I concluded my admittedly phoned-in writeup last week with a request that everyone show up tonight, and I'm saddened to note that no one seems really to have done that. Well, that's not entirely the case -- a few teams did show up, and I'm not really sad. More like apathetic. See, on nice quiet nights like this I can repartir with the crowd and focus on my technique instead of scoring eighty million rounds.

So yeah, that's how it went -- a nice relaxed vibe. A couple of the rounds were exceedingly hard, not least the visual round. #7 there was described independently by at least two quizzers as looking like a "Rorschach test". A few other teams answered it correctly, I believe largely by employing the highly secret and time-honored technique of "going in to the bathroom to look at it because the light is better there." I mean, I could go into the whole design aesthetic of bathrooms that are more brightly lit than the adjoining bar, depending on what exactly it is that you're trying to see in these respective environs, but let's not, k? The point is, that some teams answered this question correctly, so if you are not them they are better than you. They also probably washed their hands when leaving.

Anyways, I'll see y'all next week. Or, you know, maybe not.

Golden Girls Gone Wild


3+1=5




Sexual Napalm


Banditos, I'm guessing?




Domestic and Imported


Courtney's Love Baby

Golden Girls Gone Wild ......................74
3+1=5 .......................................64
Unitarian Jihad .............................62
The American'ts .............................58
Domestic and Imported .......................57
Erin go Bar .................................51
Sexual Napalm ...............................37
Courtney's Love Baby ........................25
Banditos ....................................15

There I was, all prepared to hear someone who's had a class in color theory bitch about how sepia is a tint, not a shade, but this didn't end up happening, because I don't even know how to pronounce the word. I think that's the takeaway from last night, and it's pretty funny. Sorry for that, everybody.

The "two phrases with one word in common" round, while a bit overly restrictive in its subject matter, was funny as hell, and I don't think I'm the only one in the room who wants to watch/listen to/somehow absorb Time after Timecop.

Also, the speed round turned out better than I expected, and given everyone's apathy when I asked you to tell Corporate how you feel, I think we'll be going ahead with a few more of those. That'll teach you to do what I say when I point a camera at you...

Um, not much else to report. Show up next week. I command it.

Golden Girls Gone Wild


Where's a Bat-Leth when you need one?




Brainiac 4. Also note OH YAY FOOTBALL


Loraxes of Jihad




At first I was like...


But then I was like...




Sexual Napalm

Scores:

Golden Girls Gone Wild .........................78
3+1=5 ..........................................76
Where's a Bat-Leth when you need one? ..........65
Loraxes of Jihad ...............................64
Brainiac 4 .....................................63
Wolfpack .......................................45
Coprolites .....................................43
Fucking Fire Tornado ...........................40
Sexual Napalm ..................................35
Drink, Pray, Hate ..............................33
The Other Guys .................................28
East Coast Invasion ............................21

So yeah, one of the questions last night was on quaaludes, and it kind of seemed like our crowd was on them. Although the room was full, we only had twelve teams. Oh, and hey, speaking of full, check out our second-place team, Mike Hunt's Army:

So when I read off the standings, I didn't really know who any of the teams were (see lack of captions below), including the fact that they were the team with seven fucking people. So there I was, fully prepared to redact the final standing to reflect their just deserts, while they came up all puppy-eyed with about five full minutes of passionate equivocation. To sum up, the onus was that one of their team members "didn't even play, but she wanted to come out, because she starts school tomorrow and won't be able to come out any more." Normally this kind of shit wouldn't hold water at all, but the team-non-member in question, aside from being charming and quite physically attractive, is also apparently going to school to learn welding, which is just sexy as hell. It shouldn't come as a surprise for any of you by this point, but let me reiterate that your quizmaster isn't above fudging the standings based on sex appeal.

The quiz was pretty prosaic otherwise. We had a round on drugs, and we had someone whom I assume to have been on drugs write the have your Kate and Edith too round, which was hard as hell and pretty high-concept up until the bonus question, which was for some reason about Portal. We also had a round on pirate movies, which sounded like a really cool idea except instead of cool pirate movies there were just like fourteen clips of the sundry Pirates of the Carribean incarnations. Please note for future referene that among cool pirate movies we would include Treasure Island (which is pretty much singly responsible for the present stereotype of the "pirate accent") and Ice Pirates.

Ice Pirates. That is all.

Scores:

Golden Girls Gone Wild ....................82
Mike Hunt's Army ..........................77
The Blagojeviches .........................70
One Eyed Willie and his Pet Weasels .......69
3+1=5 .....................................68
The Meeesters .............................63
X-Ray Pecks ...............................51
Blagojeviche's Well Hung Jury .............51
Princess Uncorn ...........................46
Don't Panic ...............................46
Bingo the Wonder Pony .....................45
Architectural Terrorist ...................13

My seven months of quizmaster retirement have softened me.

I hauled out and plugged in the ol' shot counter last night, thinking, hey, this'll be a lark, but forgetting entirely that it makes people buy me shots—shots which I then have to drink, which subsequently make me drunk. There was a time at the height of my QM-debauchitude when eight shots, plus the queue of double vodkas I slurp throughout quiz, was a standard night. Now, however, I'm a child lost in a boozy forest, my once-heroic constitution weakened by gardening and sitting on the couch with my wife to watch "Breaking Bad" while sipping sun tea and making idle conversation about a story we heard on NPR. I am lame. I am lame, and my lameness was punched straight in the lame-hole last night. I deserved it.

The quizzers were fun last night, with nary an asshole among 'em. It was, all told, a fun and rather hard quiz, which always makes me happy. We had some pretty decent teams, and then we had Wolf Pack. Who won? Why, 3+1=5 did, duh, smacking down the scowls in Golden Girls Gone Wild while I high-fived the baby Jesus.

So? The aforementioned dance party? It was supposed to occur in honor of somebody's birthday, and it was going to be awesome. So I totally put the Pandora Scissor Sisters station on and went outside to smoke. Then I realized that I was loopy, so I went inside, unplugged my iPhone, forgetting that it was the source of the music a couple people were idly shuffling around to. Then I went home and threw up Taco Bell. A dance party for the ages, it was, and I tell you this not because it's entertaining, but because you sort of have to know this story in order to understand why I get a little, um, creative with this week's scores.

Pictures!

iv>

Scores!

3+1=5                                        67
Golden Girls Gone Wild                       66
Loraxes of Evil                              61
Um, That One Team                            55
Guys? Maybe?                                 45?
The Team With That Girl, You Know the 
  One I'm Talking About. Right? I Know!      40?
Yeah.   
$%^&the Ones on the Corner               sassafras
Okay, This is Getting Ridiculous             red
Kings of Leon need another song
Wolf Pack                                    like, 11

While usual QM Drew is off surfing waves and sipping obnoxious drinks out of coconuts and mocking us from his hammock on the beach, I returned, scowl and foul mouth intact after many months away, to re-commandeer my old post and yell at a bunch of people while I was at it. Lurvely, lurvely fun, that was.

Fun fact I learned last night:

DID YOU KNOW that women are by no means man's equal? It's true! They are the gentler sex and are thus prone to the vapors, especially, god forbid, if one has a ruffian's tongue in their vicinity! The mere miasma of gutterspeak will cause a lady to faint forthwith! And be it on your head if you did not think to carry upon your person a vial of the smelliest of smelling salts. You rogue!

DID YOU KNOW that Zwack actually tastes like maple syrup made from trees infected with tree tuberculosis, and also probably possessed by the devil, to boot?

DID YOU KNOW that high-fiving is the official state currency of Colorado?

Anyway, I had some fun, even if Evil Bad Guy Wrestlers Golden Girls Gone Wild won again and half of the Betas showed up to hurl handfuls of their pubic hair at me and cast aspersions on my mom's character. Knaves!

I hope that you had fun too, McCabe's. I'll be back next week next week, and then the shot counter is coming back out. You best prepare.

Scores!

Golden Girls Gone Wild                           66
Retka: The Other Retiree From MN                 64
Live Every Week Like It's Shark Week             62
3+1=5                                            61
... And Aaron Eastburn                           56
California's Flaming Finger                      55
Heaven Spelled Backwards is "Death's Design"     53
JewDunno                                         38
Blo-han Goes Free                                28
Grads & Dads                                     28
Assless Chaps                                    27
Work Starts Tomorrow                             23
Language                                         17
Team Mike's Loves to Boom                        12
Baby Jesus in a Tuxedo T-Shirt                   12

By the books, there were 104 points possible on last night's quiz. I fudged that up to 105, because I think Sigfried and Roy are awesome enough to merit a point apiece. Putting aside for a moment the bonus points I gave to Wolfpack for their fawning sycophancy, that means 3+1=5 got over 92% correct last night, playing a perfect game all the way up to round 7.

I checked with my predecessor Aaron, and he's confimed that their score of 97 points sets a new record for McCabe's (the previous being 93), so, like, you all got to witness history or something. Of course, previous record-holders didn't have access to our latest invention, the 16-points-possible Double or Nothing round, but let's not get all nostalgic for the olden days of pub quiz, back when we all wore hats and darned socks and plowed the field with a team of horses and none of this gas-powered new-fangled poke-e-mon-ey crap.

Or maybe let's do get all nostalgic, because as I mentioned next week Aaron's back, for a special limited-time engagement! Let's talk for a minute about what that means, for the benefit of our new regulars (or at least those I haven't managed to drive away yet). Let's start with what he looks like:

Your replacement quizmaster

One of the highest (and, er, only) compliments I've ever gotten as quizmaster was: "gee, you're a lot nicer than that skinny jeans guy." That might give you an idea what to expect: he wears skinny jeans and isn't as nice as I am. And he for goddamn sure isn't going to put up with any "but drew does it this way" whiney crap, so don't even try. All that being said, he's also a lot funnier than I am, so y'all really should have a good time. So good, in fact, that I wish I could see it. But not really. You know why. See y'all in three weeks!

Pictures:

Golden Girls Gone Wild

Loraxes of Evil

Unitarian Jihad

Team Miles

Paul

Go Go Power Rangers . Ordinarily they would find themselves penalized for running the 8-top, but in this case it proved unnecessary (see scores below)

Scores:

3+1=5 .......................................97
Golden Girls Gone Wild ......................89
Loraxes of Evil .............................84
Unitarian Jihad .............................82
Why don't you worship me as your god ........74
Paul ........................................71
Vampires don't sparkle ......................66
Wolfpack ....................................58
Team Miles (♥s to boom) .....................55
Sexual Napalm ...............................54
Never trust a fart ..........................53
Go Go Power Rangers .........................46
Spotted Cow .................................33
The Enablers ................................31
Late Cummers .................................5

So I think next week, instead of pub quiz, we should just play sports instead. That way, the next time there's a round on sports, instead of bitching about the round that's on sports, instead you can say "hey, last week, instead of playing pub quiz, instead we played sports, so really it would be hypocritical of us to bitch about the round that's on sports." 50 Caliber Catheter even went so far as to write "geeks don't watch sports. Fuck sports" in lieu of any answers whatsoever on their round 4 scoresheet, which, by the way, doesn't get you any points whatsoever.

That being said, we played a pretty exciting sport to break the first-place tie last night, namely the first-ever drink-off (thanks for the idea, Mike!). And despite however much he might not drink during quiz proper, Doug from Golden Girls Gone Wild totally pounded it, netting them the victory. Remember also the "just fucking" guess bonus question (also about sports) which he won after the submission of something like 20 wrong answers. So yeah, I think the guy's good, not just lucky, and should perhaps consider going to emeritus status or something.

In other news, I still retain no sympathy for those of you who know nothing about Pee Wee Herman, which is good, because most of you do know something about the latter and harbor similar sentiments toward the prior. The song parodies were funny, and the jizz, piss, or blood round was pretty funny, and it was also pretty funny when my collection shuffle decided to play Tom Waits after him being one of the answers to round 2. Hope no one cheated on that.

Pictures:

I say this every week, but everyone please show up next week. There will be a very special announcement. Uh, at least kind-of special.

Scores:
Golden Girls Gone Wild....................77 (drink-off victory!)
Loraxes of Evil...........................77
3+1=5.....................................72
We've had Plenty..........................67
Brainiac 4+1..............................65
Burt Bacharachattack......................57
We have a Tiny Dog........................57
King Leonidas as Portrayed in the
Film "300," Based upon the Frank 
Miller Comic of the Same Name.............54
Carlos!...................................52
50 Calibur Catheter.......................43
Lindsay Lohan is my Cell Bitch............41
The Ring of Queens........................41
Devil Dogs................................36
Germarican................................35
Einstein Loves Buns.......................23
FTW.......................................13

Okay, so let's take stock of everything we learned last night:

• Andrus Vasiliev isn't even remotely a passably Estonian-sounding name
• Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, and Lil' Wayne's real names aren't very Estonian-sounding, either
• Marilyn Manson didn't sing "I put a spell on you" (to our knowledge)
• Dr. Suess is a children's author, not a children's series
• I like and know more about Max Headroom than all y'all, which means I should have been playing, not you

Aside from all that, as I mentioned, we had some downright hilarious team names, though I'm disappointed in remaining unconvinced that the Underwater Welders were, in fact, underwater welders. Also, remember when I was going to give bus driver, pull over and let my brother Jack off bonus points for buying me a ton of shots? Yeah, I didn't, and it turns out they didn't need them, for they roundly smoked y'all. Speaking of buying me drinks, a shout goes out to Wolfpack for doing so with their winnings from a bonus question. Again, not that I do monkey with the scores in such a petty fashion, but yeah, Wolfpack, you guys are cool.

The standings proved quite volatile, with a lot of teams cycling through the lower end of the top five. There were a lot of points available on round six, if you knew how to get 'em. And if you do, please share. Also, please be impressed that, much like sofas last week, we managed to squeeze an entire round out of postal systems.

I think that pretty much covers everything. Apologies in advance for not knowing who most of the teams were who appear in the pictures, since most of the teams I do know decided to forgo that whole taking-pictures-of-themselves part of the process. But that's cool, everyone please come back now!

Scores:

Bus driver, pull over and let my 
     brother Jack off..........................81
Golden Girls Gone Wild.........................79
3+1=5..........................................78
Wide Awake and Birthday Cake...................70
Trivia Newton John.............................69
Mad Max beyond Blunder Phone...................69
Loraxes of Evil................................62
Wolfpack.......................................60
Ass Hats.......................................49
Sexual Napalm..................................48
The Shiza Minellis.............................45
Chocolate Cake.................................41
Under Water Welders............................40
Team K.........................................20

So what with the rain and the holiday weekend the turnout last night was on the lighter side, which was kind of nice in that it made for a calm, intimate evening with lots of shit-talking banter among the teams and myself, and kind of not so nice in that it made a little less extravagant the return of Geeks who Drink's question editor, McCabes veteran, and G-unit lynchpin Christopher Short. While extravagant it may not have been, triumphant it was, as his four-top came away with a healthy eight-point victory for the win, even after it appeared for a minute that I fucked up on the final scoring. Oh yeah, about that:

As you can see, it turns out I did fuck up the scoring, but that was only in giving Golden Girls Gone Wild an undeserved point for "liver" while they both in fact did receive their point for answering "Valero." Slick.

So as I noted, while the quiz is fixed and we would have been fully within standard operating parameters in allowing Chris to cheat like Ted Haggard at this event, I assure you that everything was done above-the-board and that he knew, if anything, less about the questions that you did (having not received the email). Tonight's questions were hand-picked by John Dicker, and he gave us some great ones. I was honestly surprised we got an entire round about sofas, and the Crayola Crayon or AVN award winner? was pure gold. Uh, I think "pure gold" was one of the questions, actually...

A few quick shouts: our resident medical staff on Sexual Napalm, while turning in far from a command performance in general, did prove to be the only dudes in the room who know was your spleen does. Newcomers Abby and Audrey started off impressively, holding third place into round six, and I hope to see them again (maybe with a few more people, maybe whose names will also begin with the letter A). Some other former G-Unit stalwarts moved off into a splinter faction calling themselves Where's my Guiness...cake!? (about which, Carmen still doesn't know), so yeah the remnants of that team were running this whole total hegemonistic thing. Also, special thanks go to one-third of Asian Gracefully with the Bartender's namesakes for running around with my camera and grabbing team pictures, since she is consummately adorable and got everyone to smile and made for much more interesting pictures than we normally get.

The OGs (original g-unit?)

Golden Girls Gone Wild

Asian Gracefully with the Bartender. Note the Asians, Sarah Grace, and the bartender

Abby & Audrey

The Beards

Meth Lab Einsteins

Where's my Guiness... Cake!?

Sexual Napalm

Unitarian Jihad

Scores:

The OGs                              86
Golden Girls Gone Wild               78
Asian Gracefully w/ the Bartender    76
Unitarian Jihad                      65
Where's my Guiness......cake!?       58
Abby & Audrey                        56
Meth Lab Einsteins                   54
Sexual Napalm                        52
Beards                               50
Confused                             13