Tuesday Night Trivia: The rematch

We are the champions – at trivia!

You might remember that Squawker Jon and I went to Red Sox bar Professor Thom’s a few weeks ago to participate in their trivia night. The weekly event is hosted by our Beantown-rooting blogging friend The Omnipotent Q of the Mighty Quinn Media Machine
blog. We didn’t win that time. But last night, we returned to Tuesday Night Trivia and proved to be, well, omnipotent at trivia – thanks to a little – make that a lot – help from our friends!

Here’s the story – we invited Yankee fan Squawker readers Jennie and Barbra and our Met fan friend Dina to meet us at Professor Thom’s for trivia night. These three additions to our team proved to be as critical to our success as CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, and A.J. Burnett were to the 2009 Yankees.

Our gang of five competed against 14 other teams. And each team picks a funny name for themselves – the best name wins a pitcher of beer. I wanted to make a joke about Grady Sizemore’s infamous photos in our name, but Squawker Jon vetoed that idea! So we called ourselves Tiger’s Tail. Our big competition was another team with a Tiger Woods joke in their title – they went the Onstar joke route! (An aside about Tiger – I guess I missed all the media handwringing about whether they should investigate an athlete’s personal life when it came to Alex Rodriguez.)

The questions we faced were very tough. And Jennie, Barbra, and Dina proved to be the difference-maker between the first time Jon and I competed, and this time. Jennie knew the correct answer to what was the first animal in space – it was a dog, not a chimpanzee, as Jon and I had thought. Barbra knew that Five for Fighting released the song “100 Years.” And Dina helped us get a perfect score in the movie quotes section.

There was one mishap, thanks to Squawker Jon – he got ketchup all over our papers, and we had to get new blank entry forms from the Omnipotent Q.

Anyhow, after five rounds of trivia, the game ended with a tie between our team and the Onstar Tiger team. So we had to do a one-round playoff between our two teams, kind of like the 1978 Yankees-Red Sox playoff game. And the question was – how many years is it between the 2012 London Olympics, and the previous time London hosted the games. Squawker Jon was the Bucky Dent here – he knew that London had previously hosted the 1948 Olympics, so it was 64 years (I checked his math.) The other team guessed 88 years, so our team won it all! Whoo-hoo!

I wanted to do a victory lap around the room and yell “Count the rings, baby!” to taunt Red Sox Nation. But instead, I just joked to our host about doing that.

In addition to the thrill of victory – I’m still smiling right now thinking of our triumph! – we each won a gift certificate to Professor Thom’s. I haven’t worn Yankee gear to the bar so far, but when I go back to redeem my winnings, I will be sure to wear some Yankee World Championship clothing!

It’s been an exciting last few weeks for this Squawker. First, there was the Yankees World Series victory, and  the tickertape parade and World Series movie premiere I was lucky to attend. Then, there’s my man Vince Young winning five in a row for the Tennessee Titans, capped by his incredible last-minute drive Sunday. There’s also the news that Tyler Perry announced he is going to bring back his character Madea to the theater, touring with the new play Madea’s Big Happy Family (Although I’ve seen his movies and stage shows on DVD, I’ve never gotten to see a Tyler Perry stage show in person before.)

And now there’s this trivia triumph that I got to be a part of. As you may have guessed, I’m very competitive, and the fact that a mostly Yankee fan team won in a Red Sox bar is even sweeter!

I’m thinking we should get another Squawker contingent to attend another Tuesday – imagine Uncle Mike in such a contest! Let me know at subwaysquawkers@gmail.com if you would like to join us in the future.

Thanks to our friend The Omnipotent Q for hosting the event and to Professor Thom’s for our winnings!

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Subway Squawkers have a night out – at a Red Sox bar!

Squawker Jon and I were out and about in the big city last night. So we thought we’d pay a visit to our blogging friend The Omnipotent Q of the Mighty Quinn Media Machine. You may remember Q is the guy who’s appearing in the same movie as Derek Jeter. He’s also a Red Sox fan who runs a weekly trivia contest at Professor Thom’s in the East Village.

The bar is a Red Sox fan hangout that features all sorts of Boston memorabilia. I felt like I needed to wear a Yankee shirt, just to ward off all that evil Red Sox stuff (like wearing a crucifix and garlic to stop Dracula from going after your neck!) But Squawker Jon said he would deny he knew me if I showed up in Yankee gear. Bummer.

Anyhow, we met our friend Q in person for the first time – he’s a great guy, even if he is misguided in his choices of teams  – and participated in the trivia extravaganza. Winner gets a gift certificate for Professor Thom’s. I had visions of sugarplums dancing in my head – or, more exactly, visions of me winning a prize from a Red Sox bar and crying out, “Count the rings, baby” or something like that.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. After being as close as second place at one point, we tumbled in the last two rounds and lost (check out the questions from the evening.) We still had a lot of fun, though, playing the game and then talking to Q the trivia host afterwards. Two Squawker thumbs up!


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