Sit tight gentle ITP Reader for I am about to spin a tale about three people who have nearly a perfect night of trivia.
Yeah, you guessed that the three people involved are ITP-Reader Stacy, Aron, and me.
We three met at Stacy’s apartment in midtown. Aron had astutely looked up the free answer for last night “Bloodline” which I mistakenly though was the Tom Selleck show “Blue Blood” but Aron corrected me that it was some show on Netflix. We started investigating what the question tied to this answer could be, our best guess was that we’d probably have to name shows on Netflix.
The skies stopped pouring rain long enough to allow us to walk from Stacy’s to Corner Tavern in Edgewood, with umbrellas in hand mind you. Along the way we stopped into a local neighborhood store in Midtown so Aron could get a soda. As we stood inside Stacy and I noticed a black-and-white photo of the store, obviously taken some time ago, and I joked “Hey, that looks a lot like the store we are in now.” What was the past became the present. Ooooooooooooooooooooh.
During the rest of the walk the three of us discussed the Jackson Street bridge, our like for seeing short staircases that lead to nowhere (as in when the houses in a neighborhood are razed but the steps leading up to it from the sidewalk remain), and the Atlanta streetcar.
While not swift walkers we managed to make it to Corner Tavern with plenty of time to spare before the start of trivia. So we did what you’d expect us to do, order some beer and chat. We chatted about sports, we chatted about movies, we chatted about podcasts, we chatted about music.
One of the movies mentioned by Stacy was Pitch Perfect 2 about which I commented that I heard it was good but could never go see it because I really dislike a cappella singing. I then mentioned that I have skipped entire episodes of the Coverville podcast because they have contained nothing but a cappella cover versions of songs.
Another topic of conversation was the positive Yelp review that Stacy had written about Corner Tavern during her last visit and how she was pleased that the management thanked her on Yelp for the review.
Shortly before trivia started we got distracted by the National Spelling Bee which was being shown on the television in front of us. Perhaps it was the beer starting to speak, but the three of us had the best time watching, ad libbing commentary, and laughing at the unfortunate closed captions. I think some of the closed captions said “[word]” not because the closed-captioner typists did not want to spoil the spelling bee for the hearing impaired, but rather that they didn’t know how to spell the word given to the contestant. FWIW – neither did I.
Trivia started out as it normally does, Aron and Stacy knocking out answers left and right, me sitting there making commentary about all things around us. During one of the questions the host played “Somebody Told Me” a song that swept the nation in 2004/2005, and I remarked “Oh The Killers, where are they now?”
We were kicking but, but not taking names, and it was at this time things started to get eerie.
First, the manager of that Corner Tavern recognized Stacy and thanked her again for the Yelp review. He mentioned how rare it is for people to leave insightful, positive reviews, and that they literally had a meeting in which they talked about the review; he then proceeded to give each of us coupons for a free beer during our next visit. Nice!
Then, we encountered a question whose answer we did not immediately know. What musical term comes from the Italian phrase meaning “of the church”? Stumped we were. Maybe it was the spelling bee starting to wear on me but I started dissecting the phrase “of the church”. What could “of” be in Italian”? Could it be “a”? Holy shit no way! I leaned toward Stacy and said “I think the answer is a cappella and that it could really mean “of the chapel”. We wrote down my answer and lo and behold I was right! Some teams argued that it didn’t mean “of the church” but the host looked it up, said that it was derived from “of the church”, or more specifically “of the chapel”.
We were in the lead going into the final question although not necessarily comfortably because there were worthy adversaries amongst us. At that time we realized that since the free answer of the night had not been use yet that it must be part of the final question. We also patted ourselves on the back for thinking about Netflix original programming earlier in the evening since the final question would probably have us list the shows that Netflix has produced.
We were right. 😉
Prior to asking the final question the host played another song from The Killers. I recognized the song immediately and thought that playing another song from The Killers was strange behavior.
Now let me divert your attention for a moment. For the longest time I always wanted trivia to reward the people who notice things like the interstitial music played throughout the night. I always thought that the first category of a round could be “Instant Trivia” and the question would be something like “Name the song I just played.”
You guessed it! I can’t pull anything over on you…
As an added bonus of five points the host asked us to name the band for whom he had played two songs during trivia.
Mind. Blown.
Being the quality trivia players that they are both Stacy and Aron also picked up on the fact that the host played two songs by The Killers. We were en fuego.
We finished in first place.
At the end of the night Stacy hooked us up with a Lyft ride back to her place. The car showed up nearly immediately and the driver was a hoot.
All in all a near-perfect night.
Why wasn’t it perfect? I swear that I heard that Derek was Netflix original programming. For fuck’s sake it says “Netflix Original” on the photo shown on IMDB! However, apparently it originally aired on the BBC prior to being available on Netflix, thus we lost five points on the final question. We also missed a comic book question about a super-villain introduced in the 1950s. I think those were the only two things we got wrong, well, if you ignore the multiple misspelled words I uttered throughout the night.
Have a great weekend all!
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
I am STILL smiling about last night. From top to bottom, it was just a blast. Evenings making random memories (and countless personal jokes for future reference) is exactly what it’s all about.
Since you can’t read my Facebook (snot) 😉 … I’m going to post here my recap I did there here too so you can see it.
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What a fantastic Thursday evening! Where do I even start? From a nice 2.5 mile stroll with friends to a delicious dinner (hamburger sliders of course: it IS National Hamburger Day afterall!) and then plenty of time to chat at the bar.
While waiting for trivia to begin, we watched the Spelling Bee final on closed caption and made up our own commentary, cheering on our favorites as loudly as we would a sports team. I haven’t laughed this much in a long time. Had random conversations (like how Paulie HATES acapella music, for example) and some good brews and then played trivia. Where we won. Boom! With the funniest part being that Paulie came up with the answer to a question that Aron and I were stumped on. You guessed it: it was “acapella.”
Then to top it all off, the general manager approached us at one point and asked if we happened to be the same ones there a few weeks ago who sat in the same place and perhaps wrote the Yelp review on them? (Yep, t’was me. Y’all can’t be surprised by that right? Me on social media stuffs? Whooda thunk?) and then gave us each a free beer coupon as thanks. Nice!
We grabbed a Lyft back to my place with the funniest driver ever, who said I was a great GPS and informed us, when asked in casual conversation, that the riders who ask him to go through drive-thrus the most are all the strippers who are coming off their shifts at 3am. Ha! Duly noted.
Oh yeah, I forgot the bit about the strippers.
And I should give credit where credit is due, today’s photo was taken by Stacy.
so, who was the super villain?
Sounds like a great night.
The villain was Lux Luther; we guessed The Joker.
Glad y’all had fun. I think I/we may need to join you one of these Thursdays. Our evening was fairly uneventful. Since the weather was looking dicey, and it had been raining, riding outside was nixed for a little indoor suffering. I then made a delicious meal of Skyline over angel hair pasta. I have to say the angel hair really improves what is already a pretty perfect dish. I have always preferred thin spaghetti, but the AH is even better.
Then we watched The Butler, a somewhat historically accurate portrayal of a White House butler who served 34 years in the position, and his observations of the change over the period.
I’m loaded for lawn service in EP after work, if the weather cooperates and have not simply taken the mower for a scenic tour in the back of the truck.
Have a great weekend.
-FP
We watched the movie Odd Thomas – Allan & his mom enjoy the books, it was entertaining, but if it was ever at the theater, I’m glad I didn’t spend money on it.
I guess I need to get on the Pitch Perfect bandwagon & watch the first one…….. then eventually the 2nd one. All the :kids” here at work think they are the best movies.
Making shrimp & grits tonight for dinner – first time for me, I’ll let you know how it comes out.
Trying to watch the Giro and all I can get are the moto and ‘copter feeds- not the broadcast feed. Odd.
Speaking of feeds, I saw the guys setting up Monday for the online video coverage of the race and asked how they get it back to “the truck” and they explained each camera uses 12 cell phones on 3 different carriers!! It cost 10% of what USAC paid to have the broadcast last year.
If you can get BEIN Sports they are showing it, including commentary.
Nights like that where everything falls in to place are rare and super fun when they happen. Congrats on another win.
I was a slacker last night, Travis’s swim meet canceled and instead of loading up my bike to ride the ramble I just went to the restaurant where the ramble started and hung out while they rode. I feel much shame for not riding 🙁 Good times anyway though.
Saturday is Tour de Cure, I have not been doing road miles so I foresee 65 miles of pain. The group I normally ride with are posting 20mph average rides on Strava.
Next Saturday is BRAG! Can’t wait! My favorite week of the year. Steve, we are down in your neck of the woods so you should come visit. There is even a BRAG hash after the century on Wednesday (very short as you can imagine).
I (and maybe Allan) might come down to Newnan on Sunday for the start of BRAG, just to say hi to everyone. JoAnna needs to go get Mike, he’s doing a ride to the start of BRAG, but not actually doing BRAG.
I am kind of sad that we are missing it, but I’m sure the fun of RAGBRAI will make up for it in July.
HMMMMM – Bob’s favorite week of the year, could it be because he gets to act single again, with no family responsibilities? Hmmmmmmm just kidding Bob.
I enjoyed the Pitch Perfect movies. I think the first one was far superior to the second, but I love a capella singing so it was worth the 2 hours of my time.
I also like the Odd Thomas books and completely missed that there was a movie. It’s now on my list to watch. I think our 3 months of free premium channels ends soon, so I’m recording movies to tide us over.
What a fun night for y’all! We’ll have to crash the party some night. I’m sure we’ll bring nothing to the table trivia wise, but smart ass observations will abound.
Barb, let me know when I need to give you money for RAGBRAI. Also, as the date grows nearer I’ll probably ask about the days we leave and return.
You are right Barb, a week where my only responsibility is to wake up and pack camp then ride my bike is great! Drinking beer and acting like a fool is just a bonus 🙂
Although family responsibility is just a part of it, getting totally unplugged from work for a week is good for the soul.
I was thinking about riding one of the Newnan loop rides, or possibly the Newnan to Lagrange day. I haven’t put in any 60 mile days lately, but I could fake it.
I agree with Debbie- we’re likely not to add much information, but we have an abundant supply of snarky comments.
Paulie – here’s what I’m thinking, Team Wimpy would be $325 if I remember correctly. So, we put that money in a pot & pay for all the gas, beers, etc, whatever for Tom. If there is money left over, Tom gets to keep it? But, I’m guessing that camper doesn’t get very good gas mileage, so I will doubt there will be much left over. I’ll ask Tom if he needs anything now, but I’m pretty sure we will be good to pay when we get there.
Right now the plan is to leave Thursday 7/16 early AM (14 hour drive) & return Sunday 7/26.
Okay, thanks.
And in case anyone is still getting notifications from this blog?
YES! Yes, please! Anyone and everyone is welcomed to come join us for trivia at anytime! 🙂 Please do!