It's trivia night ...

... but we won't go!

You've read all the discussion about the recent trivia debacle! It's such a shame, because we all really liked to get together on Wednesdays to hang out! It was a nice break in the middle of our hectic weeks and it felt like we were doing something we shouldn't be, by staying out late on a school night, drinking some beers and having fun at a bar! :)

It's nice to see that we aren't the only ones that are upset by the fact that cheating is now allowed at all stages of the trivia process! You need to read the latest post on the Xtreme Team Trivia blog, and be sure to check out all the comments! It's quite the online debate.

We could have gone tonight to trivia since it was regionals at our home bar. What we decided that there really wasn't any point in going. Even if we won tonight and earned a spot at the next Championships ... we would never pack up our laptops with us and then how could we compete with all the other techie teams? Maybe that should be their new name: Xtreme Team Technology. That is basically what it is.

Just for one last laugh ... our little team that could is currently in 3rd place after 10 weeks. The impressive part is that we didn't even play for 2 of the ten weeks and 2 of the weeks we lost the final question so our result was a low score. The first place team at our bar?? They have song-recognition devices. Yeah, that's right. They are awesome.

I think I can speak for some of my team members when I say that we support My Favorite Team, because even though they were our biggest competition, they cheat as much as we did ... which was almost never!

Cheating is stoopid!

Good to know that we aren't the only ones that are pissed about the new Trivia rules. Check out the comments on their original post: Change in use of Electronic Devices.

We did go to trivia this week (just Rachel, Amy, Mitzi and I) just so we could see each other this week. It was an interesting night, because without cheating, we were nowhere near the top 3 places! It used to be that we were always in the top 3 teams throughout the night.

What we did find, though, that was without any of our regular boys with us ... we found some new friends at our neighboring tables. Some of the teams were even willing to share answers with us in exchange for answers they didn't know! We continued to suck at sports and what-year-is-it questions ... that's where cheating would help us ... IF we were willing to be Cheater, Cheater Pumpkin Eaters! No thanks!

Xtreme Team Research???

For those of you that read the blog regularly, you know that I've become quite obsessed with our local trivia nights! We started playing about a year ago, and since then, our team has won and lost, we've added members and lost members, we've tried new bars and gone back to the original ... and all along ... it's been a blast!

Most of us are teachers and trivia allows us to leave work behind for the night (even though the night normally consists of several school stories) and have a blast even though it means staying up late on a school night. Sometimes during a really busy week, I know that trivia night is the one fun thing I get to do that week with friend.

Lately, it hasn't been so much fun. We normally compete for 1st place with other other die-hard team, My Favorite Team. They've been playing at Tanner's longer than we have. They also have a consistent team and tons of useless knowledge like we do. The new top teams are other teams there that do nothing but cheat (with iPhones and voice-recognition devices), and have been winning and beating most of the other teams lately. Now, don't get me wrong, we have been known to cheat in the past with a phone call here and there and a few times we've had teammates with the internet on their phone. However, we also have a very well-rounded team and we all have our strengths that make for a good answers!

Anyhoo ... I was reading my daily blogs the other day and I read this! Xtreme Team Trivia: Change in use of Electronic Devices. The original rules stated that "cheating is encouraged" in the first 10 weeks ... but once you get into the regionals and then eventually the all-metro championships, cheating was prohibited! For The Finer Things Club, this was great news! We knew that meant that the teams that cheated all along would be sifted out and the really good teams would rise to the top!

The new rules allow electronic devices at every stage of the tournament! Amy said it best when she said, "That's not trivia ... that's research!" Who really wants to bring their laptops to a bar and sit around and look up things? I can do that at home! That also takes away the conversation and challenge. Boo!

So, the last few days some of us have been talking about giving up with trivia. Maybe we need to come up with another Wednesday night activity: bowling, dinner, movies, etc. There are 2 more weeks in this "season", so maybe after that we will make a decision about what we are going to do. In the meantime, we want it to be known to the "powers that be" that we think this new rule is stoopid and we think it takes away all the fun of our fun trivia nights!

Thanks for calling!

Went to bed late last night after our big trivia win and after trying to stay awake to watch Project Runway.

I remember setting my alarm for 6:30am before I went to bed. The plan was for a couple of us to meet in the school parking lot at 7:45 to take 1 car to our whole-district meeting.

At 7:48am I woke to a noise and so I started pawing away at my alarm clock. I didn't turn off! That's because it was my phone that was ringing. Mitzi said, "Are you on your way?" Um. No. I wasn't. I had just woken up.

I was in such a deep sleep, that I must have turned my alarm off in the middle of a dream. This is why I normally have 2 alarms: TV and clock! I don't have a TV in my room yet, so that is why I've just been sticking with my clock.

As soon as I told Mitz that I just woke up, I was so flustered ... I couldn't figure out what was going on! It was like one of those times when you take a nap in the afternoon and wake up at 7:00pm and you see your clock and think it's 7:00am and you get really confused!

Somehow ... amazingly, I got up, ready, left my condo and drove to get to our meeting by 8:15! That might be a record for me. Too bad it put me in a foul mood to start the day.

Would anyone like to be my wake-up caller for me for the next week or so??? ;)

Too tired to think ... but too stressed not to enjoy a night at trivia!

WOW! What a day!

Even though I've been working basically full days in my classroom for the last week, today was our first official day back. It started with meetings at our home buildings and then everyone was off to the high schools for district inservices. Our meeting was on teaching writing in our classrooms and getting kids to become much better and more confident writers by practicing every day! I'm actually really excited about it ... which is also scary since Mitzi has been the writing teacher for us for the 3 years I've been in 4th grade.

After our meetings, we went back to our building to work in our rooms some more. At some point late this afternoon, I apparently put my cranky pants on. I was grumpy and I couldn't figure it out. I wasn't being very helpful to my team and I definitely wasn't getting any work done in my room. I think it was due to a shortage of desks, chairs and materials (we've gotten 8 new kids in our grade this summer). I decided that my time would be better spent shopping for some organization items I need for my classroom.

Trip to Walmart, Kohls and Office Max and then it was finally back home. Luckily, I have the greatest parents and they offered to take Minnie for the night. The poor thing has been mad at me for leaving her home alone all day. She has stopped coming to greet me at the door and won't hang out with me on the couch. :(

Here she is in her old hang-out spot on the pillows/back of the couch ... she won't sleep there anymore since I've gone back to work. Oh well ... I think she'll get used to it soon.

Anyhoo ... on to Trivia! We had a fun group tonight: Travis & his girls (Mitzi, Jill, Rachel, Amy, Brenda and me). We actually did really well ... but there were some tough questions. Lots of movie, commercial and sports-themed clips. Going into the final round, we were in 4th place. Not bad! We decided to move up close to the DJ stand for the final question, because you get 100 extra points if you are one of the first teams to turn in your answers. A few weeks ago, we lost by mere seconds!

Our fun DJ, Big Dog, was happy to inform us that we had answered the question "well enough" to win for the night. Our question was a clip of the song, "Glory of Love" and we had to figure out who sang it and what year it hit #1 on the charts. [I'll post the answer in the comments for those of you that want to test your trivia skills!]

After we claimed our prize for the big win, Big Dog said something about "Yeah ... who is The Bets Week Ever ... and I like The Chittum Files, too!" OH MY GOODNESS! Interesting ... but not really surprising. If you google "Xtreme team trivia", Jilly is right there on the 1st page. I used to be there, too. He mentioned that he had read a couple of our posts about trivia ... so I guess I have to watch what I say. Right, Big Dog?!?!? ;)

I do see that now Big Dog/Xtreme Team Trivia has their own bloggy blog ... maybe he was inspired by us! :) I'll mark it as a favorite and be back to read in the future.

Okay, off to bed. It's been a long day and tomorrow might be longer. Since I have no trivia tomorrow night, it will probably be a long night in my classroom getting stuff organized and ready. Night!

Puh-leaze let this guy get caught!

Tonight at Trivia, I saw this report on the CNN news ticker.

The media hasn't been on top of this story for a few months. I feel like we don't really know where the investigations stands. Maybe that's a good thing.

So anyhoo ... Drew Peterson was recorded talking about the "disappearance" of Stacey's body and the mentioned that he wished he had cremated her remains. This guy is such an ass! I hope something comes up soon that helps to arrest and charge Drew. His behavior makes me sick!

That's it for tonight. That is today's rant. I took a break from unpacking & cleaning to go play trivia tonight with a smaller-than-usual team, which means that our final score was also smaller-than-usual!

Once I get my own wireless internet set up, I'll post pics of before, during & after the move!

No-So eXcel Team Trivia!

Well, I have bad news. I am NOT $110 richer after the Trivia Championships last night! It was quite the experience, though! We caravaned down to Harrah's casino to go to the VooDoo lounge for the BIG event! I didn't really know what to expect since we've never gotten this far.

I had seen pictures online, but I don't think that really helps you imagine the scene very well. We walked in and the place was lined with tiny tables and lots of chairs. Each table had a team name tent on it. We happened to be up close to the stage, which was nice. We were excited and thought that would mean that we could hear the questions better. What we didn't factor in was the decibel level of the LARGE speakers AND that everyone was actually there to listen to the questions. We normally have to compete with Loudy McDrunkersons at Tanner's who are talking loud enough for the whole bar to hear!

This is a small picture to show was it looked like with close to 60 teams and about 600 people crammed in there! There were teams up on the top level, too!

Here is our table. It was a bit hard to hear each other since we didn't want to be too loud. The tables surrounding us were teams from "our" Tanner's that had also qualified. We also seemed to be sitting in tables according to who "our" DJ was from our home bar. Our DJ happened to be the DJ for the whole night, which was nice ... because he seems to be one of the only normal ones.

In the front of the this picture is our answer packet. Normally we just write our answers on a small sheet of paper. This time they had the questions typed up for us and printed in packets. This did help a bit because we could look ahead to see what type of question it might be. Since Trivia is all auditory, the questions only helped so much. Examples: "Name the person who wed this artist in April of 2008." They played a clip of a Mariah Carey song ... so we knew the answer was Nick Cannon. "Name the character played by Whoopie Goldberg in this movie." We guessed it was going to be a clip of Ghost, and sure enough it was ... so our answer was Oda Mae Brown. We have sucked BIG time on "What year did ... happen?" questions. We have consistently been off 1 year every time!

This is the view I had from my chair. I could see the stage at the front. On the left, the DJ (in the blue shirt) played videos and songs and on the right, they had all the team names and the scores.

Here are Mitzi and Jill waiting patiently for the next round. Trivia normally consists of 10 regular rounds, 3 montage rounds, and a wager round. It starts for us at 8:30 and we are done by 11:30! Last night had only 10 regular rounds and 1 montage. It started at 7:00 and we got out at 11:30! It took FOREVER to tally all the scores after each round!

Here is the table next to us that left after round 7. They must have had to work today (suckers!) and they weren't doing that well. We stuck it out for the whole thing!

My post title comes from the fact that they spent probably 30-45 minutes last night (in between rounds) trying to figure out the Excel part of the score sheet. It was SO frustrating! Even more so when we found out that the guy they got to help fix the spreadsheet was on the winning team! they happened to have a perfect score for the first 4 or 5 rounds of questions. Hmmmm ... that sounds fishy! Here they are all just staring at the score sheet. This was the most frustrating part because it seemed to slow down our momentum of answering the questions.

Overall, it was a fun night! It would have been more fun had I come home with some cash in my pocket, but of course, we'll continue to play! The next "season" starts next week! Yippee!

I can name that tune in 5 notes!

Tonight is the BIG All-Metro Xtreme Team Trivia Championships!

We're all pumped and we've been studying in our own unique ways. I probably haven't been doing as much studying as I should have been, but I'm excited for the chance to win some money tonight!

I'll be sure and update tonight with the final score and how we did! It should be an interesting night, so I'll be sure to take my camera as well!

Off to grab a quick bite to eat before we meet up!

Finally! We made it!

Tonight we went to another Tanner's to play in the Regional round for Trivia. Well ... after a long night of questions (many that we missed) we qualified to play at the All-Metro Championships next Sunday at the VooDoo Lounge!

I'll write more later. I just got home and it's been a long (even though we were very lazy) day!

Hope everyone had a geat Father's Day! :)

House Hunt

Today was day 2 of going out with my Realtor to look for a new home for me. If you are following the side bar in between my pictures on the right, you'll be able to see how it's going.

So far, we'e gone out to see 11 houses and I was pleased that the first one I saw today looked very live-able and I could actually see myself there. We'll go out again on Friday to look at more houses and some condos, too.

Keep your fingers crossed ... I'm pretty sure that Molly and Erik don't want me living here forever. It has been a lot of fun, but I'd like my own place, too!

Tonight they babysat Minners while I went to try and qualify for the regional finals for Trivia (we did!) and I came home to a note on my bed: I took Minnie out @ 10. She barked a lot! This is also a sign that we need to find a new home as soon as possible. They knew they were taking me on, but having a dog in a non-dog house is a totally different situation!

Alrighty ... off to bed! Tomorrow will be my last day of tutoring for the week, and after waking up at 6:30 this week, I'll definitely be ready to sleep in on Friday!

From "Tulsa" to "Omaha"

We went to trivia tonight ... and had a blast! We had our gift card from our winnings last week, and we also have NO STUDENTS TOMORROW! Since the majority of us are teachers, this is a HUGE deal!

We won, (are you even surprised) and we even got home early. It was a group of eight of us, and even though I definitely didn't pull my weight tonight, I've been appointed my position as the "Gift Certificate Holder", so that assures me a role in the trivia evenings ... as long as we keep winning!

Because we haven't ever done this well, and haven't ever made it this far in the 10-week season ... I'm not really sure what the next step is. We are currently ranked 9th, which isn't that bad.

Anyhoo ... back to my title. When I used to live out south, we all used to joke that I live in Tulsa. I was about 40 blocks south of the rest of my world (work, friends, parents, trivia, shopping, etc). Now I'm about 40 blocks north of that same world! How things have changed! I called Jill on my drive home and she joked that she thought I might be calling to get directions all the way back to my current home! :) The good news about living where I am is that I have semi-close highway access! That makes driving much faster, easier, and much more gas-efficient! I've only been here for 6 days and I'm already getting 20+ more miles to my tank!

Okay ... off to bed. I've got more classroom stuff to pack tomorrow after packing for close to 6 hours today. I'll post pictures as soon as I can get around some wireless internet! Just wait until you see the mess that is my classroom!

We're back!

And by "we're" I mean "the regulars plus about 15 extra people"!

Tonight was trivia night. Even though it's the end of the school year and about 1/2 of our regular crew are in the middle of selling and closing and buying houses, we all made an effort to go out for trivia tonight. We were celebrating my birthday (today and yes, I'm 27) and Jilly's birthday (Saturday and I won't reveal her age without her "ok").

We invited friends from school, work, and even my family showed up! We started at 4 tables and ended up at just 2. We also were in the lead the entire night, which is always a good feeling! We went into the final wager round with an even 1000 points, wagered 500 and won in the end, even though we weren't sure of our answer.

Final question: What year did this song hit #1 on the Billboard charts? The song was "Keep on Loving You" by REO Speedwagon. You had to first know what the song was and THEN have a friend with a handy, dandy iPhone to look up the answer on wiki! Thanks, Doug! :)

For those of you that want to guess, I'll put the winning answer in the comments! We ended up winning tonight, which got us back in the running for the bar championships. We are in 9th place, which I would say is pretty impressive for only being there for 3 of the 8 weeks in this "round".

Hope everyone is having a great week ... and for those of you that are teachers ... are you as ready for summer as I am?

Who wants to bet that one of the teams will have a laptop?

Tonight we're off to Trivia at a different location since we missed it this week, it's too cold for First Fridays, and we are all semi-broke. It will be the regular crew (Adam & his 3 wives), but we're trying to convince some other friends to join us, too! We can always use extra heads for useless trivia knowledge. :)

Last time we played at this bar, the team that won actually brought in their laptop. I'm sure I could help get a win for my team with my awesome Googling skills, too! How lame.

I'll be sure and let you all know if we walk away with the $100 cash prize for the winners. I don't know if the update will be tonight, however, since this Trivia starts much later than our usual night and I don't think it finishes until closing time.

Wish us luck ... we desperately need the prize money so we can afford to go to regular Trivia this week!

3 in a row ???

Wish us luck. We are all off to Trivia for tonight. We didn't play last week, so we've had a week to rest up and brush up on our useless Trivia knowledge!

We've got a big group tonight ... probably 8 of us. We all wanted to get "out", but now we wish that going out didn't mean going out in the middle of a rain storm!

If I'm not too pooped when I get back tonight, I'll be sure and update with our results!

Goooooooooooooooo, Team! :)

*** ** * UPDATE * ** ***
Yes, I should most definitely be in bed by now. I got home from trivia around midnight and still had a few things to finish up before I could actually get to bed. We lost at Trivia tonight, but not by much. There were lots of really hard questions! We've decided that if we were to ever win the All-Metro championship, we are spending half of our $1000 prize on an iPhone!

Who's the Boss?

That's right! We are!

Tonight was another VERY successful night at Xtreme Team Trivia! Our team, "Hold me closer, Tony Danza" won again! We were behind by up to 50 points in the beginning, but with a couple rounds that included bonus points, we managed to go into the final round 100 points ahead of the second place team!

Here's a pic of our winnings ... which we can definitely use as a group of super poor teachers!

We got really lucky tonight. We had a great group and some good questions that we knew and noone else did! Adam & Jill, Mitzi, Amy and her friend Rachel (and my new, future neighbor), Brenda & Mike and their friend Michelle and me! Clearly 9 heads is better than our usual 5.

One of our questions actually was, "Name this TV show." and they played the theme song to Who's the Boss? Another question asked "What year did this TV show premier?" and it was the World Series of Pop Culture which Rachel was a 2nd place finalist for last summer! Rachel delivered the sad news that because VH1 fans are apparently REALLY enjoying crap like "Flavor of Love 8" and "Rock of Love" there will be no more "World Series of Pop Culture". How sad! We have also become quite the regulars, and the DJ knows us well, which is nice!

Okay ... I've been up way too late just about every night this week. I really should hit the sack ! G-nite!

It's been FOR-EV-ER!

Tonight we are meeting up for Trivia. It's been weeks, and even though it's only Wednesday, this week has been hellish, and we all are ready for fun and games!

I think we might have a record-size crowd for our team tonight. Hopefully that means that more heads will make us that much smarter!

I'll be sure and post a recap of the evening ... cross your trivia fingers for us! We could use a gift card to Tanner's desperately!

GOOOOOOOOO Team!

*** ** * ** ***
UPDATE:
I just walked in the door ... and ... WE WON! Yippee! Our crowd varied from 7 to 11 people throughout the night, and it was true that more heads definitely helped!

I think I may have convinced some friends that Trivia is THE place to be and we all had lots of fun. I know I promised a recap, but there really isn't much to say. We kicked ass! I think we got seven or eight out of ten rounds completely perfect (5 questions + bonus) and we got all three montages completely correct! Our new team name, "Hold me closer, Tony Danza" (thanks to Phoebe Buffay) served us proud! Don't know if we'll be able to make it back next week due to conferences, but hopefully the week after will be another win!