Tonight we’ll be joined by a player from our “extended family,” Evan. He plays on his own league team on some Thursday nights, but said he could join us for our game tonight. I’m hoping his presence will be enough of a game-changer to help bump us up in the standings a bit during this “final stretch.” We’ve compared notes on trivia games where he has played and I have played the same night, and in most cases, we would have been able to help each other out. We have just two more regular season games to go at Original Gravity, then the “venue tournament,” where we will have to battle for a tournament spot. We won one by playing here last summer, and I hope to do it again!

This will be Evan’s first visit to Original Gravity. He’s played with us in lots of games at Oscar’s, and has helped us in three different finals tournaments as well as some venue tournaments.

As for the “other” trivia league we play in, MTL; it looks like the tournament dates have been posted – Aug. 18 for semifinals, and Aug. 25 for finals and I’m not seeing any conflicts this time! I may be keeping an eye out for a different “fourth” player this time. Spread the word…the ‘Pods are “hiring” (LOL).  Applicants should be 40-plus, previous MTL/pub trivia experience desired but not required and must be able to handle being able to play with the strangest pub trivia team in Michigan! We’re more like a “cult,” really…Singing is no longer a requirement for the audition! We do have a fight song, but it’s perfectly OK to sing it off-key (like Brad does) or lip-synch! It’s just not OK for ME to sing it off key (LOL). I set very high standards for myself when it comes to singing…la la la la la…(ahem)!

We have just one more regular season game to play at Powell’s then we get a week off! It looks like we will qualify for semifinals here for a second season in a row. Though I have a pretty good idea at least one of the other teams playing there doesn’t like us very much! It’s just a vibe that I’ve picked up from one of their players named Kelly, who used to be very nice to us  – but changed her tune when we started playing here regularly. This is a team that has finished first at the bar in past seasons, but always cedes their spot to another team called Ham Wallets. There are some very nice people on Ham Wallets, I have nothing against them, and they really haven’t given us any crap. But they just aren’t a very good team. Every time they play in a semifinal game, they…well, suck. I haven’t quite figured out why a trivia team would cede a trivia spot they earned themselves to another team (the horror….the horror), but I don’t think they’re happy that we joined the “throng.” Too bad…so sad! All’s fair in trivia and war.

A recap of this game will be posted on Friday morning. Go Pods!