In an unprecedented stroke of generosity, last nights quiz offered no less than four 16 point rounds which means the potential high score was a whopping 112 points, wow.  Unfortunately we didn’t make the quiz any easier for that matter, especially during a painfully tough audio round 7 on movie quotes.  Playoff hockey had the night off so the quizzers were laser-focused.

Cream Team 2013 charged out of the gate scoring well in round 1 as well as nailing round 2 for 16 total points plus joker.  This early use of the joker put the team well ahead in first place and remained your leaders during both of the announced quiz standings updates.  Teams who opted for the sooner portion of this weeks train-centric sooner or later round performed quite well but were very careful about joker use (one team used it).  Perhaps they knew two more 16 point rounds were on the way and the teams who got say 10 or 12 out of 16 knew they’d do better later.  Cream Team chose sooner but only got 3 out of 8 which only earned them 6 points here.  

It was proven best not to joker audio round 7 tonight, which turned out to be a challenging and frequently annoying round based on movie quotes.  Average score in round 7 was 6.5 out of 6.  Axis and Allies as well as perennial faves the West Side Cats were sitting on that joker come round 8 and knew they had to nail it to catch up with Cream Team 2013.  In a rare turn of a relatively easy round 8, all three teams did just that but it was the joker who vaulted Axis and Allies into first and West Side Cats into second just above eventual 3^rd placers Cream Team.  Fierce competitors that they were, Cream Team were quite upset but I assured them it was due to no errors on my part.  The gamble they took on sooner or later round 3 did not prove to be fruitful.  Carl from Team-O-Cil won a pack of Super Awesome Trading cards!!  To my surprise there was no appearance by Rondo! tonight, and I’m hoping their 8^th place finish last week didn’t affect their mojo or their quizzing habits.  That’s it for me, see you next week!

If we all recall, last week provided for some exciting come from behind heroics thanks to most teams sitting on their jokers until round 8.  I’ll get to it in a minute, but the same thing virtually happened tonight.  Right off the bat, I was caught off guard when I realized that my silly macbook cant open spotify anymore until I upgrade something or other.  This means my really fucking sweet playlist was unavailable and only my merely pretty sweet iTunes playlist of old was used.  I’m used to rolling with the punches and kicked off the quiz nonetheless.

The Sorrowpods had quite the interesting night, hitting a perfect score in round one but scoring only 8 out of 16 points in audio round 2.  Wisely they did not joker.  Throughout the quiz they performed incredibly well, nailing three more perfect 8 point rounds for 8 points and one for 7.  Their failure to capitalize in round 2 when most teams jokered it for much more points kept Sorrowpods in the middle of the pack throughout the night and during both scoring updates.  Funky See Funky Do did very well throughout the quiz as well and jokered their 13 in round 2 for 26 total points.  This accumulation kept them in first place all quiz long.   Full disclosure: one member of Funky See Funky Do was the very GWD host Kevin who ran it here before he turned it over to me.  I was certain he would excel tonight.  You Suck Jared and Don’t Call it a Comeback performed well in round 2 as well, jokered that and ran close behind Funky all night.  While these three teams had a feeling they’d be the chosen three at the end the round 2 challenged Sorrowpods knew they had an ace card up their sleeve which in truth was a joker card.   In jokering their 13 point score in round 8 for 26 total points, the Sorrowpods shocked the room and won the pub quiz.  Carl won the e-mail bonus prize of the week, some pocket novel called “I dated a hooker” 

Some notes on quiz content- the“is this real/is this shit” round on reddit and subreddit pages stumped the entire room and when the answers were revealed we all realized theres some fucked up stuff on reddit and theres some stuff that’s fucked up enough to be on reddit but simply isn’t (for now).  We also all wondered aloud how and why Barnes and Noble is still open for business and I extolled the virtues of their clean and convenient public restrooms.  17 total teams showed up tonight and we’d love to see this level of turnout maintain or increase because I absolutely love this crowd and coming here.  See you next week Cambridge!

May showers were pouring on Cambridge around 6:30 PM on Tuesday and those who came to seek shelter in the form of a pub quiz found much solace.  Bruins playoffs were on the TV as well as a live broadcast of the Minnesota Twins taking batting practice on the Red Sox under the guise of a Baseball Game.  

Round 2 wasn’t performed as well as it could have been and the use of jokers in round 2 was limited to just one team.  It’s a Phoenix, not a Turkey was that one team and that early joker activity put them in ahead of the pack during the first scoring break.  They cruised on this lead following the 2^nd scoring break as well and announced as the leaders going into the 16 point round 8.  Little did they know that every other team in the room was about to unleash their joker and for this particular week, round 8 was much more well performed than round 2.  Those who sat on the joker all the way until round 8 were rewarded handsomely-the top three teams tonight scored well in round 8 and jokered themselves into the winners circle.  Single Tandem Rider pulled off a stunning come-from-behind performance in round 8, jokering their 14 point score for double that and into the 1^st place seat.  Eventual 2^nd place team Fist From a Rose were running close behind Turkey all night long but remained in 2^nd place when the dust settled.  To Kill a Stephen Hawking Bird finished eventually in 3^rd and won our 3^rd place prize for their efforts.  Big night for Rider as Carl from that team won this week’s e-mail bonus prize of a spiffy pint glass.

I had to apologize to the entire room when there was a Geography question regarding Chechnya and I got virtually booed.  I did reassure to everyone that I still love them and this was nothing to get upset over.  However we had no problem making fun of Kriss Kross although we may have been celebrating them more than mocking them.  I was also applauded (applause is positive right?) for my spot on impression of an obese and drunken Orson Welles pitching Paul Masson Champagne.  As I broke my equipment down I quickly realized the Bruins were heading for overtime and for the next 16 minutes of hockey things got pretty tense.  Thanks to David Krejci that tension was released in a good way and thanks to you all in Cambridge we had another righteous pub quiz.  See you next week!

• Brendan's 404 - Denver 7:30 PM
• Goosetown Tavern - Denver 7:00 PM
• The Mayor of Old Town - Fort Collins 8:00 PM
• Bruno's Tavern - New Orleans 7:00 PM
• White Horse Tavern - Allston 8:00 PM
• The First Printer - Cambridge 7:30 PM
• O'Niell's Pub - Albuquerque 8:00 PM
• O'Possum's Pub - Murfreesboro 8:00 PM
• Black Star Co-Op - Austin 8:00 PM
• El Mercado - Austin 7:30 PM
• Strange Brew - Austin 7:00 PM
• Zio Carlo Magnolia Brew Pub - Fort Worth 7:00 PM
• Piper Down - Salt Lake City 7:30 PM
• Quarter Lounge - Seattle 8:00 PM
• Capital Tap Haus - Madison 7:00 PM