I’m starting to have doubts as to whether I want to continue trying to play MTL games at JB’s Smokehouse in Canton. After the “girls’ night” I have planned next Thursday, I’ll have to make that call.

For one, I’m starting to have doubts as to whether it’s a “winnable” spot. With only two of my players available to play the weekly games, and the “other” league team consistently outscoring us, I don’t think we have a shot unless the other team misses any games. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but I don’t want to waste time playing here if a semifinal spot is not possible at the end. I’m not driving to Canton “just for fun.” I don’t even LIKE Canton. If qualifying is going to be too much of a “chore,” meh…I just don’t care. We’ve done enough fighting and scrapping for trivia spots over the past few years.  I just don’t have the “army” to pull that off anymore.

We might have a shot if we had our third guy, Brad, in the mix. Unfortunately, he will only go out to games if driven by us, and his work schedule would make our arrival at games a “photo finish.” He takes the bus to work, has to feed his dogs when he gets home, yada yada…

The “other” league team has missed one game, but if they continue to outscore us – and continue going to every single remaining game – they could still overtake us. I did the “maffs.”

Another thing grinding my gears about this place as of late is a barhop team (well, 1-2 guys) consistently showing up late and then having the host spot them the questions they were not present to hear. I don’t think that’s fair to other teams who arrive before game time. Especially not fair considering they’ve won first place THREE WEEKS IN A ROW. I think the host only spotted them the questions from the current round last night (they showed up for question 3 in round two), not round one. I think the hosts have enough to do with running their games – they should not have to re-read questions to players who couldn’t bother to get to the game on time.

And that’s another thing. We haven’t been doing well prize-wise at this place. When we played at the Wurst Bar and Powell’s we did pretty decently with winning prizes. Who wants to pay for their beer on trivia nights? Not me!

I’ll have to make like a blind man in an orgy and feel things out…but I’m not feeling really good about this place right now (though I do like the food)!

I’ll start working on the recap of Thursday’s game in a bit…