February 16, 2011

Sponsor spotlight: Housing Works' Geek Week

Thanks to loyal BQT fan Rachel Fershleiser, NYC's best bookstore (suck it, the Strand!), Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, is our second very special sponsor for this Monday's very special edition of the Big Quiz Thing, the Hail to the Trivial Presidential Quiz Spectacular. And how apropos it is: Starting on Saturday and running through the 25th, Housing Works presents Geek Week: 30 percent off sci-fi books, comics, vintage vinyl, all the awesome crap you wish you had a basement to keep in. Plus, some "live geekery": readings, concerts, a screening and—wait, really?—something called "Live Book Nerd Jeopardy." (Anyone for fielding a BQT supergroup? Watson won't be there.)

All the events are free, so no point in HWBC kicking in tickets, but Rachel will be supplying the presidential prize haul with some fine, fine volumes of historical importance: biographies of Lincoln (first President with a beard), Franklin Roosevelt (a character in the 1977 Tony winner for Best Musical), Obama (most followed politician on Twitter, just a few more than me) and Hamilton (not a President, but on the $10 bill, so a lot of people think he is), plus various other presidential-literary goodies. Score score score.

Monday night, Crash Mansion, 7:30pm, da-DA-da-DAAH-da-da-DA-da-DA-da-DAA-DAAA! (That's supposed to be "Hail to the Chief.")

February 13, 2011

Tomorrow night: We're replaced, and I comment upon it

The end is nigh. Get ready to not have the pod bay doors open. Tomorrow night, Watson, IBM's trivia-genius supercomputer, is making its debut on Jeopardy!
Yes, it sounds impossible, but it is true: A bunch of people even nerdier than Big Quiz Thing fans have designed a computer that can actually comprehend and answer trivia questions (even in Alex Trebek's obnoxiously accented voice). And after a number of impressive trial runs, Watson—as he/she/it is known—is taking on two of Jeopardy!'s all-time greatest champs, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter (not Jonathan Corbblah, unfortunately). This epic clash between titans of flesh and metal will take place over three nights, starting tomorrow; I find it sadly appropriate that this is happening on Valentine's Day. 7pm, your local ABC affiliate.

And I will be there, cyberspacely: I will be watching, and tweeting my reactions to the event, at twitter.com/bigquizthing. Will I know more than Watson? Will I consider the proceedings fair? Will I cry for the future of trivial competition? Log on to find out, and keep me company, why don't you?

February 10, 2011

New York vs. Philadelphia: PROVE OUR QUIZZING SUPERIORITY!

Excitement, people: As you may know, in the past year, the BQT has made a handful of visits to the Cradle of Liberty, the City That Loves You Back—Philadelphia. (By the way, "the City of Brotherly Love" is more than a horribly clichéd nickname; "brotherly love" is the actual Greek translation of Philadelphia. Sure beats "the Big Apple," which is both horribly clichéd and meaningless.) I've grown to rather like that place: American history, East Coast character, my mom grew up there, all the things I love. Plus, it's a serious trivia town.

I've cyber-met a gentleman known as Johnny Goodtimes.
I don't know if that's his real name—he signs his e-mails JGT, so it must have some legal standing—but he apparently hosts multiple bar quizzes per week, to a large and loyal following, and has cultivated a true trivia scene, something that New York sorely lacks. (Maybe because the BQT is the only NYC trivia event that matters. Er, mostly.) He's an interesting character, and gracious; his team was handily dominating the last Philly BQT, till they were undone by the Three-Way Finale, which often leads to crybaby yelling and complaining about my precious, precious format. But he had only praise for the event, which I considered a high compliment.

And JGT has an extra-big event next week: Quizzo Bowl 7. His annual bigger-than-big trivia championship, not unlike our Clash of the Trivia Champions, taking place on Saturday, February 19, at the BQT's excellent Philly home, World Café Live (a real honey of a venue). Very much like the Clash of the Champions: $25 to play, more $1,500 in cash prizes, a real super-mega nerdy blowout of a show.

But there's a difference: This motherfucker sells out every year, drawing contestants as far afield as Denver. (Our Clash did not sell out; like I say, no trivia scene in this city that I otherwise love.) And Johnny seriously hopes to extend the quizzing rivalry eastward, so he's asked me to ask you to come out to Philly and show if you got the stuff.
So do you? It sounds like an event for the ages, and though I can't go, I'd love if one or some of you would represent the Big Quiz Thing, report back, and give me some of the money (of course). Let's prove that there are no geeks like NYC geeks: Our Fournicators are Fantastic, our Titz are Sugary, our Gerard is Depardouchy, our Kids are Fat, our Starship is of the Jefferson Davis variety.

And besides, Philly is an easy trip: two hours on the bus (I never stop recommending the Bolt Bus), hotels are cheap, the road is calling, you know you want to. It's a Saturday, and you'll be back in plenty of time for the Hail to the Trivial Presidential Quiz Spectacular (sponsored by the New-York Historical Society; is there a Phila-Delphia Historical Society? or is that just the whole damn city?).
Details on Johnny's website here. Don't let Mayor Bloomberg down.

February 7, 2011

Recap: This is becoming ridiculous

Okay, it's like this: Tonight was the Big Quiz Thing's sixth appearance at Oberon, in Harvard Square, and it was the fourth consecutive victory on the part of the "Quips" team (this edition under the alias Gladys Knight and the Quips). I love their dedication, but come now: Monotony is monotonous. (Seriously, I do love them. I even forgive them for wasting paper and writing their team name on all 20 sheets of their answer pad.) A little inside BQT knowledge: Several years ago, when we instituted the Three-Way Finale in the show's format, much of the purpose was to give a wider variety of teams a chance at victory because—let's be honest here—once you reach the finale, it mostly comes down to the caprices of Lady Luck. It worked in NYC—the Fantastic Fournicators are now one of many teams that cycle through the top spot—but no dice in Boston, despite a close call tonight. More on the finale anon.

Tonight's BQT was an extra-very-mega-special BQT—it was the first ever free public Big Quiz Thing anywhere. The reason was that Oberon, a venue that I've had a nonsexual crush on from the start, has wholeheartedly gotten behind the show, making the free arrangement happening and bringing in the crowd. Show them you love them; go see The Donkey Show already.

And the crowd was appropriately large, with a good supply of new faces. And smart ones—ten of the 26 squads aced "Presidential Limericks" (preparation to head down to NYC and take the Presidents' Day BQT challenge, perhaps?), and a lot of them did well at the very challenging "I Want Your Sax" audio round (really? everyone's forgotten about Jr. Walker and the All-Stars? should I have included an E Street Band tune? "Careless Whisper"?). And yes, funny ones: Tonight, we had what may be the greatest Smart-Ass Point in the history of the Big Quiz Thing, as part of the Prezy Lims. To wit:
Their answer? "Women So Dark." (Think about it.)

And the finale: Despite all the new people, it came down to BQT Boston's regular super-intellectuals (that's the nice term): the Quips unit, the Kicks Ass team (this time under the guise of Gary Moore Kicks Ass—nope, I don't know him either, though I have been severely rocked by the band before he was in it) and the Monstrous Humanoids. The topic was movies of last year, and it was a serious cuticle-shredder: We went through seven questions. GMKA started strong, knowing which film from last summer was based on a book with an identical title except for two punctuation marks. Then the champs came on the board, managing to know which film, surprisingly, was the highest-grossing documentary of last year. (Yes, really.) And then the Monstrous Humanoid, very impressively, knew the exact number of Oscar nominees for Best Picture whose titles begin with The. A few more questions that no one knew (well, to be fair, hardly anyone saw the movie based on a series of TV sketches which were parodies of another TV show), and finally, the Quips were able to identify the only film to win two acting awards at last month's Golden Globes. You cannot hope to stop this team, only to harness their unspeakable power.
The standings:
1. Gladys Knight and the Quips
2. Gary Moore Kicks Ass/The Monstrous Humanoids (tie)
4. Pony No Bueno
5. Super Mentally Acute Regarding Trivia
6. The Nuclear Navy
7. Come to The Donkey Show
8. SmartBomb!
9. Blizzasterolypse
10. Darth Vader's Other Kids/Roethlisburger's Not Going to Disney, Princesses Relieved/Team Weaselsprout (tie)

What a night. We're coming back in April, don't know the date yet, but it'll be a Monday, and not the 18th. (You're eating gefilte fish that night.) We should know soon, and there are very easy ways of making sure you're informed: Like us on Facebook and you'll be updated, or follow me on Twitter (and possibly win free admission) and I'll pester you with details, or you can always check in with our calendar intermittently. We love this technology, we do.

February 4, 2011

Sponsor spotlight: The New-York Historical Society

Incredibly big news for incredibly big nerds like me (and, quite likely, you): We have an outstanding sponsor for the next NYC Big Quiz Thing event, the very special Hail to the Trivial Presidential Trivia SpectacularThe New-York Historical Society.

The N-YHS (yes, yes, the hyphen is correct—that's the way it was often styled, back in the long-ago era to which the Society traces its origin) just might be my favorite museum in the city, ever since I saw its vast collection of presidential campaign buttons and felt shame for my paltry bulletin board's worth amassed over a few money-wasting months on eBay. It's the single best spot in the city for presidential-history catnip. Last time I went, they had an extensive and fascinating exhibit Abraham Lincoln's relationship with our city, going so far as to map out his minute-to-minute route when he came here in 1860 to give his epochal campaign speech at Cooper Union ("The Speech That Made Him President," the reductionists like to say). Plus, I gazed directly at the original letter, written by an 11-year-old girl, that gave us this:
As you can imagine, I go nuts for this kind of thing. It helps to explain why I didn't have a date for senior prom.

When I concocted the plan for the big BQT presidential quiz, my dream sponsor was the N-YHS. And they're totally on board. For the prize haul, we got one-year memberships to the Society, a handsome coffee-table-worthy book published in conjunction with that Lincoln-in–New York exhibit, and the Society's latest factoid book, When Did the Statue of Liberty Turn Green?
I don't know the answer myself, and my initial guess—about the time the apes took over—is probably wrong.

The bad news is that the museum itself is currently undergoing a remodeling, which means much of it is closed till fall, when it will reopen twice as kick-ass as it was before. But no worries: History will always be with us.

So: Presidents' Day, Monday, February 21, Crash Mansion, 7:30pm. Vote for knowledge!

February 1, 2011

Recap: Hii-YA!

Okay, I'm going to get to the highlight of last night's Big Quiz Thing—that bizarrely awesome Three-Way Finale—but first, the rest.

We had a fun night, back at the lovely Drom, with an interesting arc to the evening. You people were kicking butt for the first two rounds, and I was very impressed how many of you knew not only 1960s novelty curio "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!" (in the "We're! Very! Excited!" audio round), but knew the exact artist's name: Napoleon XIV. Chant it with me…



Best Smart-Ass Point of the night: The team in the video round that couldn't puzzle out the African country whose name is a synonym for "bits of paper." Their answer: Congofetti.

And a brief shout-out to my main peeps: EDP (if you haven't noticed, he's now rocking an excellent iPad sound-effects app), Claudia (developing into quite a fine sidekick), and door girl Sherry (who—for shame—I forgot to call out last night).

So, that finale: The topic was food (or, per our BQT parlance, "Foooood!"), and it featured NYC trivia champion Jonathan Corbblah of Jefferson Davis Starship, Stu of Cash Cab for Cutie, and Marie of Rachel Kramer Bussel in Your Hedgerow (sans RKB herself tonight, but bursting from a low placing into contention by being the only team to ace the audio round). The buzzers were in place, of course. And the excitement mounted.

Inside info: I come into every Three-Way with a supply of ten questions. (Wow, that sentence could me misinterpreted. But it's sort of true too.) And usually that's well more than enough. But tonight, we ran close to the edge, as Yes might say, using up them all to identify a winner. JDS Jonathan started strong, IDing the fried sandwich whose name is taken from an Italian island. But then we just had a string of blank faces. Really, no one knows about "hundreds and thousands"? Umm…

And at one point, the disaster: Cash Cab's Stu stone-cold knew the better-known name of banana ice cream and fudge chunks and walnuts, and he slammed his hand down on my beautiful, still relatively new buzzer. And it splintered into so many horrible pieces. I even have an artist's rendition:

Thankfully, the electronics still work, it just needs a new casing (as do the others; they're both showing sides of buckling. Damn you, random electrician I found on Craigslist!). Anyone who thinks they can handle this job, please let me know—the Big Quiz Thing will be in your somewhat-eternal debt, and think how useful that would be!!!

Anyway, following that excitement, I went back to asking a bunch of food questions that no one seemed to know, until someone finally got a second one right. And that was Stu. Your winners (only four on the team, not bad):
The Cash Cab fellas were kind enough to offer up some of their $200 jackpot for buzzer repair, but it was an honest mistake, and I have no idea how much this will cost. I'm reminded of this favorite classic Saturday Night Live sketch (the relevant moment is at 3:35, but it's all gold):

"What am I gonna do with a buzzer from a game show?!?"

The standings:
1. Cash Cab for Cutie: First win in a long time, come to think of it.
2. Jefferson Davis Starship/Rachel Kramer Bussel in Your Hedgerow (tie)
4. Sugah Titz
5. Fantastic Fournicators
6. Fat Kids Win at Snow Angels
7. Segway to Heaven/Strippers for Charlie Sheen (tie)
9. Incontinental Hotel Spa
10. Gerard Depardouche

Next: A lot is happening next…

This Monday, we're back in Boston (well, Cambridge) for the Big Quiz Thing's first ever free event, still at the lovely Oberon, still a $200 grand prize. Tell your friends; help us prove to this venue that we're worth this awesome deal they're making us.

In three weeks, February 21—Presidents' Day—is the next NYC BQT, our first ever Hail to the Trivial Presidential Quiz Spectacular. Vice Presidential Limericks, Fictional Presidents, at least one question on Chester Arthur's sideburns: Your prayers have been answered. Back at Crash Mansion.

And every day, I'm still tweeting a Google-Proof Question. Miss out at your very great peril.