So, I’m a bit of a trivia aficionado. Maybe it comes from my competitive nature, maybe my slight bent toward intellectual snobbery, but wherever it stems from, I do enjoy a good quiz night.As you’ll find in a previous post, I cut my teeth in the quizzes of East Sussex, honing my craft in the suburbs of Sydney and am now at the top of my game at the Duke of York in Toronto.
Or so I thought. After a brief hiatus from season 5 of Pubstumpers (because I, like other mammals, go into hibernation mode in the snow and cold), I was back to parade my prowess with a slightly shuffled team.
We quickly realized that this was not to be the night of domination I had expected. But happy to enjoy a few drinks and the quizmaster’s repartee, I settled back and did a little social analyzing of the crowd. I have categorized trivia participants into the following groups:
GRAD STUDENTS
And Grad student types. These are people whose lives are based around knowledge, albeit quite specific knowledge. But people who enjoy being in school for a good percentage of their lives probably have a fairly good general knowledge base, too.
EX-PATS
I have no history on the pub quiz, but I’m pretty sure it started in Britain. So any Brits that are far from home probably find comfort in the basement of a pub, beer served by the pint, and a couple of geography questions. I counted 3 English accents this past Tuesday.
TWENTYSOMETHING GIRLS
I do not mean to dismiss or denigrate this trivia demographic – I’m sure some of these women are here for the intellectual stimulation. But I have it on good (bartender) authority that a lot of the ladies present come for the aesthetics of the quizmaster.
RANDOM FRIENDS OF STEPH
I’m always trying to add new people to my team. I have a core group of friends who refuse because they don’t think they’re any good at general knowledge, to which I say: the last time you were called on to produce random facts was when you played Trivial Pursuit at age 14, and of course you weren’t going to do as well as your 30-year-old self who has taken Modern Western Civilization, watched a few more National Geographic shows and dated a guy with an unusual interest in comic books and/or an extensive record collection.
Next week. Next week I will break 80.
2 comments:
You forgot embittered literary/publishing types with untold reserves of useless knowledge kicking around their otherwise addled brains.
I heard through the grapevine that you were in da house on Tuesday. You should come over and introduce yourself next week. I'll be the guy in the jacket and tie, frothing at the mouth because I couldn't recognize Don Henley's "New York Minute" in the music round.
Yeah, Dave pointed you out, but then I got all you're-not-supposed-to-meet-your-blog-buddies-in-real-life shy, but I will come and say hello next time.
Post a Comment