I just visited the web site for My Trivia Live, and it looks like the semifinal/finals dates for their tournaments have been posted for Saturday, Dec. 8 – and Saturday, Dec. 15. The finals date for the Sporcle Live league has been set for Saturday, Dec. 1. Are you getting this? Three consecutive weekends of trivia, trivia and more trivia in December.

I just KNEW all of these things would happen in December! If I still had teams in contention in both leagues, that would mean THREE Saturdays tied up with trivia in the month of December. And that would mean me trying to hustle players for all of those games and…keeping my sanity in the process. Not to mention getting my “Mr. I Need My Beauty Sleep” husband out the door for any games that begin before 2 p.m. Oy…Are my days of herding cats officially over? Maybe! Just maybe…I’ll have to see!

Our team has been on a “break” from trying to qualify for tournaments in either league this season For the month of November, we’re “trying” to do “Trivia Tuesdays. I’ve really enjoyed taking trivia a lot less seriously and approaching games in in a much more relaxed fashion. Though on some levels, I do feel like there is something missing. I really miss the competition! It’s been really tough for me to see just two teams in contention at Original Gravity with mine just being on the sidelines… If I were a baseball player, I’d sing, “Put me in, coach – I’m ready to play…today.” Wait…aren’t I the “coach” in this scenario? Don’t…answer that! Yes, I just quoted lyrics from Centerfield by John Fogerty. But you knew that, didn’t you?

Former Creedence Clearwater Revival lead singer John Fogerty recorded the 1985 album Centerfield, which yielded a song by the same name that peaked at #44 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. It’s become quite the baseball anthem, and is frequently played at baseball games. Since it became available digitally in the 21st century, it has sold 734,000 downloads in the U.S.

Three trivia tournaments were also scheduled in the month of August. That is when my cup had runneth over and I cried “Uncle!” By the time the last tournament day rolled around, I didn’t even really want to GO!

I really have become weary of securing my own players for tournaments, especially on weekends. Brad will invariably have a dog show, Archie will have some kind of football event to attend…Dave is very, very tough to nail down for anything on weekends. Adding to the chaos is having players commit to playing – then backing out days before. Our “loaner” Evan has been a trouper, and has consistently come to several Sporcle Live tournaments in a row. Even when John was still on the team getting him to play in weekend tournaments was nigh impossible. I had to practically BEG him the couple of times he actually did it. I think if I continue trying to play in tournaments, it will have to be one league only – not two. Which league do I pick – Sporcle Live – or MTL?

It’s a tough call. My husband Mike prefers the MTL league because he fares better on the questions – and Brad is strong in the format, too. Unfortunately, MTL doesn’t have a lot of good “local” options. Brad said he didn’t want to play Powell’s on Mondays (which prompted me to call off our tournament bid there after playing four times), and Mike doesn’t like playing Wednesdays at Wurst.  As for me? I really don’t like McShane’s Pub’s scene at all (Tuesday nights). There’s just…something about that place I don’t like. There might be something to this – since a trivia host there recently had a player deliberately dump beer on her laptop during a game! Just…bad vibes – can’t shake ’em. My teammates don’t really dig the place either. Every time I’m at McShane’s, I’m just not comfortable. It’s not even that it’s a dive bar, since I didn’t really have any problems playing at Powell’s, which was equally “dive-y,” if not more. Can’t explain it…it was my “sixth sense.”

A spot I’m thinking of “trying out” when the new MTL season starts Nov. 26 is the Plymouth ROC, 7 p.m. Wednesdays. We’ll have a month before the new Sporcle Live season begins to give this place a month-long “trial.” What are the pros? Early show (starts at 7), and I like the host. He was also the “Face the Music” host when Kim and I played those shows (before they were discontinued). Speaking of Kim, she lives nearby – maybe we can do a “girls night” there when she is on a school break. If things go well, we’ll think about doing a tournament bid. If not, well we’ll look at another spot! This gives us a chance to “explore” a bit. Test the waters. It was rather disappointing committing to playing at Powell’s only to find out that the host didn’t seem to take too kindly to us playing there ( for reasons that still baffle me – though I do theorize that because he’s…ahem – chummy with players on another regular team there, that COULD have something to do with it). Keep in mind that in and of itself was not enough to drive us away from that bar! Having a player tell me he didn’t want to play there anymore was a bigger part of the reason we called Powell’s quits. That, and no more Jamie the bartender!

When the Sporcle Live season is done in a couple of weeks, I’ll put OG games on hiatus until 2019. Unless…unless…there’s a random Thursday that works out for me to go out for a game. Weather permitting!

I have plenty of time to think about the future! Sounds better coming out of Jack Nicholson as “The Joker…”