It's not Penny's boat!

VFW: The Trivial State

Chicks and Dicks with new teammates Wally and Steve had a stellar evening, taking first place and winning a special state-nickname picture quiz. For their efforts, they got to snarf down a box of Entemann's chocolate covered donuts. Mixed Company was close behind, followed by the B52s. We also welcomed back Gary, Bree and Cass (The Good, the Bad and the Crazy) and Shannon and Kim.

Sheila, Don and Steve of We're Here for the Beer had a good time with all the state nicknames. They tied for seventh and chose Steve McQueen movies as their theme. The other seventh placers, Dennis and Mel, chose zodiac signs.

The Flintstones, led by Doug of 929 Customs, started out well but then stumbled a bit.

We welcomed Shannon and Kim back to trivia. Of course, U.S. state nickname night might not have been their best topic.

Bubes: Overflowing Os

Sometimes super-sizing a team causes it to collapse under its own weight, but tonight the Toxic Olives added Lisa and Meredith (becoming The Toxic Olives, Now With 20% More Ovaries) and took first place. There was an unprecedented three-way tie for second between Team Discovery Channel, the Nutsacks and and the hard-charging Denton and His Angels, so we had an extra round of trivia. That did Denton in, so we had a Captain Jack-off, with Josh of the Nutsacks victorious.

Seth asked Tom "Wuhappened?"

This week they were known as "Is That A Frothy Head on Our Nutsack?"

The seventh-place Stoudts' Hopdevil Taught ABC to Troegs are calling all parrotheads since they chose Jimmy Buffett as their theme for next week.

Kristyn and Will of The Real College Experience were doing well until their re-enforcements bailed on them.

I Velcroed My Cat to My Dog

Chuckles: Linuscratchitt and Win

Phil, Bonnie, Kirk and Kristen of Linuscratchitt returned to cash in an old trivia gift certificate and ended up in first place! Half of One Six Dozen of Another led the entire evening, but settled for second, while the Intoxicated Intellectuals recovered from a bad second round to place third. The Talent Scouts were one point behind, followed by Out of the Vortex. There was a tie for sixth, so we're going with two themes next week for our Anti-Super Bowl Contest: presidential candidate Ron Paul (as chosen by Car Ramrod AKA The Smarter Tidy Bowlers) and Cheese (as chosen by Chillin Wit Muh Homies.

Here's a murky cellphone shot of the Intoxicated Intellectuals. Where's that hand going?

Here's a nice shot of Special Guest Star Alan and his daughter Tiffany. Skirtland brought along special guests Ray and George Darrenkamp as extra firepower tonight.

The Twin Roses hired a gardener this week to help them out.

How I Spent My Winter Vacation

I think I've finally recovered from my Florida vacation last week and am able to post some pics from the early part of the week. I was so relaxed by the end of the week that I gave up snapping shots (I would have been better off if I had stopped shots altogether, but what the hey.) Many thanks to trivia guru Curtis Earth for flying me down there to balmy Orlando and welcoming me to his wacky world of trivia. I got to stay at the new, improved Earth mansion with its funky sixties vibe.

My vacation overlapped our good friend Damion Wolfe's by one day, so it was a mini-reunion of the Three Amigos. Unfortunately, Damion had to leave on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday was the first ever Earth Summit of Florida trivia hosts. Curtis treated us all to a luncheon at the Globe, where we discussed blogs, giveaways and the Trivia Olympics. Taylor Hicks even crashed the proceedings!

Monday night Curtis hosted a welcome back trivia show for the returning students of Winter Park's Rollins College. I got to be Vanna to Curtis' Pat.

Is there any wonder why Curtis enjoys his daily happy hour shows at Fiddler's Green?

Damion Wolfe at Annie Bailey's

Lisa of the Flaming Ovaries and Laura of the Toxic Olives dance to the tunes of Damion Wolfe at Annie Bailey's Thursday night. Damion hopes to return to Annie Bailey's since most of his gigs nowadays are in his home base of Baltimore. He'll be at the Harp in Fiddle tonight, in case you want to catch him. Highly recommended!

VFW: Bucks, Lix, Dicks, Mixed

Young Bucks and Old Men (you decide which is which) had a good night, placing third, only two points behind Mixed Company. But the big winners of the night were the Chicks and Dicks trio. Another success story belonged to Nix Lix, who got eight out of ten right in the final round (a team record!). Don and Sheila of We're Here for the Beer had to leave quickly and left before they were announced as our seventh-place theme-pickers. I contacted Don via e-mail and he said that their choice is US state nicknames.

Mixed Company would have won if they had only listened to Amy.

Bill, doing his best Captain Morgan impression, while Donna enrolls in the Witness Protection program.

Bube's: A Show About Nothing?

Katie, I-Don't-Know-His-Name, Amanda and Ivan decided to split off from the Screemin' Eegles on our special Seinfeld-themed show and became the Flaming Sheeps. And it was a wise decision, since they came in first! Two questions back were the WuTang Clam and We're Busy Refinancing Our Ovaries So We Don't Have to Hand Them to China on a Plate. To break the tie, Mark and Meredith did a Captain Jack-off , with an underconfident Meredith going down in Flames. They were followed by the Friends of Bill, the Costanza-inspired You Can Stuff Your Sorries In Our Nutsacks and the Forest Fairies. That gave Mumble Pie the theme choice for next week: Pennsylvania microbrews.

Trashbag prizes were all tied into Seinfeld and included Junior Mints, soup , a marbled rye, jambalaya, cereal and lots of beefaroni. Alan of the Tony Danza Slap traded in his toilet paper (a spare to square), and dared to eat the week old Swiss Rolls.

Here's half of the Friends of Bill team, who had a spectacular last round. Only one more right answer would have put them in second.

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That wanted to come in seventh, but dropped to ninth. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Chris Ivey recaps last week

Once again, thanks to Chris for an outstanding sub job. Here are his highlights from last week

Sunday Night Cafe Chuckles:

Third Place: 73 Points Team Half of One and Six Dozen of the Other (formerly
Team The Price is Right)
Second Place: 79 Points Team Lethal Amoebas
First Place: 82 Points Team Chillin with My Gnomies (first time team-trivia
rookies)

Other Highlights:
Tidy Bowlers Team Two beat the Original Team Tidy Bowlers: 61 to 46
Out of the Vortex beat Skirtland by 4 points (68-64)
And we learned that Billy Warmth did so well on the picture round (naming
states' license plates) due to his past experience making license plates in
prison.


Bubes Brew Rap-up

1st Place-Team: We've Got a Token Peruvian 84 Points
2nd Place-Team: Flaming Moe-Rons 72 Points
3rd Place-Team: Tony Danza Slap 70 Points
4th Place-Team: The Blims 69 Points

Other Highlights:
-The evening's music was a salute to German Heavy Metal Band, Rammstein and
included a flaming torch juggling opening (much to the fright of Tony Danza
Slap sitting RIGHT in front of the stage) in honor of the band's love of
fire.
-We rewrote the famous slogan: "If you want it done right, do it yourself."
It now reads, "If you want it done right, outsource it to another country!"
-I got jealous of everyone being able to doodle and draw during the game, so
I hung some poster board up front and created my own artwork during the
show.
-Very few teams knew that "W" was the chemical symbol for Tungsten.


VFW:
First: 81 Points: Team: Room 2
Second: 75 Points: Team: We're Here for the Beer
Third: 74 Points: Team: Mixed Company
Fourth: 71 Points: Team: Chicks and Dicks Theme: Anything But Sports
Questions

Highlights:
-I goofed and thought the week's theme was Will Smith. Turns out, the
actual theme was the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire. To atone for this, Fresh
Prince will be a theme along with the above mentioned topic this coming
week. As usual, Mike has to clean up after my mess.
-We also voted on this year's Super Bowl Champs. The Packers beat the
Patriots by one vote.
-Finally, we gave a big "Hell Yeah" to the pilgrims upon learning that they
carried more beer than water on the Mayflower.

Doreen and Denise (minus their sisters Diane, Dana and Dropsy) are always a blast when I visit in Orlando. Ask them about our marathon sushi meal with Steve and Curtis some day.

Chuckles: Chillin' with My Peeps

Car Ramrod, a spinoff team of the Tidy Bowlers were hepped up on toasted Peeps ©, and became tonight's victors at Chuckles. Chomping on their heels were Bill and Marge of Out of the Vortex and Six of One, Half Dozen of the Others. Twin Roses had nothing but raspberries for me, while the Bar Groupies wanted more. The Intoxicated Intellectuals led most of the night until the end, but self-combusted in the end.

Thanks again to Chris Ivey for keeping the home fires burning while I was away in Florida. I could use those fires, since it's freezing here in PA!

Chillin' With My Gnomies are a fun new team who made their second appearance at Chuckles, after winning last week. They were doing well until the last round, but still managed to place sixth. More importantly, they won a tiny Barbie styling head! (and they also won a special guest appearance by Alan of Skirtland in their team shot).

Nick and Jason of We Can Win....With Tickets! were thrilled with their tie for fourth place with Skirtland. They might also be thrilled that the Intoxicated Intellectuals chose as their theme for next week: The Simpsons.

Themes for this week

Here's a no-frills posting of this week's (Jan. 20, 22 and 23) themes:

Chuckles: The View
Bube's: Seinfeld
VFW: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

much more to come...

VFW: Coal in the Stocking?

That's a blurry pic of Sheila from We're Here for the Beer, who is delighted to get to pick next week's theme: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Yes, there is one person around who actually liked that show. WHFTB tied for sixth, but Squeal or No Squeal decided to give them the choice. Last week's champs Room Two came in fifth, right behind the B-52s. The resurgent Shitz and Giggles took third, while Chicks and Dicks, with some divine assistance took second, right behind tonight's champs, MIxed Company. Special thanks to Leroy for providing his re-gifted lump of coal, which Melanie greatly appreciated. And welcome back to the Foreplayers and Nix Lix!

Back to Bubes!

Fat, Drunk and Stupid display their Trashbag of Deelite prizes at our special porn night at Bube's. It was the first show of 2008 after a two-week holiday hiatus, and a good one it was! Some teams went with the theme and came up with names such as Laid in the Loft, They Harder They Come, Team Buckwild and Deep Ovaries. Others went for the direct (Team Shut Up, Richard). In fact, Fat, Drunk and Stupid were tied with Shut Up Richard for most of the evening, but both went limp in the final round, falling a mere 3 points shy of the third place Tony Danza Slap In Full Effect for 2008 team.

Karen insists that she is not as fat as this picture makes her look. Her team, Ten Bubes, Six Balls, had chosen this week's theme. That little boost was good enough for second place and almost had them beating toninght's victors, the It Was Just Lidociane and B-12 for Our Nutsacks. That's All. B-12. We Swear (Featuring Pornmaster Deric) team.

Ivan, Amanda and Phil, AKA Ron Jeremy's Body Doubles, were happy to take seventh place. Phil wanted to choose "Object-Oriented Sub-Quantum Linux Line Editors" (or something like that) as their theme, but we talked him into the more crowd-friendly "Computer Operating Systems."

I think the Wise Men need to seriously re-think their name, now that they're 50% male.

It's Jason from Friday the 13th's favorite group: Team Mango!

The Sex Files show off their Trashbag pickings.

Tom, Seth and Laura hang out, post-show. Soon after this pic was taken, Tom gave an impromptu bagpipe performance, accompanied by Seth on djembe. It's unexpected moments like these that make Bube's such a quirky, fun place to be.

Alois: It's a Wonderful Show

Sam "Jesus" Ridout and Eric "Thoroughgood" Weis prove that white men can't rap.

We had a great turnout for Winter Radio Theater Friday night at Bube's/Alois' with a fantastic crowd that enjoyed our unique brand of humor (not too many of them bolted for the doors at halftime). Thanks to everyone who attended and to Sam Allen for hosting us. We'll be back soon in April! (Details to come.)

Chuckles: The Gifts that Keep Giving

Our first Chuckles show of 2008 was one for the history books. We had our first re-giftathon, with teams getting rid of their unwanted Christmas gifts. Thanks to the Twin Roses, the Price Is Right and the Lethal Amoebas for providing their discharges (ewwwww!). And, in the trivia action, all the usual suspects were shut out of the top three places after a horrendously tough last round! First place went to my favorite team name of the night: Dropkick Molly.

It was a fantastic night for the Intoxicated Intellectuals. They won second place. But, more importantly, they won a wine warmer!

Three's Company was ready to head home after the last round was tallied, but I told them to stick around. They were convinced that they were seventh, but they placed third! There was a tie for seventh between the Tidy Bowlers and We Can Win...With Tickets, so we'll have two themes: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Tonight: at Bube's!

Tonight's the night that Winter Radio Theater takes over Alois' ballroom at Bube's Brewery. It starts at 8 P.M. All the laughs you can stand for 5 bucks. (details below)

Comedy at Bube's this Friday!

If you've had it with the holidays and want to put a final nail in them, may I suggest that you attend a special comedy show at Bube's this Friday night (Jan. 4th)?

I'm involved with a radio troupe that is staging two raunchy comedic readings that spoof the holidays: "It's A Wonderful Christmas Carol" and "The Friars Club Roast of Santa." The style is Garrison Keillor meets Howard Stern (how's that for a pitch?) and is for mature audiences only.

Price is a measly 5 bucks (cheaper than a movie!), payable at the door. It's being held upstairs in the Alois portion of Bube's. (Go in the first door on the left at Bube's and go straight up the stairs). The show starts at 8 P.M.

Hope to see you there!

Thanks!
Mike

P.S. You can read more about the show in this Thursday's Lancaster New Era.

VFW: The First Show of 2008!

I left my notes at home, so I'm recalling this off the top of my head: it was an extremely close night, with only a question or so separating the top four teams. Chicks and Dicks had, I believe a whopping 81 points for fourth place; Mixed Company and the B52s were either second and third or third and second, and Room Two had a surge at the end to take first. The Post Toasties were done in by the picture round. Mark and Sheila came in seventh and chose the movie The Princess Bride as their theme. Commander's Choice had some new players that enjoyed the game. And several players, like Ginny and Carmen (above) enjoyed some nice re-gifts from my co-worker Renate Sachse. Speaking of re-gifts, if you have any Christmas gifts that you received and don't know what to do with them, you can donate them to the Trashbag of Deelite. Next week is official Re-Gifting week at Earth Trivia!

Sheila and Paul enjoyed some gourmet butter cookies, courtesy of Renate Sachse.