Maybe Martians Could Do Better Than We've Done?

Yet another one of those EBONY dispatches that isn't related to our EBONY mission. State, on Webster, by DePaul, by McGee's, off of Sheffield, off of Halsted, home of lots of college kids who think they know stuff. Tuesday nights, but not next Tuesday (they're remodeling), State hosts a very competitive Trivia night with an $800 prize for the first place team.

Rick had been there once before, and we had been working on finding a calendar day that would work for Team Silverado to compete again. Last time around they were told their finishing spot was "around 5th" or so. We were hungry to form a solid team that could compete again for a podium spot. What lineup did we field?

Rick, half of ebony, mathematical genius and local news wonk.
Kyle, other half of ebony, voracious consumer of worthless information.
Derek, wise learned Canadian from the north. Also a laywer.
Annie, accomplished musician, the quietly opinionated one.
Kyle's Dad, trivia pursuit master, devourer of historical nonfiction.

State is completely packed, there are 76 teams competing (each team is between 2-8 people). We are huddled into a small spot by the bar.

Round One: General Knowledge
We're feeling good about this one. Questions cover topics such as Pokeysticks, the cast of Saved by the Bell, and the land mass of New Mexico vs Nevada. Somehow we err on two of these questions and end up with 5/7. Not a great start if we want to contend for the title.

Round Two: Movies and Celebs
This one could be a toss-up. If it's tabloid-trivia we're doomed. If it's obscure indie movies we'll clean house. So the questions? Is Aaron Eckhart older than Ben Stiller? (no) What movie starred both Tommy Lee Jones & Cedric The Entertainer? (hell if I know). Who is Britney Spears engaged to? (dammit) What year did Anchorman come out? (we know this!)
Somehow we salvage a 5/8 from this round. 10 points after two rounds, not the start we were hoping for.

Up next? The LIGHTNING ROUND! "In 1:40, write down as many Matt Damon movies as you can"
Prior to the evening a few of us tried to memorize the filmography of several actors (Kathy Bates, Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts, Tom Selleck, Russell Crowe, Jim Carrey, George Clooney). Obviously we guessed wrong.
So we start writing, 10 are down in a hurry. 11, 12, 13 take a little longer. 14 comes, the clock is ticking. 15 and 16 stagger in before we have to run the paper up to the score keeper. 16? Not bad, we think. Later we realize we somehow forgot The Departed, but we did at least write down Eurotrip. The winning score is announced a couple of rounds later as 22. Not far off, but definitely not a winner.

Round 3: Sports
Okay, this one might be where we make up the ground we're missing. The two questions we miss -- An athlete in what professional sport is shown on the cover of the first Sports Illustrated? (it was baseball...i won't reveal our guess). What former Chicago Bull holds the record for most 3 pt-ers made in an NBA Finals game? We immediately gravitate to either MJ (the SHRUG game against Portland?) or Steve Kerr/John Paxson. Neither were right. Congrats to Scottie Pippen.
What did we get correct? I don't even remember at this point. The ones you get right don't leave a mark on your mental pride. 5/7 in this one, 15 points.

Round 4: Baby Names
We're screwed. The MC reads the name of a celebrity baby and you have write down the mother. Somehow we salvage three (children of Gwyneth, Angelina, Nicole Richie). We don't come anywhere close on Christina Aguilera, Tea Leoni, Kate Hudson and Courtney Cox.
Later in the week I would email my mother the baby names, and she immediately replies with "I read People every week and I know every one of these."
Four rounds done, we're sitting on 18 out of a possible 29. We're screwed.

Rather than ditch on the rest of competition we stuck around to see what categories we'd need help on next time we field another Team Silverado.
Round 5: The Visual Round
A sheet of paper is passed out with 7 pictures of cookie types. You have 4 minutes to write down the name of each and turn them into the score keepers. The easy ones? Oreo, Nutter Butter, Milanos, Chips Ahoy, Fig Newtons. The one that took us until 3:30?
"Vanilla Fudge?"
"EL Fudge?"
"Fudge Round?"
"Round Striped Fudge?"
"Striped Fudge?"
"Fudge Stripes!!! WRITE IT DOWN!"
The one we never got? Dunkers. No one knows what the hell a Dunker is.

Still, 6/7 on the visual round. Not bad, we're saving some face here.

Round 6: Music
We're a little worried the absence of Halljams will hinder our performance in this one, those worries were unfounded. The MC plays an 8-10 second snippet of the beginning of the song, you need to write down both the Artist & Song Title. Let me prepare you, dear reader, I'm going to brag a little bit. This was pretty damn easy. I'm going to guess my average time for each track was 1.5 seconds before I had both pieces of information.
1. Wallflowers, "One Headlight"
2. Ben Harper, "Steal My Kisses"
3. Pearl Jam, "Daughter"
4. Sister Hazel, "All For You"
5. Porno For Pyros, "Pets"
6. Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Freebird"
7. LL Cool J, "Round The Way Girl"

Finally, my time-honed ability to cycle through 18 radio stations in 10 seconds pays off. I don't think they could've pick a series of radio-friendly songs that were any more in my wheelhouse from late High School-era music consumption.
7/7, we get at least one perfect round on the evening. After 6 rounds, our total is 31 out of 43. So we're getting a little better, maybe the last round will get us somewhere close to the top 3.

Round 7: Ball Busters
General Knowledge again, this time they're supposed to be harder. This time they were harder. We completely bombed this category and produced a measly two points. The open wound of 5 incorrect answers still stings, I don't even want to get into it here. So we end up with a weak 33 out of 50. We've also had 3 pitchers of some crap beer like Bud Light, so the evening has been a dissapointment on several levels.

Inquiring as to our finish place, they tell us we were "around 10th or 12th". I suspect they give everyone a finish position about 10 spots higher than it actually is in order to entice a return trip. Well, they've enticed a return trip.

My dad won't be around for future rounds, but we've got a couple of ideas about who our best quality additions could be. Perhaps if we ever place I'll write another trivia recap. Otherwise you won't have to read about these mediocre performances again.

**PHOTOS added to the previous post.

Bulletproof Tiger

Glad to get this one out of the way -- Cubby Bear is off the list. Thanks to our well-connected friend Heidi we attended a screening of the new HBO show executively produced (is that right? executively produced?) by Will Ferrell, "Eastbound & Down". It's vulgar and over the top and pretty funny. Watch it when it premieres next weekend on Feb 15th. At the worst it's still better than the incredibly disappointing start to the second season of Flight of the Conchords.

So...the Cubby Bear. We were joined by Annie, Adam and Adam's brother, who suggested a possible 2010 EBONY challenge: Every bar on Clark Street. Anyway, back to Cubby bear -- everything was free tonight, which is the best way to experience anyy bar. I had a hotdog, 1/4 of a pretzel, one coors light and 2 Sam Adams Winter Ales. $1...not bad. Heidi, you're the best.

I also brought home a beer cozy with EB&D logos on it, as well as a giant foam middle finger that I'll take to any Cubs game I happen to go to this summer.

While in the bathroom 2 guys were arguing about the main character..."In today's America, with this economy, and this recession, I just don't know what they're thinking! How do they expect people to like that character? Seriously!"..."I know just what you mean! It's sooo vulgar! I think Kerry Wood is the basis for the guy." (we are in Wrigleyville, of course everything has to tie in to the cubs) ... "I don't know, I think he's clearly John Rocker."

I got out of the restroom before listening to any more of this.

Elsewhere. I've added another music widget to the blog, this one has a few unreleased (as of yet) tracks from the Dark Was The Night album, which raises money for HIV & AIDS awareness. So listen to these tracks and buy the album. Additional artists on the album: The National, Bon Iver, Feist, The Decemberists, Grizzly Bear, Sufjan, My Morning Jacket.

And lastly, we're issuing a challenge to the members of the EmptyBlogOfNothing Facebook group. I think we can get up to 200 members in the group by the end of February; Rick doesn't. So forward our page to your friends, invite them to the group, let them know about the enjoyment you receive reading about our antics. Spread the love, spread the fun, grow the network, fix the economy.

This Saturday we'll be starting a mini-bar crawl at 3:30pm at Paddy Long's. Stop by and have a drink!

Where would I be? I'd be a Warrior, a Warrior

First, lets do the numbers ( it's reverse of how NPR does it, but this isn't NPR).

Some stats, we're 8.3% of the way through the year and we've hit roughly 14% of the bars on our list already. This is good news, as free weekends will be few and far between as the days begin to warm up this spring and summer. I doubt we'll have back-to-back Saturdays with 8 bars each again this year. Concerts, weddings, races, vacations and common sense will start getting in the way. We'd like to thank those of you who have helped us so far along the way: both of my brothers - for their encouragement and suggestions; Derek - who acts as our unpaid consultant; Hall - for always managing to stay classy; Annie - for not telling us that this is a ridiculous idea.

As promised -- the January Leaderboard!

We have a four way tie for 3rd place -- visiting all of 6 bars with us...Selfy, Isler, Costello & Chenoweth! Congrats fellas. You will get complementary EBONY matchbooks. They're in the mail, probably lost. Call your post office to check up on 'em.

Coming in second place, with an impressive showing of 10 bars and already the clubhouse leader with multiple entries into the EmptyBlogOfNothing Quote Hall of Fame...Hall! Way to go Halljams. Best of luck in the Boston Marathon if you manage to keep this pace up.

No big surprise on the winner here if you've been following our trials and tribulations...but it's a huge shock to us considering we didn't even know this guy until after we had visited our first bar of the year. Coming in with a grand total of 13 bars (would've been 14 if he had spent more time at Rose's)...Internet Celebrity Baumer! I'm not making this up when I say the monthly superfan will probably end up with an EmptyBlogOfNothing t-shirt once I get them made. The rest of you will have to pay.

So there you go...the gauntlet has been thrown. If you want the spoils of February start showing up.

And finally, a plea.

We'd like to think that during these times of economic hardship our mission at EBONY is acting as a local micro-economic stimulus package, however minute it might be. We're doing what we can with our expendable income to pump it back into our local surroundings, recirculating the monetary funds to support those who provide us with entertainment and liver damage. It's important that we, as Americans, support our local watering holes -- even if you do have 170 of them. If your streetcorner tavern shuts it's doors the battle will surely be lost, surrendered to the evil forces of corruption and all that is wrong with the world. Now, not every bar I enter is going to agree completely with me, but that's what the free market is for. Through diversity we achieve great things, our differences will unite us. There are enough of us here to drink the available spirits, and there are enough different bars to house all of us. So to you -- the preps & punks, young & old, gay & straight, country & western, alkies & winos, cubs & sox, the carnivores & herbivores, the bluetools, the young professionals, the unemployed, the underemployed, hooligans & beatniks, club kids, pool sharks, and karaoke stars -- venture out of your homes, don't drink in solitude by the fireplace! The cold bleakness of winter cannot be battled alone -- it must be fought with your comrades. Do not go softly into the gray recession, we must fight it together side by side, barstool by barstool, pint to pint! Raise your glasses and sing together -- we shall overcome! We, the denizens of the night, the drinkers of the day, the champions of the club! The Masters of Consumption and Double-Shots for Everyone! Forty-thousand, counting affiliates, and twenty-thousand more, not organized, but ready to drink: 60,000 soldiers! CAN YOU DIG IT???!!!

We are still here! Today, let us send a message to that army. Tonight, let us shake this cave. Tonight, let us tremble these halls of earth, steel, and stone, let us be heard from red core to black sky. Tonight, let us make them remember, THIS IS ZION AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID!

Sorry...got a little carried away there. Drink responsibly and make sure you can walk home. Shake that cave.

make it rain!

For knocking only 6 bars off the list yesterday, this was probably the most Kyle and I have had to drink for an EBONY event, so needless to say today was a pretty lazy day. Official welcomes go out to Annie, Lazicki, BSwerve and Chenoweth for making it out with us. I'm only including these four as they made it out to at least 2 bars with us yesterday. Soon enough we'll have a ranking system up on the blog for who has made it to the most bars with us. Baumer, don't worry, you're easily in the lead at 13. When telling Hall this, he said "Baumer will be writing the blog by October." As for other top quotes of the day, these were in the notebook (others were taken down, but I'm embarrassed to post them on the internet):

"Where do you think we are, Wicker Park? We don't serve PBR around here." - bartender at Redmond's, probably my least favorite bar in the city

"For having 20 beers on tap, they have one of the worst selections ever." - Chenoweth

"....Silverado!" - Hall

"It's a defect, not a disease."

"I want hetero sex."

Best (and only) ChaCha response of the day: "The Rolling Stones song "Play With Fire" is that song that is beautifully done in Darjeeling Limited."

Best Text Response: "Tell Hall to quit his whining." - Holland