Your "It Is An Honor I Dream Not Of" Quizo Update

A couple quick things before we get to the meat of today's missive.

- Attendance last week was excellent. Keep it up.

- Inasmuch as tonight is Game 4 of the NLCS, I'm not sure what the crowd situation is going to be like at the pub. If it gets stupid crowded with non-Quizo Phillies fans we can move to one of the other rooms, surely. My preference is for the Rigger Bar since I'm pretty sure that we will still want to watch the game as well and the TV coverage in there is much better than the restaurant.

- However, if vast numbers of teams are not coming tonight, PLEASE let me know so that plans can be made accordingly.

- On the good news front, it's been a very big couple days for Oprah's Book Club. Nick and Regina got married on Saturday (to each other, I mean, more on that in a bit) and today is Palestra Jon's (of the rule which bears his name) anniversary. To Oprah's from all of us at Dark Horse Quizo, congratulations, good luck, mazel tov, may the Force be with you, whatever benediction you prefer. I'm a fan of the Mandalorian "shoot straight and run fast," but that may not be quite the feeling we're after here. But, all in all, good on them.

Now, then, to our main attraction:

Since, as we all know, the motto here at Quizo Central is and has always been "Safety First," we're going to return today to our occasional series of seminars on drastic and dangerous life events.

This week's topic is "how to survive going to two weddings in one day."

- Firstly and most importantly - this really cannot be stressed enough - do not wait until the day you are attending two weddings to buy the shoes you are planning on wearing to two weddings. For while your brand-new shoes may be very impressive in their own right, and when combined with your brand-new suit and shirt and tie, all selected and coordinated specifically for the two-wedding day, make you resemble nothing so much as the reincarnation of Burt Lancaster himself, and we're talking like vintage 1955 "I just got finished sleeping with Ava Gardner AND Lana Turner and, my oh my, what's your name, sweetheart?" Burt Lancaster, wearing brand-new shoes to two weddings in one day is a CATASTROPHICALLY BAD IDEA. Doing so will cause your resemblance to Burt Lancaster to rapidly erode, as it is a known fact that Burt Lancaster was in possession of both his feet, and after a couple hours of wearing brand-new wingtips the only thought in your entire head - overriding your base, lizard-brain lusting after food, sex, lower taxes and oxygen - will be a burning desire to chop off your own feet with a rusty axe.

- Have backup. This is valuable in several respects. If, for instance, you tear the price tag off your brand-new tie a little too vigorously and rip out one of the moorings of the little tie-holder-label-thingy, while driving to the first wedding you can call your backup and say, "you got any safety pins? What do you mean you threw out all your safety pins? How the fuck can you throw away anything as fantastically useful as safety pins? (This exact sentence was actually spoken by me.) Fabric glue? Will that set in time? Okay, fine, bring that." Or, when partway through the first of two weddings in one day, you can say to your father, "if you don't get me a pair of golf shoes that look like wingtips I'm going to chop my feet off with a rusty axe." If your backup gets snippy, you can remind them that pain overrides family and that once you start chopping off body parts it can be very hard to stop.

- While buying nice new Burt Lancaster-izing clothing for two weddings in one day is endorsed, if you are buying your clothing at someplace you have never shopped before be sure that you actually look at the prices of the clothes you're buying, so you can avoid situations such as tearing the price tag off your brand-new tie a little too vigorously and, while wondering how you're going to fix the little tie-holder-label-thingy, glancing at the too-vigorously-removed price tag and realizing that you have paid more for a tie than you normally do for a shirt, and that you normally pay pretty handsomely for shirts to begin with. This realization is closely followed by a feeling of growing horror while you try to calculate how much you paid for the new shirt from this place, then wondering whether the guy at the gas station on the way to work on Monday morning will accept the change from your cup holders as payment.

- While the bucolic location for the first reception might make you think that everyone will be very relaxed and easygoing, always remember to be very, very careful when surrounded by large groups of Germans. This advice applies pretty much anywhere, really. And for god's sake, whatever you do, don't mention the war.

- Your desire to end the lives of certain guests at the reception is not something you should vocalize.

- At the first reception, if your father has been hopelessly addicted to the bride's grandmother's pastries for the last 40 years, telling your father that the dessert tray is a collection of pastries made by the bride's grandmother and that they are out and ready to be eaten is a surefire way to guarantee that you do not get to eat any of said pastries.

- Silk suspenders do not have the same kind of "give" in them as the cheaper, elastic suspenders you may have worn in the past. This means that things like going to the bathroom take exponentially longer as you will spend several minutes trying, Houdini-like, to extricate yourself from them, since after you realize that you could have made a car payment for what you inadvertently paid for said silk suspenders you will find breaking your own back preferable to doing any damage to the goddamn things.

- Wearing contact lenses for the first time in almost a year is recommended if the first reception is outside on a beautiful sunny day, as it makes the wearing of sunglasses possible. Trying to drive from one reception to another in the dusk of twilight while wearing contact lenses for the first time in almost a year is not recommended, as the combination of your eyes adjusting to your slightly-different vision and the tricky, shifting light of the immediate post-sunset period will make driving in under-lit suburbs much more exciting than it really needs to be.

- When arriving at your friend's parents' house for the second reception, do not trip over the SAME GODDAMN TRICK DOORSTEP THAT YOU HAVE TRIPPED OVER EVERY ONE OF THE HUNDREDS OF TIMES YOU'VE GONE INTO THAT HOUSE FOR THE LAST TWENTY FUCKING YEARS! Seriously, don't do that.

- No matter how much your new clothing makes you resemble Burt Lancaster, the sentence, "you look so much like my ex-girlfriend that I really thought you were her, but when you walked past and didn't punch me in the face I realized you weren't" is, despite how 100% true it may be, not the first thing you want to say to someone you've just met. Even at a nighttime, outdoor reception, where the darkness makes you resemble Burt Lancaster that much more, saying things like this clearly mark you as "not relationship material."

- Get your friend who lives out of town and is thus marrying a woman you haven't met yet to introduce you to his new wife BEFORE he is drunk.

- If you once watched one of your friends drink 26 beers in one night, offer him a ride home BEFORE people start playing beer pong if you want to leave the party any time soon.

- And, finally - whether your belief tends toward Jehovah, Vishnu or the Lords of Kobol, never let anyone think that you don't thank God every day that you have the friends you have.

JLK

Your Edge of Your Seat Quizo Update

My father and I have for a while now had an ongoing but civil disagreement - of course it's civil, because rule #1 is dignity, always dignity - as to the exact nature of the source of Tiger Woods' continuing excellence. He maintains that Tiger has made some sort of Faustian pact (c.f. Tom Brady, Dr. Faustus) in order to attain his golf prowess, while as we know I hold that Tiger Woods is in fact an android built by Satan, powered by the Dark One's unending hatred of the human race.

After this weekend's US Open, however, we have realized that were are both wrong and have come to the same conclusion:

Tiger Woods is, in fact, Satan himself.

No one but the First Among the Fallen could have engineered the kind of performance we saw at a BRUTAL Torrey Pines the last two days. Going into Saturday Tiger wasn't exactly out of contention, but he wasn't playing well - his gimpy knee was clearly giving him trouble - and then on the 6th on Saturday he took a tumble and further aggravated said gimpy knee.

Of course, this whole "injury" and "arthroscopic knee surgery" thing is obviously a clever bit of misdirection to distract us from the fact that Tiger is actually The Devil. What human being could, after further injuring a supposedly already-injured knee, go on to shoot FIVE UNDER FOR THE NEXT SIX HOLES ON the LONGEST COURSE IN GOLF HISTORY? After every tee shot Tiger grimaces in obvious pain, but it is not the pain of his "inflamed knee." No, it is the pain of maintaining the facade that he is human and not the Morningstar come to devour the souls of humanity.

This is a guy who, were he human (he is not), was walking around the course with an obvious limp, doubling over in (fake) pain after every shot and generally being - by his standards - wildly inaccurate off both tee and fairway, and STILL managed to force an 18-hole playoff for the championship today. Face it, folks. Tiger Woods is The Devil. It's the only explanation. Read your Bible. It clearly says in chapter 14 of 1st Kings, "and the Deceiver shall make an impossible 65-foot putt for eagle on 17."

Note that 1Kings 14 also tells us, "and on the third day, he of the sinister grip will make quadruple-bogey on 13 and prove that he is a gigantic fucking choke artist who sucks."

Tonight's game marks a number of semi-historic occasions as well. On the one front, Oprah's Book Club is going for their third win in a row, which is something I'm sure none of us want to see happen. On the other front, tonight will be Dr. Dan's (of Das Boot) last Quizo before he moves on to, I dunno, some kind of doctor thing in Arkansas. Dan's been a week-in-week-out regular since something like the third Dark Horse Quizo ever - back when his team was "Suck It Trebek," still one of my favorite team names of all time - and we are certainly disappointed at his departure. So we have Das Boot fighting to get a win at their team founder's final showing versus Oprah's Book Club looking to impose their hideous dynastic will on us all.

Hell, that's almost as exciting as watching Lucifer play golf.

Almost.

JLK

Your Monumental Quizo Update

As we all should know by now, tonight marks the 100th Dark Horse Quizo, an event commemorated by the phrase (as coined by Alias Pseudonym Undercover):

"It's Going To Be Great; Don't Tell Your Friends."

Let me tell you, I went back and forth for a long time on whether to use a comma or a semicolon there. I'm a big fan of the semicolon. When used properly it allows for the sorts of long, hideously complex sentences that we all know I am a large fan of. But in a Quizo slogan? There was a fierce internal debate about this one, but I eventually decided that strict grammatical accuracy had to win out over aesthetics.

What's on tap for tonight, then?

Well, in a new effort on my part to achieve if not 100% honesty than at least 80 or 85%, I have to say that I'm not entirely sure what just yet. The one thing I am sure of is that tonight's money round will be at the Special Quizo Rate of $10 a team, if for no other reason than to give the winning team a little more money. Also, after the fiasco last week of Das Boot and Sunshine Happy Face -

Side note, seriously, RC and crew, show up with that name again and MONDO BAD SHIT is gonna happen that will make the William McKinley thing look like a walk in the park -

After the money round fiasco last week of those two teams betting each other 20 bucks that they would win and then getting trounced by a team led by a friend of mine who was a Quizo first-timer and who I am not entirely certain has more than a sixth-grade education (he's from Florida), I'm tempted to put forth... not so much a "rule," necessarily, as a "strong suggestion" that "if you don't follow your team will almost certainly lose" that if you're going to make side bets on the money round you have to toss that money into the pot to make it interesting for everyone. Surely, if you think you're good enough to bet Team X that you're going to win you must think you're good enough to put that money up for grabs for everyone.

It is just as sure that by now everyone realizes that Quizo is not so much a trivia game as it is a chance for me to teach certain people a little humility. And by "a little" I mean "any." And by "certain people" I mean "Das Boot." And by "Das Boot" I mean "Fletcher."

So, yes, tonight will feature a $10 money round and some as-yet-undetermined other prize offerings. I don't know if tonight will be as well-attended as the Two-Year Anniversary Quizo, but then again the anniversary Quizo wasn't as well-attended as the game two weeks ago when we had 18 freaking teams, so who can guess at these things anymore? I would still recommend an early arrival, though.

Also be aware, for those of us who are Quizo beginners, that the Quizo website - http://quizo.blogspot.com - has the full text of this e-mail every week, along with a few links that, if carefully perused, are usually guaranteed to give you anywhere from one to four answers in a given week. So there's that.

Final note: driving home from the shore last night I stopped at a 7-11 (a non-Kwik-E-Mart 7-11, since apparently small towns in Central New Jersey don't rate this kind of promotion) for a drink, and after I paid for it the guy behind the counter handed me my change and said - I am not making this up - "have a day."

I thought, "how existential of him," then proceeded to spend most of the drive home trying very hard not to hit the VAST HORDES OF DEER that infest Routes 530 and 70. Cause that's, you know, fun.

JLK

And another thing...

Two things I forgot to mention:

1) Tonight will, in fact, be our 98th Quizo, making the 100th edition of Dark Horse Quizo take place on July 16. I imagine we'll do some kind of thing for that. I'll keep you posted.

2) This weekend saw the finale of the current season of Doctor Who which - read no farther if you haven't seen it and plan on doing so - is so amazingly awesome that I can hardly believe it. How many shows can make you get all teary-eyed when the BAD GUY dies? Christ, it's awesome. You should watch it. But you don't, of course, and that's just sad.

JLK

And another thing...

I forgot to mention this the first time, but it would probably be considered uncool for people to tell everyone they know "hey, Quizo at the Dark Horse is giving away big prizes tonight," since

a) that means it will be harder for teams who've come for the last two years to get seats,

and

b) that sort of thing will bring out serious trivia nerds and make it harder for teams who've come for the last two years to WIN said big prizes, which is kind of the point.

This would then lead to a scenario whereby a team full of people I've never seen before shows up and I ask them how they found their way to our little game and they say, "oh, [random person from regular Quizo team] told us you were giving away a hundy-stick for first prize tonight," then when they win I have to say something humiliating like, "okay, who brought the asshole?" and then when you cower under your barstool in shame I point out anyway that it was, in fact, YOU who brought the asshole.

Let's avoid that. Keep the big money under your hat - on the "down low," as the kids say. Loose lips sink ships, and whatnot.

JLK

Your Ultra Amazing Super Special Muy Importante Second Anniversary Quizo Update

No amusing anecdotes or anything this week. Just the important info about what the plan is for tomorrow night. And I'm even getting it out to people a day early in case you need to make plans. Because, deep down, I'm a giver. I'M A GIVER! SAY IT!

After consulting with James this morning - the less said about this morning the better - we are, in fact, going to be in the main bar (i.e. where we normally are). The golf outing people are going to be in the restaurant and spill over into the rigger bar. So that's nice.

The drink special will be $3 drafts. All drafts. So that's nice (I guess).

The prizes for tomorrow night's Special 2nd Anniversary Quizo will be a $100 gift certificate for first place and $50 for second. So that's REALLY nice.

I'm also going to see if I can't toss something interesting in for the money round, but I can't promise anything on that score. That may be nice, but it may not. The only way to find out is to show up.

As for showing up, I'm thinking you probably want to get there around 8. This way everyone who wants to come should get seats/tables/etc, as if everyone who has expressed interest in coming tomorrow shows up we'll have quite the crowd. I'm still planning on starting at the normal time, although hopefully we won't be there until 11(!) again. Bear in mind that anniversary Quizo aside the team limit is still 6 (six)(VI)(seises)(six)(sechs)(sei). If you roll up at 8:50 and can't get a seat... well, I can't PROMISE I won't point at you and laugh, but I can promise I'll at least try not to.

See you all tomorrow night, then.

JLK

Your Suit Up Quizo Update

Late last week I was having a conversation with someone whose taste I vaguely respect, and she started talking about the show "How I Met Your Mother" and how it was OH MY GOD FINALLY coming back with new episodes this week and it's about damn time and hey, what did I think of it?

"I dunno," I said. "That's on Monday nights, and it came on after I started doing Quizo, so I've never seen it." (Obviously.) "And besides, isn't that a... [shudder] sitcom?"

I received quite the nasty look at this.

"You have to watch this show," she says. "It's hilarious. It's GENIUS."

I am dubious to say the least.

Then she says, "How I Met Your Mother is the new Coupling," and I say, "hold the fucking phone, now, let's not say things we can't take back."

The original BBC Coupling (not the bastardized, horrifying American version) is a personal favorite of mine, and is one of the best-written television shows in, like, ever. Calling a show with Doogie Howser MD - I know that much about it - the successor to that is high praise indeed, and not something to be said lightly.

"Come on," she says. "I just know you can do some kind of thing where you use your phone to control your computer and download it."

"No," I say. "I can't exactly do THAT." This is actually a lie. I can totally do that. I'm just not going to pay through the nose for data charges over my phone to download a show I've never seen before. That's only for emergencies like when I'm out on a Saturday night and I forgot to tell my computer to download Match of the Day.

When I got home, though, I told my computer (with, you know, my fingers) to download the first season. By the time I woke up yesterday morning I had finished getting it and watched the first episode.

Now let me tell you two important things I learned yesterday.

1) How I Met Your Mother is, in fact, a very funny and quite awesome show and is, I daresay, a worthy successor to Coupling in both quality and spirit.

2) With appropriate breaks for eating (two meals, I slept until about 12:30 yesterday), showers (3), and catching an inning or two of the Phillies (I think I throw harder than Jamie Moyer), it takes about nine and a half hours to watch an entire season of a sitcom.

In my defense, it was raining for at least a couple minutes at some point yesterday.

So the second anniversary of Quizo is coming up, and there's some consternation as to how we should go about this. My original plan was to have a big thing in the restaurant, but then I found out that the golf outing stuff actually spills into the restaurant, which means we're pretty much pigeonholed into the Rigger Bar. This is not a terrible option, though I don't love it. Now if we really wanted the restaurant or the Main Bar we would have to wait until the week after next, which is NOT the actual anniversary, which makes every OCD bone in my body (that is to say all of them) quiver in fear and loathing.

Being the kind and generous person I am, though - stop snickering! - I'm going to throw it open to you folks. Do you prefer the rigger bar next Monday - in what will essentially be a semi-private Quizo - or do we wait a week and have a fully-public event in the main bar?

Choose, but choose wisely. For as the true Anniversary Quizo will give you life - and, along with drink specials, a VERY outstanding something extra - the false Anniversary Quizo will take it from you...

JLK

Your Happy Happy Joy Joy Quizo Update

Did everyone have a good weekend? I know I did. So many good things happened the last couple days I don't know where to start.

That being the case, I will start on Friday when I saw Hot Fuzz, which may be the single greatest movie ever made (passing even Top Secret! in my estimation). Essentially, no one can ever make an action movie ever again. Hot Fuzz broke them. If nothing else it shows you how INCREDIBLY RETARDED most of those movies are (although I do still have a soft spot for the first Lethal Weapon and Die Hard). So go see that.

Then came Saturday morning and Manchester United unexpectedly drawing with Middlesbrough, thus opening the door for Chelsea to swoop in and crush them in the race for the Premiership title. The only thing better than United dropping points was the fact that it gave me an opportunity to do one of the things I love and I'm best at: ruining someone else's day.

I spent the better part of early Saturday afternoon madly calling and texting all my friends who are Manchester United fans with messages ranging from a simple "oops" to "hey, you know what Cristiano Ronaldo and Barack Obama have in common? They're just... not... ready..." Some people took this in greater stride than others, though I will say that only ONE of them... let's call him... say... "Pat Hackett of Stamford, CT" chose to seek an ill-thought vengeance the next day. We'll get to that in a second.

Saturday night, then, I was at a birthday party at the Dark Horse (trip to the DH 2 of 3 in a 16 hour span). That went extraordinarily well despite the birthday boy's insistence that the Johnny Black I bought him was actually lighter fluid. Around the midpoint of the party a group of five guys who, from twenty feet away, appeared to be obvious jerkoffs, walked into the party and proceeded to talk to no one. Clearly they were not invited. I was asked to politely remove them from the party.

Two opportunities in one day to do my favorite thing! What a weekend!

So I walk over to these guys fully knowing that they don't belong and pretend to strike up a conversation with them.

"So how do you guys know Mike?" I ask.

"Who's Mike?" the lead jerk says.

"This is Mike's birthday party," I say.

"Oh, we don't know him," another jerk says.

"Sorry, guys, this is a private party."

"What the fuck," the lead jerk shouts. "We just got kicked out of another private party."

This is when I get another great moment of instant inspiration.

"Well, fellas, that's what 'private party' means, doesn't it?" I say.

And I just point at the door.

I love parties.

Then, of course, Chelsea proceeded to not beat Newcastle yesterday (trip 3 of 3 to the DH in 16 hours) and not swoop in and crush United's title hopes. This left me feeling relatively bad until Hackett called yesterday and tried to take his aforementioned ill-thought revenge for the day previous.

When he calls the little window on my phone flashes a very distinctive Manchester United crest, so I can see from about 10 feet away that it's him calling me and be appropriately pissy the second I answer.

Me: What the fuck do you want?

Him: Hey, don't be like that. I was just telling you I'm in town and wanted to know if you wanted to get a drink.

Me: Oh. Well, you should have told me you were coming. Yeah, let's go out.

Him: Okay, great. I'll have a Newcastle.

Me: [pause]

Him: [laughing]

Me: Uncool, man.

Him: No, it's very cool.

Me: Okay. Fine. You have a Newcastle. I'll have a Portsmouth.

Him: Touche.

Me: And a Middlesbrough.

Him: Okay, that's enough of that.

Me: And a Celtic. And a Copenhagen.

Him: Please stop.

Me: And two Arsenals. And an about-to-be-fucking-relegated West Ham. And a not-even-in-the-Premiership-Southend.

Him: God I hate you.

Me: You really didn't plan this very well.

Is it so wrong to love what I do? And can one really love a thing TOO much? I sure don't think so.

Important note before I go: the Second Anniversary Dark Horse Quizo will be two weeks from tonight. Two years! Who could believe it? I spoke with James yesterday and we WILL have some decidedly special stuff on offer that night. I will reveal them as we get closer. One is pretty damn good, the other is god damn outstanding. Also note that since that night is also the DH golf outing we won't be in the main bar. We may be in the Rigger Bar like we were last year, but since the availability of smoking isn't an issue anymore we may move into the restaurant, which is a hell of a lot more comfortable for a large group. So Monday, May 7, is one day you definitely want to show up for the game - Delicious Bass, I'm looking at you.

Finally, please note that not only is today the 50th birthday of Palestra Jon (of the rule which bears his name) but that he and Oprah's Book Club will be going for their third win in a row tonight. So join us at Quizo Central in wishing him a happy birthday, and please show up tonight and stop them, since if they do get three in a row they will become absolutely unbearable.

JLK