Win some, lose some

We had been going well at pub trivia on Monday nights. After a couple of inauspicious nights in the mid-80s to start the season, we'd settled into a groove at or around 90 (out of 100). That sort of scoring doesn't win much cash, but is a pace guaranteed to grant access to the $1000 round at the end of the season. This Monday past, it went horribly wrong, and we came away with 78. It was the music round that did most of the damage, but the night for me was marred by a question in the bonus round (each question worth 5 points).

What is the formal Italian word for goodbye? And I don't mean "see you later" or something. Goodbye.

Now there is no correct answer to the question. The two obvious candidates are Ciao and Arrivederci. Ciao is wrong because it is not formal. Arrivederci was given as the correct answer, which got me very annoyed. Arrivederci comes from the verb rivedere, meaning to see again - the term literally means see you later, which was explicitly ruled out in the question. I was very angry.

By Tuesday, I had almost recovered. We have made the finals in each of the three seasons I've played beach volleyball, with previous efforts being a loss in the grand final (in C Grade Mixed) and a loss in the semifinals (in B Grade Mixed). Last night, we took all before us (B Grade Mixed), scraping through a semifinal 42-39) (in extra time, after being 39-39 after regulation), before going ahead early and staying ahead in the final to win 40-26. I felt like we played pretty well, in the final particularly, and thoroughly deserved the engraved tumblers we won as a result. Next season will be tougher; due to a contraction from 3 grades to 2, we will be playing in A Grade Mixed.

trivia paydirt

We won our first ever money at trivia last night. We aced the first round, and surprisingly were the only team to do so, and we walked away with $450 for our troubles, very satisfyingly in the form of a big pile of $5 notes. We also won the night, also for the first time, as we went off for 96/100 (which I think is our best score), good for a 2-point victory. We've been there and thereabouts for the last month or so, with some 2nds and 3rds, and we'd been saying amongst ourselves that we were due.

the days continue

Things continue.

At work, we're coming up to another drop deadline with our project leader, next Thursday. This time he's bringing with him a chap who might be interesting in commercialising the software, which adds a little bit of pressure.

Paul had a health scare last week. He had been getting dizzy and nauseous when he stood up for too long, which worsened during the week, and he wound up in hospital on Wednesday. Fortunately, they worked out what it was, and he's out now and although it won't go away, he's able to deal with it.

Trivia continued under that shadow - after what we thought wasn't our best effort, we finished strongly and came in a credible 8th. Craig and Em were a surprise sighting playing for Specials - we managed to pip them by 2 spots, which felt good :)

Last night we had a group outing to the movies, corresponding in membership to our trivia squad - Jesse, Ali, Julie, a freshly discharged Paul, Andy and me. We saw Dark Knight, and were all very impressed, I think. I had been a little bit ambivalent about Heath Ledger, but his turn in this was really very impressive, and made me feel a bit sad that we won't be able to see him develop in that role and as an actor.

This morning, I'm running my machines. Scheduled weekend laundry, a run for the bread machine passed on to me from Mum, a very good coffee from my espresso machine, and a bit of a blog on my new black ted :)

Damn you Migaloo, damn you to hell!

The quiz night is, I suspect, a curiously anglo obsession - I never heard tell of it in France. I toddled along to one a bit over a year ago with an enormous crowd including Chris & Anjum, Mick and Paul, and all orchestrated by Dave Coyle. We had a good time and won, that night, at Dooley's.

Last week, Jesse and Ali invited me along to a similar event at O'Malleys. In this case the team, the Secret Squirrels, was small - just the aforementioned, plus a couple of girls from Ali's work, and your humble scribe. The questions were, in my estimation, on the easy side, and we squeaked home by a point and once again walked away with a bar voucher.

Last night I was faced with a choice. The Squirrels were back, and meanwhile word came in of another foray at the International in Spring Hill, led by Dave Coyle and Sandy now-Hookins. Superior numbers of people I hadn't seen for ages won out - the International it was.

We aced the first round, but a tie meant we missed out the $80 prize for that. We aced the very easy second round too, and won a bar voucher after a very close tie-breaker question about the census. We slipped up in the third and got 15/16, which could have been worse if Dave had succeeded in confusing the German and Belgian flags. We were lucky in the fourth, and got 15/16 on a couple of lucky guesses, which gave us (by our reckoning) the lead going into the bonus round. The bonus round, in which each question was worth 5 points, proved our undoing. We were unable to identify the white humpback currently cruising the Qld coast as being named Milooga, and consequently slipped back to 5th on the night, 3 points off the pace. Fortunately, the regular group from whom we were an offshoot due to climbing numbers managed to claim the main prize, which eased the pain a little.