Watch the directors cut of Titanic. Comb through all the 564 amendments to the health care bill. Build a better mousetrap. What do all of these things have in common? They are things I had time to do during the span of Monday’s trivia night at Bar Louie–which lasted about a bijillion hours. Actually, it lasted just under four hours, and there aren’t many activities that I want to do for four hours. In fact, I can think of just 2 of them: stare at pictures of Robert Pattinson and complain about this trivia night.
For your viewing pleasure
Source: Mania Twilight, Le Blog
We played as Team: Senator Creamsicle because, well, it’s a really funny name. And we love cats.
Trivia at Bar Louie is provided by Whatddyaknow Trivia, which is not a my favorite format. There are 6 questions per round; you answer the questions one at a time and have an entire song to come up with your answer and a wager. This makes a rather long and slow evening. Despite the slow pace, I actually really liked the variety of questions last night. They hit on all my favorite topics: baby animals, Saved By the Bell, and alcohol.
I hate to call out the host because he seems like a really nice guy, but he sure runs a loooong trivia night. The grading went really slowly and he wasted time with tons of strange and awkward banter. For example, he tried to light a fire under the dying crowd by announcing that the 1st place team’s (that was us!) lead had gotten “a lot less huge.”
We had a strong lead all night but ended up dropping from 1st to 2nd place over the course of the final two questions. Lucky for us, the final two questions took 45 minutes for the host to grade, so we had time to come to terms with our loss.
We may have come in 2nd, but I think all of us who made it out of that bar with our sanity are winners. I almost didn’t make it myself. I spent the last 30 minutes head in hands, rocking back and forth, demanding that we leave because I just couldn’t take it anymore.
Still, if you live/work in the area, don’t mind spending 4 hours playing trivia, or think that “gotten a lot less huge” is a perfectly fine synonym for the word shrank, then Bar Louie’s trivia night might be for you. In fact, we won a $25 gift card, and since we’re probably not going back, we’re happy to give it to the first person who emails us at herecomestreble.trivia@gmail.com. Specials are pretty cheap–$3 Sam Adams Boston Lager and Octoberfest and $3 giant bowls of chili–so that gift card should go far.
Bar Louie
1321 W. Taylor St., Chicago
8:30-11:30+ pm
Free Admission
1 paw (out of 4)
Here Comes Treble is a group of Chicagoans who want to share our love of trivia nights with the rest of the city. Follow us as we search for the best pub quiz in town!
You’ve every right to call me out (I’m the host) on the banter; that was a bit of a weird night, and I was new (see: terrible) to the hosting bit. One of the first things I realized was that I talked too damned much, so I cut that back a lot. I suspect that, format notwithstanding, you’d enjoy Bar Louie trivia a lot more if you dropped by these days.
I can, however, assure you that it did not take me 45 minutes to total the scores for the final round. Hyperbole can be effective, but in this case is misleading. It took a while, and the night went entirely too late, but it was more like 20 minutes (still unacceptable, but I hadn’t gotten my timing down between rounds yet–the situation is much improved, and we’re usually done around 10:30-10:45 these days).
And you’re right about the name: Senator Creamsicle is still my favorite trivia team name in the history of ever, and now I know why I never got to call it out again!