Virtual Spelling Bee

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.

A Game Site For Friday

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 ]

Pirate Head Coconut

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.

Purty Pitchers

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.

My First Pass At A DSO Podcast

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!"

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:

And... Yes,

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

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

Can't Get Enough?

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

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

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

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

A Handbill For Youse

Handbill originally uploaded by Tony.