Start 2008 with a brand new quiz!

OWING TO THE JANUARY 1ST MUMMERS' FESTIVITIES, THERE WILL BE NO RAY'S HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAR QUIZ UNTIL JANUARY 8TH.

Wednesday, January 2nd, 9pm
Dirty Frank's 13th & Pine Sts.
Subject Round: 2007: A LOUSY YEAR IN REVIEW

This is one of the extremely rare times in which I'll be asking questions about things that happened pretty recently. You might like to take advantage of that, as well as get a little drinking in, seeing as you probably won't have touched a drop the previous couple of days...

Can you figure out last week's Secret Theme round?

This group of 10 otherwise unrelated tough questions has a theme running through its answers. Can you answer the questions and figure out the theme? Only one round this week owing to Christmas; Ray's Happy Birthday Bar quiz resumes on January 8th. Answers will be posted early next week.

Dirty Frank's:

1) What two San Francisco elected officials were killed by Dan White in 1978? Only one of the two has a name which fits the theme.
2) Who did the Philadelphia 76ers pick as the second overall NBA draft pick in 1997?
3) What 1993 U2 song contains the lyric Midnight is where the day begins?
4) What 2000 movie starred Morgan Freeman, Renee Zellweger and Chris Rock?
5) What nuclear submarine was lost off the coast of Cape Cod in 1963 with a loss of 129 men?
6) In what 2004 movie did Danny Glover play Detective David Tapp?
7) What comic book villain is the alter-ego of Norman Osbourn?
8) What NBA franchise plays at the United Center?
9) For what 2002 movie was Keisha Castle-Hughes nominated for the Best Actress Oscar?
10) The world's highest waterfall is in Venezuela; name it.

... and what theme runs through the 10 answers?

Poll results / New poll posted

Over a week ago I asked people who they wouldn't mind see winning the GOP presidential nomination. Five people voted for Ron Paul, one for Mitt Romney and one for "None of the above." Paul continues to gain fans from such episodes as making Fox News cut to commercial in a huff for daring to utter the word fascism. Just look at the worried, scrambled looks on these heavily made up faces as they struggle to figure out who Sinclair Lewis was and how to bail most gracefully from substantive discussion...



The new poll, posted on the righthand side of the blog, simply regards the NFL playoffs. Enjoy.

Group W comes out on top in huge Dirty Frank's Boxing Day turnout

This week's W-for-Group W is the one which has formed on British Prime Minister Tony Blair's forehead, an eagle-eyed contribution to the blog from reader and Lil' Roy Screamed team member John. Apparently people have surmised that the W might stand for George W. Bush, or, redundantly, "wanker."

Huge post-Xmas crowd at Frank's, and for 5 rounds it looked as if Lil' Roy Screamed, playing with the nom de guerre The Rural Juror, would walk away with the title. They crashed and burned in the final round, paving the way for another clear W victory. Newcomers Yabba Dabba Don't even nipped Roy for second.

It's been a great year, see youse all on January 2nd and every Wednesday thereafter.

Beautiful Gold: Group W 157
So-So Silver: Yabba Dabba Don't 129
Shameful, Shameful Bronze: The Rural Juror 128

Also-rans:

But My Mom Says I'm Cool... 98
Kisses for Kittens 94
Don Quizzote 92
Spread 'Em Harry 88
Prime Ministers of the United States of America 87
Schluessels* 86
Marybeth & Ryan 86
3 + 1 79
Two-Handers 76
Solomon!* 63
Beaky, Schnoutt & the Fuzz 59
Danger High Voltage 33
The Urban Cougars* 24

* team started late &/or quit

Answers to last week's holiday Secret Theme rounds

Ray's Happy Birthday Bar:

The theme was "HO HO HO".

1) What's the capital and largest city of Australia's island state Tasmania? Hobart
2) A ratio of 1:87 is specifically associated with what? HO scale
3) What Marvel Comics character was "trapped in a world he never made?" Howard the Duck
4) What city has the fourth largest population in the United States? Houston, Texas
5) Cash in the Attic and Offbeat America are prime time shows on what cable network? HGTV (Home and Garden TV)
6) What children's character has a dog named Doodles? Holly Hobbie
7) What 1991 movie starred Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts and Robin Williams? Hook
8) What company makes Ding Dongs and Suzy-Q's? Hostess, which also makes Ho-Hos
9) What radio personality recorded the 1970s comedy albums This Honky's Nuts and 1,200 Hamburgers to Go? Don Imus
10) What CBS sit-com has a theme song recorded by The Solids, a band featuring two members who created the show? How I Met Your Mother

Dirty Frank's:

The theme was Christmas trees / accessories.

1) What 1978 Stephen King novel features a virus nicknamed Captain Trips? The Stand
2) What noodle soup is a mainstay of Vietnamese cuisine? pho, pronounced roughly "fir"
3) What CBS TV series, on air 1994-2003, followed the characters Monica, Tess and Andrew? Touched by an Angel
4) What 1969 Top 40 single by James Brown starts with the line "Hey you all, look out, let a man come in..."? "(Let a Man Come in and Do the) Popcorn" / popcorn garlands
5) According to the 2006 movie Idiocracy, what will be the most popular TV show in America in the future? Ow! My Balls!!!

6) What 1997 movie features Ron Perlman as a mysterious janitor named Cliff? Tinseltown
7) What 1997 song is the best-selling CD single of all time? "Candle in the Wind"
8) Snoopy has a brother named Spike in a California desert town; name the town. Needles
9) What cartoon was released in some markets as Space Cruiser Yamoto? Starblazers / star

10) What's the subtitle of the Billy Joel song "Miami 2017"? "Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway" / lights

Next week's lone quiz

OWING TO CHRISTMAS AND THE JANUARY 1ST MUMMERS' FESTIVITIES, THERE WILL BE NO RAY'S HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAR QUIZ UNTIL JANUARY 8TH.

Wednesday, December 26 (Boxing Day), 9pm
Dirty Frank's 13th & Pine Sts.
Subject Round: BOXING

Fancy Pants rules the roost at the Union League

A fun time was had by all at the first quiz I've ever done at the Union League, a holiday party event. I'd be happy to return whenever they'd have me.

Here we see winning team Fancy Pants in all of their holiday festive glory. To the fellow in the middle - may I recommend surgery? They could probably remove those things these days, and you could finally wear hats.

There was a considerable amount of cheating by a few of the top teams as the evening continued. To make things fair-ish we gave Fancy Pants their honestly earned score of 102 and scaled the cheaters down somewhat.

Beautiful Gold: Fancy Pants 103
So-So Silver: Jingle Balls 102
Shameful, Shameful Bronze: Team Saldutti 101

Also-rans:

Led Zep II 100
Free Beer 88
Aubrey* 7

* team quit

Group W cruises to another victory

A larger than usual W team had no problem winning this Wednesday, although the Lil' Roy Screamed crowd (playing as Hope You Guess Our Name) had the most impressive Unreasonably Difficult round. Lots of new faces for this quiz, no doubt holiday-related. If you live in the city year-'round it'd be great to have you back again in January.

Beautiful Gold: Group W 163
So-So-Silver: Hope You Guess Our Name 138
Shameful, Shameful Bronze: Stella!!! 84

Also-rans:

Wolverines 80
Pink Ladies a.k.a. Jersey Girls 73
Don Quizzote 71
McLovins 48
D.S.I. 24

All hail new Ray's champ Fred Zeppelin

In a low-turnout pre-holiday quiz at Ray's Happy Birthday Bar, one-man team Fred Zeppelin narrowly defeated The British Guy in an overtime tie-breaker. I hadn't needed a tie-breaker in months. The game went to whoever guessed closest to the number of Saturday Evening Post covers painted by Norman Rockwell. Fred guessed a few hundred closer and walked away with the bonus holiday prize of a Santa Claus Conquers the Martians DVD. Incidentally, the answer in 318.

Beautiful Gold: Fred Zeppelin 93 (OT)
So-So-Silver: The British Guy 92 (OT)
Shameful, Shameful Bronze: Awesome Dude 3000 31

Also-rans:

Barflys 30

Can you figure out this week's holiday-themed Secret Theme round questions?

Each group of 10 otherwise unrelated tough questions has a theme running through their answers. Can you answer the questions and figure out the theme? This week both themes were holiday-related. Answers will be posted early next week.

Ray's Happy Birthday Bar:

1) What's the capital and largest city of Australia's island state Tasmania?
2) A ratio of 1:87 is specifically associated with what?
3) What Marvel Comics character was "trapped in a world he never made"?
4) What city has the fourth largest population in the United States?
5) Cash in the Attic and Offbeat America are prime time shows on what cable network?
6) What children's character has a dog named Doodles?
7) What 1991 movie starred Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts and Robin Williams?
8) What company makes Ding Dongs and Suzy-Q's?
9) What radio personality recorded the 1970s comedy albums This Honky's Nuts and 1,200 Hamburgers to Go?
10) What CBS sit-com has a theme song recorded by The Solids, a band featuring two members who created the show?

... and what theme links the 10 answers?

Dirty Frank's:

1) What 1978 Stephen King novel features a virus nicknamed Captain Trips?
2) What noodle soup is a mainstay of Vietnamese cuisine?
3) What CBS TV series, on air 1994-2003, followed the characters Monica, Tess and Andrew?
4) What 1969 Top 40 single by James Brown starts with the line "Hey you all, look out, let a man come in..."?
5) According to the 2006 movie Idiocracy, what will be the most popular TV show in America in the future?
6) What 1997 movie features Ron Perlman as a mysterious janitor named Cliff?
7) What 1997 song is the best-selling CD single of all time?
8) Snoopy has a brother named Spike in a California desert town; name the town.
9) What cartoon was released in some markets as Space Cruiser Yamoto?
10) What's the subtitle of the Billy Joel song "Miami 2017"? Many people understandably think the song's subtitle is the title.

... and what theme links the 10 answers?

What not to do at your office holiday party

It's alive! Quizmasterchris.com walks among us!

From now on, you can access this blog via www.quizmasterchris.com

www.quizmasterchris.blogspot.com will also remain functional

You can also now send email to chris@quizmasterchris.com, or, in theory, anything fun that ends with @quizmasterchris.com, such as ispitvenom@quizmasterchris.com, or throwbricks@quizmasterchris.com

Union League quiz on Friday afternoon

Should you happen to be a member, I'll be doing my first quiz at the main bar of the Union League this Friday, sometime after 3pm, in time to finish by 6pm or so. It will have a holiday-themed Subject round. Unfortunately the club is not open to the general public, therefore neither is this event, but I thought perhaps there are some readers of the blog who are members (stranger things have happened) and would therefore like the alert. Who knows, if this goes well these might even become regular events.

Coming soon: Quizmasterchris.com, and better email service

... which will be this blog, just without the "blogspot" portion of the address. I simply purchased the domain name. Yahoo! is offering domain names right now to new customers for $1.99 for the first year, and after some deliberation I decided that was in the budget.

Soon you'll be able to access this blog via www.quizmasterchris.com. I'm also exploring some email freeware that should finally ween us off of the primitive email list method I've been using. Today the web, tomorrow the world!

Poll results/ New poll finally posted

The last poll I posted asked which GOP candidate you thought would win the 2008 presidential nomination. I had 9 votes, which broke down as 3 for Ron Paul, 2 each John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, and 1 each for Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. Tom Tancredo, Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter received no votes. With that result I'm not sure if people think Paul win will, or if people confused the question with the one I'm asking this week (polls always featured in the right-hand blog column).

This time I'd like to know who you'd like to see win the GOP nomination; you can vote for more than one, and this time I remembered the "None of the Above" option. I should be posting results in a week.

The River Sirens prove that they are the smartestest people in the Delaware River Basin Commission

The Delaware River isn't there just for dumping motor oil. It's also there for battery acid, and tires. And the good people at the Delaware River Basin Commission help keep all of those elements well-mixed. This is, at least, my understanding of their function, but you might like to visit their website.

When they wanted an organized activity for their holiday bacchanal, they contacted me first. We had a pub-quiz-style throw down at the Brick Hotel in quaint Newtown, PA, despite the fears of the city fathers of the bad element that basin commissions are known to bring into a burg when they get rowdy. In the end everything turned out well, with the only minor disruption being a brief challenge to a knife fight from a visibly tanked Alycia Lane, who was soon escorted out by a team of burly female cops. I wonder how her weekend turned out with that start..?

It's clear that this group of women are the most smartest of all the people in the commission, and should be given charge of the Key to the River, or the biggest cut of the dredging graft or whatever of value isn't sitting on a Superfund site. Note that the woman-dominant team finished first and the all-male team last!

Scores were through five rounds, as we ran out of time there near the end. If you'd like to hire me to run a quiz at your office party, just contact me using the info at right.

Beautiful Gold: The River Sirens 113
So-So-Silver: Flying Food 101
Shameful, Shameful Bronze: Friday Lunch Bunch 94

Also-rans:

Merry Sailors 85
Four Men and a Woman 80
The Sweathogs 78
Love That Dirty Water 47

Satan's Minions wins big in large turn-out at Ray's

It seems whenever we get a head of steam going in Ray's Happy Birthday Bar turnout, the calendar conspires against us to throw an spanner in the works. This time we've got two Tuesdays falling on holidays and therefore no quiz after tomorrow's until January 8th.

One guy from the Johnny Goodtimes team Satan's Minions showed up at Ray's, played with an assortment of people at the bar, and combined to beat up on the Ray's quiz regulars. The winning team members willing to have their photo taken appear at left.

Beautiful Gold: Satan's Minions 146
So-So-Silver: Ad-Gymnauseum 114
Shameful, Shameful Bronze: Albuquerque Drive-Bys 112

Also-rans:

Kisses for Kittens 107
Cosine of One 78
Peakoo 53

Group W wins by a nose

Honkies Group W tied non-honkies Kenya for the top score in the black music-themed Subject Round and maintained a very thin lead over Lil' Roy Screamed (using the nom de guerre Left-Handed Midget Lesbian Eskimo Albinos) for a victory. I think this quiz taught us that people of all ethnicities and belief systems can band together for a solid cause, such as attacking me. A depleted, smaller form of a somewhat sauced post-office party Sofa Kingdom went a shocking 0-for-10 in the Subject round and landed in fourth.

Beautiful Gold: Group W 151
So-So-Silver: Left-Handed Midget Lesbian Eskimo Albinos 149
Shameful, Shameful Bronze: Kenya 111

Also-rans:

Sofa Kingdom 92
Fantasy 82
Don Quizzote 81

Answers to last week's Secret Theme rounds

Ray's Happy Birthday Bar:

The theme was names of rivers.

1) What team played its first NFL game at Hagemeister Park in 1922? Green Bay Packers / Green
2) What acute viral disease, spread by insect bites and endemic in Latin America and Africa, is also known as "American plague"? Yellow fever / Yellow
3) What traditional children's playground game is also known as Bullrush, Octopus Tag or Forcing the City Gates? Red Rover / Red
4) Whose 1952 play The Rose Tattoo won the Tony for Best Play that year? Tennessee Williams / Tennessee
5) What 1991 movie struggled to make humor out of its title character's inability to enjoy a cappuccino? Hudson Hawk / Hudson
6) With 42 members in the Hockey Hall of Fame, this NHL franchise has more players inducted than any other. Name it. Montreal Canadians / Canadian
7) This city is the center of the fourth largest metro area in California and claims to be the most integrated city in the US; name it. Sacramento / Sacramento
8) What state used to use the nickname the "Lead State", owing to widespread lead mining? Colorado / Colorado
9) Which of the original 13 colonies was first settled by Europeans in 1614 (a Dutchman named Adriaen Block) and expanded to its current size with the purchase of the Saybrook colony in 1644? Connecticut / Connecticut
10) What US state joined the union in 1821 and has a name which means "those who have dugout canoes" in the Miami-Illinois language? Missouri / Missouri

Dirty Frank's:

The theme was Negro League baseball teams.

1) What group of Dutch session musicians had a #1 hit single in the US in 1981 with a medley of Beatles songs set to a dance beat? Stars on 45 / Philadelphia Stars
2) In what town and state will you find George W. Bush's ranch home? Crawford, TX / Pittsburgh Crawfords
3) What pro sports franchise owner is also chairman of the HDNet cable network? Mark Cuban / Multiple teams of "Cuban All-Stars"
4) What 1991 movie featured Robin Williams as mime instructor Marty Fromage? Shakes the Clown / Indianapolis Clowns
5) What junk food's packaging depicts two cartoon chracters, one a dog named Bingo? Cracker Jack / Atlanta Black Crackers
6) What specifically is the most recent and most expensive version of the Xbox video game console? Xbox 360 Elite / Multiple teams called "Elite Giants"
7) What creature makes an annual mass migration from all over North America to the Sierra Chincua region of Mexico? Monarch butterflies / Kansas City Monarchs
8) With over 10 million primary speakers, what's the most commonly spoken native language of South Africa? Zulu / Zulu Cannibal Giants
9) What's the second-largest city in population in England? Birmingham / Birmingham Black Barons
10) What NHL franchise existed with different team names 1884-1934, went under in 1934, then was revived in 1991 with the same name, in the same city, as it had in 1934? Ottawa Senators / Washington Black Senators