Another excellent time was had by all at the Lion & Crown Public House in Allen last night. In
addition to our regulars, four new teams joined our ranks with good cheer and aplomb. King's X
put up a good effort despite finishing near the bottom of the ranks. Afleets came in late at
Round Three but wanted to play anyway and still performed well! Kudos to them! Scarlett 5039
enjoyed themselves playing from the bar, whose moniker reminded Quiz Master Lou of a Gerry &
Sylvia Anderson Supermarionation production. The award for most tasteless team name goes to
Stephen Hawking School for Dance for obvious reasons.
Great questions from our quiz writing overlords as well, putting a wide variety of queries into
and out of our challengers' collective wheelhouse. The visual round spurred nearly all teams to
Double-or-Nothing to successful heights, causing much chagrin to QM Lou, who thought a field
hockey stick looked like a snorkel! An exceptional Find-the-Connection Round as well, dredging
up as many obscure Batman Villains as popular ones. The Hand Out Round was also very clever,
combining musical lyrics with colors. Very inventive!
A very satisfying and long awaited win was awarded to Beer Logic, who leapt out of second place
into first in the final round. The second and third place honors fell to a tie breaker between
Blood, Bath & Beyond and the Hilltoppers, respectively. Very exciting stuff! If there was anything
negative about the night's festivities at all, it was the Rumble Minze Schnapps that publican
Derek conned Quiz Master Lou into drinking. Like a combination of high octane and peppermint with
a napalm sidecar. Not my poison.
Finally, our parting shot comes from George R.R. Martin. Appropriately so, since half the answers
to Round Seven were the book titles of his Fire and Ice series. Old George is quoted as saying:
"My old grandmother always used to say, 'Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but
winter friends are friends forever.'" Kind of puts 'Winter is coming' in a whole new light, eh?
Have a great weekend everyone!
* Won Tiebreaker
Wow! And not just, "Like, wow.", but I mean really, "Wow!" In parsing the actual movement of
play at last night's King Trivia Pub Quiz, we had one of those evenings where the lead shifted
from team to team like the ball in a rugby match!
Beer Logic started off strong with a definitive first place out of eleven teams with Pickles on a
Plate second. Then Scott's Totts swiped the lead pushing Beer to second and Pickles to third.
Beer got first position back from them in round five with the IFFY!/Blood, Bath & Beyond Alliance
catapulting into third! Suddenly, IFFY!/BBB, leaps into first in round six with Bumble Bees
appearing out of nowhere into second place with a well timed Double-or-Nothing, while Beer fell
back to third! Then, Stealth Texas, true to their name, snuck up in round seven with their own
Double-or-Nothing and tied IFFY!/BBB for first place! Stealth won the tie breaker, IFFY!/BBB
ended up in second and the Bumble Bees took third... Quizmaster Lou felt so bad for Beer Logic
that he awarded them a fourth place prize anyway. The infamous Get-Out-of-Death card. (Don't
ask...)
Whew! Excitement. Great questions from our quiz writers as well. The visual round money quiz
was especially inventive. Quizmaster Lou aced this one at home and found it perplexing that not
more teams Doubled-or-Nothing on it, but then again, we now live in an age where plastic has all
but replaced currency and let's face it, who's ever seen a $1000 dollar bill? (Actually, one
newbie team was scoring so badly, and missed all but one of the denomination questions that they
quit the game and left the pub after round two!) Excellent mash-up on round six, throwing in
science fiction books and authors, as well. That gave the geeks a chance to get in on the action
and they did. (Quizmaster Lou admits to being in this class, I aced this one as well, even
though I guessed three of them!) And to top it all off, the round seven Jacksons & Wilburys
shifted the dynamic 180 degrees, causing drama in the eleventh hour! All in all, a great quiz.
From Unknown: "Pain makes you stronger. Tears make you braver. Heartbreak makes you wiser.
And alcohol makes you forget all that cr*p!" Have a wonderful weekend everybody!
* Won Tiebreaker
Dateline: August 16, 2018. The Lion & Crown in Allen, Texas. It was a hot and muggy night.
There had been two muggings in the lobby already, but that wasn't going to keep King Trivia
Pub Quiz from happening. It's funny how the dynamics of social group interactions come into
play at the pub. The teams that sit together, or near each other, do not seem to fit any one
social study model.
For example, the Ninja Turtles and IFFY! usually are in close proximity. One would think the
Pirates would be more akin to Ninjas. No. They sat closest to the Pooter Piddlers. Of course,
if they're really dirty pirates, that might make sense. If we compare social cohesion with
social identification, then the fact that Pickles on a Plate almost always sits next to Beer Logic,
then the latter model fits the situation since, as we all know, Pickles and Beer go together
well, especially if you're from Wisconsin. Likewise, Bar Guys and Hooligans always sit at the
bar.
Ship It! and Royal Flush have no connection or commonality whatsoever. The paradigm of their
group guessing structures is neither based on a division of labor or social strata, nor is it
precipitated on relationships or interactions. Neither model works, and yet, there they were,
a booth next to a table, playing away! But, I digress...
Kudos to the Hooligans, who pulled off a first place win. (I think they brought in a ringer!)
Bar Guys grabbed second, narrowly squeezing Pickles on a Plate out to third by one point!
Exciting stuff!
Our parting shot comes from George Orwell, who said: "In a time of deceit, telling the truth is
a revolutionary act." Think about it.
* Won Tiebreaker
