Mermaid Man Fan Club
After missing out on Geeks Who Drink for several weeks, I participated in two matches and was a member of the winning team…TWICE!
My main team (usually called Kappa Kappa Wong) had been out of commission so long, I was jonsin’. Fortunately, through Chip at Waterloo I met Pablo. He and his girlfriend have their own group which gathers every Sunday and Tuesday. I was a bit reluctant though, their team often places in the top three spots at the Highball; they were even awarded sponsorship to attend the Geek Bowl. Why would they need or want me around? I don’t know very much plus I felt they had it covered.
The opportunity came up last weekend because Pablo said they’ve been attending the GWD quiz at Black Star Coop due to some issues with the Highball. I said, as long as we have fun, I’ll be there. I also planned to make sure I was useful. Taking first prize wasn’t much of a shock since Pablo’s team consisted of three record-store employees, a book-store employee and a general geek (me) yet they did the heavy lifting. My contributions were small: knowing who is the XO on Star Trek: Voyager, the landmarks of Gotham City, what’s Pippin Took’s real name and the lyrics to Gary Wright’s “Dream Weaver.” I was invited back for the following Sunday. Hooray!
This evening, I was totally stoked to be reunited with my primary team sans Kate’s husband (a different Chip) who is visiting his family in Canada. We voted on a temporary name of Locutus of Borgnine to honor Ernest (again), then set out to do our best. I joked about having leftover victory residue from Sunday.
Unlike the previous quiz where Pablo’s team cruised through all eight rounds (we were in the lead the whole time), we clawed our way to first by the end. The “stop” segment totally bit, the best score was four; and we thought the final section would be our swan song as we went in defending a tenuous hold on second. I think we won thanks to everybody else sucking more, believe me, the last set of questions were dreadful.
I’ll take the win and share the $30 prize for next week.
Meanwhile, I peeked at GWD’s site and saw that Geek Bowl VII will be in Austin again! Now if they can schedule a rematch for Futurama I’ll be overwhelmed with trivial joy.