Tonight!

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.

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

Craziness. My voice is somewhere around the register of James Earl Jones this morning.

The Season Two Finale (and year-end blowout) was kind of messy. Nineteen teams, more than a few of whom changed their names at random without telling anyone (please don't do that; if you change your name, please put your old name on the answer sheet so we know who you are), and it wound up being our second-largest night ever. Woot!

This week's rounds:

1. On This Day - When the wrestler formerly known as Chyna shares her birthday with Sarah Vowell, Howdy Doody and Louis Pasteur, you know it's a day for all ages.

2. Audio Round: The End Of The Innocence - A round to commemorate the end of aught-six. I didn't do anything so déclassé as use Don Henley (not yet, anyway), but there was Styx's "Don't Let It End," the Kinks' "Till The End Of The Day," and "Endicott," by the vastly underrated Kid Creole and the Coconuts.

3. Not James Brown - in which Janet called back James Randi & asked about James Brown's last backing band.

4. Not Gerald Ford - Featuring The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Lita Ford's old band, Ford Prefect's home star, Harrison Ford's Oscar nomination, the dystopian religion of Brave New World, Richard Ford's third novel in the Frank Bascombe trilogy (an advance copy of which will be a prize next week), and the New York area university formerly known as St. John's College. (Hint: its current name fits in this round.)

5. Name 3's - You know, aside from being provinces that have food specific to their regions, Champagne, Vidalia and Feta really are all shades of white.

After a few weeks of top-notch team names, this week's infusion of new players meant things were a little uneven. Still, there were some gems:

• 1st Place: If I Had Known, I Would Have Made Him A Partner
  
• 2nd Place: [A Drawing Of A Polar Bear] (literally, that was what their team name was: a drawing of a polar bear, asleep on the top of a hill, with stars all around. It was positively pastoral)
  
• 3rd place: 99 Red Debloons! (props for the aggressive pirate noises, which could be heard throughout the bar, even though they sat in the front alcove)
  
  
  
  Followed by, in no particular order:
  
• God Finishes What Squeaky Couldn't


• Inigo Montoya (I made them change their name from 'Team We Can't Think Of A Team Name'))


• The Drunken Inquisition


• Kara & Darren


• Sara & Dave


• Shit, My Brown Ford Died On Me


• Bearded Clam Chow-der (Say It French!) (I assumed ze h'instrokshions were part of ze team name, oui?)


• Killer Red Ant Brigade (I thought this read 'Killer Red Ant Bridge' for the first two rounds. Sorry)


• Orchid Avenue #209


• Kevin Bacon 4 EVA


• JAM/Jenn, Adam, Marcel (not Maurice, as I misread the first time. I had a rough night in the reading-handwriting department)


• 4D


• Hokey Birds


• Off Their Rockers


• One Of Us Is Not Wearing Their Own Underwear

Prizes this week included some piggybanks made from recycled denim, as well as the last of our last batch of prizes from the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

You know, this silly little pub quiz thing really turned out to be the greatest thing I personally was involved in all year, and I know Janet & I are both grateful you continue to choose to come and wonder what the hell we're going on about every week.

Thanks. See you next Wednesday for the start of Season Three.

Tonight: Season Two Finale!

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

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

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

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

Can't Get Enough?

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

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

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

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