That was a nice, boisterous quiz, was it not?!?  We had 22 teams in the running and scores were great!  We had the best sound we’ve had in ages and I love it when quizzers tell non-quizzers what's what!   Juan spend a good 2 minutes explaining the quiz to someone who asked what was going on, and when he was finished, the guy said they were just looking for a good burger, which was HI-larious!  Speaking of hilarity…  I chastised a team that would have aced a round, except they totally forgot a stellar performance by one Mr. Wil Wheaton!

WHEATON!   

Of course the question was to list the cast of Stand By Me.  That's the first time most of us remember seeing Wil Wheaton.  The film came out my senior year of high school and I loved it!  I think I saw it 3 or 4 times in the theater, and the entire cast was great.  The next year, he appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation.  I have to admit, I was not a fan.  I was a pretty hard core trekkie when I was younger- yes, I'm Bi-starual- and it took me a few seasons of TNG to get it.  As for Wesley Crusher- I hated him!  And by extension of that, I hated Wil Wheaton.  How stupid can one get?

I saw Toy Soldiers at the dollar theater in college, and it was ok.  Sean Astin, Lour Gossett, Jr and of Denholm Elliott were great, but I still held onto my irrational dislike for Wil Wheaton.  That dislike was sort of part of my default stetting for years and years.  In fact, I only realized how stupid it was recently.  I have to give credit to the Big Bang Theory for making me re-examine it.  Wheaton is brilliant on that show and once I got over the Wesley Crusher thing, I started paying more attention.   He's a really talented guy.  If you've not read Just a Geek- I highly recommend it.  I also encourage you to watch TableTop on the Geek & Sundry youtube channel- great stuff!  And of course you need to listen to his appearances on The Nerdist.  I've recently gotten on Twitter, and I am one of Wil Wheaton's 2.3 million followers.  But in a true nerdvana moment, I had a 3 tweet interaction with him!  And it was about MST3K on top of all of that!

I recently watched the entire run of The Next Generation.  I've heard Wheaton talk about his perception of Wesley Crusher, so I watched his episodes with that in mind.  He's said that he only really likes the character development of Wesley in a few episode- he wanted to do more, not just be 'the boy on the bridge'.  I see that now.  He also mentioned that in all the episodes he's featured, it's Wesley that ends up saving the Enterprise.  He's right.  He left the show because he wasn't challenged and I get that now.  He will be appearing at Denver Comic Con next weekend and I am really excited to see him.  I have to admit that I'm hoping my volunteer assignment is his line. 

So, to Wil Wheaton, I offer a profound apology.  To the team that missed Wheaton in Random Knowledge, I can only shake my head. 

A great night at the Dry Dock!  We had some early sound issues, so a little delay in getting started, but then the fun never ended!  We had 22 teams in last night, and ending us in true Dry Dock fashion was a chug off for second.  I still have no idea what thrifting has to do with wolves, but there you go. 

So you may have noticed that I play a lot of surf music at quiz- especially in the pre-quiz warm up.  I love the stuff!  I have ever since I found my parents copy of Surfin' With the Astronauts when I was 12.  They bought it when they saw the band play at Tulagis in Boulder in about 1966.  Yes, a surf band played in Boulder.  The Astonauts were from Boulder.  Anyway, I loved that album then, and I love it now.  That, of course, led to me to more and more surf music- I devoured the stuff.  I used to debate the merits of pure instrumental guitar driven surf like Dick Dale, The Centurions, The Surfaries and the Trashmen and the more pop vocal sounds of bands like The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean.  I was always arguing that real surf music was the driven by the wet spring reverb of a lead guitar melody- just like surfing itself…  like I, as a teenager in Lakewood Colorado, knew anything about surfing. 

I was lucky that as a teenager in the 80s, the incredible subculture of skating exploded.  We had quite a few skate shops in my area, and they always sold loads of surf related stuff.  I loved skating as well, but I was never all that good.  I never learned to olllie and was at best a novice half pipe skater.  I loved cruising around though!  Today I restrict myself to riding a longboard.  Anyway, thanks to all the shops around, I had a huge collection of Billibong, Quicksilver, T&C, Pacific Island Creations and Vans.  We lived in t-shirts, board shorts and slip-ons.  I also had a little cred, in that I lived in Southern California for a time.  Ok, I was 5 and 6 and we lived in Claremont, which is about 30 miles from the beach.  Still...   We did have the opportunity to go back to visit several times and the first place I wanted to go was always the ocean.  The ultimate surf experience in my high school years is when I got my first surfboard.  Ok.. I made it… ok, I made it from a big piece of packing foam and had no idea how to actually glass it, so I think I used polyurethane left over from refinishing some hardwood floors.  I made it as a movie prop, for a surf film I made in class.  Yes, a surf film made right here in Colorado.  The pond was disgusting!   I kept that board through college but finally had to throw the much repaired pieces away.  

I finally got to go surfing the first time when I was in the Navy.  I was in the reserves, so I never had much time, but I was lucky enough to be stationed in Long Beach and San Diego, and for some reason my rate- Signalman- always attracted at least a few surfers to the shack, so I always had guys who were willing to take me out, including a guy called Brad, who lent me a board, gave me lessons and was always glad to see me come to the ship and take me out.  Every time I was in California I planned on getting a real board.  I could never come up with the money to do so, though.  That dream came true when my brother came back from living in Hawaii.  He lived there for two years and had advanced from just riding a longboard down the face of a smooth 3 foot wave- as far as I ever got- to shredding on a Jeff Ho 6'4" thruster.  When he returned, he gave me that board.  A Jeff Ho!  I know you've seen Dogtown and Z-Boys!  You'll remember Jeff Ho as the main shaper from Zephyr surfshop.  This was one of his 80s boards, shaped while he was in Hawaii.  Even though I never once rode that board, it was my pride and joy.

My love for all things surf has never gone away.  I've softened my view on the instrumental v pop vocal music debate.  In fact I'd go as far as say that Good Vibrations and All Summer Long by the Beach Boys are among my top 100 favorite songs.  I've kept up with the new wave (ha!) of surf bands that still come along and they are just as exciting as the old.  The Aqua Velvets, The Bomboras, Satan's Pilgrims, and Los Straightjackets are a great place to start.  There is even a nice connection between my love of MST3K and surf music.  When Joel returns to the Satellite of Love, he tells Mike and the Bots he's been working as a roadie for Man or Astro-Man? And they did a version of the Love Theme!   There are even a few local surf bands you should check out, like the Beloved Invaders and the Royal Aces.  I've been able to take it further, by turning a storage shed on the back of my house into a Tiki bar- PA~Ag's Tiki Shack.  I'm hugely lucky to have an incredible girlfrind that knows more about Tiki than anyone I know !  My treasured board sat propped against the bar…  then, I suffered what it the true horror of the surf world, immortalized by the Surf Punks song- Somebody Ripped My Stick!  Who the hell steals a surfboard in Denver?!?  The search continues!  And that, to make a short story very, very long is why you will always hear surf music at quiz.  Let's ditch work and go surfing!

Push the button Frank.

A rainy night at Ye Olde Dry Dock Brewing.  That's what I'm going to blame on the light turnout- only 15 teams going for the big prizes.  I will say, that I think we have finally nailed the sounds though!  That's cool.  And we had one of our infamous chug offs to decide our Second and Third places.  That's even more cool! 

But what I really want to talk about now, is the DOUGHY GUY!  We had a round all about them- our first round to be specific.  As you may have noticed, I'm what you could call husky.  I may be fat, but at least I'm short!  Anyway… probably one of my favorite all time shows is Mystery Science Theater 3000, and they did a brilliant salute to the Doughy Guy, which is just about perfect!  MST3K was just about perfect!  I end each quiz with the ending MST Love theme, and have had a couple of people come up and ask about it.  Which is amazing and awesome!

I discovered MST3k in about 1989 or 90.  They were in their first couple of seasons at Comedy Central.  We discovered them by accident, coming home from the club late and not wanting to go to sleep.  CC used to repeat the 8.00 pm, or whatever, showing at midnight back then.  We soon had a new Friday ritual.  We'd have loads of people over, drink beer, make piles of popcorn and watch the brilliance.  I was lucky to see two of the free college cheese tours- where they showed exclusives on campus.  Watching an MST3K episode with 120 other rabid fans is the best!  I even have a banner from the tour in 1994. 

In 1992 some of the cast- Joel Hodgson, Jim Mallon, Trace Beaulieu and Kevin Murphy came to Denver to appear at Star Con!  I was there!  We got to meet them, and get autographs.  During the Q&A someone asked if they would mention Denver in the show.  They did!  During one of the host segments of Crash of Moons- Episode 417- they talked about sending Bannergrams  (named for one of the movies stars- John 'Sgt. Shultz' Banner) to people… in Denver!  They mentioned us three times.  It was awesome.   They must have had a great time doing the Con, because the show then threw themselves two conventions in Minneapolis- ConventionCon ExpoFest-A-Rama in 1994, and - ConventionCon ExpoFest-A-Rama 2: Electric Bugaloo in 1996.  Yup… still have the badges from those!  Best Brains- the company that the cast created to produce the show created a video called the MST3K Scrapbook, with bloopers, behind the scenes and other extras that included scenes from the 1994 ConventionCon.  I'm in it twice!  Ok, you hear my voice at the beginning of the segment saying 'We're here!  And it's wonderful… that's all there is to it!  We're never leaving!'  and the back of my head. 

Perhaps the ultimate highlight of my MST3K experience, though, has to be that I saw the live version of This Island Earth!  They performed it at the ConventionCon in 1994.  Eventually it became MST3K: The Movie, which I saw on opening weekend at the Tivoli.  I think there were 32 of us there.  I have to admit- I would have gone with Bootsy Collins instead of Leona Helmsley, myself.  I watched MST3K right up to the end, throwing a huge finale party in 1999.  It was an incredible run.  And I've never really given it up.  I can often be seen in my red  Gizmonics jumpsuit, and sport Gizmonic colors on the bag I carry daily.  I also look forward to the newest Shout Factory! DVD packages.  Most recently, I was finally able to complete my replicas of Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot- after collecting parts for years and years.  All in all, I'd have to say that MST3K is in a close tie with Star Wars to being my all-time favorite thing.  Anywho… I give you.THE DOUGHY GUY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seJSVbE9cxc.

Push the button Frank.  

• 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