The call went out on Wednesday: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to trek through the snow and go to trivia and drink for free…”
Dave, Lisa and Mike arrived at the Kiwi & Kangaroo shortly before 8:30. The place looked empty yet there wasn’t an empty seat. The group took space near the corner and assumed the name of Baby Pony MySpaceGroup… or Baby Pony MSG as our British friend noted on the scoresheet.
Our namesake Baby Pony in DC (with Captain Awesome) came in 3rd earlier in the week, so we needed to continue the team’s winning spirit…
Right before the 1st question was asked, Nicole and Isaac popped in and joined BPMSG. Seconds later, Master P made his arrival. The team was set to defend its title…
Matt cashed in a previous 3rd place award on a pitcher of Manny’s IPA and it was time to settle into Round 1, which turned out to be a mixed bag. Matt knew that Jon Bon Jovi owned an Arena Football team, but we were stumped and The Good Shepherd was not the #1 movie at the Box Office last weekend. We guessed that Muhammed Ali fought superman in a comic book in the 60s. We put down Thriller as the #1 Song of the 80s and were pissed that we were foiled by a 2 nd Bon Jovi answer. Mike came up w/ Scott Adams as the creator of Dilbert. Matt knew the bar at the Edgewater was 6Seven and that it was on Pier 67. We couldn’t get our MINDS around what a noologist was. Mike, remembered sitting in his college living room w/ his roommates to watch Tiger win his first Major in 1997. We guessed Bourbon came from rye and was pissed that it was corn. And Lisa, knowing her naked women (and setting a foreshadowing for later events) knew Marilyn Monroe was Playboy’s first Playmate. A 6 out of 10 for BPMSG.
The Brit confused us and handed out the pictures after round 1. And in unusual Baby Pony tradition we were able to identify some of the pictures. Troy Smith, Nancy Pelosi, David Akers, Sienna Miller, Bill Gates’s forehead. 5 for FIVE. Master P pulled out Dale Earnhardt Jr. Then we followed w/ Vijay Singh, Tony Romo’s hands, Philip Rivers and Mariska Haggarty. TEN 4 TEN. Team BP was in chartered territory, which quickly ended. We thought the pickup was a Nissan, but it was a Toyota. We picked out the random city in Maine as Agusta. Lisa thought it was a Levi’s commercial then switched to The Gap unfortunately. We didn’t know the cartoon. Nicole knew Tara Connor. Everyone recognized Book Club’s Amy Sedaris. We couldn’t figure out 50Cent’s grill-less grill. We nailed Hirohito’s description (after multiple misspellings). We got the next female wrong, but got Kate Winslett and Matt Damon. Apolcalypto was easy as was George Strait. Ben Stiller perplexed us but MasterP knew Michael Flatley AND Right Said Fred. We didn’t get the next lady either, but finished strong w/ Lance Bas, Seinfeld’s puffy shirt and Joan Osborne. A VERY well done 23 out of 30. And the spirits were high for BPMSG.
Round 2 started w/ a 3 rd Grade layup asking about marsupials’ pouches. We’ve heard the women’s equivalent of the Davis Cup but our guess of the Nation’s Cup didn’t work for the Federations Cup. Dave knew Russia had the most lives lost in WWII and that Gary Oldman was Sid Vicous. We got Piano and Cello out of the Piano Trio, but stumbled on violin. We knew the Continental Divide entered Canada from Montana and that the tradeshow was in Las Vegas. Mike heard that Elvis would have been 72 this week but we were pissed when “Pluto’d” was the Word of the Year and not “Truthiness”. We also didn’t know that Kwanzaa ended on Jan 1 st. A still respectable 8 points earned in round 2.
As always, the last 2 rounds are the “Geo-Political” questions but they don’t seem too different from the 1st two rounds… Dave tried debating the 1st question of what Pelosi banned in the House and was happy that Mike knew it was simply smoking. He redeemed himself w/ knowing that Daniel Ortega was just reinnaugurated. We knew that ETA were Basque separatists (who are mad b/c no one knows where there language comes from), the 4 DNA bases begin w/ A,T,C,G. The iPhone will retail at $499. Lisa threw out ENIGMA as the German Coding Machine… and holy shit, she was dead on. We knew Omaha was one of the Dday Beaches that the US landed on but we couldn’t get our hands around Utah as well. Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, Elizabeth Taylor married Richard Burton twice (but we didn’t know he was Welch). And the final question was right in BPMSG’s wheelhouse- the capitals of Nicaragua, Oman & Qatar (Managua, Muscat & Doha). A very, very, very satisfying 12 points in round 3.
This put in a tie for 1st leading into the final round. It was about this point when Mike looked at the little corner Gaming machine and noticed that there were 5 Credits still on it. A Game of “Picture Match” began which incited the group. Oh, and yeah, the pictures were of naked women. This entertained us through the beginning of Round 4 when we realized we were in the money and needed to focus.
Dave knew that Nick Hornby wrote High Fidelity and then got into a fight w/ the quizmaster over its literary prowess. We put down Eichmann as the last prisoner of Spandau Prison, but it was Hess. We knew that the Bradley and the other 2 names were tanks. Lisa knew James Watt invented the first steam engine. We were able to sort of get the Chaos Theory. We figured that China was the world’s largest exporter of tobacco and that Southeby’s was the world’s oldest auctioneer. We didn’t know that Michelangelo was his first name (his name is Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni), but the team’s Michelangelo (in name, not artistic ability) knew that SAS was owned by Norway, Sweden and Denmark. We ended in figuring that MDCLXVI was 1666 and we turned in our scorecard.
As the answers were being read, Mike got a sneak peak at the score totals and saw the results. Team Baby Pony MySpaceGroup was in a 3-Way tie for First. An unprecedented first @ the K&K.
The tiebreaker at the K&K is a spin at the infamous wheel. A representative from the 3 teams stepped up. Baby Pony has been in this position for 2 nd and 3rd place before and has an amazing history of doing quite well. (To be honest, MIKE has the luck and the undetermined spinning technique w/ past spinning victories of beating a 96 w/ a 99 in the “HI” Game and landing on 50 exactly and was BPMSG’s Team Rep).
Last night’s championship spinning was the “HI” Game. The lady went first w/ a very hard to beat 5 (five). Mike stepped up represntin’ for the second spin and ended up w/ a… NINETY-EIGHT! The third guy reluctantly spun w/o hope, got something lower than 98 and Team Baby Pony MySpaceGroup ended up with the year’s second First Place finish. We collected our $50 and left happy.
The Baby Pony is striding high in 2007!
MIKETOWN 