripped from the night before. You know how it is.

Right. Last week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Big ups to McKinley Morganfield, Kitty Kelley, Dave Mirra and Jamie Lynn Spears. (Imagine those four in a hot tub. Mwrowr.)

2. Audio Round: Money - Featuring the monetary monotony (and polyphony) of Rush, Biggie Smalls, Spinal Tap, The Pet Shop Boys, and Warren Zevon. And Eddie Money, because how could I have left him out? I ask you.

3. Ians - Janet schooled you-all about Sir Ian McKellen, Ian Ziering, and Janis Ian, without having to resort to Ewans, Euans, Jans, or any other esoteric spelling with which new parents are surely ruining their precious newborns' schoolyard futures these days.

4. In Your Face - Some facey questions, in which I managed to ask about whiteface (just like blackface, except the other way around), the Steal Your Face logo (shown two posts down), and I got to mention my favorite unit of measurement (totally stolen from some old factbook; if I find it I'll post the link here later):

A millihelen is the amount of beauty it takes to launch one ship.

5. Name 3's

Team names this week:

1st Place: Urbina Machete & Gas Company (regarding this story)

2nd Place: Brian Wilson Pickett's Charge

3rd place: Muddy Waters Lives

Followed by (in no particular order):

Iran 15, Briatin 0!

Everybody Loves Ramo (later, Ramo Needs To Step Up)

NAMBLA (The National Aviation & Motor Boats League Association)

Steamboat Willie Randolph (whose shirt won best dressed, and quite spectacularly so)

It's A Bellobration! (we're always looking for new sponsors, guys)

Team Derrières Extraordinaires!

The Drunken Inquisition

Farfa Nouveaux

Snakebirdz (who did quite well considering they missed the first two rounds)

and last but certainly not least, ...Off In The Shower

Prizes this week, aside from the usual bar tab madness, included a nice hardcover volume of all of Opus the Penguin's Sunday appearances from Bloom County, Outland and Opus, as well as a DVD featuring an actress named Hussey playing Mother Theresa. Sacred, profane, lenten and perfect for the tone of the evening.

We'll see you Wednesday night, hopefully in warmer moments.

Good. Friday.

2007-04-06T11:18:00.001-04:00

I am a pud.

I don't know what I was thinking yesterday. I took the scoresheets, questions and notes out of my bag and then left them at the office, so there shall be no recap until Monday. A thousand apologies to the various stock markets around the world who peg their indexes to the number of teams and quality of the puns in the team names (best team name this week was "...Off In The Shower," as they finished last, so on Wednesday last, everyone beat ...Off In The Shower.)

As a feeble replacement, here's a Seattle Times article with some background on the interview process to get on shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Deal Or No Deal and the Big J. The entry process is straightforward, but there are a lot of people looking to get on the teevee and get their asses kicked by midwestern College Professors. You might have guessed that.

[via the quite-relevant-to-this-blog Bob Harris]

Recap is on the way

2007-04-05T14:51:00.000-04:00

It's open and in pieces, but I was out very late last night, thanks to you guys, and because it's a four-day week here at the day gig, everyone's having kittens about one thing or another.

Until I get it all put together, though, check out these non-performing clips from two of my musical heroes, Dick Dale and Frank Zappa.

Give me a couple more hours, chief. I won't let you down.

This Saturday Night: Beer and Purty Pitchers!

2007-04-04T13:02:00.001-04:00

This Saturday at the Queens Museum of Art, 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.

Basically, the amazing panorama of the city (which you should see anyways if you haven't yet; I know it's in Flushing, but the extra 20 minutes on the 7 train is good for you) will be the backdrop for a series of trivia questions about the city. Sounds pretty straightforward, actually.

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: [via vidiot]

Tonight's Festivities: A Preview

2007-04-04T10:30:00.000-04:00

This is the first time I'm putting together the audio round at work (I'm working on getting that occasionally annoying skipping-disc issue out of the way, and just making sure it's not the burner at home), so if there's a round on Great Epistemologists or something where the audio round should be, you'll know the experiment was a failure.

Prizes this week, aside from the usual bar tab silliness ($25 for 1st place, $15 for second, $10 for 3rd, same as downtown; oh right, we kind of are downtown), include this gorgeous hardcover volume of every Sunday Comic featuring Opus, the original marching penguin. (There was a stretch in the 80's where Berkeley Breathed was the best newspaper cartoonist in the business.) It lists for 30 bucks, and it's now out of print, so this is kind of a big deal. Also we've got some swag from the now-defunct WB network, including a ball cap signed by Nick Von Esmarch. That's right. Nick. Von. Esmarch.

Don't say we don't take care of you.

For Advanced Trivia Folk, or Those About To Rock

2007-03-30T10:38:00.000-04:00

Never let it be said that you don't have options for the upcoming weeks.

Item 1:

On April 14th, a worldwide competition called The Transatlantic Quiz is being held at the New York Aquatic Club, as well as a string of other places around the US, Canada and England, all at the same time. The sample questions are a little harder than ours (or for Jeopardy's, for that matter), and it doesn't look like there are any actual prizes past doing a big ole trivia test and bonding with fellow quiz dorks across the English-speaking world, but frankly, what more do you need? (If a few DSO folks wanna go in on this, we'll make a day of it. Email me or leave a comment with some kind of contact info.)

What's exciting about this (aside from the obvious) is that it apparently leads into a worldwide quiz on June 2, sponsored by a group called the Game Show Congress. It would seem the opportunities to geek out on quiz programming, in all its myriad forms, from East Village piss-ups to travelling the world as the bastard spawn of the Great Trebek and Ken Jennings, are virtually unlimited.

(** Update: Ken Jennings is apparently going to participate in this thing himself. Further details in the comments.)

Item 2:

In other (equally esoteric) news, the U.S. Air Guitar Championships will be at the Bowery Ballroom June 7, and they're still accepting entrants, if you wish to get your freak on beside the likes of William Ocean, the Rock Ness Monster and the (let's face it, totally sweet) Björn Turöque:

3/28 Recap: It's Not Fun Until Someone Loses An Eye

2007-03-29T11:30:00.001-04:00

For this, Janet's birthday, and the first we-knew-it-in-advance nice day of the year, there seemed to be a little extra low-level drama in the room. The pirate people had to leave after three rounds because of some emergency (I hope everything's okay, guys), and then someone threw a dart over a crowded table (not even in anger, just because), and it was a pretty nice dart, too, not one of those cheap-crap here-take-these jobbies they pull out of the sink behind the bar that couldn't poke Marty Feldman's eye out at ten paces neither, a real nice one, with holographic whatnots and weight balance and, I don't know what I'm talking about. Even during the game, though, there was the rarity of the Scrabble Solution question deciding first place.

And y'know, give this Sanjaya kid a break. I understand the purists think he's a blight on what American Idol has come to represent, and he may be a little dim and a little flat most of the time, but fuggit, he's seventeen. Let him have his fun. Better him than William Hung, or Justin Guarini, far as I care. So everyone who's pissed about him, just take a deep breath, eat something, and enjoy the last few weeks of this thing before Paula Abdul's vicodin prescription runs out.

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Big ups to Reba McEntire, and her homies Ed Muskie, Dianne Wiest and Mario Vargas Llosa!

2. Audio Round: I Must Be King - If Janet is the Queen (not this Queen, but, you know), then these ten songs about Kings made sense in context. Featuring Kingly songs by Midnight Oil, Social Distortion, Steve Martin, Moxy Fruvous, Jawbreaker, Everclear and the mighty King Crimson.

3. -ULA - I'm kind of surprised there even were ten questions based on things that ended with those three letters (Kula Shaker, Count Chocula, Missoula, lunulas, Don Shula, End User License Agreements, and Spatula City, everyone's favorite tone-deaf teenage hula dancer, and the tragic American figure we now know as "Tom Dooley.")

And here, as a special bonus, is the theme song to Quantum Leap, the (quite good, as I remember it) show starring Scott Bakula. (thanks, DSO person who wishes to remain anonymous! We are all better for your largesse!)

4. N.Y.C.J.A.N.E.T - In which Janet wondered aloud who Scott Stringer was, who Janet Weiss was, which NYC mayor had a musical created in his honor, and what's in the Frick collection that's so frickin great.

5. Name 3's - Three popes, three SAG Presidents, three Roots albums, three rum drinks, three state mottos, and an awful lot of people who knew who Jean Vander Pyl was, which made me very happy.

Team names this week:

1st Place: Drop The Restraining Order, Tony!

2nd Place: I Am Intrigued By Your Ideas And Wish To Subscribe To Your Newsletter

3rd place: Cash Money Daffadillionaires (It was you guys who brought Janet flowers, wasn't it?)

Followed by (in no particular order):

Millions of Lumpy Peaches: A Tribute To The Presidents Of The United States Of America

Tom Selleck's Moustache

9th Inning Touchdown!

Crabitat Attack!

Yesterday's Losers (Who traveled here from England, and who have apparently done trivia contests on at least three continents; more on these two in a future post)

Phantom Punch

Esqueers

Anna Nicole Baby Daddy

Lunchbox

Joakim Noah's Ark

My Own Pirate Idaho

We had more candy than usual this week. It just worked out that way. Oceans of chocolate and cookie-based concoctions filled the room as we finished like it was pudding day at the rest home. (I love you guys.)

Aside from the belowmentioned DVD and coffee table book, Marty (your bartender) also brought out a VHS copy of So I Married An Axe Murderer, and I forgot to give away the second copy of the soundtrack to The Queen, so we'll have that for next week.

I know I missed a bunch of stuff this week, but that's what the comments are for.

Thanks as always for coming.

Tonight!

2007-03-28T10:57:00.001-04:00

I know, we don't have special prizes every night. They can't all be fully-stocked aquariums or Sopranos DVDs or Corey Haim in a thong ready to clean your toilets for a place to stay and a chicken salad sandwich.

But this week? This week is going to rock. We have, on DVD, for your pleasure and perusal, the greatest multi-show promotional mashup since the Cosby Kids wound up on the USS Enterprise. The That's So Suite Life of Hannah Montana DVD will go to one lucky SOB.

If you're not an eleven-year-old girl at heart but rather a thirteen-yer-old boy, we also have a nifty coffee-table book on the life of John Belushi.

Between-rounds music will be by the Mooney Suzuki, because it's Spring, and it's time to make things nice & peppy.

I Don't Know What To Make Of This.

2007-03-26T01:22:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, there was a team called "Tony Looks More Like Britney Spears Every Day." It seems they took that idea ~~way, way too far~~ one step further, and created avatars for both of us for the Wii:

Two things:

1. Janet is chopped liver?

2. I kind of think I look more like Britney Spears in reality than these two avatars do. I look completely guileless there (not to mention one puff of air short of having my head explode; this isn't some kind of voodoo thing, is it?), and "Britney's" looks kinda like Nicole Kidman in Bewitched.

As I told Bryan, I'm equal parts flattered and creeped out by this.

A Game Site For Friday

2007-03-23T14:52:00.001-04:00

Guess The Place is one of the many games at the excellent site Games For The Brain. I just picked one at random out of the two-dozen-odd games they have on the site, and they're not all trivia-related (there is a chat room that throws out questions, and there's one or two others), but they all have some sort of low-level mental element to them.

While the questions are sometimes inconsistently hard or easy, the games themselves are simple and well-constructed, and the "IQ" system means you can play for as long or short as you'd like and still have something to work towards. The rewards and milestone tokens it occasionally spits out are links to high-res pictures of classic artworks, which given the fact that everything on the site is free and cheap is kind of nice.

It's a good way to spend a few minutes or to while away the time being on hold.

[ via JiG ]

3/21 Recap: Smell The Love (And The Sweet Air Of A New Waitress! And A New Sponsor!)

2007-03-23T12:18:00.002-04:00

Funny, despite last week being St. Patrick's Day and openly hostile besides, this week was at least as loud as any other week. Just in a more positive way. It may have been that the temperature had just gone up, and was about to go up again, to the point where I'm now at my office gig in a sleeveless Scorpions t-shirt, and my 24-inch pythons are rippling with sweat as I type these words.

Trust me.

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Big ups to my boy Otto Von Bismarck (or as one team put it, "Auto Von Bismark," as if the old chancellor was the new keyboardist for Kraftwerk or something), and the professional babydaddy we all know and love as K-Fed. (It was pleasing to know how many of you had forgotten about the glory of Popozao.)

2. Audio Round: First Day Of Spring - A string of First-ish songs, including Barry White, Foreigner, Bright Eyes, XTC, and Gladys Knight and the Pips. I didn't realize how many people don't really like the Barenaked Ladies. I went to high school with them, people. I don't care how jokey-corny they are, you will like them.

3. Let It Fly - Janet's round about The Fly, I'll Fly Away, flies in ointments and elsewhere was very well balanced, unlike...

4. I Can't Tell You Y - where all the answers started with the 25th letter of the alphabet, which led to questions about Trisha Yearwood, Steve Yzerman, Yerba Mate, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and of course, Yiffing. (That link is safe for work, as is this one. If you want the naughty stuff, go nuts.)

5. Name 3's

Team names this week:

1st Place: I Love Parrots In The Springtime

2nd Place: The Un-Bushies

3rd place: Nancy Kerrigan's Revenge

Followed by (in no particular order):

Big Ass Bus (BABS)

The Provisionally Unconfirmed Lesbians (would someone complete the research on this and report back? I don't want to have to start issuing subpoenas here, metaphorically speaking.)

Ass of Bass (There are 968 different ways to pronounce this team name, all of them wrong.)

We ♥ Barry! Pleather Pants Power!

Global Warming Rules!

Strangers In The Night (Literally)

Stroopwafellers - Pick A Side, Kerry! (later, Stroopwaffle Iron!) (later, Strike While The Stroopwaffle is hot!)

Mike's Bitches

Billy No Mates (later, Billy Found Mates!)

Drunk Cuban Cheetahs!

Demie!

We Love Kym, Too! (Kym is our newest waitress. We'll miss Christina, but Kym is very nice and more than equal to the task of keeping you nice people properly moistened for the evening)

Ramsey!

CC Carolyn (later Fuck You, We Heart Barry! CC Carolyn! God Damn You Whores! Hell Hath No Fury Like A Paralegal Scorned!)

We would like to welcome our newest sponsor, Centricity Vintage Clothing & Accessories (63 East 4th Street, between 2nd Avenue & Bowery in the East Village), who provided us with a $25 gift certificate for their fine shop. Go say hi to Christine, who owns the place. She's great, and her collection of 60's-era kitschwear is swingin' and ace. Check her store out.

Pirate Head Coconut

2007-03-22T12:49:00.001-04:00

Pirate Head Coconut
Originally uploaded by Chico Bangs.

The recap will come later this afternoon, but a few pictures are up from last night.

If you haven't yet flipped through the DSO photo pool, have a look-see. There are some gems, and you might even be in there somewhere.

Tonight

2007-03-21T12:14:00.000-04:00

Among the usual prizes ($25 for 1st, $15 for 2nd, $10 for 3rd, in glorious bar-tab dollars), we'll be celebrating Spring by giving away two special Crabtree & Evelyn Beauty Packs, as well as Woof, a gorgeous coffee-table book, and The Courage Of Our Convictions: A Manifesto for Democrats, by the appropriately virile Gary Hart.

Also, I've been hearing a lot of complaints about how easy the questions have been lately. We at the DSO hear your concerns, and we have decided to do something about it.

If I were you, I'd bone up on Balinese nose-harp music and twelfth-century farming techniques by tonight, or else, um... hm.

Let's see. What do I have to hold over your head? Nothing, really. My threats are toothless, my spite is low.

I will be bringing the greatest theme music ever composed tonight, though. Not that that'll be in any of the questions, neither. Gosh, I'm no help at all. I don't mean to be coy, I swear.

I can tell you that tonight there will be questions on world leaders, people with large breasts, and at least one modern musical auteur type.

If the questions seem easy, that's probably a good sign, Part 1

2007-03-19T09:56:00.001-04:00

This isn't exactly trivia-related, but... while we Yanks are wrestling with the finer points of trying to mentally best your average nine-year-old at textbook trivia, in Canada they're taking it to a whole different level.

CBC's Test the Nation will be the biggest survey ever conducted to see just how smart Canadians are. In this live two-hour special, the whole country can participate in a real-time interactive IQ test. Viewers can take the test in the comfort of their own home, on the internet or with pen and paper, while our seven teams - Tattoo Artists, Millionaires, Fitness Instructors, Surgeons, Mayors, Talk Jocks and Celebrities - are exercising their grey matter in our Toronto studio.

It's more of a straight-up IQ-type thing, and if you've taken the SATs, well, it's a little easier than that, but they have a new test every week, and if you're close to the Canada-US border (or, heaven forbid, over it for some reason), you can play along for the next few weeks.

Thought I'd share.

3/14 Recap: Pie, Abe Lincoln, Antarctica, and the Poetry of Hooliganism

2007-03-15T13:33:00.000-04:00

It was so nice to be back. Naples was nice, but I'd rather be soundly booed over the finer plot points of Gangs of New York (a movie which, admittedly, I have never seen) than spend three days stuck in a hotel 200 yards from a beach I can't see, no matter now "nice" the weather is on the Gulf of Mexico. I'd much rather be in that room with you guys any day.

I have it on good authority that the coconut pirate head won by the third place team, Doubloon Entendre, shall become their new mascot, although another pirate-themed team came yesterday for the first time (welcome aboard, and nice work on the scrabble solution question), and there may be an east-coast-west coast thing going on moving forward, and you previous pirate people might want to pull up on your performance in order to properly profess your preeminence in the pubquiz playground. Just saying.

Oh, and to all the teams who played because the St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl bus opened in front of Dempsey's just before we started:

Hi! Remember that guy and that chick asking you all those questions? That was us! It was great meeting alla youse!

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Happy birthday to Albert Einstein!

2. Audio Round: "C" More - I figured I might not have a lot of time to put an audio round together, so I made two rounds based on acts that started with "C". The first one was two weeks ago, and this one featured Johnny Cash, Natalie Cole, the Count Five, Kim Carnes and the Cars. No Chrictopher Cross, C + C Music Factory or (to my surprise) the Clash.

We'll move on to non-C topics next week, promise.

3. Steak & Blowjob Day - Yes, March 14th is not just Pi day (see below), and it's not just the day before the Ides of March (that's today, as I type this, hung over and tired at the day job). It's also the celebration of this non-gender-specific holiday celebrating indulgence, and right in the middle of Lent. Lots of grist for the mill of Catholic guilt for those of you who wish to partake. And are Catholic.

(I was looking for an appropriate (illustrative, not-too-raunchy) link for "Congress of the Crow," and it turns out there are a million metal bands with that name. I'm at work, so I don't want to spend too long messing about with any online Kama Sutra guides, but I have no doubt there are some decent-but-not-too-decent links out there.)

4. Easy As Pi - In which Janet asked a mess of questions about American Pie, Karen Black's Oscar-nominated turn in Five Easy Pieces, and what the Queen was doing while the King was in his counting house counting all his money.

5. Name 3's - Judging strictly in terms of "number of teams who got it right," the hardest question of the evening was "The Ross Dependency, Queen Maud Land, & Vinson Massif." (Private to the team who guessed "Ben Affleck Movies" - You stay classy.)

Team names this week:

1st Place: The Good, The Bad & the Goatse

2nd Place: Tony's Not Dead? A Zombie, Perhaps?

3rd place: Doubloon Entendre

Followed by (in no particular order):

Lion, Tritons and Pirates, Oh My!

Chaka Kant

The Unconfirmed Lesbians

AA - Omaha

Panties! Panties! Panties!

A Greg House Divided

OJ's Slow-Moving Sperm

Lucius Pusey

Dominick/Will (Britalia!)

Gay Nude Art Show!

The Zeckendorfs

The Three Factorials

Team Demi

Prizes this week, aside from the pirate-head coconut, included a neon-yellow t-shirt from Naples, Florida, the E! Jerry Seinfeld Companion, and a pack of Spree Candy ("It's a kick in the mouth!")

Thanks for coming and being so boisterous. It really makes our week.

Tonight: Florida, and Not-Bruce

2007-03-14T11:21:00.000-04:00

Tonight’s going to be a doozy for my first night back from Florida, where there was no shortage whatsoever of sun and sand and whoop-whoop. Or so I hear.

I brought back a couple of prizes from my voyage to the Gulf Coast, including a most excellent coconut carved into the shape of a pirate (a pirate! How arrrre ye gonna beat that?). It’s got a chain attachment so you can hang it in a place of honor in your swingin’ pad. Maybe over the bed to ward off evil spirits.

Oh, and I found the Betty-Boop-in-a-neck-brace-Pez-dispenser store again. That last one was a hit, and so I procured another couple of those bad boys. They only had Betty, but she does wear various outfits (I know, they're stickers on a rectangular box, but this is showbiz. Work with me). You-all are gonna be so damn spoiled by the time I get through with youse. Hopefully.

Questions this week will be equally festive and topical. And I’ll give you one hint about the audio round: One song sounds like Springsteen, but isn’t. Another one is a cover of a Springsteen song. But there is no Bruce Springsteen anywhere in the answers to the audio round.

See you tonight, you sexy bastards. It’s good to be home.

3/07 Recap, Part II

2007-03-12T17:28:00.000-04:00

Janet files this report:

Oh, if only Sam and I had huddled before the game, he could have written his round on Bridges and I would have countered with Tunnels. Oh, well.

Instead, I cooked up a round called "Mixed Fruit," where we explored ex-Warhol-not-quite-superstar Cherry Vanilla, Plum Sykes, the author of Bergdorf Blondes, Darryl Strawberry, and a fruit cocktail of other cultural touchstones such as the produce on the Fruit of the Loom tags.

For the round of "threes," the trios included neighborhoods in the Bronx, animal groups (pride, clowder, brace), pasta shapes, US poet Laureates, and the paramours of Michele Pfeiffer. We are nothing if not eclectic.

Geeking Out, A Little

2007-03-10T21:20:00.001-05:00

If you can read this, then I can post from my handy dandy new mobile device thingy, perhaps even on a Wednesday night, if I can swing it.

Well, I'm excited.

3/07 Recap: [56] Weeks Without A Trivia-Related Injury

2007-03-08T11:21:00.000-05:00

I hear the Pope and Stevie Wonder and Aquaman and Melissa Joan Hart and the cast of Laguna Beach and Nipsey Russell and the surviving Gallo brother and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and my mom and a pack of zombie clowns giving away winning lottery tickets all showed up last night. But Sam has the real story.

I'm thrilled that it went well. Thanks to him and to you guys for treating him nice. He'll be back. As will I, next week.

You guys be good while I'm gone, okay?

2007-03-07T08:25:00.000-05:00

In case I'm unable to post to this blog with my phone (something I still haven't completely figured out), I want you guys to have fun tonight.

Janet will be there, and my most excellent replacement has done this dozens of times.

I wanna hear all about how it goes down.

Tonight!

2007-03-05T16:17:00.000-05:00

If you're one of those squares who doesn't even have party plans for a snowy Monday night, our friends at Last Exit Bar in Brooklyn are having their High Roller night, where the winners get an awful lot of cash money, instead of the usual reasonable amount of cash money.

Everyone pays $20 to get in, and the winning teams split the pot. It's pretty sweet, and they're good people, even if they never come out to Dempsey's and see how many questions I brazenly steal from them. (I kid, I kid. Although the Scrabble Solution is an amped-up version of something I first saw there, and the Dead/Canadian/Both/Neither question last week is a straight lift from them, as I believe I mentioned at the time.)

I'd come out if I could (if a freak dusting of snow alone were to stop me, I'd have to turn in my Canadian Club Card), but I have to pack for the land of the sun-leathered republican retirees. Three thongs a day times three days equals... I'm going to have to pack a bigger suitcase.

3-09: 2/28 Recap: This Is The Spawning Of The Cage And Aquarium

2007-03-01T18:50:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since we tinkered with the formula, and while I think the changes were mostly successful, it turned out the questions themselves this week were a bit on the easy side. (when three teams break fifty points, it's time to bring out the all-Indonesian Dub Poetry audio round and the "Bobsledding Legends of the 1930's" version of the Name Threes. Don't think I don't have that stuff on tap. I don't, but I could.) Seriously, if it weren't for the fact that people came from as far as Seattle to join us (impulse travel is one of the more wonderful irrational decisions one can make), I'd have been pissed at how smart you guys were.

Oh, the hell with it. I could never stay mad at you.

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day

2. Audio Round: Jose, Can You "C?" - Featuring Cream, Crowded House, Cinderella, the Commodores, and Irene Cara (the subject of my favorite scene from the movie DC Cab, when Tyrone (Charles Barnett) freaks out over her (a part of that scene starts off this video; that's all I got).

3. Do Submarines Dream of Electric Fish? - In the spirit of this week's aquarium prize, Janet & I did an aquatic-themed couple of rounds. in this one, I asked a question about the very non-Canadian Abe Vigoda, who is apparently still very much alive (and whom Janet runs into every once in a while; I'm guessing they go to the same raves & mudwrestling nights around town).

4. Waters - In which Janet asked questions about Ethel Waters (but not John Waters, Barry Goldwater or Sam Waterston) and which NYC river had a beaver dam built across it.

5. Name 3's - I was very proud of how few of you knew about the three hosts of Fox News Channel programs, especially since quite a few of you recognized the three Oscar-nominated animated shorts and knew (or at least guessed) what a snickerdoodle was.

Lots of teams this week, which was great, and it seemed like everyone came fairly early. We could have started a little after seven, and it would have been fine. (before trivia starts, it's happy hour, so if you get there early, most of the bar items are half price). This week, you were:

1st Place: We Are Eddie Murphy's Venting Spleen! (Winners of the aquarium by dint of getting a perfect 20 on the first two rounds, they took it and bolted without even collecting the carrying bag I brought for it. Tut, tut, tut.)

2nd Place: There Are Rats In My Kitchen Too, But ~~You Don't See News Vans Outside My Apartment~~ They Eat At Nobu

3rd place: Salmonella Fitzgerald Kennedy

Followed by (in no particular order):

Three Men & A Little Lady

Stephen Hawking's Football Boots

Jennifer Hudson's Cape

We Need That Hermit Crabitat Desperately! (Sorry.)

Making It Reign (I didn't realize until just as I typed that: Was this a double reference to Helen Mirren and Pacman Jones? Nice!)

Drunken Cuban Cheetahs!

Powerpuff Girls!

Katastrophic Retardation! (Your guess is as good as mine.)

The Good, The Bad, and the Helen Mirren

Dung Monkey

Aside from the aquarium, We also gave away a big picture book of the life of Steve Irwin (including updated photos from his funeral!!), Richard Roeper's new book Sox And The City (which Janet repped, yay her), as well as the usual choco-dippy Japanese cookie contraptions and inexplicable Engrish packaging you've come to love so.

Next week, I will be out, but I leave my duties in the capable hands of Sam, who is a mental ninja, specializing in civics, indie rock and current affairs (none of which may wind up in his actual question set; homey knows a lot about a lot). Your free ride on the Tony's Easy Question Express is about to end, sweet babies! For a week, anyway. I'll be back March 14th. Play nice.

This Week: Fish! For Real This Time!

2007-02-28T01:37:00.001-05:00

Tonight's Prize
Originally uploaded by Chico Bangs.

My skills are many, but being a prolonged and effective tease is not one of them. Some days I can withhold and entice pleasure with the best of them, and then others, well, I'm a big old suck who couldn't deny Marty Scorcese an Oscar, even if he didn't really deserve it.

(Note to those who are reading this via archive or google search: This metaphor may be not quite apt, but it is at least relatively current as of this typing.)

What I'm trying to say is, after a couple of weeks of back problems and carrying-too-much-crap-around issues, I will be bringing this special Discovery Kids! Exploration Aquarium ("great for goldfish, bettas and guppies!") as a prize for one special fishionista tonight.

(It comes with a special carrying bag, and it's not actually all that heavy. Certainly you can have your standard night out and bring it home without difficulty. I wouldn't bring anything you can't drop out of a moving cab while hammered at 2:30 in the morning on a school night. Promise.)

We also have some special books (including one about a movie star who left this world last year and yet didn't make the Oscars' grief reel at all, those ungrateful bastards).

See you tonight.

Podcast: Update

2007-02-23T14:35:00.000-05:00

A couple of people have asked after I tried a couple of prototype broadcasts last month, so just FYI: I haven't abandoned the podcast idea.

In fact, I've run two prototype pods and feel pretty much ready to go. The sticking point right now is with setting up a stable hosting place, so y'all can subscribe and have it be there week in and week out.

Once I get that working (I have to get my domains in order; they're scattered across the four corners of the intertubes and are probably attracting moths or something), we will be up & running, and then, well, it's another something, anyway. And all these somethings add up. Or so I have read.

A Scoring Change For Make Glorious Nation Of Smartass Futures!

2007-02-22T16:44:00.000-05:00

One of the things I occasionally mess up (I know, I know, I never make mistakes, but oh-crappertunities just sounds so damn corny) is that I will miss a team when reading the scores on the fly in order.

So to stop that from happening, I'm going to read out everyone's score, just not in order. I'm not going to stop doing the rankings, I'll just not go from bottom to top. Maybe I'll read the top three, and then everyone else, and certainly, everyone's name and score will be read aloud after rounds 2, 4 and 5, but yeah, there's no need for you guys to stare at me while I scratch my beer-addled head trying to figure out if there actually is an eighth place team that I just can't see on the page, or a three way tie for sixth.

It feels like it takes a lot of extra time, and the breaks are long enough as it is.

Does anyone have a problem with this?

3-08: 2/21 Recap - Betty Boop In A Neck Brace (or Where The Goys Are)

2007-02-22T12:09:00.001-05:00

You guys keep surprising me. I was expecting a chill evening, hanging out, watching the Knicks lose and maybe ordering some pizza, throwing some questions around and wishing I could make it to the Ernest Borgnine night in the West Village (which I heard was kind of lame, which is kind of a bummer), and then it was like the bus from the Cool Institute stopped in front of the bar and let out a Parker Posey-like posse. There were a couple of groups who hadn't come in a long while, and a mess of new people too. (I hope some of you stick with us. The prizes are only going to get better.)

And to the team who named themselves after a serial killer with a brain fetish: I have to admit, I've never watched Heroes, and so I didn't know how to pronounce your name. I'm sorry. I try to know as much as I can about as much as I can. That's kind of my job. And this Sylar fellow sounds like my kind of guy. I'm not really the bulletproof cheerleader type anyways. (Keep those pictures coming, though.)

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Happy birthday to Anais Nin! And Nina Simone! And the Communist Manifesto! And Affirmed!

2. Audio Round: I'm So Lonesome I could Plotz - Since it was a week after Valentine's Day, I figured I'd do a round on songs about not being with someone. Can you guess which tracks I used from The Police, George Thorogood, Tiffany, Tommy James & the Shondells, or Roy Orbison? Unlike the Motels said, not only the lonely can play.

I'm trying over here. Work with me.

3. Happy - In which Janet dropped Samuel Johnson and Kander & Ebb, but not one of my favorite bands or the latest Will Smith Oscarbait, which I am sad to report was vastly overrated.

4. They died in '06 - I was having a discussion with a few friends this week about who was going to get the biggest round of applause during the Grief Reel at the Oscars. The consensus was that it was going to be Robert Altman, though Jack Palance and Don Knotts are going to get some love.

5. Name 3's - Not only is Zsa Zsa Gabor Hungarian, she was chosen as Miss Hungary for 1936! (Sure, she was later disqualified, but still.) And forgive me, but what has she done since? I mean, that's a hell of a long time to dine out on an accomplishment, girlfriend.

We totally didn't enforce the team size rule this week, and as a result, there were some teams that were, um, large. Not that it helped; the three podium teams all had five players or less:

1st Place: Tony Looks More and More Like Britney Every Day! (Shyeah, as if.)

2nd Place: The Knicks Are Down By (as the Knicks slowly fell further and further behind, their score increased. Kinda clever, actually.)

3rd place: Laissez-Fairgrounds

Followed by (in no particular order):

It's Never Too Late For An Astronaut Love Triangle!

We Are All Dannielynn's Daddies!

The Well-Dressed Man Disguise

The Dancing Oysters of Greater Lebanon

METS/Bill Kristol/GNYCE (Could someone explain what these three things have in common?)

Tim Hardaway's Baby Daddies (A theme here, there is)

RehabFab

Miso-Horney

Sylar

Master of the Kennel

John Solo

The Little Way

Writers Of Rohan

Cheap Tricks(who would have finished dead last except they got the Scrabble solution about the number of survivors from the Titanic)

Among the prizes this week was a Pez dispenser knockoff of Betty Boop which looked rather like she had sustained a spinal injury, and had to be kept in a neck brace. The fetishists in the room were all over it. Also, as a gift, we gave away a copy of a novel called Goy Crazy, which seems like a pleasant enough read, if a little preteenish for our crowd. (I've forgotten who won that, but if someone could take an hour and read it and let us know how it was, I'd be grateful.)

Tara, the fill-in waitress, had her hands full all night, and performed admirably. We are kind of a hurry-up-and-wait kind of scene, and it's not the kind of thing every server can do. We've seen this shift drive otherwise good people out the door screaming in rage. Even though we miss Christina, Tara did a fine job.

I know I forgot to mention something.

TMI, and Next Week: Fish!

2007-02-21T10:25:00.000-05:00

I wound up missing last night's sports trivia thing because of a delicate "manly" condition. (Some things are best not talked about in mixed company.) But it did afford me the opportunity to put together a quality audio round, which plays on the whole idea that Valentine's Day is over, which means you can either squirrel yourself back in your little love nests and trysteries, or get back to the business at hand, that of being alone again, naturally. Whichever your situation may be, or whether you're just in a once-a-year fling thing, well, I hope that works out for you.

And while the special grand goldfish bowl prize will not be making an appearance tonight, it certainly will next week, as Spring creeps ever closer to our collective doorsteps. I do, however, have a bondagey Pez dispenser-like contraption, news themed clothing, and a book by Dr. Phil's wife.

As well as all the regular bar tab and other pointless and occasionally edible prizes on the docket. Never let it be said we don't take care of you.

Attention Sports Trivia Nerds

2007-02-20T16:08:00.000-05:00

Tonight (that's Tuesday, if Presidents' Week has messed with your delicate innards) at the King's Head Tavern (222 East 14th Street), an outfit called NYC Sports Trivia is hosting something called the Jeffrey Leonard Invitational, which sounds not unlike our little thing, but they've specialized, and they do have as a special guest quizmaster Will Leitch of Deadspin.com.

From the breakdown on their blog, their plans for the evening look kind of ... familiar. Anyone wanna come down and explore a little further?

(Oh, and I've added this to the ever-growing list of trivia night on the Google NYC Trivia Calendar. If you have Gmail, well, you know what to do.)

The Greatest Ever, Just Ask Her

2007-02-16T12:54:00.000-05:00

In the Name Threes round this week, I mentioned Leilani Kai, Joanie Laurer and Wendi Richter as being three WWF/WWE Wrestling Champions, and of all the women who've held the title, I recognize maybe two more names (Trish Stratus was a model in Toronto, and Sable, well, I can categorically say I am not the father of her Dannielynn, her Bahamian love child, and I want the mainstream media to finally acknowledge this in print. Right, Prince Anhalt? Good).

But of course, the greatest women's wrestler ever, The Fabulous Moolah, held the "Women's World Wrestling Championship" belt for 28 years, which even for a showbiz thing in a discipline where there weren't all that many contenders until recently is still an impressive athletic achievement. I think of it the same way I think of an actor doing a role for that long, like Yul Brynner doing The King of Siam in film & on Broadway for thirty years, or Mary Martin doing Peter Pan until Cathy Rigby was old enough (I know lots of other gymnast types played Peter Pan over the last half-century, but this is a trivia blog, not a place for facts).

If you get a chance to see the documentary Lipstick & Dynamite, about the pre-glory days of women's wrestling, do it. It's funny and excellent to hear these women laugh about their horror stories of life on the road. It's making the rounds of the cable channels now.

Have a good President's Day weekend, y'all. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "Don't dis my homies!"

3-07: 2/14 Recap - Baby, It's Cold Outside

2007-02-15T20:35:00.000-05:00

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 on 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.

3-06: 2/7 Recap - Our First Anniversary!

2007-02-12T18:15:00.000-05:00

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):

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.

Oh

2007-02-07T15:38:00.000-05:00

And I'm going to guess the over-under on Astronauts-in-Diapers team names to be around, um, 4.

Now We Are One

2007-02-07T10:12:00.000-05:00

Tonight's first anniversary version of the DSO will include a few better-than average prizes, including a package from Jones Soda, a laptop bag, and a special thank-you goody bag for everyone. I know I often say you probably won't go home empty-handed, but this week, it's the absolute truth, ruth.

There will also be food. You might want to get there early to ensure getting a table.

Last week in the audio round, I used a clip from both Jewel and the Smiths, two bands I just don't like (though at least with the Smiths I've tried, really I have; I'm the only person I know who can't stand them, and I know it's all about Morrissey and his affected limp-fish-handshake of a voice). This week, I commit another misdemeanor against my own personal taste, but I'm doing it for you.

You're welcome.

3-05: 1/31 Recap: Popsicles, Souvlaki, Corn Dogs, and Sister Mary Elephant

2007-02-01T13:34:00.001-05:00

Yes, I am a pud.

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day

2. Audio Round: Cysted Twister - featuring various Sisterly songs, including selections (can you guess which song I picked) by Night Ranger, the Velvet Undeground, Steely Dan, Cheech & Chong, and the Elvis Presley version of a Dwight Yoakam track from last week. It's all about the continuity.

3. Russians - Black ones, white ones, Muscovites, Petrogradders, even a Latvian, a Tatar & a Kazakh (from when they counted as Russian), and it wouldn't have been complete without a mention of Maria Sharapova and Rasputin, the Beauty and the Beast of the old country.

4. Minty Fresh - In which Janet asked about Peppermint Patty and Altoids and stuff.

5. Name 3's - If you knew who Esmeralda Villalobos was, or Dr. Jonathan Zizmor, or the names of three different foods eaten off a stick, then you probably did okay.

Team names were better this week:

1st Place: Fellowship of the Ringworm

2nd Place: The Pillage People

3rd place: That Harry Potter's Got A Jungle Bush! (I would link to the photo spread in question, but you people know how to use the google, don't you?)

Followed by (in no particular order):

The Dizzle Dogs

One Canadian

The Remainders

Team Kuby: NYHAngels

You Stop Drinking, Voices!

Kate's Kate

FDR's Legs (I had to admit, this was a good name)

Secret Agent Death Train!

Drunken Inquisition

Please Give Us Ramen (They got Pocky instead, and they LIKED IT)

UNC 83, Miami 71. Yes, We Even Knew That. (Hm. Not quite. At least you picked the winner, though.)

The Little Way

Zoole In The Fridge (Did you mean "Zuul In The Fridge," perchance?)

I know it's been over a week. Sorry. I should be in traction.

Getting Biblical On Your Asses, Continued

2007-01-29T15:57:00.000-05:00

There was more hue and cry than I thought over one particular prize last week: the paddle with the quote from Leviticus on it that someone had left behind (get it? "Left Behind?" Ha! I stone me!).

Well, if we need more paddles, turns out we can get more paddles.

(I've looked at that site for the last three days, and I'm not sure how serious it is. I suspect it's your basic olde-style pro-spanking thing, but unless I missed something, there was no mention of grownups messing about with other grownups in what the racier magazines now call good, clean fun. So, y'know, proceed at your own risk.)

[via, vidio, vici]

Podcast Update (or, Cart Before Goat)

2007-01-29T09:38:00.000-05:00

I finished off the first official podcast this week. It's swell, and I'm pretty sure you'll dig it.

Thing is, I don't have a regular webspace fully set up to park it in yet. I could up the mp3, but the idea is to have a place to subscribe to it. Blogger's fine for text, and Flickr is good for pictures, but I've been putting this off for the last two months, and really, now's the time.

I'm going to try and get this fixed today. Watch this space for updates.

It's gonna be great, I swear.

3-04 - 1/24 Recap: For My Next Trick, I'll Need A Volunteer

2007-01-25T13:54:00.000-05:00

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?

Purty Pitchers

2007-01-22T09:58:00.001-05:00

Come To Trivia Or We'll Punch This Host

I've put up some pics from last week to the DSO Flickr Group. If you have a flickr! account, go ahead and join that group, and if you add me as a friend I shall shurely call back in kind.

3-03: 1/17 Recap - It's The New 'Golly'

2007-01-18T11:59:00.000-05:00

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.

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

What else? Any thoughts, ideas, input, something I missed?

My First Pass At A DSO Podcast

2007-01-17T02:52:00.000-05:00

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.

I've posted to my personal blogspace 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.

This is not where it'll ultimately be hosted from week to week, so you can't subscribe to it there. I'll let you know about those kind of details as I work them out. But yeah, please, feedback if you have it would be so very welcomed.

That's When Stephen Colbert Said: "Don't Dis My Homies!"

2007-01-12T15:12:00.000-05:00

Turns out Ken Roth, the head of Human Rights Watch (great friends of the DSO) made an appearance on The Colbert Report last night. He performed admirably under the withering attacks of America's Sharpest Pundit.

UPDATE: It's up, and here it is. (Thanks, AJB!)

* * * * *

As a placeholder until this video made it online, I included one of my favorite Mr. Show bits, just because it's Friday before a long weekend and like I need another reason.

This has nothing to do with Gitmo or HRW, but still. Enjoy the sublime greatness that is Van Hammersly, Pool Shark:

3-02: 1/10 Recap: I Wish I Could Write My Own Prescriptions Too

2007-01-11T12:58:00.000-05:00

Okay, I figured that since it was the week after the holidays, and all the reveller types who'd come home to the city for a nice meal and a knees-up with their mates had come down and made the holiday versions of the DSO into such a killerdiller success had gone back out into the world to make their fortune or whatever, that this would have been a nice quiet week. Seriously, I was preparing for it. But it wound up being pretty rowdy. I just celebrated my birthday this week, and your presence was a wonderful present.

Oh, great. Now I'm getting vaklempt. I need a moment.

Okay. This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - Happy birthday to Linda Lovelace, George Foreman, Rasputin, Tintin and one-half of Steely Dan.

2. Audio Round: Little Things - A counterpart to the Big Things round of last week, in which we heard the Replacements, Otis Redding, Prince, Jay and the Americans, and the only Don Ho song most of you will ever need to know.

3. Buffalo - In which Janet asked about Buffalo Wings (having been to the Anchor Bar, I can vouch for that buffalo wings were actually a good idea once), Buffalo Girls, and the amazingly awful superstud-for-hire Vincent Gallo.

4. Let's Play Doctor! - In which you were to know about the dock at which the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum normally is moored, what Dock Ellis was on when he threw his 1970 no-hitter, who currently occupies the seat once held by Doc Severinsen, and how well you know the lyrics to "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay."

5. Name 3's - Three choreographers, three sopranos, three parts of a shoe, and three beans, one of which shared its name with a prominent goof-deathcore band.

There were a lot of teams (not a record size, but pretty close). If you finished in the top ten, you really accomplished something. This week, you were:

1st Place: Saving Pirate Ryan
2nd Place: Yvonne de Carlo Ponti of No Return (a shoutout to the two celebrity deaths of this week, and maybe just a little too clever by half. Still.)
3rd place: The Mighty Mice

Followed by (in no particular order):
ÖRPS

Hokey Birds

At Least We're Not Sitting On The Floor! (or, Boy These Chairs Are Comfy!)

New Jersey: Smelt It, Dealt It!

Headband Masterplan

I Don't Particularly Like Trivia; I Just Don't Want To Hear Bush's Speech

We Wish We Had A Clever Team Name

Go Tard '06 Overstock

New Jersey Natural Gas

The Bolsheviks

Team Schaboma

The Surge!

The Team Formerly Known As...

The Gordon Shumways

Hell In A Handbasket

Axe Wound

The Moustache Ride

Dutchboys & Dikes

NYC Air Quality Control

Shiney McShine & the Dreams

Prizes this week included some fridge magnets (not just from our friends at the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, but also a novelty set for doctoring fridged-photos), a suction-cup battery-operated fan shaped like a little airplane, and packs of Tally-Ho playing cards, in case we weren't enough gameplay for you for the week.

Janet & I really appreciate you coming out to this thing every week. Thanks, as always.

What else happened? I was kind of busy and may have missed something.

DSO 3-01 - 1/3 Recap: How Much For An "Around The World?"

2007-01-04T14:46:00.000-05:00

Normally, the two people from San Francisco would be newsworthy as having travelled the farthest (even with Amanda driving up from Baltimore that afternoon to come and play). But they picked the week that a fmaily flew up from Western Australia, just to come to Dempsey's and play with us. I'm assuming nothing else was happening here in New York, but I'm really glad they decided to come all the way around the allegedly round world to sit in a pub with their infant child and answer a bunch of questions about why Carnegie Hall was built and the three counties in New Jersey.

Hello, world. It's good to meet youse.

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day

2. Audio Round: Big Things - A round of songs about big stuff, including tracks from Peter Gabriel & Big Country, though not Mr. Big, Biggie Smalls, or Big Audio Dynamite. Room ain't that big, holmes.

3. Old & New

4. People From Berlin - Peaches is one of those people whom I knew back when she was this cute little jewish kid named Merrill who had an arty band called Fancypants hoodlum. Glad all that energy's going somewhere.

5. Name 3's - In which I namedropped Lily Munster, not knowing she was going to die the next week.

The team sizes were a little big this week, which we didn't really enforce (keep it to five or six at the most), but spirits were high, so what the hell. The team names:

1st Place: Fun + Fun = More Fun (formerly Fun^2)
2nd Place: Lucy In The Sky With Pirates
3rd place: Tek Jansen & the Ladies' Nocturne

Followed by, in no particular order:
Kirsten & the Bad Ass Rabid Ants

Ryan Seacrest's Ball Finally Dropped

The Iraqi Hangmen

HRW Pot Ate Toe Soup

Sonic Death Monkey

The Team Formerly Known As Begun

Tard, Go!

Big Dick In A Big Box

The Rejected Students From Oprah's New School

Purple Hazen

What else?

Cautionary Tale

2007-01-02T13:45:00.000-05:00

From today's Chicago Sun-Times:

A 21-year-old woman was hospitalized for intoxication over the weekend after "continually providing wrong answers" during a game of Trivial Pursuit where participants drank alcohol and did drugs when they answered incorrectly.

According to the story, she was the yellow piece, and it provides helpful information about what a "blunt" is, in case you didn't already know.

This just goes to show that what you people do every week is special. Don't take your drinking and thinking responsibilities lightly, especially the day before New Year's Eve. This is a cruddy reason to miss the social event of the season.

(Note: New Year's Eve isn't the year's greatest party for everyone, I know. But if you're the kind of person to drink & toke yourself into oblivion over a Trivial Pursuit game, then it's a safe bet there are photos of you in a party hat with your tongue out somewhere on the interwebs already. Just a hunch.)

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

2006-12-28T09:52:00.000-05:00

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)

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!

2006-12-27T12:51:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-12-21T12:59:00.000-05:00

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...

2006-12-19T14:18:00.000-05:00

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

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

2006-12-14T12:27:00.000-05:00

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

2006-12-13T13:50:00.000-05:00

...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

2006-12-11T14:27:00.000-05:00

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,

2006-12-08T16:51:00.000-05:00

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?

2006-12-08T15:33:00.000-05:00

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

2006-12-07T12:21:00.000-05:00

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.

11/29 Recap: 15 Teams All In A Row, and Liore turns 24

2006-11-30T13:30:00.000-05:00

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

Why, Yes, I Am In Fact Talking To You.

2006-11-16T10:34:00.000-05:00

Well, that was fun. We ran a little late (and I stayed a lot later than I should have), but the Sopranos people seemed to be pleased. I hope you guys were too.

Full recap is half-written, but honestly, I'm still not awake yet.

[Janet's first post] Paulie Walnuts Is Unconfirmed, And Other Phrases I Thought I'd Never Live Long Enough To See In Print

2006-11-13T09:33:00.001-05:00

This was sent to the email list by Janet. Now she can no longer say she's posted nothing to the blog. (Wanna join the email list? Drop us a line, and bada bam, bada bagel, buttery bisquick, it shall be done.

In addition to the regular Drunken Smartass Olympics questions, answers, and antics on Wednesday, November 15, we will offer (this week only) special Sopranos prizes and stuff along with a theme round. Even if you don't have HBO, it's fun.

As you know, we always have different and unusual categories, a mix of easy and challenging questions, bar tab prizes of $10-25 for top-scoring teams plus lots of other novelty prizes for such distinctions as goofiest team name, best dressed, and other entirely arbitrary things that we aren't telling you about.

See you Wednesday!
The Drunken Smartass Olympics
with your hosts Janet Rosen and Tony Hightower
Every Wednesday at 7:30 pm
No cover (two drink minimum)
Dempsey's Pub
61 2nd Avenue (between 3rd & 4th Streets), New York, NY
(212) 388-0662 F, V trains to Second Avenue
Prizes, weird questions and fun people. Or is it the other way around?
http://www.baggotinn.com/dempseys.html

visit our blog--so far Tony has done all the posting, but I will learn how any minute now. I know, I know, I keep saying that. (I'm very lo-tech.)

dsolympics.blogspot.com

11/1 Recap: When the fish hits your heart with a big spiky dart, that's a moray

2006-11-02T16:31:00.000-05:00

Alright. Let's get the bare necessities down at least here. Thirteen raucous teams, lots of heckling and loudness, two tables did rounds of shots, and I lost the ability to do math.

Rounds were as follows:
1. On This Day (In which we found out that Larry Flynt and Jenny McCarthy, among others, share a birthday. Also, there was something about Algeria.)
2. Audio round: Golden Shower Of Hits! (songs about gold; included Spandau Ballet, Neil Young, David Bowie, America, Ken Nordine and Kanye West)
3. Elephants!
4. Elections (Who was the last President to be neither a Democrat nor a Republican? Which character receives a Valentine's Day card that says "I Choo-choo-choose You!"?)
5. Name Threes

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

1st Place: The Horror Movie Sidekicks
2nd Place: October Surprise II: Kerry Does Democrats, Swiftly
3rd Place: Courtney Love Is Not The Daighter Of Darlene Love

and then, in no particular order:
The Little Way
Wikitrivia
The Element
Jews For Malawi
We Went As Tony & Janet For Hallowe'en!
Natural Blondes!
Can We Cheat, Please?
My Favorite Herpes Commercial Ever!
The Go-Tards!
Hooray! Transfats Are Banned! Because Prohibition Always Works!

There was lots more, wasn't there?

Of Ass-Butts, Assclowns, Ass-Gards, Ass-Guys, Asshats, Assmasters, Assmunches, Asstards, Ass-heads, Assbags, oh yeah and Dingo's Kidneys

2006-10-25T12:22:00.000-04:00

I've been a very bad boy.

Instead of faithfully rendering recaps of the last few weeks' worth of hijinks, I've been tryiong to hold down a job and working on a screenplay. Apparently, everyone has a screenplay. (It's about the death of CBGB's and the end of punk as we know it. I'll be playing the Vincent Gallo part, and Christina Ricci will... probably not be involved.)

But the least I can do is to show you the source of the round on made-up swear words last week. There are some doozies there.

Expand your vocabularies, and I'll see you tonight.

I Like The Spite in You

2006-10-06T13:57:00.000-04:00

There will be a little something extra in all your pay packets this week, seeing as I missed last week's recap window (I'll put an abbreviated one in this weekend, I promise) and I know you guys need a little something-something to get by.

But I will say this, to the lovely group who complained about there being questions about the Clash so many weeks in a row:

I actually looked this up, and in the month-plus since we've come back from hiatus, we've had a grand total of three questions (or audio clues) about, regarding, or somehow related to the Clash. That may be a lot, but I wouldn't call it excessive. (I know you would, and I understand, but it is what it is.)

We have, however, asked four (four!) questions about Duran Duran in that same time. That's a far more egregious misuse of our trivia-making abilities, and I humbly and abjectly apologize for that.

Still, spite being the most powerful force on earth and all, I shall provide you readers of this fine blog with a little tip: I'll be doing an entire ten-question round of clash-related questions next Wednesday. C-O-N, Control.

In other news:

We have taped segments for two separate public access TV shows in the last two weeks, so the odds of us seeing airtime are pretty high. (Watch this space or email me for details as we find out what the deal is).
And I'm thinking about putting together a podcast. We have the means to record and host mp3s, but anyone know how to get in with iTunes?

9/20 Recap: "I'm going to have to ask you to come in on Sunday, too..."

2006-09-21T10:34:00.000-04:00

So proud of you bastards last night. After two rounds, no one had less than 10½ points, and I thought the questions were pretty hard, but then what do I know. And the only reason the guy playing solo won the whole night was that he was really into documentaries, which is why I'm kind of wary to hew too close to one topic for ten questions. Still, it was nice & raucous regardless. I can't stand a quiet room.

1. On This Day - in which Chester Arthur became President, Lee Iacocca became the head of Chrysler, Orville Redenbacher drowned in his hot tub, Matthew & Gunnar Nelson tossed their long ironed-straight blond hair, and Bill Lumbergh turned fifty.

2. Audio round: Father's Day - Including Father Of Mine, Papa Legba, the Temptations' Papa Was A Rolling Stone, and to kinda pad it out, Feliz Navidad ("Dad?" Geddit? Dad? Geddit?), and This Is Pop by XTC.

3. Famous Howards - Including Howard Stern, Howard's End & Ron Howard (though not Elston Howard, Howard Beach or the great Emily Howard, who is a very pretty lady!)

4. Great Documentaries - Triumph of the Will, March of the Penguins, Roger & Me, The Aristocrats, The Kid Stays In The Picture, the Seven-Up series, and of course Spellbound.

5. Name Threes - Three American writers living in France, three New York City mayors, three types of clams, and three actors who played FBI agents.

Nine teams this week (kind of quiet by our standards; if you haven't come recently, now's the time, before we get busy again with the change in weather and the prizes are still easier to get).

1st Place: The Dreaded "Rear Admiral" (USN, Ret.) (a solo act, who won dinner for two to Cremcaffe next door. Your move, ladies!)
2nd Place: The Schadenfreudes
3rd Place: Soco & Lime Diseased (I had a terrible experience with this drink, and even typing it today I get a memory-twinge of nausea, so, uh, thanks for that)

and then, in no particular order:

Dankberg, Dankberg & Dankberg (It's Not Rabinowitz)
We're Not Wrong! You Just Don't Understand!
The Little Way
The Super Jews
My Ex-Wife Got Our Brains In The Divorce Settlement

9/13 Recap

2006-09-14T13:36:00.000-04:00

Well, that worked out pretty well.

We got last night’s game in before today’s monsoon, and it went pretty well. I set a new record for cussing up a blue streak in the questions, on the same night my father came down from Toronto to watch me do my thing. (I don’t believe he got the question about GG Allin, but I could be wrong.)

1. On This Day

2. Audio Round: I Could Rule The World If I Could Only Get The Parts - Songs about Parts: It's My Party, Junco Partner, Particle Man, that sort of thing. In brainstorming versions of this round out, there was a Sam Cooke song in the mix, so even when that song didn't make the final ten, I decided to put a mess of his songs on the end of the disc, just because.

3. This was a guess-the-theme round, but the answers included GG Allin, Alcoholics Anonymous, LL Cool J, AA Milne, Bebe Neuwirth, and the top-level domain for Estonia. I threw out the question about BB King's nightclub, because I lost the ability to tell my East from my West. D'oh.

4. Pluto & Other Planets: The two teams that chose this round as their daily double rocked the round like crazy.

5. Name Threes: intended as an occasional rapid-fire substitute for the True/False round, it seemed to go over pretty well. I gave three items, and you gave me the one thing they had in common (Examples: "Formidable Opponent, Better Know A District, The Threat Down" or "Jackie Robinson, Henry Hudson, the Korean War Veterans"). We'll test-drive this baby for a month or two and see how it works out.

Team names this week included:

1st Place: The Dusseldorf Overcompensators (Don't Mention The War!)
2nd Place: Frites and Geeks
3rd place: Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz: The Savage Jews Who Will Tear You Limb From Limb

Followed by, in no particular order:
Three's Company, formerly Take Two
Road Head On The BQE
We Impregnated Neil Toomey's Mom, formerly We Piss On Neil Toomey
Sherman Helmsley's Revenge
The Yael Gottlieb Fan Club (Be careful out there)
The Humpalots
The Unnecessaries
Snakes on Joey Buttafuoco, formerly Snakes on Valerie Plame
The A Levels
Snap & Crackle (Pop Died)

Och, another impending recap

2006-09-14T11:40:00.000-04:00

The second night of Season Two of DSO was great. we managed to sneak it in before the monsoon hit, and you-all helped my father get through what was the most foul-mouthed question round we've done yet. (It's okay; where do you think I got this mouth?)

Welcome to Caffecreme restaurant, our newest sponsor, as well as to the Spelling Bee, who ponied up with more prize action, which you-all will have the chance to win over the next few months.

Details to follow, as soon as I make sure I don't get fired today.

Pics! Och, Pics!

2006-09-08T03:00:00.000-04:00

Recap will be up tomorrow (it's my first week at the new job, and I'm paying extra attention to making a good impression until they get used to my slack ass and I can get back into ranting at youse), but until then, I've added some pics from Wednesday night to the the DSO Flickr page.

Add yourself to the group, and take some shots next week! (Oh, and we've got another announcement in the next recap. Another reason to come out, if you need one!)

A Handbill For Youse

2006-08-22T04:20:00.000-04:00

Handbill originally uploaded by Tony.

Two More Things.

2006-07-27T17:53:00.000-04:00

I've set up a public Flickr group for you guys to add your pictures to. (I should have done this months ago.)

If I don't have your email or Flickr nickname, go to the DSO flickr set and join the group, and I'll hook you up with ... something, I don't know what yet.

But yeah, please, share your pics. My camera died partway through last night and I didn't get pics of everyone.

Oh, and do us this favor: tell someone. Tell people about the night, tell people about this blog, and if there's something you wanna tell us, well, that's what the comments are for. Suggestions, ideas, gripes, epiphanies, recipes, team name ideas, predictions for the coming hockey season, Project Runway spoilers, whatever you got. Hit me.

7/26 Recap: See You In September

2006-07-27T17:09:00.000-04:00

Well, that was the way to wrap up a party. The six-month anniversary party was blindingly hot, there were very few flat surfaces to even write on, and apparently not everyone got food. We grossly underestimated how hungry people were, which won't happen the next time we do this.

In good news, we so totally will be doing this again. Last night's DSO was the biggest ever, and the level of commitment some of you had was a little disconcerting. I'd have had this recap up this morning, but I've been kind of dazed whenever I sit down to say something about it. Thank you guys so much for giving a shit about this stuff. Janet's an agent who reads a lot of books, and I'm some dork who writes trivia questions in his bedroom for kicks. Speaking personally, I always figured if I was ever going to wind up being a rock star, even for a night, there'd be actual performing of music involved.

Anyway. On to the details. The rounds this week:

On This Day - in which New York became the 11th state in the union, and new nations were formed in Iberia and Liberia. (That wasn't planned.)
Audio Round: Sweets For My Sweet II: Even Sweeterer - This week, featuring a mess of songs that all had the phrase "Pour a little sugar on me," as well as "Sweet Lovin' Woman" and "Sweet Lovin' Man." No one misses out on love here. Or getting sugar poured on them, for that matter.
My Favorite Things - Where Janet ran through the lyrics of the song and told us about how great her shoes were.
Stuff That Didn't Fit In Other Rounds Over The Last Six Months - I don't usually like doing these rounds, but I have so many leftover questions from other rounds that didn't need them, it seemed like a good time to bleed some off.
True Or False

The winning team, Queens Of The Dark Age, also got the Scrabble Solution correct (someone read the Wall Street Journal piece about the number of pennies minted this year), so their winning margin was kind of high. But honestly, everyone did fairly well. Second place went to From This, You're Bragging?, and third place went to Human Rights Watch Snatched Djibouti... Arrrr! (our most excellently attired piratical friends).

In other news, there were, in no order (deep breath):

Vinderschmongers
Slingers
We're Screwed, Mate
Milk Us Till We Moo!
Fuzzy Wuzzy Wants To Win
Rotterdam, We're Good!
Team B
The Dragon Star Porn Brigade
The Team Formerly Known As...
Bloody Nipples
Fashion Victim
Alimony Schmalimony, We Ain't Payin!
Robert Goulet's Secret Moustache
Peter Cook's 8 Simple Rules For Schtupping My Teenage Daughter
If You Can't Join 'em, Beat 'em
The Bush Foreign Policy (A No Brainer)
Go Hang A Salami, I'm A Lasagna Hog! (<---a palindrome!)
Lance Bass-O-Matic
Juan Wannabes
Saigon Cheesesteak
Boroughers
and (last but far, far from least) Dead Grandma's Titties When You're Fucking Her From Behind

Anyway, Janet & I can't thank you enough for making this thing a success. We'll be back in action on Wednesday, September 6th, same as usual (with hopefully another new sponsor!), but this blog will continue through August, hopefully being updated a little more regularly than even now.

Finally, I want to make sure Amy, your waitress, and Colin, your barhunk, get some recognition for the crap we put them through every week. We are not your average bar crowd, and we can be occasionally demanding little freaks, and they both handle the weird stuff with great aplomb and grace. It makes doing this so much easier. And Tom, the owner of Dempsey's, who thought enough of this thing to keep it going when there was eight people a week showing up: thanks for sticking with us.

Now, relax this summer. Go catch a musical or something!

7/19 Recap: Birthmarks, Sweetness and Perfection

2006-07-20T15:51:00.000-04:00

Our penultimate DSO before next week's great getaway party was another decent success. I'm starting to think we're getting the hang of this. Ah, who are we kidding. Pride before the fall. Still, it was a fairly upbeat night, and that's even filtered through a serious hangover after a few of us went to Punk Metal Karaoke afterward and, um, got kind of blasted.

Thanks to everyone who came, and who come (more or less) every week. It's a lot of work to put these questions & audio rounds together, but I for one (and Janet for two) are grateful that you guys seem to like how the night has grown into itself a little bit. We're always (always, always) open to suggestions. I'm not going too far afield next month, so email me personally or just leave a comment below. You can even do it anonymously if you feel self-conscious, I don't care. We have a chance to improve things for our big comeback on Wednesday, September 6 (mark your calendars; there will be a kickoff party to rival those of ancient Rome, or at least the one we're throwing next week).

Rounds were as follows:

On This Day: In which we celebrated the birthdays of Anthony Edwards, Ilie Nastase, George McGovern and the great Max Fleischer.
Audio Round: Sweets for my Sweet. All the songs were sweet ones, because who wants hate? Not even me. Not all the time, anyway. (Spoiler: We may do this round again next week!)
Perfect 10s: I understand there is a pornographic magazine with this title, but I didn't have any questions about that. (Maybe next time; we're certainly not afraid of occasionally "working blue.") There were, however, questions about the board game Perfection, the cruddy John Travolta/Rolling Stone magazine movie vehicle, Nadia Comeneci's current husband, and the present perfect tense of the phrase "I rock the house."
States of Mind: Janet brought up the Ohio Players, the two senators from Illinois, and a few places Billy Joel isn't allowed to drive to anymore.
True or False: I think I may have to correct something from last night. I mentioned that Mark Twain had a birthmark he called "Mr. Cantankerous." I checked it in a couple of places, and decided to go with it. But I'm looking at those sites again today in writing this recap, and it's starting to look like this was a prank item dropped into Wikipedia and picked up by a few other sites. Nowhere else, in different language, is any birthmark at all mentioned. I'm guessing Mister Cantankerous does not and did not exist.

I'm not changing the results from last night or anything, but don't ever say we don't follow through on our research.

The first Scrabble Solution Question involved the number of asteroids officially logged and registered (129,436; a couple of teams tanked this question, including our returning championship team. (Have you people no shame?)

The second tie-breaker question decided second place: How many states does Bruce Springsteen mention by name in all the songs of his recorded catalogue? This is not something you can google easily, so I'll let that one sit for those who weren't there last night.

The top three teams were: Rabinowitz, Rabionowitz & Rabinowitz (a two-person team, but I'm sure there's some explanation), You Would Totally Love This Drawing Of A Duck If You Could See It But You Cannot, who made that name longer and longer over the course of the evening, and Human Rights Watch Rocks My Socks, who took valuable time out from helping the planet and watching "Project Runway" to finish in the money for the first time under their new name. Good on youse!

The other teams were: Milk Us Till We Moo; Tonight's Winner; May The Sri Be With Us; 'Cause Pussy Too Tasty!, and The Drunken Inquisition (welcome back, you bastards!).

There was something else I mentioned I was going to post here, but I've forgotten what it was. But this recap is already too long by half, so I'm not too concerned. If anyone remembers what it was, I'll up it later.

Did I miss anything important?

7/12 Recap

2006-07-13T21:59:00.000-04:00

It was kind of a hot room (in every conceivable way) on 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Fridge Magnet Night, but it felt like a pretty good night. Nine big teams, a lot of new faces, and everything seems to be rolling as we near the six-month anniversary (and a one-month break) from the DSO. (We took some great pictures of some steamy people, and they're up in the official DSO Flickr Stream.)

Rounds were as follows:

On This Day: In which we celebrated the 27th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night, the 55th birthday of Cheryl Jean Stoppelmoor, and the ascension to the throne one year ago of Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi.
Audio Round: A Quick Quiet Quiz: A series of samples featuring artists who have nothing in common except for the seventeenth letter of the alphabet. There was one exception, but it makes sense to be on this list as well once you figure it out. Listen and see how many of these artists you know.
Grab Bag: A list of classic trivia questions from the previous incarnation of the DSO, back when Janet did this whole thing more or less by herself with the occasional guest host.
Movies Featuring a Color: Which was a lovely round, if I may say so myself, except for the final question, which dealt with the prequel to Vin Diesel's The Chronicles of Riddick, entitled (ahem) Pitch Black. (It's now available on DVD, and it seems to have gotten decent reviews in a wide USA release, even.) If some people forgot this film existed (and forgot the title of the round), that's trivia for you. Apologies can be offered in the form of the beverage of your choice.
True or False, which had to be shouted as the PA system went down. We promise this will be fixed by next week. Janet is a woman of many talents, but shouting is, alas, not one of them.

Team names included Team Head Butt, Aunt Anteater's Aunts Aren't Ants, Norfolk & Chance, Don't Insult My French Mother, Zid Vicious' Bald Faced Lie, The 12th Step's A Charm (who changed their name to The Dartboard Is Still In Sight), By The Way I Had Sex With Your Mom & All I Got Was The Herp & This Lousy Pub Quiz, See Emily's Dad Blow Up The Town House, and Breakin' Knowledge II: Electric Boogaloo, who were formerly the Armless Ninjas and are now looking for a new name to run with for a while.

It was a feisty night, but I had a ball. I hope you guys did, too. Remember, in two weeks there's the Summer Cotillion Ball and Hoedown Cabaret Jamboree, with food supplied by Dempsey's, a special game setup, and more than the usual amount of the usual silliness.

Recap To Come, Plus A Coming Major Announcement

2006-06-30T08:25:00.000-04:00

After this Wednesday's festivities, I left very early the next morning to leave the city for the first time since the late 1970's, and I'm currently typing this from (quite literally) the back woods of Virginia. I will be posting the recap, but it might be some time over the weekend.

(My captors are treating me well, and as long as the ransom money is delivered on time, they have every intention of letting me come back to New York.)

I didn't handle the lack of sound in the back very well, apparently, but I really appreciate everyone coming and staying through the difficulties. We're really grateful for that.

Anyway, we actually have some pretty important news to announce, that will affect the very fabric of the Drunken Smartass Olympics as well as how the trivia scene in New York City goes down. (I'm not overstating this.)

We'll be ready to announce it on Monday. Watch this space.

6/21 Recap

2006-06-23T06:27:00.000-04:00

I was out all day yesterday auditioning for a game show and sunning myself like a lizard on the verandah while my houseboy, Paco, brought me capirinhas every half-hour on the half-hour (a good man, that Paco, and thorough), so I'm finishing up this Recap before the sun gets too high in the sky, and my deck chair's siren call gets too irresistable.

Here's what we did:

1. On This Day

2. Audio Round: "We're Staaaaars!" - There was We Are The World, and Do They Know It's Christmas, and Tears Are Not Enough and Sun City (which far as I care was the best charity single of all) and even rehashes like What's Going On, but this week's audio round came from my memories of Stars, the charity record from the world's metal gods, under the name Hear'n Aid. Not that it was included (I don't have a copy of it; if you do, I'd love to hear it again), but -- well, here's what did make the round:

Deep Purple - Highway Star
Flaming Lips - Vein Of Stars
Tornados - Telstar
Norah Jones - Lonestar
Blur - Star Shaped
Police - Does Everyone Stare
The Byrds - So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star
Bee Gees - I Started A Joke
Oasis - Rock & Roll Star

I actually have enough versions of "So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star" to make a ten question round, but not a ten-question round that you'd want to suss out. You'd get maybe four or five at the most, and that would be it. (If you have, or know of, another version, let me know or send me an mp3. That round may yet come to fruition.)

3. Bacon - I made a small mistake in this round; while the movie "Canadian Bacon" was the last movie ever released to star the great John Candy, he did in fact die on the set of "Wagons East" in Mexico, and they rush-released that one as well (a la Bela Lugosi).

4. June - In which Janet mentioned Nam June Paik, the site of the recent US Open of Golf, and Juneteenth, but not June Lockhart, the Emperor Junius, or the Brazilian midfielder Juninho. Which, honestly, was probably for the best all around.

5. True/False - Were the Beatles really once called "Johnny and the Hot Dogs?" Was carbonated water really created for the court of Louis XIV? How long can a snail sleep? If you were there, you'd know.

Notes:

The teams were:
- 1st - Under The Dartboard (third time here, I believe, and a first time winner of the $25 bar tab and two tickets to The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee)
- 2nd - The Brown Bag Of Laziness (who won our first three-way tiebreaker question, about the number of sculptures in Central Park)
- 3rd - Brick (named for a Ben Folds song? Or maybe a fantastic Ontario brewery? or perhaps the stuff you make buildings out of?)

And then, in no order:
- John In The Bar Is A Friend Of Mine
- Ovid & the Horse Next To Him
- The Kates (who won the "Best Dressed Award", and who started as one person in a fabulous dress, and who held the fort until her tardy friends arrived)
- JFKFC (which reminds me of G'n'F'n'R, but has way better taste)
- Growin' Up Grizzly
- Bain Dramaged
- and the Armnless Ninjas (who of late have been all around the top three spots lately, and frankly it's only a matter of time)

Thanks as always for coming out.

Profiting From Others' Misfortune

2006-06-19T20:44:00.000-04:00

Among a quickly growing number of other searches, we are now #5 if you search for toothlessburger.

Not sure how I feel about that. Eh. Welcome, you sick bastards!

Oh, and I added a link to the DSO picture set on Flickr. I try to take a few pictures every week. I might make a point of shooting the winners. We'll see.

Actually, a question: should I set up a proper group? Do you take pictures on Wednesday nights? I know some of you do. (I'll add you as a contact if you add me. I'm no snob. Ask anyone. Well, anyone who matters.)

6/14 Recap

2006-06-15T12:15:00.000-04:00

Speaking for myself, I was a bit lazy this week. I've watched approximately 317 World Cup matches, and my brain has become a fine paste. But that didn't stop it from being a much better night then even last week.

1. On This Day - Happy birthday to Pat Summitt, who despite the fact that she's already the winningest coach in women's basketball history, could easily still have 20 years of coaching in front of her. (You know where she coaches, right)

Oh, ten questions and I didn't even mention Flag Day once. So, Happy Flag Day!

2. Audio round - Bob Dylan Covers - I didn't use any Byrds songs or Hendrix, nor did I find room for the Ramones' "My Back Pages," but here's what I did use:

Van Morrison - It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
U2 - All Along The Watchtower
Manfred Mann - The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)
Warren Zevon - Knockin' On Heaven's Door
Red Hot Chili Willies - Subterranean Homesick Blues
Steve Earle - My Back Pages
PJ Harvey - Highway 61 Revisited
Duran Duran - Lay Lady Lay
The Pretenders - Forever Young, and of course:
William Amadeus Shatner - MISTER TAMBOURINE MAAAAAAAAAAN!

3. Wolves At The Door - Including questions about Peter Wolf, Naomi Wolf, Wolfen (well, actually about Albert Finney and his Oscar nominations, but still), and Sergei friggin' Prokofiev.

4. On The Ropes - in which only one question was actually about rope. There was, however, Rope, Roper, tightropers, the rope-a-dope and double dutch.

5 - True Or False.

Team name trends this week included a lot of before-and-after style action, which I'm always a sucker for, and the Madeline Kahn shoutout just made me smile. ("It's twuuue! It's twuuuuue!")

Celebrity Watch: Caren Lissner from Tuesday Night Trivia was there with her full entourage, as well as some respresentatives from our newest sponsor, for whom we are most grateful.
Teams this week included:
- 1st place: The Wrath Of Madeline Khan (first time winners!)
- 2nd place: Occam's Toothbrush
- 3rd Place: License To Kill Bill

And then, in no particular order:
- Ursprache (God bless 'em, they spelled it right)
- Ben Toothlessburger (so tasteless, they won Best Team Name, which this week was Tangled Ropes: The Superstar Billy Graham Story)
- Efficient Frontier
- Jose Pepe Mayorca & his Recipes (I don't even understand this, but it was sure fun to say)
- and Million Dollar Baby Got Back, even though I don't remember Hilary Swank having much in the way of booty in that movie. That, though, is a subject for further research.

Okay, I'm off to the pub now to watch England beat Trinidad & Tobasco, but what did I miss?

6/7 Recap

2006-06-08T18:15:00.000-04:00

Oh, good. Blogger was down yesterday. Anyhow. Here's what went down. It was a great night.

1. On This Day - It was Prince Rogers Nelson's birthday on Wednesday. Every time I hear his name, I can't get Boy George's description of him out of my head: "He looks like a baby dipped in pubic hair." (More on both of them below.)

2. Audio Round: "Sex Beat... Go!" - The title is from a Gun Club song that I used the last time I put a round like this together for a different trivia night, a couple of years ago. Songs included:

Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing
Ron Sexsmith - Strawberry Blonde
Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
David Essex - Rock On
Timbuk 3 - Too Much Sex, Not Enough Affection
Sex Pistols - Silly Thing
Salt & Pepa - Let's Talk About Sex
Alien Sex Fiend - Now I'm Feeling Zombiefied
Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Bell Bottom

The Alien Sex Fiend song didn't go over very well. Sorry about that. I was hoping for a couple more goths in the hizzy. Actually, scratch that. There won't be tons of old-school goth in future audio rounds. I just don't have it, and I never find myself wanting to listen to it. (I seriously considered using "Sexy Motherfucker" by Prince, but I decided against it at the last minute.)

3. Spelling - to commemorate our newest sponsor, I figured I would get my Spelling jones out of the way early. I was very pleased that so many of you spelled "ursprache" correctly, but that was tempered by the fact that so many of you knew who Tori Spelling's new husband was. The hell, people.

4. More Marilyns - Janet found a rich vein of Marilyniana when she researched her Mostly Marilyn Monroe round last week, so she just ran with it. Marilyn Manson's new wife, Boy George's friend the drag artist Marilyn and their musical, Marilyn Munster's home address, and Marilyn vos Savant's column were largely answered correctly. I say this a lot: the louder some of you complain about how hard it is, the better you do. (If we did a Nuclear Physics round and a "Real World" round or something, I'd bet you a dollar -- a whole dollar! That's half of what I earn in a week! -- you'd know more about physics than about who's shtupping whom on the MTV.)

5. True/False - Apparently, the Calcutta Stock Exchange (the second largest stock exchange in India) has changed its name, seeing as the city of Calcutta itself has changed its name (or at least the English spelling of it).

Now, some notes:

Thanks, everyone, for coming out. Please tell your friends. My needs are few, but Janet & I would really like to keep this night going as long as it's fun for you guys.
There were 12 teams, not counting people who didn't play all the way through:
- 1st - GMFAC (who were in 4th place going into the Scrabble Solution final question, and were the loudest table of the night.)
- 2nd - Drunken Inquisition (who led for the whole night.)
- 3rd - Rule 6.2 (+1) - Two guys, one of whom played solo last week and did very well, now with a friend, and they finished in the money. I'm impressed.

And then, in no order:
- Chainsaw Dunlap
- Armless Ninjas
- Tenzin Tsundue Rules! (I mistakenly thought this was the given name of the Dalai Lama, but apparently he's a Tibetan writer and revolutionary. I am cool with this. Thanks for the lesson, guys.)
- The Return Of The Best Team Ever Made: The Best Team Ever Made's Greatest Hits, Part 2 (formerly The Best Team Ever Made)
- S.A.M. (they won our Best Dressed Award for their thong sandals)
- The Five People You Meet In Heaven Can Wait (I did not like the book, and the movie... well.)
- The Drunky Pants (who changed their name to "I Swear I Didn't Know She Was 8," which for my money is a much better team name.)
- Fat Sue's Team (I'm assuming Fat Sue wasn't there, because everyone on the team was actually ferret-thin)
- 2 Good 2 Be 4 Gotten

What did I forget?

The Drunken Smartass Olympics

Okay, we've moved!

Okay. Finally, An Update On Dempsey's (& more)

Good News, And A Sign Of Life

Do you know who this is?

Aren't You Guys Paying Attention?

We're Bow-Wowed by Four-legged Trivia Players

No Such Thing As A Valid Excuse, Only Reasons That Mean Nothing In The Larger Term

Hey, An Actual Excuse To Go Outside And Do Something Else On A Sunday Night

Tonight @ the DSO: Drugs, Juice and other Intoxicants

Tonight: Spelling Bee In Brooklyn

5/9 Recap: This One's For My Momma

Good News, Bad News

5/2 Recap: Smell The Love

Tonight, We Show You How To Love

Passing this along: The International Game Show Congress, June 2-3

4/25 Recap: Never Too Many Boobs

4/18 Recap

Joe Dimaggio, Juan Peron, Sally Ride & Santayana

Baseball and Body Parts: We Know What Brings You Back

Virtual Spelling Bee

In Which Ken Jennings And A Bunch Of New Yorkers, Including A Small But Fervent DSO Posse, Beat The Intellectual Crap Out Of Some Belgians

Knowing Esoteric Crap Is Its Own Reward

4/11 Recap: Hello, Imus Be Going

Tonight!

Queens Museum Panorama Challenge: Update

More On Banksy

4/4 Recap: Happy Ether For Everyone!

Good. Friday.

Recap is on the way

This Saturday Night: Beer and Purty Pitchers!

Tonight's Festivities: A Preview

For Advanced Trivia Folk, or Those About To Rock

3/28 Recap: It's Not Fun Until Someone Loses An Eye

Tonight!

I Don't Know What To Make Of This.

A Game Site For Friday

3/21 Recap: Smell The Love (And The Sweet Air Of A New Waitress! *And* A New Sponsor!)

Pirate Head Coconut

Tonight

If the questions seem easy, that's probably a good sign, Part 1

3/14 Recap: Pie, Abe Lincoln, Antarctica, and the Poetry of Hooliganism

Tonight: Florida, and Not-Bruce

3/07 Recap, Part II

Geeking Out, A Little

3/07 Recap: [56] Weeks Without A Trivia-Related Injury

You guys be good while I'm gone, okay?

Tonight!

3-09: 2/28 Recap: This Is The Spawning Of The Cage And Aquarium

This Week: Fish! For Real This Time!

Podcast: Update

A Scoring Change For Make Glorious Nation Of Smartass Futures!

3-08: 2/21 Recap - Betty Boop In A Neck Brace (or Where The Goys Are)

TMI, and Next Week: Fish!

Attention Sports Trivia Nerds

The Greatest Ever, Just Ask Her

3-07: 2/14 Recap - Baby, It's Cold Outside

3-06: 2/7 Recap - Our First Anniversary!

Oh

Now We Are One

3-05: 1/31 Recap: Popsicles, Souvlaki, Corn Dogs, and Sister Mary Elephant

Getting Biblical On Your Asses, Continued

Podcast Update (or, Cart Before Goat)

3-04 - 1/24 Recap: For My Next Trick, I'll Need A Volunteer

Purty Pitchers

3-03: 1/17 Recap - It's The New 'Golly'

My First Pass At A DSO Podcast

That's When Stephen Colbert Said: "Don't Dis My Homies!"

3-02: 1/10 Recap: I Wish I Could Write My Own Prescriptions Too

DSO 3-01 - 1/3 Recap: How Much For An "Around The World?"

Cautionary Tale

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

Tonight: Season Two Finale!

12/20 Recap: Freeze! Drop! Bass!

One Of This Week's Prizes...

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

One Of The Prizes This Evening

Tonight

And... Yes,

Can't Get Enough?

3/21 Recap: Smell The Love (And The Sweet Air Of A New Waitress! And A New Sponsor!)