I'm not gonna lie. It was a battle royale between Al GoreRhythm and Big Mouth Billy Bass this week at The Brewyard Beer Company in beautiful Burbank.
It's always exciting when the lead shifts back-and-forth, especially on the success or failure of a well-timed double-or-nothing attempt.
The ultimate winner wasn't determined until the final round, when Al GoreRhythm successfully doubled on the strength of knowing the names of the six Fellowship of the Ring fellows who participated in the Battle of Pellenor Fields.
Other teams were not so fortunate, alas, though we wish we could have awarded creativity points for answers like "Elf Orlando Bloom," "The Dwarf Dude," "The Ranger," and my personal favorite, "Mary."
We do have fun at the Brewyard, and we'll be back next week. Hope to see you there.
When you look at all the smiling faces in the photos from this week's trivia quiz at Brewyard Beer Company in Burbank, you might not imagine the undercurrent of aggressive competitiveness at work just below the surface!
You would never guess that Amy (photo #1, on the left) and Shay (photo #2, also on the left) would end the evening standing atop their tables yelling trash talk at each other.
"You got nuthin!" Amy declared, when her team's victory was announced. "You got nuthin', in a brown paper bag!"
"You got lucky!" came the expected retort from Shay. "And you should put your head in a brown paper bag!"
Now, to be honest, this is not the kind of behavior this intrepid quizmaster is used to seeing from our usually well-mannered quizinators. And you might be asking yourself: did that really happen, or is ol' Tim just pulling our leg?
And you'd be right to ask. Join us next week at the Brewyard, and find out for yourself! (Just tread lightly around Amy and Shay! I always do!!)
* Won Tiebreaker
Well, we had a bit of a kerfuffle this week at The Brewyard Beer Company in Burbank, involving the excellent, wonderful, talented, gracious and entirely lovely ladies running operations behind the bar, Liz and Vicki.
Yes, the do a great job, to be sure. And we're always delighted when they opt to participate in the quiz. But still, an incorrect (or incomplete) answer is still incorrect. And it is the Quizmaster's job to maintain certain standards of fairness and accuracy.
So when "The Bartenders" team responded to a question asking what Han Solo won from Lando Calrissian in a card game in Star Wars with "the Falcon," and every other team correctly answered "the MILLENIUM Falcon," we had no choice but to ding 'em a point.
Did they take this decision with grace and good humor? No, they did not. Well, good humor, sure. But grace? Uhm...no. There was name calling. There was bird flipping. A suggestion was made as to where your faithful QM could put his microphone. It was hurtful. (But not as hurtful as if I had taken the microphone advice!)
Worst of all, bar goddess Liz abused her position by offering free beers to trivia players who agreed to come up and dis this humble QM, questioning both his judgment and his parentage. You'd be surprised just how many quizzinators were more than willing to do this.
Ultimately, we had no choice but to award the Bartenders 10 bonus points*. Lesson learned: never engage in battle with the Bartenders. Especially at The Brewyard. See ya next week.
*note: the 10-point bump resulted in The Bartenders still finishing in last place! Take THAT, Liz!
* Won Tiebreaker
