Premature eFACulation.

Hey ya'll! I know it is way to early to think about FAC but I wanted to post about the Geek Bowl I went to this weekend, so you have to suffer.

Well we got 16th out of like 42 teams at the Geek Bowl 2008! (EDIT: Official score 87 POINTS!) Pretty good, seeing as some of the questions were like this:

Name the three people the face of E.T. was modeled after.

WTF? We had no clue.

The Fury sez this: "Ghandi, Estelle Getty, and Sammy Davis Jr. Final answer."

Which made WAY more sense than the real answer. And was funnier. In fact, I think if you just say "Estelle Getty" that is almost the funniest thing ever.

One of us did know that Ordinary People and Ferris Bueller's Day Off were both based in Chicago suburbs and could recognize the Millenium Dome on sight. He also happens to know the velocity of gravity -- which I will never stop talking about because I am so jealous. .
Another of us knew things like the director of the film that was put on hold due to Heath Ledger's death, and no guys, it was not the Batman movie, so forget even going there. He also recognized a sex scene from Sliver.
One of us knew the last word in the Hail Mary BEFORE 'amen'. One of us knew every freeaking song they played a guitar riff from, except the title for Van Halen's Eruption -- none of us got that.:( One of us knew Malcom Gladwell. NONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WAS ME.

I am certain I added nothing to our 16th place finish. I knew a lot of stuff, of course, but nothing that no one else on the team knew.

Ah, well, maybe someday again I will reprise leaping out of my chair to whisper "CHESS!" into my teammate's ear, confident that I am right. And then sit down hard and fall backwards and hit my head on the floor. Good times.

I don't want to make it seem like I never had good knowledge. One night I won three free beers on bonus questions. Of course it was a night that I was not drinking. Knowledge of Monty Python, Marie Callendar, and Rainbow Bright will only get you so far.

Ah well, on to some photos (click any image to make it huger):

Geek Bowl logo, dude is running a 20-sided die:














And I think he is wearing a NASA diaper.
My team (Legion of Doom -- only 3 members represented) and The Frostys in Catholic drag, along with the Coopersmith's Quizmasters:















The GWD logo:















And their larger than life real dolls:















Popular trivia question: What are the names of the two old man heckler puppets that sit in the balcony on the Muppet Show? Remember at Geeks Who Drink there is no Google!

This is John Dicker and Joel Peach, founders of GWD, reading off the name of the $1000 First Place winners:














Let it be known to all that Dicker looks like the father of my child and no that is not a come-on, it is a SCIENTIFIC FACT.

We also met some "actual nerds from New Mexico" as advertised. They were cool geeks from team Captain Tightpants and they win constantly at Burt's Tiki Lounge in Albuquerque.

Last week I was craving Mexican food.
I am still craving delicious Mexican food. I had some pretty good stuff I made at home last Thursday, but it really doesn't compare to the real thing, so for FAC this week we are going to get dinner at Las Salsitas!

1010 S College Ave
Fort Collins, CO 80524

(970) 498-9400

lassalsitas.com

It is just South of IHOP, they share a parking lot. Go to the website and check out the menu, it is so good. I am having rellenos for sure, who knows what else. Here's the thing -- the tortillas are made fresh for your individual order. No shit. BUT they do not serve alcohol as far as I know. So your are gonna drink your cola and eat a delicious meal and then we will soberly make our way downtown to a place that does serve alcoholic beverages. EAT BEFORE YOU DRINK, wake up happy.

FAC -- look how early i am!

Okay FAC-ers,

This past week(end) was marked by a small but stalwart group at FAC. We got to have a lot of fun at the brewery, saw some cool art, ate some tasty Surfside cheese fries (the fries there are the BEST), and even took over Elliot's for a brief time. We also coincidentally re-convened at Coopersmith's on Sunday night for the Geeks Who Drink trivia. Without Luke, our team "LEGION OF DOOM", would have never won. We knocked the "Frosted Prom Virgins" skirts in the dirt. There was some unrest about our win, but we will certainly be back next week right up front to show those chuckleheads that we are not a fluke! (Wouldn't that be a great villian? 'The Fluke', it would look like that leech-man from the X-Files and have the power to emit a horrible gas....)

ANYWAY, on to the upcoming FAC and what are we doing this week??

Well I am taking votes for Pitchers or Sliders. I think we should get some more trivia on. Plus those places are close and not too expensive. Despite the uncomfortable time I had at Sliders last time, that is my vote.

Tell me what you want or we will default to Sliders. OR if you have another place you want added to the voting list for this or future weeks, let me know.

I am including the whole Ken Jennings trivia for this week at the very end of this post.

But first a word from our sponsors:

This is a picture from Burning Man, supposedly this car resides during the other 11 months of the year right here in Ft Collins!:











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Tuesday Trivia XLV! Accept no substitutes! I just wrote the questions for this week and I'm starting to think they're too hard. If you agree, just write TOO HARD on your submission, followed by the profanity of your choosing, and you will be given full credit.

Congrats to our perfect scorers last time. Was that you? Find out at http://www.ken-jennings.com/messageboards/viewtopic.php?t=2235 . And since this Sunday is Mother's Day...a big Tuesday Trivia shout-out to all the moms out there. Kick out the jams, Mother's-Day-ers.

(Also, speaking of Mother's Day, shouldn't the apostrophe come *after* the 's'? Is there one particular Mother we are meant to be honoring now ? If it's Mother Earth, why didn't my local Wiccan bookshop inform me of this development?)

THIS WEEK'S QUIZ

1. In which EU country is the first national language spoken fluently by fewer than a tenth of its people?

2. What movie was originally titled $3,000, for the size of Vivian Ward's paycheck?

3. Which signer of the Declaration of Independence was a brewer by trade?

4. What optical component is named, in the 17th century, for the legume whose shape it resembles?

5. What crime were "resurrectionists" guilty of?

6. What Fort Payne quintet is the only band ever named Entertainer of the Year at the Country Music Awards?

7. In the four major North American sports organizations, what unusual distinction is shared by these teams and no others? Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Tigers, Indianapolis Colts, New York Jets, and Toronto Maple Leafs?

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS

1. What media company's logo is a dog whose left eye is a five-pointed star? Dog + star = Sirius Satellite Radio, soon to merge with XM.

2. Why did Joseph Hazelwood spend three years working at Bean's Cafe, an Anchorage, Alaska, soup kitchen? This was part of his community service for running the Exxon Valdez aground in Prince William Sound, causing the infamous oil spill.

3. What novel's narrator is only referred to as "the second Mrs. de Winter"? Rebecca is the first Mrs. de Winter.

4. Who's the only person to land atop Mr. Blackwell's "Worst Dressed" list three times, in 2001, 2006, and 2007? Britney Spears, though she shared the latest honor with Paris Hilton. Maybe the two can celebrate by going underwear-shopping together.

5. What word, from the Greek for "uneven," refers to a triangle whose sides all have different lengths? Flashback to 6th-grade geometry: those are scalene.

6. HO scale is the world's most popular size of what? Model railroads.

7. What unusual distinction is shared by these countries, and no others? Afghanistan, Australia, Burma, Canada, French Polynesia, India, Iran, Nepal, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka. All have (in whole or in part) really kooky time zones--the kind that are offset by 15, 30, or 45 minutes from UTC rather than a whole number of hours.

Bear "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation" Bonney