TRIVIA
So going back to a point I touched on in post 1 - the trivia night. Now I'm just an average Joe in most respects, & trivia well & truly falls into this class. OK, if the topic is pro-wrestling, AFL Footy or 80's music related, I'm a good shot, otherwise my general knowledge isn't that super. My brother is the brains of the family - he is seriously good. I firmly believe that he is TV Quiz Show capable if any still existed today. He also has quite a few very intelligent friends, as was demonstrated Tuesday night.
But going back a step, to tell the tale from the beginning. A few friends of mine first invited me along to a regular trivia night they had started attending a few months earlier back in August 2006. Irish Murphy's just on the Geelong CBD fringe was the venue.Now for me, it was always about enjoying the night & having a bit of fun while still racking the brain for all its worth. But not trying to take everything ultra serious - its a pub trivia night out with mates, not a carryover Sale Of The Century champ gunning for the entire showcase! A couple of my friends, who were the unofficial leaders (maybe captains is a better word?) were also quite smart guys & did take things a bit on the serious side for my liking. But then they were mates, & it was a good chance to catch up on footy & music goss, plus whatever was happening in the world in general. Being a Wednesday night, it was a good way to break up the week, & Murphy's ran pretty cheap pub meals, so all in all, a good night out. Especially when you added in the fact that largely due to the 2 or 3 real brains on our table, we won plenty of times! 1st Prize was a $50 Irish Murphy's voucher, & 2nd Prize was a $25 voucher. So that meant once every now & then, our meals & drinks were covered by the vouchers we won.
As time went on, our team changed a bit - people came & went. It was always a good release for me, so even if I felt I wasn't contributing that much (though I did get good on quickly identifying song titles - similar to SongPop which everyone plays on their phones now) I regularly stuck with going along. also, it was a good chance to meet others - there were a few other regular teams, plus new members of our group - friends of friends who were invited along if we were running short on numbers.
So round mid 2008, a few of our regulars & captains had started losing a bit of interest, & we started not going that often, concluding with finishing up entirely round end of May. Around this time, I was taking Long Service Leave from work & heading on my first ever overseas holiday (now THERES an excellent idea for post 3 - my big trip) to Barbados. I tried to rally the troops for 1 last trivia night before I headed off, as sort of a farewell, but it wasn't to be. Everyone was busy, etc. So i thought that was that.
As can happen, I've now become really good mates with the friends of friends who started coming along to trivia in the latter stages, & lost touch to some extent with my initial friends who I started out doing trivia with. So it was round start of 2009 when at a friends birthday party, I caught up up with said new mates & at a surprise birthday for a mutual friend, & we decided what the hell - we'll give Irish Murphy's another crack. But this time, minus our initial unofficial captains & brains of the original group. I really rated this 5 month period as my favourite time doing trivia. Sure, we went from winning quite regularly to finishing mid-table - towards the bottom, as the rest of my new(er) friends were around my level of knowledge. But it was just great to have a few laughs, discover who knew what about what subject, & catch up on some goss with our position in the trivia ranks for the evening not that particularly important - something that certainly wasn't the case only a year or 2 earlier.
Then came D-Day - or D-night in this case. Mark Wednesday, May 27th 2009 down in your memories folks. Was the night the shit hit the fan. A new trivia host named Elvis (insert pun here) had taken over 4 or 5 weeks ago. He was rather loud & abnoxious, but pretty harmless. Or so we thought. On this night, one of our friends was showing us her brand new fancy I-Phone (remember this is mid 2009) & all its features. So Elvis on the hint of a bit of a snide remark from one team sitting near us, decides to call us out as cheating! Right in front of everyone! Without even speaking to us or checking anything out first! If he'd bothered to consult the score, he'd found we were currently sitting second-last at the time!! Yeah, we were so cheating!!
That was the final straw for him in most of my teammates eyes. We walked out at the end of that round, & didn't bother going back, we were THAT insulted. Apologies came quickly upon a phone call or two to the venue in the following days, with promises to speak to Elvis & tell him to pull his head in, but in my teammates eyes, the damage had been done. Maybe we would go back someday, but for now, we were done. I did look for other trivia nights in Geelong, but the thing was several of my friends were very early to-bed, early risers in the morning people. It was impossible to find anywhere that finished their evening before 10pm, which was just getting too late.
I'm glad to say I have kept in touch with this group of friends. Instead of trivia, we caught up for dinner at a pub/cafe/restaurant in Geelong. Initially every week, but then fortnightly, & now we're back to monthly/semi-monthly as other matters in life present themselves - a couple of my friends now live in Bannockburn, & another couple in Inverleigh (for those not familar with the Geelong area, they are both a good 20-25 min drive out of Geelong CBD).
Yes, we did eventually return to Irish Murphys at the start of last year for 3 or 4 weeks. Elvis was still there, & was OK. If he recognised us, he didn't say it, & we didn't venture anything. We enjoyed it reasonably, but I guess those trivia nights had just passed us by. As I mentioned before, it was hard to for everyone to commit every week now with everyone living all across the place, & other life matters!
We still catch up for dinner as a group of friends - in fact we're off to Pizzaland on Malop St next Wednesday. And seeing that Irish Murphy's has just recently been given a big face lift, & has been re-branded a bit, it might be worth going along on a Wednesday if they still do a trivia night. Who knows? I doubt we'd ever go back to an every week regular night, but maybe once a month or something is do-able. We'll see what 2013 brings in that regard I guess.
Just to finish, I have done the occasional trivia night with my brother & his friends - many who i know quite well & get along well with. They live out in Thomastown, & do trivia nights at pubs that are a fair bit of my way, plus I get the feeling I may be just a touch in the way - don't quite fit into their group sorta thing. But I stumbled across a new trivia night launch at the Mail Exchange this past Tuesday,& I headed in to meet up with my bro & a few others to try it out. Again, I felt a bit like a 5th wheel - the only questions I knew they had already locked in, but whatever. for one night, it was OK.Plus I hadn't caught up with several of my brothers friends, & his partner, for quite some time.
QuizzaMe has potential actually - instead of pens& papers, it uses a buzzer system, a bit like a Nintendo/Playstation control pad, with letters A-E on it, & you just press the relevant button, & with questions displayed on several TVs in the area used for the session. Our gripe was (& maybe we just weren't in the spirit of the night) having to do things like karaoke & clown around a fair bit to earn bonus points. Our team we about the only not really doing this, instead just focusing on the questions - but not being openly rude or ignorant - at least I think we weren't! So we were pretty unpopular by the conclusion of the night, but as I mentioned at the top - my bro & friends are seriously smart, so we won a $150 bar tab! So there could be a session or 2 at the Mail Exchange very soon! :)
Wow, I have written a hell of a lot. sorry on the off-chance anyone reads right through this post. Hope to keep my future blog posts shorter! I'm off to Warrnambool for the weekend, should be fun & relaxing. Especially with 32 degrees forecast. Will be a bit cooler than that down the coast, but still should be good swimming weather. Have a great weekend all! Matt out!
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