Competitive Intelligence

Played Pub Trivia with some friends and assorted hangers-on at The Duke of Gloucester on Yonge Street yesterday evening. Nicknamed "The Stinky Duke" by yours truly a few years back as a way to differentiate it from the Duke of York which is also a semi-regular haunt, we stumbled into the secret world of Pub Trivia. No one in the group was aware that Thursday was Trivia night, and the bartender went out of his way to make sure we felt uncomfortable about sitting in the tables "reserved" for regular quiz participants.

A couple of us are occasional NTN Trivia players and had our curiousity piqued by the real-life human quizzer, quite a different approach from the interactive computerized quizzing we were more familiar with. But mostly, it was we were too lazy to get up and move tables.

Now, Sheena has a competitive streak, and when the quiz card was slapped down on the table by the unkempt surly bartender, a little adrenaline coursed through the veins. My visiting redneck acquaintance got a similar glazed look in his eye and I could see a vein throbbing in his forehead.

"Oh come on.. Let's play".

Half of the table looked bored and uncomfortable, but we had already dived into purses and briefcases looking for black medium point pens. And backup black medium point pens.

The Quiz Master took the seat of power behind the table directly under the TV, thus ensuring all eyes were on him. "Question 1..." he began. By Question 4 it became apparent that part of the intellectual challenge of the evening was going to be correctly interpreting his very thick Irish brogue. When one hooligan began cursing him and yelling for someone who spoke Canadian, we looked amongst ourselves and wondered if it was part of the act.

The quiz was conducted in two parts. By the end of round one, we were only 1 point out of the lead. Not bad for newbies. Felt like we were back in grade 3. Passing our papers to the neighbouring table to mark the answers.

Our strategic failure was the lack of under-30 token representation. Sheena failed in her mission to play young hipster and blew the opportunity to distinguish "Black Eyed Peas" from "Outkast". By the end of round two, we remained in second place though now trailing by 4 points. Not a good close.

But a lovely time WAS had by all. And I think at least one of us will be back for Round Two.

Hey Yah!