It was a nice and relaxing time at the Glenn this Tuesday. The beer was flowing, the patrons were laughing, and the difficulties were technical. After a brief delay because the S-Video faeries decided to play hookie, we were up and running with a brilliant Round 1. Highlights included team Mad Dog going through nearly 49 states before figuring out the longest coastline is in a bit colder climate than Florida and team We Won’t Win and Gods of Wrong Answers battling it out with a near perfect round (apparently no one has ever seen or heard of any movie ever called “About a Boy”). With a twist befitting an M Night film, team We Won’t Win pulled into the lead and took the round with perfect Grab Bag answers.

Round 2 saw slightly tougher questions, which of course means slightly wronger answers (shut up, it is too a word). Despite no one being quite sure on the women’s tennis champion or Pimpernel’s nationality, teams Mad Dog and We Won’t Win battled out for first throughout the round and into a tie-breaker. And of course neither team was willing to go gently into the good night, so with both answering exactly the same answer, the substitute question of “What is my Birthday” decided the round. And the winner is: We Won’t Win … (because team Mad Dog called me old…jerks).

After team Mad Dog bought me a drink to apologize, on to Round 3, with presidents of the US, Tornado Alley, and those loveable Monkees! An early setback to The Gods of Wrong Answers with a flip-flopped answer on the 3^rd and 4^th presidents upset and disappointed many, but that didn’t stop them from drinking … a lot, as team Mad Dog pulled into a slight lead early in the round. However, after the Grab Bag we found ourselves with a 3 way tie, the best kind of tie. With a phenomenal knowledge of the length of the Mississippi, the winner of the final round is Mad Dog.

Star Wars Fact of the Day: If you listen closely during the Mos Eisley shoot-out (just before the Falcon takes off), there is a brief musical cue from 70s arcade phenomenon Pac-Man.

Signing off, this is Preacher.

We had an amazing night at The Glenn in North Glenn this Tuesday. Venue favorites Team Mad Dog and The Gods of Wrong Answers battled it out the whole night. To start things off, Mad Dog took the slightest of victories in round 1 with only a single point lead. Let it be known that memorizing the 7 Dwarves has its benefits.

In round 2 despite an early 3 way tie including newcomers Team That’s What She Said, the Gods of Wrong Answers pulled into the lead with their phenomenal knowledge of terrible terrible processed cheeses, and then secured the win on the backs of a Kiwi and Kookaburra.

Round 3 started with a devastating setback to the God’s of Wrong Answers for not knowing the Falklands or the countries in Central America, (Yet they’re experts on Matt Groening cartoons from the early 80’s, go figure) and just couldn’t recover. Team Rendezvous, though trailing for the previous rounds made an amazing comeback, trailing on the heels of Mad Dog for the entire round, but just couldn’t quite catch, making the Corey Feldman loving Mad Dogs the 3^rd and final round winners.

Star Wars Trivia of the Day: R2-D2 wind-up action figure made by Takara in Japan, was one of George Lucas’s favorite toys. Lucasfilm itself ordered thousands of them for company employees.

Signing off, this is Preacher

I have to apologize to my loyal fans out there for the MIA blogs. I have just been having so much fun with my nights at the Glenn that I hated to soil them with my lackluster prose. I don’t want any of you to think that I’ve forgotten any of you, so here goes with the fantabulous Tuesdays at the Glenn!

The teams have been varied and the competition stunning at the Glenn for the past few nights. Of course we have our oft winning and always available weekly teams The Gods of Wrong Answers and Team Mad Dog fighting it out for supremacy with The Gods of Wrong Answers taking most of the early rounds and Team Mad Dog displaying true grit and taking home the prize in round 3 (and the best of the prizes) just about every night, but what makes the night fun are not always the winners, but the people there to buy me alcohol and french fries. So, Team K10 and RayRay I hope you girls had a good time and thank you so much for the graphic images scrawled on your papers in place of actual answers, Team Tommy, you guys are great, get back and give the reigning champs a run for the crown again. The Legends, UMC, Fat Thumbs, Don’t Knows, Brown, and Blue you all were fun for the brief time you were there, and remember, it’s not always what you answer, but how you answer sometimes (see my remarks for K10 and RayRay). Team Trio and Solano you guys came in late, but I don’t count against tardiness, so I’ll be looking for you next week. And to everyone else, I hope you all have been having as much fun as I have and I’ll see you all this next Tuesday, beer in hand and teeny tiny amp in the corner!

Star Wars Fact of the Day: Contrary to popular belief, the shot that ends A New Hope is not an allusion to Triumph of the Will, but in fact a very clever spoof of an obscure early 60s episode of Sugarfoot.

Signing off, This is Preacher

An excellent game this week at the Glenn in Northglenn! We started the night off with a first round tie between the oft winning Gods of Wrong Answers and the relatively new Drive Thru Speakers. Drive Thru took it down with an awesome tie-breaking display. Round 2 and the tensions are high between these two titans of trivia and in a final question blitz, Gods of Wrong Answers took back the title! Not to be ignored the other teams, Mad Dog, The Dumbasses, Team Rehab, and The Nacy’s all made a grandiose push for the final round with team Mad Dog, a constant force at the Glenn, brought home the victory.

Star Wars Fact of the Day: Only George Lucas knew about the iconic line “Luke. I am your father!” During filming, the actors had a different script, and the line that was read was “Luke. You are your own father!” That really confused and outraged the actors and film crew, and Lucas had to concoct a lengthy lie about a time-travel based Return of the Jedi.

Signing off, This is Preacher

After a one week hiatus to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I’m back and I brought a little bit of trivia … I thought you might like it.

With 10 teams coming to the table Monday, JR’s was packed with lots of good friends and good fun. Round one started off with the constant team Sally’s Sluts taking it down with a nearly perfect first round score, though team Where’s The Flannel (WTF) and Team Clark came in close behind, and chased all of round 2 as well. Sally’s Sluts narrowly winning again by only a couple of points and all of the teams within a narrow margin. Naturally this only inspired the other teams, and team WTF tied Sally’s Sluts for the third round and with an amazingly close guess took the round title and second place in the game over all.

Star Wars Fact of the Day: Filming on The Empire Strikes Back had to halt for two weeks due to a wind-surfing competition in Australia that became an annual tradition of sorts for Lucas, and of which he refused to miss.

Signing off, This is Preacher

Tuesday was a night of hope, joy, and crushing defeat for some of the teams, but everyone’s always a winner when we’re drinking heavily and enjoying the dulcet tones of…well, me, over a marginal sound system. None of that concerned the teams at The Glenn on Tuesday however, the competition was vicious and trivia, trivial as always.

The round one victor and perennial champion was Gods of Wrong Answers with their unholy mix of ridiculous geography knowlege and children’s playtoys, they’re a tough team to beat. Their first round win was narrow, but they justified it with a sweeping round two, leaving the competition in the proverbial dust. But round three was not happy for these Mighty Caseys of Buzzwords. The Mad Dog’s struck back after a faltering God’s of and took the final round by a behemoth margin.  Also playing their little hearts out were returning team The Nancy’s/Babaganushe and new comers team HatSkirt (I got to name them :))

Star Wars Fact of the Day:  Billy Dee Williams was the first American of African decent to play a main roll in a science fiction film.

Signing off, this is Preacher

A fantastic night at the Glenn in Northglenn this past Tuesday with old favorites and newcomers alike battling it out for the prize. Starting the night off with a vengeance, Team Gods of Wrong Answers and returning team Mad Dog went into a tie-breaker with Gods taking it down. But in round 2 team Mad Dog struck back and for the uncontested win and teams Broncos, Hooker Patrol, The Nancy, and Bag Ladies all trailing but closely behind. Round 3 Team Gods of Wrong Answers brought the prize back home narrowly defeating Mad Dogs for the 2 out of 3 title.

Star Wars Fact of the Day: Before the role of Princess Leia was offered to Carrie Fischer, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep and (in what would’ve been a daring move for its time) Diana Ross were all strongly considered.

Signing off, this is Preacher.

As always it was an exciting night at Jr’s on Monday. 10 Teams entered, but only 1 could be victorious. The night started off with a near perfect first round win by team Holy Family, a Jr’s favorite and returning round champion. A fast and furious round 2 saw a tie-breaker between Sally’s Sluts and Widow Thompson’s Tarts with Sally’s Sluts barely squeaking by for the win. Round 3 shenanigans had team Holy Family back in the lead and tied with the classic Sally’s Sluts for the game win. In an unfathomably accurate guess on the tie-breaker, team Holy Family takes it home, with Sally’s Sluts taking the silver and the previously unknown Cracker Monster coming in for 3rd.

Star Wars Fact of the Day: The Sith were originally called The Damned, but a British band with the same name debuted in February 1977, forcing Lucas to dub over the word with “Sith” in post-production. To this day, Lucas hates all punk rock.

Signing off, this is Preacher.

Well, if there was a night where myself and my ever delightful host Jen had more fun than Thursday you’d be hard pressed to find it.  Given the crowd and the night, it was almost the Jen and Matt morning show on KBee.  Like two true comedic hosts working the crowd, we definitely had a great night.

Anyway, after Tobin’s friends (including the “funniest man in the world”) bailed because, as Jen said: “They had no balls”, we got the night started with our favorite 4th grade words of weeks past.  Words like p-h-a-l-a-n-x and h-o-d-g-e-p-o-d-g-e got blown through in the first round.  But, after round two were already down to our final three.

Pam, our contestant from Winchestertonsfieldville, IA, was the first finalist to bite the dust. However, the school nurse/Santa stamp collector really had a great time.

That left us with our final two (who pledged a grudge match rematch next week)

Finishing second was our friend Dick (who really lived up to his name). Dick claimed to only wear underwear when it’s a fine mesh, but we decided to prevent him from proving that to us.

Finishing first by correctly spelling f-l-i-p-p-a-n-t and c-l-a-n-d-e-s-t-i-n-e in order was Richard (our Doogie Howser look alike)

Thanks to everyone who had balls.  We’ll see you each and every week at 7:30! Matt and Jen out.

With Vince in one corner, Fred in the other, and Vanessa in the middle, the Buzz Bee battle went on (and on, and on) last night!  We started a bit earlier in the evening (7:30) and despite most people just wanting to eat their dinner and be entertained, we found ten brave folks who took on the Spelling challenge.   

Fred had the largest, and loudest cheering section for the first half of the evening, as his office party fully stopped their cell phone ’show and tell’ each time he was up to spell.  With something like 20 guys, that can get loud!  But then Vince made it to the finals and his office party stepped it up, literally from the opposite side of the room.   Not to leave out Vanessa’s fans - they were very eager to help her out by asking for sentences and definitions even though she didn’t seem to need them.

Vanessa, Vince and Fred, in that order. 

After two solid rounds of double-elimination torture, we got down to our final five players: Dan, Jordan, Vanessa, Fred and Vince.

Despite starting a bit late, and swearing the he would be the winner of the Bee that night, Jordan didn’t make it to the final three.  Next time!  Dan, the dodgeball fanatic, also didn’t quite make the cut, but I’m sure it was that he had a tough word.  

Once we were down to three, my intrepid co-host Matt and I decided to go to the 4th grade words (the tough ones) and that made for quite a final round.  After 30 words, we managed to get one of our crazy contestants to spell two of them correctly in a row.  That lucky dog was Vince, the flamenco guitar player.  He asked to take his picture with me, and I was in a good mood so I obliged.

So there you have it!  Another successful night of the Buzz Bee at Blake Street Tavern.  Thanks also to Rhonda, Doug, Adam, Matt and Travis for playing!  Get out your dictionaries and study for the next one.

See you then!

Jen

The Buzz Bee was back with a vengeance last night at Blake Street Tavern!  My irreplaceable co-host Matt and I were thrilled to have a great crowd come back after a week off and the V-day holiday.  We had almost 20 brave (or possibly drunk) contestants.  Despite the claims of not being able to spell or not knowing what a word meant, we confirmed that many Denverites really can spell.  Seriously people, it’s ok to be smart.  We’re not in high school anymore!  

Many thanks to Jeff “crabass” Popiel and his lively group who all participated last night!   They made the evening much more entertaining.  See, we ask you to tell us something interesting about yourself that we can chat with you about when you get up to the mic, and Jeff offered up his love for the ballet, kegstands, and the tattoo of a crab on his ass.  While tempting, I didn’t let him prove that was true.

As for the spelling, it took four rounds to get down to our final five…

and one more to get down to our final two, Josh and Juan. 

It was a short final round, as Juan missed his first word and we went to Josh for two correct words in a row.  He didn’t let us down and with vitreous and littoral he was once again crowned Buzz Bee Champion!  Nicely done! (This will be Josh’s last appearance at the Bee, as he will likely scare away future spellers. Kidding, sort of.)

Leah and friends, we hope to see you guys again!  Brodie and Jason - great to see you guys back! And thanks to everyone for giving it a shot (or two)!  We will be back next week and every Thursday at Blake Street!!  The more people who play, the better the prizes will be, so tell your friends.  See you there!

Jen

Well, neither snow, nor dark, nor lack of a love life could stop your intrepid hosts Matt and Jen from hosting the BuzzBee tonight at Blake Street Tavern.  And while the crowd was expectedly small, an epic battle ensued.

Thanks to all the bar staff who kept the $3.50 Old Scratch pints flowing. The game came down to a final four: Crystal (with her spelling son Christian in tow) was the first of our finalists knocked out. She earned a free drink for her efforts.

Finishing in third was Parker.  Parker could spell pretty well but seems to have had difficulty in finding someone to cut his hair well. So, in absence of a proper stylist, he turned to the old stand-by: The Flowbee.  That’s right, cuts your hair and sucks it right into the vacuum.  Next time Parker, dial it up to a 3 or a 4 rather than your 50’s flat-top. Still, third place earned him a $5 bar tab.

The final two came down to a battle between the shortest tall man ever: Jared, and our resident walking pedestrian accident: Ben. We switched to the harder list and these two battled through 16 words! Jared prevailed in the end by correctly spelling pleonastic and parsimonious in order. Ben took home a $10 bar tab for his second place finish and Jared earned a $20 bar tab.  Nice work gentlemen.

 We’re expecting to be back next week, so bring all your friends down to Blake Street for the BuzzBee! 

So, all week I was quizzing my co-workers on the correct spelling (and meaning) of Sesquipedalian:

I can’t say that I knew either until after our first BuzzBee, but it made me look that much more to week #2.

Anyway, after a nearly flawless performance by yours truly and my delightful and delectable co-host Jen, week two presented some unique challenges.  After fighting with the sound for what seemed liked an eternity, we forged ahead with words like: Toady, Insidious and Revivalist in the first round, and words like: Auctorial, Laureate, and Isochronal.

17 players fought hard and dirty to the final three pictured below

 Anyway,  3rd place went to Brody from Nebraska, 2nd to Ana from Littleton, and 1st place went to Kendra from Denver (a self proclaimed can’t speller).

Thanks to the Denver Arts Museum for being our lead sponsor and all the girls on staff at Blake Street.  We’ll be back in two weeks (that’s right, it’s the anti-Valentines Day BuzzBee) right back at Blake Street.

Can you handle this!

Seriously!  We were down to the LAST WORD on our list trying to eliminate the super-smarties that came out for the first-ever Buzz Bee at Blake Street Tavern!  I feel stupid for underestimating how great you guys would do.   Lesson learned… harder words to come!

It all started out at 8pm with 25 players bravely being the guinea pigs for our first night.  With the double-elimination process everyone had a second chance since there was an element of luck as to what word you got stuck with.   Matt Cohen and I, your humble judge Jen, worked the Bee together and we had a blast!! 

It took several rounds but we finally came down to our top five super-smarties: Allison, Shelley, David, Josh and Paul.  Paul’s family was an entire group of spelling geniuses, but he couldn’t hang on when he was asked to spell sesquipedalian.  (Yeah, that word is ridiculous!)  Our final word of the night, to determine the winner was diphyodont and when Allison couldn’t quite get that one, we were left with Josh, genius supreme, as the winner of the first ever Buzz Bee.   Way to go Josh!  And a huge round of applause to our final five and the rest of the brave peeps who blew us away with their spelling abilities!  Thanks so much for making it a killer night!!

Here’s Shelley, who can say all of the United States in alphabetical order in less than 28 (ish) seconds!  She proved it tonight… (that was awesome!)

Our friend Paul…

David here was one of the bravest first two players!

And Allison, our second-place finisher.  We’ll see her next week with more teachers to increase the competition!

Last, but not at all the least, our winner Josh!

We’ll be back next week, Bee starts at 8pm but show up earlier to register at Blake Street Tavern.  Where else could you possibly want to BEE?

Kudos to Tobin for an excellent idea to get this going here in Denver.  Looking forward to it becoming a huge success!!  Also, to the Denver Art Museum and Tattered Cover who provided great prizes for the evening, it really completed a quality night.  You guys rock!

See y’all next week!

Jen