Australian Trivia

Every Tuesday night, one of the bars in Newcastle, Finnegan's, has trivia. This is done with a big screen TV and each table counts as a team. I have gone every time, as has my housemate Phil, so I was the team writer, and he was team captain. PHIL went to CAIRNS this week, so I had to take over as captain, which essentially means nothing. Except that it becomes my team, and I get the credit for our score this week. Anyway, back to the basics of trivia. The host, Annabelle, passes out these booklets where we put our answers, and a category sheet. The categories are always random, and your team picks 2 categories that the points are doubled for before any of the rounds start. There are 8 rounds, but we always skip round 4, so we always tear round 4 out of the book and do something random with it. This week, we were supposed to make something 'useful' with our paper. This is lame to me because usually, they let us be completely creative. Once, I made an entire 3D model of a camping scene with a tent, campfire, logs, and a sleeping man. I didn't win. I lost to a cootie-catcher. WTF?

Anyway, as soon as they said make something 'useful', it's due in round 7, I thought 'Spoon'. I'm retarded. Round one starts and it's a video task where they showed a bunch of commercials, and then asked 10 questions about them... kind of a memory task. I thought ahead and wrote furiously about each commercial, and we got most of these answers right. I won't go into each round, but I will tell you about how my paper spoon was going. The handle was really stiff, but the bowl part of the spoon was limp. I turned it in with our team name on it-- Operation Intoxication. By the way, we're the only people in this crowded bar who are drinking to get drunk. Also, I should point out that when we don't have a clue for an answer, as team writer, it is my job to come up with something hilarious to write. Some of my famous answers have been: for an action: 'Lick My Taint', for a person: 'Iva Hugh Gehtwaht' and last night's answer (which Annabelle laughed and read out loud) for a band: Lonny Greene and the 'Giant Discharging Vagina'.

We doubled our categories of TV/Cinema, and Science Nature & the Human Body. These were awesome categories for us. and this time we had an Australian on our team, which means we'd be able to answer the Sports & Games category, which seems to be in Trivia EVERY FUCKING TIME. All the questions are about Rugby, Cricket, or Netball. Sometimes they throw in a baseball question, and we get so excited, we're acting like it's juice time in the special education class. Anyway, round 7 comes along, and it's time for Annabelle to announce who won the 'useful' creation competition. She said "the judges liked this one, it was a utencil (my heart STOPPED), and the winner is: Operation Intoxication!" I stumbled up to the stage and grabbed my bottle of wine: "Cockfighter's Ghost" It might as well been made of gold for the amount that it meant to me. I lost my camping creation to a cootie catcher, but my limp spoon was more useful than anything else? I was in heaven!

Now, we have yet to score above 51 points in trivia. In case you haven't done the math, there are 110 possible points including doubled rounds, and a bonus question worth 10 points. Last night, with me as team captain, team writer, and team designer, we earned 64 points, and 8th place, beating 3 teams. And to any Australian university student who reads this: 64 out of 110 is more than 50% which is a Pass! We passed Australia! I am the American God of Trivia!