One of the players on my trivia team, Brad, informed me last night that he’s just not digging the trivia scene Monday nights at Powell’s. Though he initially agreed to play at least a couple of more games there with us, I decided it was for the best to just call the whole damn thing off.

In addition to his not liking the trivia scene there, here are some other reasons we’re OK with giving up on Powell’s:

1. The trivia host. He’s made it clear from day one that he doesn’t want us playing at Powell’s. On the first night we played, he said something on the mic about “not taking any crap from the ‘Pods.” That came out of nowhere! For the life of me I cannot figure out why someone, whom is paid based on the number of players he draws to his trivia nights, would think this is OK. He disqualified us from a game last season without as much as a warning (we did not hear his reminder on the mic about his “house” rule about not using “smart” devices during the final question – whether you have answered it already or not). He is also dating a player on a rival team and has given that team preferential treatment on several occasions. Once when he was determining a “you pick” category, (he uses a tiebreaker style question to determine who gets to pick the category) our guess for an answer was only FOUR years off the correct guess without going over. He blatantly lied on the mic and said that no guesses were close enough to the correct guess, and he just let his “favorite” team pick the you pick category. Also, one of my players made a couple of music requests, and he told him he wouldn’t play more than one song request by the same artist. This from a guy who played the Wham song Careless Whisper FOUR times in one night before because one of his “friends” wanted to hear it. Hey, I love that song too, but four times?
2. A rival team has started to bring a 9-10 person “megateam” in what I can only guess is an attempt to defeat us. Under normal circumstances, I would say “challenge accepted” to that! Do what it takes to win, I say (I’ve certainly been there/done that myself)! After four games, they finally managed a five point lead over my team. While I think my team is certainly up to the challenge of ultimately beating them and winning a semifinal spot, meh. I honestly don’t even care at this point. If they want the spot that badly, they can have it! With my third player wanting to back out of playing Monday nights, this would make qualifying much more difficult than it needs to be – and honestly – what’s the fun in that? When something you love turns into a chore – and is not fun anymore – it’s time to step back. Fuck this…
3. One of the players on another team…well, pisses me off. Stirs up bad mojo. Angries up my blood. I can’t even stand being in the same room with them. Again, another thing making trivia not very fun for me.
4. Jaime is no longer a bartender at Powell’s. It’s just not the same there without her (I really miss her)!

My main “trivia partner” Mike is fully on board with all of this. He said he likes that we’ll be playing with nothing on the line but possible nightly prize money. We’ve been pretty competitive with trivia for a few years now. It’s time for us to have a well deserved break! Maybe we won’t even come back to being a “league” team again, either. Maybe we’ll find a different spot we want to play. I’m keeping my options open!