Allo, allo… it’s Josh again, while Jen’s off basking in the tropical sun.

As usual, we had a great showing at Old C’s in Wheat Ridge–six solid teams.

Clean Up Hitters showed up after round one, which put them behind for the evening… if not for that, they’d have placed for sure. The Old-C regulars Team X finished a few points above ‘em, and one point behind the Rainmakers.

Our top three for the evening were also the three best team names: Rabbit Done Died came in third but had a phenomenal 18-point third round, winning themselves some beer.

Scottish Fury came in second, and kept finishing one or two points behind the round leaders, but they walked away with some tasty Old-C’s cash anyway.

Our winners of rounds one and two (and only one point behind in round three) ended up, not surprisingly, winning the game… Lion-O’s, which would have been a great name for a Thundercats-themed cereal as well as for a trivia team.  I bet you’re not at all surprised to learn that they aced the superheroes’ secret-identities question AND the one on Battlestar Galactica.  We nerds have been waiting a long time for our revenge, and it tastes like pizza and beer.

Thanks again to Mike, Ashlee, and the rest of the gang at Old Chicago’s for making me feel welcome

Well, well, well… another great Tuesday night at Code 3, this time with a Bucket of Brilliance.

Daniel, playing all by himself from the other room, had a rough go of it but kept plugging into the third round.  He didn’t hang out long enough for me to buy him a drink, but, Daniel, if you’re out there, come on back next week and your first one’s on me.

Abacus was rock solid on the People and Grab Bag questions, but, unfortunately, had problems with the rest of the categories… especially TV and Film.  (Yeah, sorry, guys… I suck at those categories too.)

Team Taco Bell played two and a half strong rounds but kept getting beaten out for the free beers.  There’s a joke in there about Taco Bell’s food, I think, but Your Favorite Host is still enjoying the aftereffects of 15 rounds with the stomach flu, so let’s just consider it made, shall we?

Paige and Calvin proved that you can be smart and gorgeous at the same time (or at least Paige was, and I’m assuming she wouldn’t hang around with some non-smart-or-gorgeous schlub even if he IS named after the best comic-strip character ever).  They stomped everybody else in the first round and finished in a tie for third.  But since there can be only one, we had a tiebreaker… and they lost to team LMB.

LMB had such a crazy evening, in fact, that they ended up tied both for third place and for the round prize with different teams in Round 3, which was a little bit of a nightmare for my poor math-addled brain.  But I think I got it all sorted out… and LMB’s happy result was that at the end of the game, they had to drink a round of Coors Light AND a round of their favorite shots.

I hope nobody was driving.

Our second-place finishers, Three Dumb Blondes And A Brunette, actually consisted of two pretty smart blondes, a really smart guy with dark sandy colored hair, and their sports guy who shaves his head completely.  I’m not going to ask how they came up with the team name because I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.

Winning the second round  by a LOT will often help you out if your third round is a little subpar.  And that was definitely the case with our champions, Shake n Bake, who took time off from their busy pool-playing schedule to lay the smack down on some two-point questions.  They were up far enough on the rest of the field that their Coors-Light-induced brain fog in the third round still left them enough of a cushion to seal the deal and inscribe their names on the coveted Code 3 Bucket of Brilliance.

I’ll see you all next Tuesday, but first make sure to get out to your caucusing locations for the primary of your choice.  (Unless you’re caucusing for Hillary, in which case yours has been moved to Thursday.)

After a month of subbing for various lazy hosts (seriously, who puts visits with friends and family at the holidays ahead of TRIVIA?!) and hoping to get the trivia version of the call from the Major Leagues, it looks like I might have my very own gig now. At least for a couple of weeks. We had a great showing for our first night at Code 3 in the historic Ballpark neighborhood last night, and despite some last-minute surgery on the set that resulted in an embarrassing moment or two for Yours Truly, I have to say it was a success.

The usually reliable Shoup and the ubiquitous King Prawns (is there a Buzzwordz game these folks don’t play?!) both had an off night, finishing out of the prizes.

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Wow!  We had an incredible showing at Brix–nine teams played at least part of the game, and seven finished.

A remarkably tight contest ensued, in which five teams all finished within five points of first place, and two teams tied with the high score for the evening.

Starz and Kate/Dan had to take off after the first round, but they were sorely missed.

Kiss were a bit inebriated, and I blame their rough finish on that.  I may have mis-scored It’s Business Time, since they gave me a different team name for every answer in the first round, but they’ll know the next time.

You’ve Got Mail, sitting at the bar with me, were on their first date, but managed to keep their minds on the trivia until well into the third round, a feat I’m not sure I could have accomplished.

Corkscrews and The Greatest Team in the World … Tribute arrived together as a single large team, but split up into a twin-engine trivia powerhouse–both finished just out of the running for the prizes, and Greatest won the second round.

Team Hope won the first round but fell off a bit in the second round, leading me to think they were all hat and no cattle.  But they roared back in the third round, finishing it in a tie with Our Shirts Are Blue (who quietly racked up points throughout the  evening, and then ran away with round three) for the big prizes.  Shirts won the tiebreaker and took home the big gift certificate; Hope took home second place.

Next week, Matt will be back, we’ll be saying goodbye to Eric the bartender (who is off to Las Vegas), and you should go, because this is a great venue for trivia.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!  This update should’ve gone up two days ago, but with the holidays and all…

I had a great time filling in at Brix on Sunday.  When I walked in, everybody looked very intent on their dinners and drinks, but by the time trivia started, everybody in the bar was playing.

We had an incredibly tight game, with four of the six teams all separated by a single point–Team Nairobi, Team Club Eclipse, Wolff (our round-two PBR winners), and amazing latecomers J2–who showed up four questions into round two and still finished third overall for the night.

The lovely and talented Tasha and Dawn, a.k.a. P.O.B., looked discouraged after the second round–and it was a tough set of questions, no doubt–but they finished the night in second place, taking home $20 in gift certificates and the third-round PBRs.

But nobody could catch Team 1, who ran away with the first round (scoring 50% of the total points for EVERYBODY in that round) and coasted to a five-point win, earning $25 in bar cash, a round of PBRs, and your humble quizmaster’s undying admiration.

Hope to see you all again next week.

It ain’t easy filling Jen’s shoes… especially when she wears heels. But I did my best anyway, and we had a pretty smooth evening of trivia at Old Chicago.

Team X (playing by himself) racked up a solid 17 points, a great total after a rough first round. The No-Talent Ass Clown parlayed their engineering experience into 19 points.

Latecomers Big Foot got an impressive 22 points despite arriving three questions into the second round, but they were narrowly edged out for fourth place by the Abominable Knowmen, with 23.

Guys at the Table (plus one lady) smoked the first round, missing only the first-question bonus point (the name of the play Lincoln was watching when he was shot), but couldn’t maintain their momentum, losing second place in the third-round tiebreaker to hard-charging Your Mom, winners of the $15 certificate and the third-round beer. Both teams scored 36.

But the big winners of the evening, with an astounding 38 points, were the three gentlemen of Asskickin’, Inc., who walked away with a free pitcher after their 14-point round two and the $30 gift certificate at the end of the night.

Thanks for making this guest host feel welcome, guys. I’ll see you again next week, and then I promise Jen’ll be back.

Well, it wasn’t easy.  After about an hour and a half’s worth of technical difficulties, though, we got the Gorilla Room’s inaugural Buzzwordz trivia underway.  Seven teams showed up–a pretty awesome total for a first-time event (and I’m pretty sure it was all word-of-mouth once they saw the studly figure cut by their dashing host, Yours Truly)–and we had a great time rolling through perhaps the toughest trivia this side of a Jeopardy set.

We had a great first-round showing from Cul-de-Sac, who then followed a lovely young lady out of the bar and missed out on rounds two and three.  Frankly, I was tempted to tag along.

Sweet Brothers, the folks behind the bar, brought up the rear despite a strong third round and a veritable plethora of funny answers.  No Name edged them out by a single point.  We had a strong showing from Raiders Beans, who showed up at the tail end of the first round and still managed a fourth-place finish, missing third by a mere two points.

Da Bdubbs, despite extortion, bribery and MASH-note answer sheets in an attempt to sway the impartial (but apparently sexy) quizmaster, finished a respectable third.

Runners up and winners of $15 in bar cash, the Teenage Pussy Killers attributed their name to their day jobs as euthanasia vets at a clinic for geriatric cats.

It was, however, the supremely confident Justin and Sharif are Winning who took every round and the evening’s grand prize, which was reported variously as a $30 bar gift certificate or $5 off a spray tan.

Thanks, Gorilla Room.  Say hi to the other Josh for me next week.