Something about a presidential election gets me all sentimental.  A log crackling peacefully on the fire, my dad shouting at the T.V., my mother in tears over exit polls – gives me a bad case of the warm fuzzies.

A completely new experience, on the other hand, is Pub Quiz: Election Day. So what if those of us at Parkway Station were a couple of days late on the festivities?  Much like that log on the fire, it’s the thought that counts.   For something.

Tonight’s quiz was way more exciting the NBC was this Tuesday.  Mostly because Brian Williams wasn’t there to check the results, so I got to announce everything! I’ve never felt so involved with the community! And with three ferocious teams, it was like a real three party system!

Thursday night’s game was close throughout - until the devastating handout round!  Who knows when other states have their caucuses?  It was good luck for the Beer Whores though, who scored well above the other teams. 

The game really came down to the final round.  What party spurred Thomas Jefferson into action? All three teams had different answers – Whigs, Federalists or Tories?  The Beer Whores answered Federalist, and so took their first win for quite some time.  

Change was in the air last night as we embarked on the first Pub Quiz in a new Era… of course as with Justin below I was working with a celebratory hangover and was moving a bit slow… especially as we had 70 folks and 18 teams… nice… and you know what? Everyone was chill and relaxed and in a good mood… it was awesome!!

I would like to thank Barack and all of those who voted for him for lifting the curtain of disdain, despair and anger that was draped over my eyes… which wasn’t even apparent to me until it disappeared somewhere around 8 o’clock Tuesday night… I really cannot explain the difference I feel and I am grateful! My confidence in my fellow countrymen and women is restored… and the world is filled with possibilities again!!! Amen!

And the best part is that I think a lot of you out there know what I mean… because I saw it in your eyes yesterday as I went through the day…it seemed that smiles were given a little more freely and calm was the norm where tension had usually arose… It’s a brand new day!

We had five teams get into the final round… I have to get props to ‘Turn Your Head and Cough’, who for the past few weeks had missed out on the final round by coming in 6th… they still have a way to go as they just missed out on a split of the cash by coming in 4th… ‘Clarification Please!’ with a conservative wager in the final round also fell out of the money. ‘Little Lebowski Urban Acheivers’ took third with ‘Blazin’ Saddles’ taking second. But the night once again belonged to ‘Scooby’s Red Rocket’ who were first going into the final round and first coming out of it! Well Played Guys!!

U.S.A!!! U.S.A.!!! U.S.A.!!!

Dave

Happy Day After Election Day, my friends (to quote the Thank God He’s Gone John McCain), and indeed it is a happy one. Woke up hungover, and I gotta tell you, it’s about the sweetest hangover I’ve ever had. There was some tequila in there at some point last night, which is all good and fun, but left me a little sluggish on the rebound. So I wasn’t in top form tonight, but we had fun all the same.

Actually a pretty good turnout tonight at the Maiden, considering bars are pretty much DEAD everywhere else. But we managed to scrape together a nice lil’ group of 23 to scope out some nice lil’ Election Day questions. I thought the Round 2 By The Numbers was especially nice, as every question related to statistics culled from our nation’s great and not-so-great political history. I knew some teams would love it and nail it, while others would bomb it and hate it, with little in between– and I was right. The teams that nailed it and joined us for a strong final round question involving surgery on male breasts were Bye Bye Caribou Barbie, Cattle Prodigy, and I’m Just a Patsy, with Bye Bye Caribou taking the gold! I’m Just a Patsy took third place, and therefore no cash, but you gotta hand it to this guy… yes that’s right I said guy, singular. Patsy was a team of one, and had he not betted more than everyone else on the last question he would have been that rare shooting star: a winning team of one. Kudos to you sir, and kudos to everyone who voted. After way, way too many years, we finally got one right, and I really believe in my heart things are looking up. Today I am a little less bitter and misanthropic. And damn it, it feels good. Now I’m going to go vomit up the rest of my hangover. G’night!

Justin

Kinda a random collection of words eh?  But no!  The Carpet Baggers took a big pot tonight at the Horse & Hound in Hood River.  First time we did By The Numbers round here at the H&H and it went over pretty well.  It was 100% politcal questions, which some teams loved, and some teams didn’t love.  Either way it was fun!

See you next week Hood Riverites - keep an eye on the email for the theme.  This quiz every single team got the full points the video question this week - since the first place was a tie going into the final round it factored in big time!  As my little cousin says in her text messages - TTYL M8z

So…we didn’t have a big enough crowd to hold a quiz at Portsmouth last night. That’s ok. I suppose there are more important things going on in this nation than pub quiz. I forgive you….as long as you voted. hehe

Anyways…..the big winners, in my opinion, are the people of America. I feel that we have a great president elect and am looking forward to his ideas and actions for our country.

Have a great week!!
Wendy =)

Good night at CC Slaughter’s the eve of Elections.  I thought folks might be a little tired and low key from Halloween, but no!  We had a rowdy group of quizzers who fought it out in a very tight match.  The Streeps, The dirty Tryqs, The Bar Hookers, and Racey, our newest team all played well and were within the grasp of a win at the end of the night.  The new team had the lead in Bingo until the Streeps got the 20 point bonus, but still the teams were a mere 12 points from first to last.  The second round was fun with Jeopardy! a favorite that always gets folks worked up at a quiz.  Nobody could remember the song that was playing when Janet’s boob was exposed by Justin at the superbowl, and many had trouble remembering the John Mayer song too, but all did well with the Major Party Zones.  And the game stayed close….Until the end when the wagers put The Dirty Tryqs in the money for first place.  Of course we had some cool CD’s as prizes for the players as well.

I gotta give props to the bar team who finished in second place, we had Frank running like mad between the many customers at the bar and back to the quiz so that he could get in his call outs for the Jeopardy round.  He also aced one of our handouts all alone!  Frank, job well done, we salute thee.  (Always remember that bartenders prefer the old standby salute of $$$ in the tip jar)  Frank at the bar was also the ONLY team to correctly identify our final challange question last night, he knew the 3rd district stuff, and had he wagered a few more points he would have taken the game and that rollover pot, he’s a force to be reckconed with…Kudos Bar Hookers, and thanks for making the game more fun!

One last note…my love of Martini’s has inspired John the owner at CC’s to create the signature “Polly” martini for me next week.  If you’re free on Monday, come on down and try it out with me…You think it will be a “tall” drink? Or maybe a little sweet and a little sour?  Whatever he comes up with, I’m sure it will be grandiose and lovely, he’s yet to present me with a bad drink, and those bartenders at CC’s sure know the way to a girls heart!  I’ll post a pic next week of my new drink, but better yet, come join me and I’ll post of pic of you and I with my new drink!

On this day of great change, remember to pick up your free Starbucks coffee today when you tell them you’ve voted, and please for the love of pea picking go out and exercise some mental clarity, or lack thereof and VOTE VOTE VOTE! Not to late to drop your ballots, but it will be tommorrow.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed all day, I’ll be watching, listening and glued to the news till they call it.

A good election eve quiz last night as we all drank fine craft beers getting our hangovers for election day started… a lot of people disagreed when I said that I miss the old voting booths… don’t get me wrong I’m not going to miss standing on line in the rain for hours… but I’m a fan of older, simpler technology… there was no other feeling than flipping those little levers and then  having to really step into it in order to throw the huge final lever which actually cast your vote. ‘Ka-chunck’ is the sound that it made as you pulled the lever across the length of the machine. I don’t know… there was something official about that noise.. it gave me a sense of democratic power… On the other hand, it was really nice to fill out my ballot in the warmth and privacy of my own home and then drop it off from my car… maybe I’m just nostalgic.

It was a great election day themed quiz going on last night though… as we had ‘Vote or Die Hard’, ‘The Erotic Adventures of Hercules’ and the ‘Cerebral Pals’ getting into the final round. Some other themed team names who didn’t make into the final round was ‘YouBetcha!’ and ‘3 Whigs and a Torry’…Nice!

All three teams got the final answer right about Smith’s Frozen Foods… which meant that ‘The Erotic Adventures of Hercules’ took second with the ‘Cerebral Pals’ maintaining their top spot. Well Played guys!!!

Cheers!

Dave

It was a two team brawl last night for the Bogey’s Halloween Cup out in the Gresh.. Perennial teams Bogey’s and Shuggy’s all came decked out in some of the best costumes I have seen all week!!! The Ceiling Fan is the one that I think is my best costume of the week… it took me a long time to fgure it out and he had to give me several clues!!! Too frickin funny!! You can see what I mean in the pics below!!

The rest of the costumes were great as well! Including a couple of witches, A real live Pub Quiz Referee who had both a penalty and challenge flag (which were used frequently throughout the night..much to my chagrin…) a bunch of Horny Girls and another favorite of mine… a box of Kleenex with ‘Blow me’ on the front!! Awesome… It always so much fun out at Bogey’s!!

Bogey’s started off with the lead and never really looked back, even though Shuggy’s attempted a comeback winning 3 out of the four costume rounds!! But knowing Ogden Nash’s candy allowed the Horny Girls of ‘Bogey’s’ to cement their victory! Well Played!!! Thanks to Bogey’s for throwing in $25 of Bogey’s Bucks for our costume winners!!

Thanks to everyone throughout the week for the great costumes!!!!

Have a Great Halloween!!

Dave

My Favorite Costume of the Week!!!

 And my Last Costume of the Week… A Black Eyed-Pea!! (It was also my first costume of the week… LOL!!!) (And no Justin… not the hip-hop group!!)

Hey, thanks all who joined us for some super fun Halloween action at the ol’ Belmont Inn!

Had at least 20 costumes, and many of them were just awesome! Where to begin…? Lessee, dug Desperately Avoiding Last Place’s gal who went as the Black-Eyed Peas. She put the letter P all over her black-clad self–I thought she was gonna say she was a “P Fairy” honestly, but hey, a mediocre hiphop group works too. Never can have too many of those.

Enjoyed Ryan from YMBP as Sleazy Dwarf, the eighth dwarf they successfully kept out of the limelight, and also YMBP’s adorable Beer Wench. The No-Mouth monkeys chimed in with a great Frida Kahlo (replete with uni-brow), as well as a Cat Lady (replete with fuzzy kitties dangling from every direction). McCain’s Heart Attack brought it with the Morton Salt Girl (A for creativity on that one, though they didn’t win that category because they didn’t enter the actual costume contest), and Bobbing for Beige Food represented with one sexy rendition of Sarah Palin. And the Boners in Sweatpants brought the house down, winning “Funniest” with a literal interpretation of their name (I’ll spare you the description, or you can look at the photo below). 

But the big costume winners were Burlap Exorcist, a BRAND NEW team who came fully decked out in two costumes. Amanda was Regan from the Exorcist (replete with green vomit on her white dress), and Sean (I think. Sorry Sean if I’m misremembering!) as an awesome desert guy with a camel. He’d concocted an entire burlap sort of desert robe and made a puppet camel AND a sort of pull-over felt bearded desert face. It was AWESOME, and deservedly, this team took home Scariest, Most Creative, AND Best in show. Unfortunately, they still came in last place… BUT they won our hearts. And really that’s all that matters at Pub Quiz in the end. That, and cold, hard cash.

HUGE thanks tonight to Executive Assistant Renee, who further solidified her honorary title as Best Assistant Ever by concocting a bitchin’ spreadsheet in front of my VERY eyes that allowed us to score all the costume votes (and there were many) in a matter of minutes, and compute the winner slam bam, thank you maam. It was amazing to behold, as I am a computer illiterate capable of emailing and moving the mouse around, and that’s about it. Renee is my crutch at these things, folks, you must know that, and there are many nights where I just rub my temples and tell myself I just couldn’t do it without her… or at least not without my blood pressure raising beyond legal limits.

thanks also to the Belmont Inn for giving the top three vote-getting teams a free pitcher of beer. That was an awfully sweet gesture from an awfully sweet bar… though they did eat all my candy. But that’s okay! Candy is good, how can you resist?

Safe travels tomorrow everyone. Drink well. Costume good. Get laid. 

JWS… Photos below!

Our big winners from Burlap Exorcist. Congrats!

One of the Boners in Sweatpants lives up to his name.

YMBP’s adorable Beer Wench from (insert northern European country here.)

YMBP’s adorable Sleazy Dwarf, from Fantasyland.

Frida Kahlo from the No-Mouth Monkeys. 

McCain’s Heart Attack’s Zombie Pimp doin’ da Zombie Pimp strut.

If Sarah Palin really looked like this… I still wouldn’t vote for her.