Yes, it is true.  I accused some of you of being UnAmerican for not liking Journey.  I am sure it will come back to doom me at some point.  Or perhaps, my innate inability to say “archipelago” without sounding like a total idiot is my punishment.  For goodness sake, people, my only foreign language experience (aside from attempting to buy tacos from an odd little Mexican lady at a local food cart) is dabbling in German and Japanese, which frankly are two of the most NOT sexy sounding languages out there.  So throw me a beautiful romance language word with Greek roots that migrated to Italian, and I’m guaranteed to twist up my tongue and skewer it up and down until it sounds ugly and depressing, like so many of our pitiless dreary lives. 

On this thought, I became suddenly worried that the whims of the Universe would dictate that if I can’t say it, I might not be able to step foot on it. Now, I realize that this insanity is right up there with believing that whole “step on a crack…”nonsense; HOWEVER, I’m three beers in and it’s starting to sound pretty logical.  What if I can never go to an archipelago? What if I step out of a plan and implode?  What if a small band of foreign children distracts me with circus tricks while simultaneously stealing my purse and my pride?  What if instead of cool archipelagos like Hawaii or the Virgin Islands, I’m doomed to visit only lame ones, like Great Britain, or the Canadian Arctic???  What if THEY revoke my Ticket to Ride?  I’M DOOOOOMED!!!  Total sidenote: ever see a band name and get really excited, only to be disappointed that the band doesn’t really fit the name?  Yeah.

Well fuck. Speaking of doom, my blue death camera monster ate all of the pictures from last night.  Like, I took pictures, and you all smiled and looked like the hotnesses that you are, and the memory card’s got nothing.  NOTHING.  This is because a tiny goblin monster lives inside the thing, and it enjoyed a midnight electronic snack.  Fuck that goblin.  So, enjoy some historical photos in the swirly gallery.  And at least YOU all are amazing.  Except you totally blew on that Deep Space Nice question.  Maybe that means y’all are doomed to revisit early 90s science fiction of questionable quality.  But aside from that, you guys are pretty cool.  LITTLE LEBOWSKI’S URBAN ACHIEVERS took the quiz, but STAM-HOES and the SQUIRRELS were right there….AND good job to THE NEWS OF OKLAHOMA BLEW ME AWAY…you kids may be growing your chops out enough to be a surprise force to be reckoned with! Enjoy your week, kids. Let’s hang out again next week again, k?

Well kids, I could take this time and space to accomplish something useful, like encourage you to get out there and volunteer so the world is a better place.  Or, I could banter about Angelina losing the twins, yadda yadda blah blah who gives a crap.  Instead, I’d rather rant about something near and dear to my heart: dental hygiene.

Don’t you hate being forced into a social situation with someone who lacks in the dental hygiene department?  We all know that guy: super nice, maybe even good looking, but he has a weird brownish twinge around his receding gum line, and he isn’t aware of his assertive halitosis?  You find yourself trying to listen and be polite, but you can’t stop staring at his teeth while he’s talking, desperately hoping that he doesn’t accidentally over-pronounce a “p” and send his bacteria laden spittle sailing towards you.  I met that guy yesterday.  He works at the customer service counter for Xfinity, and despite his deft help in setting up my internet service, I can’t remember his face, only his creepy snaggle tooth.  I am a bad person.

Now, most of you kids know the value of taking good care of your teeth.  Good dental hygiene helps you to look and feel swell, and it may be linked to heart health and overall well-being.  Good dental hygiene is easy to do.  And, it also ties in to one of my favorite movie scenes.  And all of that has absolutely nothing to do with pub quiz.

I haven’t seen such a tight, competitive quiz in a LONG time.  The top 4 teams all had at least one (if not more) perfect rounds.  I was biting my nails while scoring, as after several monster round 2s, LITTLE LEBOWSKI’S URBAN ACHIEVERS, LEGION OF DOOM, and CODPIECES were vying for the top three spots all night.  In the end, THE JOHN STAM-HOES pulled a nasty 8^th round reach around and nabbed 1^st place from all of them, which pushed the LEGION and LEBOWSKI into an awkward dance off for 3^rd.  And while I admittedly arbitrarily declared the winner for LEBOWSKI, I know the LEGION will be back with a vengeance next time…

Winners, the JOHN STAM-HOES:

Dancers of Awesome Sauce, Tom and Brad:

Forgetting the fact that I am supposed to be writing this blog for anything but utterly selfish reasons, HOLY COW a bunch of weird shit has been happening in the world.  Oh sure, you think I’m gonna talk about real news and shit.  But what captured my attention today was a blog post titled something to the effect of “Sex Crazed Monster Grasshoppers Invade East Coast.”  As per usual, the sensationalist, conspiracy theory allusions gave way to real science.  Holy shit, that was awesome.  

Earlier today, and totally unrelated to quiz, I found myself contemplating the deliciousness of Ling Cod.  In case you haven’t experienced the joy of this magical beastie, imagine halibut, but naturally butterier.  So much so that I had to make up a word to describe the majesty of this delicate, delicious fish.  “Butterier”: take that, seventh grade English Teacher.  *Shakes fist.*

Really, I should know better.  But it does prove that a “word” can be defined, or it can be determined by social pressure.  You knew what it meant, right?  Why should I make effort defending butterier as a legit word.  Seems legit enough.  Those of you who disagree can go vigorously hump an angry unicorn horn.

Das Boot! dominated quiz tonight – they got ahead early, and stayed ahead all night.  It was a little sad for some of the usual teams, but everyone needs to break a winning streak and finish fourth once in a while, Lebowski’s.  That’s right, I called ya out.  But, come back next week, and we’ll see what happens, eh?

Cheers!

• The Royal Hilltop - Aurora 8:00 PM
• Darcy's Bistro & Pub - Denver 8:30 PM
• Prickly Pete's - Denver 8:00 PM
• The Whiskey Bar - Denver 7:00 PM
• The Cheeky Monk - Westminster 9:00 PM
• The Ram (Meridian) - Meridian 9:00 PM
• Lisa's Restaurant & Lounge - Augusta 7:30 PM
• Opal Divine's (Marina) - Austin 10:00 PM
• Opal Divine's (Penn Field) - Austin 10:00 PM