Merchant's Cafe and Saloon has been a fine quiz venue since I arrived back at the beginning of the year.  The food is great, the apricot ale is outstanding, and the place is nice and cozy for patrons to kick back and slowly get their buzz on while they work on their visual rounds.

Unfortunately it's not in a location that promootes "regulars" coming back week after week for an evening of quizzing; but it's great for people who happen to be on their way through Seattle and want a special place to visit.  Tonight was no exception; almost everyone was a first-time visiting team, except for Children of a Lesser Pencil, a most excellent team of one who also plays the role of the quizmaster's lovely, understanding, and long-suffering wife.

But everyone who showed up had an awesome time, or was too polite to tell me differently.  Let's see how the cookie crumbled:

Round 1: the Baked round.  Everyone knew how to spell the street where the Muffin Man lives, but only one guy knew that Tom Baker had portrayed Doctor Who.  Bed, Bath, and Beyoncé got the high score here, with 7 out of 8.

Round 2: the audio round with time-related songs.  BB&B got an amazing 14 points here, and probably wished they hadn't used their joker back in Round 1.  Damn Tourist! also pulled off double digits here.

Round 3:  It was surprisingly tricky for people to come up with retail brands.  Nobody came up with the pharmacies (Walgreens and CVS), but everyone came up with Amazon.  But I totally get it.  Which one is more fun to buy from?  No contest, unless you're currently suffering from massive nasal congestion.

Round 4: The Smart round.  More of you guys knew the Quick and the Dead movie than Apple's Genius Bars.  I would never have predicted this.  BB&B and Damn Tourist! both got 7 out of 8.

Round 5:  Identifying whiskey drinks by their mixers.  Pinky and the Brain rocked a 6 out of 8 here; and the VWs got 0.  You can both be proud of your scores for completely different reasons.

Round 6: Four of the six teams playing here got 6 out of 8 or better, and I learned a new word for "petticoat."  And thanks for that.  I believe you should learn something new everyday, even if it involves 17th-century undergarments.

Round 7: We replaced country names with "Winterfell" in the Olympic opening ceremony, and you guys did very well in decoding the actual name.  Didn't do that well in spelling Kazakhstan, but then again, who does.  VWs and Damn Tourist! both aced this one.

Round 8: We had the rare experience of reaching our random knowledge round with almost all of the jokers already used.  In the case of everyone except Damn Tourist!, you shoulda waited.  :)  I am impressed that all of you knew what Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally meant.  You're renaissance people, each and every one of you.

In the end, Bed, Bath, and Beyoncé took first place; but all teams walked away with something.  Thanks for making my humble little quiz so successful this evening.

As I made my way to Merchant's tonight, I knew there was a Seattle Sounders game nearby.  So I figured I might be reading my quiz questions to myself over a plate of Merchant's excellent hot wings and then calling it a night.  I was pleasantly surprised to find six teams' worth of quizzers, ready and rarin' to go.  Over time a couple of the teams fell by the wayside, but that just made things that much more fierce among the remaining competitors.

My Son, the Honors Student is actually my son, and has every intent of being an honors student in his upcoming college year.  I heartily endorse that goal.

The mother-son duo Turbo powered through, despite having a mental blind spot when it came our music clips from years ending in 1.  A special shout-out to Mom, who voluntarily and extemporaneously reeled off the names of every Old Testament book, in order and in what I believe was record time.

Dorkatron was silent most of the night, but deadly when it came to words starting with I, P, and A.  He aced Round 4 and secured his spot in the money.  He then mysteriously left at the end of Round 8 before the awards presentation, so the award fell to Turbo.  Who thanks you, by the way.

We're Sure got a high score of 12 in that music-clip Round 2, and aced the visual round -- 3 points better than their nearest competitor there.  They totally EARNED their place on the medal podium tonight.

But No Shame, Only Points shone with a gloriously shining sheen.  They got the overall high score on four out of the eight rounds, including a jokered 13 points in the all-important Random Knowledge round.  They were pretty unstoppable.

Make sure you make it to our very special grand finale quiz next week at Merchant's!  It'll totally be worth it.  I'll have your pencil waiting.

What an exciting, bright, sunny, warm day today was.  Someday, you can tell your grandkids that in 2012, summer fell on a Thursday.  And there was a quiz at Merchant's Cafe and Saloon that night.  And we saw that it was good.

Here are some of the awesome highlights:

Kris Collier Mom had to leave at the end of Round 4 ... but got an extremely respectable 5 out of 8 in our round about oil-producing states.  In honor of their effort, I jokered their final round on their behalf.  Very nice and subtle play on words in the team name.

Hawaii Victory Team was reluctant to be photographed early on, but overcame their shyness by the end and proved to be quite photogenic.  Plus, they came up with by far the most difficult bonus beer answer of the night, with nary a hint.  Trapped in the Closet?  Uh.  Mah.  Gad.

America pulled off the high score in both audio rounds, exhibiting their mastery both over songs that make you want to hate love, and songs that make you want to watch world athletes do things you would almost never want to watch more than once very four years.  Let's face it, you're probably not gonna hear the Italy national anthem any other time over the next two weeks.

The Berods aced the visual round, and were the only team to come up with the Sparrow as the guilty party in the archery murder of Cock-Robin.  They also went above and beyond:  team members actually came up and provided me some quite excellent trivia questions of their own after the quiz.

* What Canadian province actually extends further south than the northern border of California?  (Answer:  Ontario, stretching itself around Lake Huron.)
* How many steps would it take to get to the observation deck of the Space Needle?  (Assuming 8-inch steps, 780 steps to the 520-foot deck.)

In the end, Hawaii Victory Team did in fact achieve ultimate victory, but everyone was a winner tonight.  I have to say, this was a most satisfying quiz experience.  Come aboard next week and we'll do it again!