Here ya go. It’s not or never for some teams. Teams in orange and yellow make the cut (Teams in orange also available for bonus drawing). Teams in blue still have some work to do this week. There are a number of ways to score. In addition to winning at quizzo (your best shots are at North Star, Sidecar, and Industry), I’ll have some trivia questions posted on facebook all week as a way to score points.
Gonna do something funky this Friday…gonna do a fundraiser for the Regional Housing Legal Services, a non-profit that works to preserve and increase the availability of affordable shelter for Pennsylvania’s very low-income populations. We’re gonna do it at Field House (1150 Filbert), so some of you teams planning to play in the invitational the next weekend could get the lay of the land. There will be happy hour food and drink specials.
Action starts at 6 p.m. and it’s a $5 entry. And it comes with a twist…I am going to allow teams to cheat (And no, the quiz is not going to be questions on the show Cheaters). Well, sort of. You can pay to cheat…there will be a price for using your phone for 30 seconds, a price for me giving you a hint, and a price for me giving you multiple choice answers. I did this at a fundraiser a few years ago, and it was A LOT of fun. Totally different than any quiz I’ve ever hosted, it really evens the playing field, and the money raised goes to a great cause.
Also, the winner will earn an automatic invite to the Invitational. Gonna be a really fun activity for Friday Happy Hour. I hope some of you guys can make it out.
NORTH STAR
First Place: Inkspot 100
2nd Place: Clark Griswold 83
3rd Place: Always Finish 4th 79
SIDECAR
First Place: Tempura House 103
2nd Place: In the Lead 86
3rd Place: Sidecardigans 80
O’NEALS
First Place: Encyclopedophiles 113
2nd Place: Alias Pseudonym Undercover 103
3rd Place: Savage Ear 81
CITY TAP HOUSE
First Place: Jesters of Tortuga 123
2nd Place: Underground Bard 100
3rd Place; COme Below Deck 66
LOCUST RENDEZVOUS
First Place: The Jams 116
2nd Place: #1 Government Team Competitor 113
3rd Place: The Hawk is Dead 111
MYSTERY BAR (Black Sheep cancelled because electricity went out)
First Place: Duane’s World 111
2nd Place: Grumpy Cat #1 79
3rd Place: Go Blue Baby! 69
INDUSTRY
First Place: The Missing Heads 98
2nd Place: Why Can’t Us 89
3rd Place: Clown Question Bro 86
THE BARDS
First Place: Jesters of Tortuga 117
2nd Place: Ruby Tuesday 116
3rd Place: Putin on the Ritz 112
This week at quizzo, we had a round on founding fathers, and almost no-one knew that Al-Jazari was the father of robotics (no judgement here. I wouldn’t have known it either. The people who didn’t know Jerry Lee Lewis’s music, on the other hand…). Well, Al-Jazari was a fascinating dude, one well worth further study.
He was a Muslim who lived in what is now south-eastern Turkey in the 12th century and early 13th. He was an engineer who invented tons of awesome stuff, including the modern crankshaft, the combination lock, the automatic gate, and a highly advanced water supply system that supplied fresh water to the hospitals and mosques of Damascus.
But it was his friggin’ robots that make him so incredible. He made a drink-serving waitress, who could serve water or tea. The water would drip into a cup for 7 1/2 minutes, then a door would open, the robot would come out of the door, full drink in hand, and serve it to you like Rosie from the Jetsons. He also created the original Chuck E. Cheese band (almost 800 years before the father of video games Nolan Bushnell founded Chuck E Cheese!) From history-computer.com:
Al-Jazari described also a musical automaton (see the image below), which was a boat with four automatic musicians, that floated on a lake to entertain guests at royal drinking parties. The mechanism featured a programmable drum machine with pegs (cams), that bump into little levers that operated the percussion. The drummer could be made to play different rhythms and different drum patterns if the pegs were moved around. The automata were a robot band, which performed more than fifty facial and body actions during each musical selection.
Hard to believe there could be anything cooler than that, but the elephant clock certainly gives it a run for it’s money. This short video will tell you all about it. Well worth a watch (get it? Clock? Watch? Nevermind.). The first thing I thought of when I saw it was that breakfast contraption in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. And let’s face it, any dude that brings to mind Jetsons, Chuck E. Cheese, and Pee Wee Herman must be pretty daggone cool. Here’s his wiki page if you wanna learn more.
RELATED: Leonardo da Vinci: Scatterbrained Procrastinator
Oh man, what a train wreck last night turned into. I can’t really write it without it sounding like a snippy yelp review, and I hate snippy yelp reviews, so I’ll just say that when the lights went out at Black Sheep last night we tried to take the quiz to another bar (not a regular quizzo spot) AND IT REALLY DIDN’T TURN OUT WELL. I’m sending them a sternly worded email now. Because I’m an 80-year old man.
Anywhooo, let’s look forward instead of back. Tonight we get the party started with a double points quiz at Industry. And this is a pretty fun quiz. Action starts at Industry at 6:30 p.m. Great beers, great food, and double points. On to Bards at 9 p.m. No double points, but plenty of fun and $3 beers. French Fry faceoff and Name that Tune at both spots. See ya tonight!
