The Furious Sporks Reign Again

During our recent adventures on the left coast, The Pit and I attended a pub trivia night in the middle of Oakland, as accessories to my sister's team, the aptly named Jews and Tokens. Thanks to a series of unfortunate football questions, our team gradually sank in the rankings, although between the booze and the company, a good time was had by all.

The Pit and I decided to search nearby pubs for a trivia night to attend when we got home, as his mind is filled with all sorts of otherwise useless knowledge, which might as well be winning us gift certificates for beer. Yesterday, we put this plan into action, and accompanied by A, ventured forth to our first pub trivia at McGinty's, a brand-spanking new establishement just down the street from our apartment.

In fact, it was so brand-spanking new, that when we walked in there were about six other people there. We had originally planned to call some other friends to reinforce our team, but held off as it looked like trivia wasn't going to happen at all. However, in the next half hour or so people drifted into the bar in ones and twos, and eventually there were enough there to form six teams, ranging from one to four individuals per team.

The next order of business was to choose a name for our trio, and being nothing but predictable, I declared us The Furious Sporks.* For the next two hours, we answered a series of questions on commercial slogans, popular beverages, musicals, and a wide variety of general knowledge questions. While A and I each had our moments to shine, the night really belonged to The Pit, as he rolled through the competition and took our team to first place. Here he is, artfully hidden behind our $25 gift certificate prize:

I think it's safe to say that we'll be back to McGinty's. Our gift certificate brings the food prices to very reasonable levels, and the atmosphere was fun and relaxed. Although clearly galled by our victory, the other teams seemed quite nice, with the possible exception of one loud-mouth in the corner, who kept heckling the lady running the trivia night. As a bonus to the evening, he strutted out of the bar with an 'I like men' sign taped to his back. I salute the anonymous prankster who managed to find supplies for this coup in a bar.

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* I have come up with exactly one amusing team name in my life, and that was it. My group of college friends used it as our guild name in WoW.
** If you don't know what WoW is already, my future in-laws, please continue to hold me in the highest esteem and don't look it up.