Breaking Trivia News: Logan Trivia Tournament

Nothing to do this Sunday because Drop Dead Diva and Mad Men are over?  We might have just the thing for you.

Logan Bar & Grill (2230 N. California Ave.) is hosting a 5-week trivia tournament, at their normal trivia time: Sundays at 8pm.  The tourney actually started last Sunday (Nov. 8th) but each team gets to drop their lowest two scores, so it’s definitely not too late to join.

Prizes include Bulls and Hawks tickets.  If you win, don’t feel obligated to take us to the games (but we’ll take a t-shirt or foam finger or something — whatever you think is right).

Photo Source: The Parking Ticket Geek

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Breaking Trivia News: Brownstone Picture Trivia Tournament

Brownstone just announced its first annual Picture Trivia Tournament, held on Tuesdays at 8pm, starting date to be determined.  First prize = $1000!  We were not too keen on Brownstone’s last traditional trivia tournament, but Picture Trivia is whole new ballgame: a fun time, plus Ben is really nice and always finds a seat for everyone playing trivia.  We’d recommend signing up if you have the next several Tuesday nights free. 

If you’re interested in joining, just e-mail your Team Name, first & last names and e-mail addresses of all team members to ben@fourcornerstaverns.com.  Teams can be 1-6 players; spots are limited so sign up asap as possible.  Good luck!

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Brownstone Tournament: Week 6

Shady question of the week:

Question: In World War II, what country declared war on Japan only 7 days before its [Japan’s] surrender?

Answer: Russia

Doesn’t seem shady to you? Did we mention that the round’s theme was North American History? Last we checked, neither Japan nor Russia is in North America. Ugh.

Anyway, the standings as of Week 6:

1st place: Backstreet Boyeez
2nd place: Beer Makes Smart
3rd place: Nightman Cometh

Backstreet Boyeez seems poised to win it all. To be honest, we’re considering dropping out of the tournament now that we know that we probably can’t win. We’re getting pretty tired of the shady questions and the nachos and the 42 Below cocktails. We miss PBR…so cheap, so giant.

What do you think? Should we drop out or stay in the tourney? Leave a comment!

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Brownstone Tournament: Week 4

This Monday marked the halfway point of the 8-week Brownstone Trivia Tournament.  So far, we have been pretty focused on each week’s shady questions, but since there weren’t any overtly sketchy* questions on Monday, we thought this would be a good time to give Brownstone props for:

Feeding our Minds and our pub quiz obsession.  Walk-ins are now welcome to the Sunday and Monday trivia tournament nights, where in a new addition to the game, each week’s winning team gets $50 off of the night’s bill.  Brownstone also offers Tuesday night Picture Trivia, so you can actually enjoy Brownstone trivia three nights in a row.

and Feeding our Stomachs.  The food at Brownstone is pretty tasty–and the price is right, especially the ginormous $7 nachos:

$7 Nachos

Another thing Ben and the Brownstone staff do really well is finding tables and seats for every trivia player, no matter how crowded the bar seems upon arrival.  Great job, all!

The standings, with 4 weeks to go:

1st place: Backstreet Boyeez
2nd place: Beer Makes Smart
3rd place: Grants & Co.

Backstreet Boyeez is pulling ahead in the standings, but every team’s lowest score will be dropped, so it’s still anyone’s game.  It also appears that at least 3 teams have left the tournament (good for us).

Finally, a big shout out to the Baracktobers, who won the 5-point Skaboozled Bonus for drinking the most 42 Below cocktails per team player–a whopping 14 drinks for 2 people!  

We’re looking forward to a good second half of the tournament!

*There was a little bit of shade over a question about the Air Force’s involvement in World War I…the U.S. Air Force as we know it was not formed as an independent military branch until 1947 (long after WWI), but its direct predecessor, the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, did send officers to battle in WWI.   So we guess we’ll let it slide.  For now.

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Brownstone Tournament: Week 3

Another week, another sketchy question…

Monday we headed to week 3 of Brownstone’s Trivia Tournament.  And just like week 1 and week 2, we encountered a piece of trivia that was pretty shady.

The question was: which state’s governor did Obama just name as head of Health and Human Services?

The trivia host alleges that the answer is the Kansas.  But this blogger is an actual Kansan, and so I can tell you with some authority that there’s not much noteworthy about Kansas except basketball, and as of Monday’s Missouri/Kansas game, we don’t even have that anymore.  So that fact that this flew under my radar seriously surprised me.  And apparently it surprised all the major news sources as well.  As of Tuesday, no one is reporting that Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is anything more than one of several possible candidates.  Much like our new president, it appears as if our MC could do more vetting. (UPDATE! A mere two weeks after our trivia MC announced it, it’s official–Kathleen Sebelius will finally be named to Health and Human Services today!)

Luckily, any frustration we had about the questions was quickly erased by the lovely 42 Below Vodka girls who gave us plenty of swag, including a t-shirt tiny enough to fit a small child.

But on to the important stuff! Here are the standings as of week 3.
1st Place: Backstreet Boyeez
2nd Place: Beer Makes Smart
3rd Place: Grant and Co.

As always, we invite you to leave a comment to vindicate or vent on Brownstone’s trivia MC.

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Brownstone Tournament: Week 2

The second week of the Brownstone Trivia Tournament was just as fun as the first, except this week, we tried the $7 nachos that are so abundant they are served on a cookie sheet.  Yum.

As with last week, we experienced another shady question:

This past week, U.S. law enforcement apprehended a hitman who was a member of what illegal Mexican organizations?

The answer?  Drug cartels.  We felt a little misled by the question and a lot disappointed in the vague answer–we had expected the name of a specific organization.  (The question was comparable to: Who was the first president?  A white man.)  Not that we know the names of any drug cartels.  One team answered with “The Chupacabras,” which was wrong but kind of awesome:

A Chupacabra

And now, the standings after Week 2:

Tied for 1st: Backstreet Boyeez and Beer Makes Smart
Tied for 2nd: Grants & Co. and Werewolf Bar Mitzvah
3rd: I’ll Take Potpourri for $100, Alex

The tournament is taking a short hiatus, so we’ll be back to report in 2 weeks.  This blog, however, is not taking a hiatus, so check back here for more trivia reviews during the break!

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Brownstone Tournament: Week 1

Last night, along with all the other trivia geeks in Chicago, we attended Brownstone‘s tournament.  The first time we visited Brownstone we gave it a fairly lukewarm review, but we left last night feeling pretty impressed.  The food was good (although their half-price sandwich deal is no more) and things went very smoothly–especially when you take into consideration there were 16 teams.

For the tourney Brownstone is offering some pretty nice specials.  $7 nacho trays and $5 skillet cookies.  Anyone who follows the blog knows we love skillet cookies.  But we don’t want to buy them, we want to earn them (at Schoolyard).  They also have 42 Below Vodka (the tournament’s sponsor) drinks on special.  We thought they were pretty tasty, and more importantly you get bonus points for every one you order (limit 10).

Our one complaint was the super shady question about the movies in 2008 that grossed the highest over one weekend (according to IMDB.com).  Just about everyone filled their answer sheets with blockbusters from holiday weekends, not realizing that the crappy movies that come out on random weekends (like Fool’s Gold) have no competition and therefore rake in the cash.  Like most teams, we got a lousy 2 correct.  We’re all for seemingly easy questions that are actually really hard, but our beef with this one is we can’t find any evidence on IMDB that the MC’s list is at all valid.  If any other teams from last night want to vindicate him, feel free to post the link.

Ben from Brownstone just emailed out the standings.  It’s nice to see some familiar team names on the list.  A big shout out to the Baracktobers and I’ll Take Potpourri for $100, Alex.  And without further ado, here are the standings.

Tied for 1st: Backstreet Boyeez and Beer Makes Smart
Tied for 2nd: I’ll Take Potpourri for $100, Alex; Werewolf Bar Mitzvah; and Team Ramrod
3rd: Don’t Get Up, I’ll Get You a Towel

We wish everyone the best of luck…But if you beat us, consider sending us PBR gift basket out of sympathy!

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