Alisa Stewart   Queen of Quizzery
Quiz Writer & Creator of Pub Quiz Oregon

When Alisa isn't screwing around in Maui, she is a musician by night and highly qualified personal injury paralegal by day. She graduated toward the top of her class at Oregon State and moved to Chicago to pursue a theater career. After attending Columbia College in pursuit of a Masters degree, she found that drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and being broke was a lot more fun than taking classes. For seven years she worked in professional theater before moving back to the Pacific Northwest, where she started a band and released her first album, Little Things Unseen, in 2000. She toured the west coast and hopped the pond to the UK, where she had her first glimpse of pub quizzes in between gigs. Upon moving to Seattle in 2002, she started attending pub quizzes every Thursday with an English bloke by the name of Paul. Although they did pretty well, Alisa got tres' frustrated when the same team would win every week.

Paul eventually moved back to England and Alisa eventually moved back to Oregon. Upon her arrival, she couldn't find a pub quiz to save her life. Most people would look at her funny when she asked, "Do you know where a pub quiz is?" (most responses were "What's a pub quiz?"), so she decided to start one, in her own style, making sure to put mechanisms in so that the same team really couldn't win every week.

Alisa passed all the Mensa tests & could be a member of the elite group, but she'd much rather write quizzes, hang out in pubs, drink beer and give money & pitchers of beer away. Besides, Mensa meetings have got to be boring.

Polly Pospisil   Quizmaster Goddess
(CC Slaughter's and Bridgeport Brewpub)

It was the allure of the glamorous lights, rubbing elbows with Portland's elite crowd, no, wait, maybe it's the copious amounts of attention, and amazing fan mail. Really it's simply holding all the answers and commanding a microphone all at the same time that drew her to Pub Quizzes, well that and the good beer. Polly has a wanton desire to be interesting, gathering wardrobe, hair colors and accents from everything and everyone she meets, which makes her the perfect fit for for sharing knowledge with you at a pub quiz.

Polly hails from the armpit of America, small town Ohio, where coincidentally the state mascot is a Buckeye, a poison nut. Polly has had many illustrious careers ranging from Waitress, sales of tours of stars homes in Nashville, to Wine Stewart and has won some prestigious Christmas party awards, one that includes a medal for "Miss Vivacious." After pursuing academic interests she landed at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio and earned her degree of Applied Sciences in Interior Design and within a year of work in her field under her belt, she had something else growing under her belt as well and that led her to a life of exile as a suburban stay at home mom. Drowning in Khaki, trips to the gap, and a life of luxury travel and time, Polly formed a new resolution for the Year of 2006 break out of suburbia before you forget why your doc martens were cool, and what Indie Rock means.

If you get too serious, you could die of starch. - Cyndi Lauper

Dave Walker   Quizmaster Extraordinaire
(Biddys, Thirsty Lion, Bogeys, and Green Dragon)

"The world we live in is not as it seems." Some guy whispered that to me as he was getting off the bus the other day. 'You're damn right!' I said, even though he freaked me out a little and smelled something of goats. He seemed to be taken aback from my response and stumbled a bit on the steps of the bus. Just before the door closed, I leaned my head out and shouted after him, "The real question is can you be... but not seem?" The door closed as the man turned around and I never saw him again.

Dave Walker tells that story to anyone who will listen. His story started when he was born to a minister and his wife just outside of Pittsburgh, Pa. Since that auspicious start, he has made it his goal to travel to as many places that weren't actually located within in the Monongahela valley as he could. Since his journey began, he has stepped foot on five continents, 15 countries and all 48 of the contiguous United States. He has also had the opportunity to attend five institutes of higher learning... and three of the lower kind.

Through it all he has tried to keep his sense of humor and more importantly his limbs intact. But there is something that he has learned recently that really sums up his experience in this tiny blue sphere of existence... the world we live in is not as it seems. Right on little freaky goat man.... right on! Hey did everything just taste purple for a second or two? Weird.

Justin W. Sanders   Quizmaster Extraordinaire
(The Belmont Inn)

"Justin W. Sanders grew up in the suburb of Shoreline, Washington (the "Beaverton of Seattle," you might call it). He came to Portland to pursue an English degree at Lewis and Clark College. Upon graduating, it dawned on him that while his time at school had turned him into an articulate, deep-thinking individual, it had also failed to provide him with a single practical skill (though he did learn how to make monthly payments on his student loans... many, many payments...)

Broke and aimless, Justin turned to the one occupation available to a person with no practical skills to speak of: he became a writer. For four years he was on the editorial staff at the Mercury, Portland's alternative newspaper. There, he learned how to write about bars, strip clubs, and forgettable rock bands. Somewhere along the way, he started making films. He made short films and long films. He made a feature film. He realized he liked things that allowed him to both perform and write, like film. And writing and hosting pub quizzes. So he quit his career-oriented job, with its "financial security" and its "health insurance," and he set himself adrift in the tumultuous sea of self-employment, where he could set his own hours and make as many films as he wanted. These days, he refers to himself as a freelance writer, which mostly involves sleeping in too late and drinking lots and lots of red wine. He likes his Pub Quiz job because it gets him out of the house and forces him to interact with organic life forms besides his cat and his plant.

Toni Tabora-Roberts   Quizmaster Extraordinaire & Writer
(The Maiden)

Toni is originally from Ohio, another one of the grand "O" states. After a brief stint East (she went to Syracuse University, where she developed a deep crush on Otto the Orange, the school mascot), she's since crawled her way Westward, first to Chicago, then to San Francisco and finally landing in Portland. As luck would have it, weird Portland suits weird Toni very much. Toni is obsessed with martini's (a little dirty please), chocolate, hats, and is crazy in love with her hub-ster Matt. She collects things. Like bags, the letter "T" and mini-decks of cards from around the world. When she's not Quizmastering, you might hear her on KBOO, read her articles in the Asian Reporter, see her behind the camera (budding filmmaker), or catch her doing other bizarre, creative, and very important pursuits around town.

Wendy Casey   Quizmaster Extraordinaire
(Portsmouth Pizza & Pub)

How did my legend begin? My earliest recollection of my parents was one filled with ominous green light, screams and a scary, hooded being who took my parents' lives; leaving me to be the only one to survive the Killing Curse. Wait...that was Harry Potter's beginning.

I lived most of my life in the Sacramento Valley of California in a little, rural community called Yuba City. I was one of those awkward teenagers who just wanted to be accepted. I met a young man who liked me and we started dating. I married my high school sweetheart and had 2 children with him. Shortly after we separated, I shed my California tan for a Portland umbrella, and my kids & I share our pad with my new beau, his Rottweiler, and our 2 cats. I love dancing, shooting excellent tequila, camp, hot tubbing, more dancing, movies, and did I mention dancing? My daughter and I like to be couch potatoes on Sundays, catching up on all of the reality TV shows we DVR. My boyfriend and I hit up the karaoke every week. It's one of my moments to be famous. LOL. And here we are!

Leandra Binder   Quizmaster Extraordinaire
(Parkway Station)

Leandra Binder is a byproduct of the cultural sludge that seeps from the Las Vegas Strip (via Yucca Mountain, very viscous), through the suburbs and into the desert. Unbeknownst to most sociologists the toxic sludge of Las Vegas is only harmful to interlopers ("tourists"), so Leandra rode that slimy wave straight through her M.A. and onward into Portland. Now washed anew by Portland's fresh air, she reports the only side effects are a tendency to drawl and a distinct fetish for shiny lights. Magpie tendencies aside, Leandra is a strict believer in red wine, Russian literature, and her quest for the perfect sentence (which she will find, but probably not while teaching writing courses at Chemeketa Community College).

Jeremy Henrickson   Writer & Quizmaster Extraordinaire
(Horse & Hound)

When I'm not Quiz Mastering at the Horse and Hound in Hood River (Shout out to my peeps!) I practice my art of underwater basket weaving. I graduated from Portland State after a stint at the University of Oregon. I have a degree in Literature with a minor in writing, so you know my word Kung Fu is strong! I'm all WHAM! and CRACK! I could go on all day with the Batman sound effects.

I previously worked in the hustle and bustle of a newspaper called The Argus. Now, I am living happily in Beaverton with my cat, who demands most of my free time. When I do get a moment, I am always up to things of a notorious nature with my buddies over in Portland. It never ceases to provide new and interesting ways to get into trouble. The good kind of trouble - not the Big Trouble you'd sometimes find in Little China. With Kurt Russell.

Carly Nairn   Writer Extraordinaire

Carly is currently a senior at Portland State University, but don't let that dissuade you of her intelligence. She will be graduating with a B.A. in Communication Studies. (By god, she will!) She moved to Portland to get out of the urban sprawl that is the central valley of California almost two years ago, and loves living here. Along with being a poor student, Carly also indulges in being a poor writer, particularly with a little student newspaper called The Vanguard. Groomed for a life full of rhetoric and argumentation, Carly gets to travel around the world to debate other bright folks. When she is not putting pen to paper, volunteering at the Oregon Humane Society, at the theater, and dreaming of a job at National Geographic, you can spot Carly outside various locales around Portland.