Daddy Plays Rough

I was a stay at home dad for my daughter when she was 2 and 3. We were rough-housers. She loved to wrestle and be thrown around. She used to hold my hands and then walk up my legs and chest, kick off and do a backflip. She was fearless. One ritual she always enjoyed was after a bath when I was toweling her off she liked it when I rolled her up in her towel, held her over the bed and then, with a quick snap, unfurled her into the pillows. It made bath time easier knowing there was to be this fun being thrown around moment at the end. Whee!

One evening, post-bath, I've got my three year-old rolled up in a fluffy Blues Clues terrycloth about to unroll her onto the bed when my wife walks in. "What are you doing?" she asks. "This is what we do," I explain, "She loves it." Charlotte, wide-eyed, eagerly confirms, "It's fun!" Melissa, with a look of doubt in her eye, steps back to see what exactly is so fun about throwing a child across the room. So, I enthusiastically unfurl and you the reader being a smart cookie, must see exactly where this is going.

She hits the bed just like she's supposed to, but the God of Chaos is passing by and decides to have fun. Instead of rolling smoothly right up to the soft pillows by the headboard, her feet stick magically to the bedspread and her body rolls in a perfect arc, like a windshield wiper, sending her little naked body flying off the side of the bed landing head first on the floor where she understandably bursts into tears. Her mom scoops her up to tend to her and I'm standing their impotently with a damp towel sputtering my apologies, my concern for Charlotte, my insistence that it two years this had never happened before and it would never happen again, and it's not my fault and I'd never want to hurt my child and did I mention how sorry I was?

That's kind of how Quizzo was this week. It was supposed to be fun for everyone, just like it always is. But when you look at the scores you'll see that an awful lot of teams rolled off the side of the bed and landed on their heads. Unfortunately, no one that I could see was wet and naked.

But remember, we didn't earn the reputation for being the toughest trivia night in town just because all the other places are easier. Er, wait, maybe we did. Anyway, just letting you know I'm going to make a concerted effort to make you bleed out of your ears just a little bit less for the next few weeks. At least until September 18th. That's my 6 year anniversary running this stupid game and I'm not holding anything back for anybody. Save the date.

GAME ONE

$30 WINNER Clavins 28









$20 WINNER I da ho? No, Craig da Ho 27









$10 WINNER Idaho on the Down Low 27










The Brendas 15
He Must Have Been Watching "You, Me and Dupree" 12
Larry Craig's Wide Stance 18
Screw the Bocce Team 13
Tap Your Foot Twice for Butt Sex, 3 Times for a Big Idaho Russet 26
Wanna Touch Some Famous Potatoes? 24
I'd Kill Myself After "Shanghai Nights" Too. 22
The Team at the Bar 21
Pull Train on Mom 18
My Name is Larry, this is my Lover Daryl 22
The Souvlaki Tastes Burnt 21
Cop Killer by Ice W, 2 Down, a Million to go 20
Sausage Kings of Chicago 25


GAME TWO (Adios Alberto)

$30 WINNER Time to go Fishing Fredo 26 (Tie Break Winner)









$20 WINNER Going! Going! Gonzalez 26 (Tie Break Loser)









$10 WINNER Sorry Alberto, Your Green Card Expired 25









The Team at the Bar 16
Fuckin' Mexicans 20
Sodomy Sundays with W Became Too Much for My Legal Briefs to Take (This is an excellent example of a team that didn't know when to stop naming themselves) 20
Ashcroft's Midnight Raiders 23
Alberto Tapped LC's Wire 17
John Ashcroft Beats Taco Bell 17
Speedy Gonzalez 15
Clavins 22
I Don't Recall That 17
I Can't Recall the Theme 22
Performance was the Issue for the Lame Enchilada 18
Chillin' in Habeus Corpus Christi 23
Sausage Kings of Chicago 19
Craig isn't the Only One Who Got it in the Pooper 15

What should have been our last slow night of the summer (just wait until the interns return) was unusually crowded. Of course a large contingency of Yelpers smack dab in the middle of the room there to judge the bar and the Quizzo helped fill the place up. Yelp is one of those social networking sites built around people who like to recommend places to complete strangers. Don't get me wrong, they're lovely people, but they seem awfully positive.

Check out some of their reviews at Yelp and you'll see what I mean. I don't know how you find so much to complain about at a bar and then go ahead and give it 4 or 5 stars. Don't like the food, bathrooms, service, or even the condiments? No problem, you're still highly rated. What does a place have to do to earn your derision, serve severed fingers in the fry basket? (That's your token C. Thomas Howell reference of the day; enjoy!). Then again maybe that free pitcher of beer they won for best team name helped take the edge off the evening for them. Don't blog drunk kids, you're only hurting yourself and your Yelp Fan Rating or whatever.

Interesting to learn that they actually planned ahead and based their name on my advice. The fact that their name (Dogfighting on the Outside, Cockfighting on the Inside) got such a great crowd response can only mean that I am always right and you kids should listen to me more often.

Speaking of douchebags, here's a really fantastic Pub Trivia article about the guys in Denver I mentioned earlier. I'm not saying I agree with all their methods, but holy cow they've got a loyal audience. I mean, my teams are great, but their customers' loyalty is pretty damn fierce. Then again, they're in Denver, what else do they have to do with their lives except trivia?

Lastly, a cool link that came my way this week for any of you looking for confirmation that you pay too much to rent in DC (or wherever). I love the Intronet. It's neato.


GAME ONE
$30 WINNERS: One Less Bush for All 33









$20 WINNERS: Clavins 31









$10 WINNERS: Only Little People Get Heart Disease 30










Touch My Monkey 11
Quizzo in the HIzzo for Shizzo 13
Why Couldn't NASA Kill My Teacher Too? (I have a test tomorrow) 29
Lowered Expectations 26
Waiting for Beckham to take his Shirt off Again 26
Alberto, Doesn't Your Family Need You Too? 23
Hell Just GOt a Little More Mean 24
Dean's Going to Mexico 23
Pour House is my Favorite Gay Bar 18
Rape Stand 18
Three Women and a Little baby 21
Dogfighting on the Outside, Cockfighting on the Inside 26
Hurricane Filner Takes Out Dulles 28
Team at the Bar 21
Dean! Jamaican Me Wet 29

GAME TWO: Advice for new Middle Schoolers
$30 WINNERS: Clavins 34









$20 WINNERS: Only Fuck the Rich Boys 32 (tiebreak winners)









$10 WINNERS: That's Not What a Compass is For 32









Binge with Prozac, Purge with RU-486 29
There's No Such Thing as a Permanent Record 29
The Test She Could Not Blow: A Pop Quizzo 22
School Dances are for Losers 7
Suck, Don't Blow 30
I Hear the Retarded Girl Gives Special Ed 15
Don't Tell Your Dad "I Understand that Cinderella Joke Now" 22
Second Base Tops 24
Fat Kids are Hard to Kidnap 28
You Can't Get Pregnant if you take it in the Ass 23
To Catch a Predator just got Easier 22
Don't Rub Teacher's Middle Leg 28
Don't Tell Quiz Guy Where the Clavins Touched You 26
Team at the Bar 24

Picture Pages

Quizzo Virgins II: Smart and Lonely

Had to share this piece of SCIENTIFIC DATA because I know it speaks to the heart of my audience. Seems after many, many studies were conducted it was determined that there is a correlation between high IQs and virginity. And before you get all high and mighty, no, it doesn't correlate that way. It seems the higher your IQ, whether you're male of female, the higher the likelihood that you're a virgin.

Some of the studies went beyond just IQ scores to examine college students majors and their experience riding the bologna pony. Although the study cited was done at Wellesley, so perhaps there's a better euphemism. Riding the magic carpet? Anyway, the more intellectual the major, the higher the percentage of virgins in the department. Of course the parents whose daughters are majoring at Wellesley in Studio Art just got an education in there daughter's extracurricular activities: not a single virgin amongst them. Liberal arts: represent!

So do you think this data correlates to Quizzo? Taking a look at any random set of winning team photos I'd have to say: Probably.

So learn from this report. If you win at Quizzo and you go on and on about what a smarty-pants you are, realize all you're doing is confirming the fact that the only person whose been in your smarty pants is you.

The Boy with the Bunny

How prescient am I? I do a speed round on cheaters the same night that Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record. It's almost like I knew it was going to happen. Then again, he was facing the Nats so it may have just been a foregone conclusion.

The fun part about that cheater handout was I got some material for it from my Dad. Inspired by the blackberry-user from two weeks ago, I thought I'd do a round on famous cheaters. Dad loved the idea and threw in some great ideas to start with: Rosie Ruiz, Ted Kennedy getting expelled from Harvard, the Worldcom fiasco, etc. Dad throws me questions from time to time, but I rarely use them because they're usually beyond impossible. Take my hardest, most ass-whupping question, multiply it by 12 and you get some idea of his material. He means well, but I know our crowd isn't going to be able to name the first left-handed golfer to win Arizona's most prestigious Pro-Am tournament. But this time, with a theme to work with, Dad was firing on all cylinders.

Some family history on how I got into trivia: It always seemed Dad could bond well with my brother and sister over sports. They were all good athletes and I wasn't. I was the artsy boy who liked to play chess by himself. Literally. One year at Christmas when all the kids got little clay ornaments, my sister's was a tennis player, my brother got a soccer player and I got a little boy holding a bunny.

Then when I was about ten or eleven there was a concerted effort on Dad's part to spend more time with me. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with my parents marriage about to implode, but anyway, somehow it was decided that I would join him when he went jogging. Again, I was the Boy with the Bunny; not really a runner. But I gave it a shot. And it turns out what I lacked in hand-eye coordination, agility, speed and toughness, I made up for in endurance (take note, ladies). It was on these runs that my dad decided to start teaching me the state capitals. He went through them from West to East, with brief histories of the states, their geography, mnemonic devices to help keep them all straight. It was good mental exercise (which I was used to) combined with physical exercise (which was foreign to me). And while today I can't remember my niece's birthday, I know Juneau to Augusta and back again.

Of course, it wasn't until I was much, much older that it dawned on me how, in terms of knowledge worth knowing, state capitals are really, truly, frankly, totally unimportant. They seem kind of important on maps and tests and Quizzo games but really they're just trivia answers: just as important as you make them. And for me, those fifty unimportant trivia answers will always seem a little more important than they should be. They take me back to a really interesting time in my life, just before my folks split up, when I was running around my neighborhood: just me and my Dad. Ain't nothing trivial about that.

GAME ONE

$30 WINNERS: Why Don't They Ever Write Stories About Bridges That Haven't Fallen Down? 34









$20 WINNERS: Michael Vick Humane Society 33









$10 WINNERS: Nicole Ritchie Isn't Pregnant, She Just Ate a Meatball 30 (Tie Break Winner)









The Bourne Penetration 30
I Don't Have a Member 30
Sarkozy Papparazzi 28
Clavins 27
Mariner Moose Against Drunk Driving 27
Team Chuck 25 (This was a first time, two man team! Beware Pour House!)
Ocean City, MD: Home of the Fetus Tree 24
Clean and Sober in 36 Hours: The Lohan Plan 23
8 Lost Miners, 24 Grieving Wives 23
I'll Have a Shot of Barry Juice and a Bud Chaser 20
Bombs Over Tiblisi 17
Give 'em Books! 16
Giuliani Went Barack and Never Went BAck 16
We're Going to Lose to the Team of 15 Next to US 16
Pooro at the Quizhouse 15
Poncho & Lefty & Obama 14
Put a Fork in Us We're Done 11


GAME TWO (How Hot Is It?)

$30 WINNERS: Almost as Hot as the Scorebabe 30









$20 WINNERS: Halle Berry Did it for Free 27









$10 WINNERS: I'd Go On a Minnesota Bridge Just to Cool Off 27









Even Hillary's Balls Are Sweaty 16Mariner moose 25
I Paid a Homesless Man $5 to Spit on Me 26
Hotter Than Titty Fucking Bea Arthur 19
Clavins Look Cool 26
I Feel Structurally Inefficient 22
Hotter Than Cheney's Shotgun Barrel 19
Pretty Hot 18
Insert Cheney or Anal Reference Here 10
Even Paris HAs Nothing to Say 17
Hotter Than Mark Foley's Office During Page Orientation 10
Vitter Took His Diaper Off 14
Sarkozy Sweating Balls and Flipping Off Reporters 5
-90 Degreees Kelvin 24
Too Hot For Anal 19

Teem Names

Another Tuesday, another Quizzo, another shitload of people. My new buddy John in Denver was recently bitching about having ten, count 'em TEN teams at his game. Yeah. This week we had 21. Then again, he doesn't have a Scorebabe. Me? I got a Scorebabe. The real one! Yes, Rebecca made her triumphant return to the bar much to everyone's delight except the people who hate her and punish her (and the bar) by writing lengthy paragraphs instead of team names. Come on people. A good team name should be like Mike Tyson with no legs: short and punchy. If you have to take a breath in the middle of reading your team name, it probably sucks. Think haiku, not limerick. (That is not an invitation to make your next team name seventeen syllables long you Type A, literal mooks.) I know you're all clamoring to win the free pitcher of beer for the best team name, so let me give you a few more pointers...

Remember this: we read the names aloud. So when you come up with a clever team name based on a homophone, its cleverness, if it had any (helpful tip: it doesn't), won't really translate to the room. "Fowl Play" or "I Love Ewe" or "I Ate the Hole Thing" or whatever is just going lie there: blah. Sure, Rebecca and I are simply in hysterics from your effortless twist of the complexities of the English language, but the room, not so much. Let me put it this way, did you see Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan? Yeah. You see my point.

Here's another idea: don't try to do too much. You know when you're moving and you 're almost done and there's about half a U-Haul left to unload and you've got boxes to your chin and you tell your roommate "yeah, put the microwave on top." Stop. Your mom was right, always make two trips. A team name that ropes in Lindsay Lohan, Alberto Gonzalez, condoms and the death of Don Ameche all into one probably isn't worth all that work. Think simple and elegant.

Be unique: Yes, when Britney Spears runs naked through Waffle House within 12 hours of Quizzo, we know there will be a torrent of similarly themed names. Remember that it will almost always work against you if you jump on the bandwagon. Plus, it will drive you crazy when you don't know which score is yours because all the names have the same theme/joke/words/etc. It can happen that we get a bunch of names on the same theme and one clearly rises to the top, but it's extremely rare. Because you know,when you take the path less traveled by it can, sometimes, make all the difference. I wrote that.

Also, there's nothing wrong with having a little pride in staking out a team name and sticking with it week in, week out. Yes, there's the Clavins (Um, shut out again this week, what's up with that?) and now Pour-o at the Quiz House and Lowered Expectations have joined the fold. No, they're not going to win the beer for best name, but they've got a little spirit, a little team unity, and that can go along way. Take it from me, proud card-carrying member of the Bikini Bandit All-Stars since 1999. BBA*S represent!

Lastly, avoid the too soon and the too crude: Yes, often the team names at Quizzo are not for the faint of heart. Being spunky, erudite people we don't just insult your mom, we insult your mom colorfully . But, remember, even I have lines I won't cross and you should too. Your mom raised you better than that. Fat old slut that she is.

GAME ONE

$30 WINNERS S-CHIP 'n' Dales 35









$20 WINNERS If Obesity Is Contagious, I Have to Stop Hanging Out With Your Mom 31











$10 WINNERS We Just Got Married, And This Is How We Honeymoon 30 (tie break winners)










Damn, This Is the Smartest Thing We've Done 16
Attack of the Spiderpigs 16
Clavins 23
Poor-o at the Quiz House 18
Stewed, Screwed, & Tattooed 18
Roberts & Stevens Seize the Day 27
Last Place Lassies 13
People With Tables Suck 28
Moo Shoo Jews 24
These Are Not My Pants 27
Lowered Expectations 26
Ted Stevens' Bridge to Butt Sex 25
Apparently the "Bride to Nowhere" Actually Leads to Alaskan Senator's Secret Snow Fort 17
Scorebabe, I Think I Love You, But What Am I So Afraid Of? 30
I Want to Bag a Ginger Before I'm Dead, Hufflepuff 22
With Liberty and Justice from Seizure to Shining Seizure
Tom Snyder Joins Larry King in Dead Talk Show Host Hall of Fame 26
I Facebooked Your Mom 10

GAME TWO: (Name a Banned Sesame Street Sketch)

Oscar Takes It In the Can 29










Bert & Ernie: F Is For Fisting 27 (tie breaker winners)










The Coochie Monster 27 (tie breaker kind of winners)









C Is for Cocaine: That's Good Enough for Lindsay 20
Bert, Is That a Rubber Duckie in My Ass? 12
Big Bird's Slow Bird Flu Death 19
Stewed, Screwed, & Tattooed 14
St. Elmo's Firecrotch 22
Jim Henson Touched Me 17
Ernie Felt Bert 20
Clavins 23
Bum Fights III: Mayweather v. Oscar de la Grouch 8
Snuffleupagus 20
P Is For Pussy, That's Good Enough for Me 25
Bert & Ernie: My Original Two Dads 17
When Oscar Made His O Face 11
Harry Potter Dies 26
Bert Back Mountain 19
Dirk Diggler Sock Pupper 27
Bert & Ernie's Eiffel Tower 23
Is That a Snuffleupagus in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me? 18