Tonight we will make our first – and hopefully only – attempt to earn a “finals” spot in the Sporcle Live trivia league. It’s been a rough road fraught with long periods of prizelessness, being outnumbered by other teams week after week, and playing against more than 20 other teams in the bar week after week. Add in a host that typically makes all of the final questions more difficult here than they would be at other bars!

Tonight we go into this game in seventh place overall and just one league point to help us out in game two. We’ve missed two games as well, so we’re not going into this very strong! Players I’ll have tonight will include myself, my husband Mike, Brad, Dave and Evan. This is a tournament lineup I’ve never used before! I like that at least three players will have sports knowledge, I like that I’ll have backup on some of the tougher movie questions and I like that Dave will have some backup on modern music questions. One of our players didn’t read the e-mails I sent out to the team about finals and the lineup I would be using, so the news last Wednesday that I wouldn’t need him in tonight’s game came as a bit of more of a “shock” than it should have. He did not react well. We’ve decided that unless something drastic happens on his end, we’re probably just going to part company with this player. Sadly, these things happen…but in this case, it’s probably for the best! We recently stopped playing in a trivia spot very close to home for him, and he hasn’t exactly liked alternate spots we’ve picked to play. Can’t please everyone…

I have some “leads” on players who might be able to help out in finals if we make it. I’m trying to keep as many options open as possible – in fact, if we fail in our quest tonight, a couple of us might join Evan’s team at Sticks Thursday night if he needs players. This will give us another possible tournament option at the very least if his team needs tournament players (which they probably will). Two of my stronger players will not be available to play finals if we qualify, so I’ve been keeping feelers out, if you will! When one door closes, another door opens. Don’t let your ass hit you on the door on your way out? Wait…that’s not right! I’m just not good at these cheesy platitudes!

Stay tuned for a post later tonight about how we do! I should have a recap of this game posted by Thursday afternoon.