Yellow! Per Capita! Dog!

Overview

We tried to come up with a clever, celebrity-death-related team name, and settled on "Bubbles Inherits Everything!" Apparently Mike D also thought it was hi-larious, because he was telling his parents' team about what a funny name some team had. I'm sure he was totally disappointed when they broke the news to him that it was us.

We didn't win best name of the night, though. I believe that honor goes to "Macaulay Sleeps Alone Tonight," who finished in second place, beating Team 11 in a tie-breaker. That's right: The arch-nemesis of the entire bar came in third! Suck it!

Of course, we finished seventh and thus didn't win anything, much less gift cards to P.J. McIntyre's, so I'm not sure what I'm so stoked about. And now that I actually know about half of Team 11, having met and chatted with Mike D's aunt and uncle at his mom's birthday party and again during halftime last night, it's kind of hard to maintain an appropriate level of mock hatred. I'll do what I can, though.

Scores & Standings

Round 1: Arts and Literature — 9 points

Round 2: Popular Geography — 8 points

Round 3: Music Round of Doom! — 5 points

Round 4: Science Time, Kiddies — 5 points

Picture Round: Bodies of Water — 7 points

Round 5: Worthless Knowledge— 11 points

Round 6: Animals, Vegetables, Minerals — 3 points

Round 7: Video Round — 10 points

Round 8: Missing Link — 9 points

We were tied for fifth place at halftime, as usual. We were kind of stoked about doing so well in the literature round, but it was pretty much all downhill from there.

On the plus side, there were a ton of bonus point opportunities within each round. He also took a page from the papal playbook and sold indulgences. In support of his friend's fundraiser for the Hospice of Medina County, a team could get one bonus point for every $10 donation. (Mike D: "If you can't win 'em, buy 'em!") Cathy bought a point on our behalf, which brought our grand total to 69. (Dirty!)

Quotable Quotes and Notable Notes

• Christine's birthday was a few weeks ago, so Cathy and I came bearing gifts: the lovely tome Saint Misbehavin': Modern-Day Saints You've Never Heard Of and a DVD box set of Dennis Miller's HBO specials (so she and I can memorize some new bits).

• I was quite pleased with myself for eventually coming up with the name of the angel in It's a Wonderful Life (Clarence). I was also one of the very few who knew what product Windell Middlebrooks is a spokesman for (Miller High Life), and I knew the decade in which Krispy Kreme Inc. got its start (1930s). So, yay me for watching lots of television and eating junk food?

• Mike D wasn't kidding about it being a music round of doom — WTF is up with these completely random audio clues? Not only are the song snippets composed of teensy bits of instrumental noodling, with nary a lyric much less an entire chorus (Seriously! Thow us a bone here!) but who the hell knows obscure album tracks off of the second Genesis record anyway? (Although that answer, "The Brazilian," did lead to this delightful comment: "It's not a wax, Mom, it's a song!")
  
  My answer to every "Name the band and song" item was "Mike D! You Suck!" In a similar vein, his mom's default answer to every item was "Devo! Whip It!" Thus, we were all quite delighted by the extended technical difficulties preceding the last song clip, when Mike D was forced to crawl around the stage unplugging and replugging cables while mumbling "Total Failboat!" under his breath and asking "Who sucks, Mom?" (His mom: "You do!")

• The "Animals, Vegetables, and Minerals" round, despite the clever juxtaposition of a photo of Stephen Hawking under "vegetable," was actually another science round in disguise. Unfair! Especially after the debacle that was question 7 in the initial science round: What was the first mammal sent into space?
  
  Pretty much the entire room wrote down "dog," only to react strongly to his "correct" answer of "(flying) monkey." I Googled it during the break, and when he came around to collect the answer sheets I mentioned that pretty much the entire Internet disagreed with his answer. He said something about how everybody thinks it was a dog because they've heard of the dog.
  
  Christine: Oh, so it's a secret monkey?
  
  Mike D: Yes!
  
  Me: Well, you're a secret asshole!
  
  He did, however, later rectify the situation by announcing that he had awarded a point to teams who answered "dog," so I am somewhat mollified.

• We actually figured out the missing link: Beer. However, by the time we tumbled to it, the answer was only worth 3 points thanks to this new scoring scheme.
  
  That being said, I do kind of like the new system: If you correctly guess the missing link after one question, it's worth ten points. After two questions, it's worth 9, et cetera and so on, until it's only worth one point.

I'll Take Fake Answers for $1000, Alex

• Where would you find a Kuiper Belt?
  On my Kuiper Pants [Source: Team Corner Gas] (outer space)

• A pangolin most closely resembles what animal(s)?
  a panda and a penguin [Source: Cathy] (anteater, armadillo)

• What is the most popular orange member of the Umbellifarae family?
  Carrot Top (carrots)

• The largest of its kind at the time, what sank suddenly on November 10, 1975, in Lake Superior?
  Ella Fitzgerald [Source: Christine] (Edmund Fitzgerald)