Quiz bowled over...

bsom: so it says they are offering prizes. I wonder what they are.

mad anthony: It's either something cool, like an xbox, or else it's like one in 8 will have their dicks ripped off

So yesterday, the college I worked for sponsored a "quiz bowl" - you pay $15, and have the chance to compete against other teams answering trivia questions to win prizes (a restaurant gift certificate or a gift basket). Proceeds went to Parkinson's research. bsom asked me if I was interested, and I said yes... I'm no genius, but I figured I'm reasonably intelligent and have a decent supply of random knowledge. bsom managed to recruit two other participants - one of our web guys and a friend of his, who were quiz bowl veterans.

Turns out I wasn't as smart as I thought. There were 9 teams. Our team, The Repetitive Print Defects (my brilliant idea) came in 6th. Granted, at least 2 of the teams had professors on them, so we were playing against teams that had people whose job is to know random useless crap. But there were very few questions where I knew the answer and the rest of the team didn't, and I missed a bunch of questions I should have known, including geography (generally my strong suit) and the bible (despite having spent my entire educational career, from Kindergarten to grad school, in Catholic schools). It didn't help that there were a lot of sports questions and pop culture questions, and no questions about technology, cars, business/economics, or anything else that I can bore you to tears about with random facts.

The evening wasn't a total waste. It was fun, it was for a good cause, and they had giveaways for everyone - including a travel mug, something that I can always use since I normally gulp down a cup of homebrew java on my way to work. And much like shooting, even though I suck at quiz bowl, I wouldn't mind doing again. In fact, our web guy mentioned that there is a bar near where I live that hosts them, and I think I'm going to see if I can drag him and bsom there some time - I figure it beats sitting home staring at the cat, plus it seems like a good opportunity to hit on smart chicks.