Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Summer is here, and the youth of America need something to do. The May unemployment rate for teenagers is 24.6%, and for the first time I am receiving uninvited applications from Davis High students who wish to provide internship support for the Poetry Night Reading Series. These are not the students who Thomas Edison spoke of when he said “Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work,” though I think most of us in the poetry trenches are absolved from having to wear overalls. Rather, often people ask me why I am “so dressed up,” on some occasions even wearing a tie in the summertime. Some days I feel like responding as Jack Donaghy would: “It’s after 6. What am I, a farmer?” Somehow that joke goes over less well in Davis than it does at 30 Rock.
Although I can’t offer you an internship, I can offer you and all your friends a couple hours of entertainment tonight. Because of the summer’s return to Davis of many hundreds of unemployed Davis High grads, I expect de Vere’s Irish Pub again to be overrun with Pub Quiz participants. Last week even some of the regular teams weren’t seated until after 7. With that in mind, tonight and every night this summer I encourage you to come early with half your team so you can claim your lucky table. Speaking of lucky, congratulations to Mary Stewart and Andy Stewart, co-captains of a Pub Quiz team called something like “Andys and Not Andys,” for they and their team of regulars and irregulars won the Pub Quiz outright for the first time last Monday, and are even considering returning to defend their title. I’m linking to their Twitter accounts, for they haven’t yet friended Your Quizmaster on Facebook. Some people are understandably careful about if and how they present themselves on social networks, for, like those aforementioned teenagers, all of us would like a secure job someday.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on some of my favorite ungulates, my favorite computer hardware company, Art and Art history, an inordinate number of television questions, summer music, escape artists, Euros, construction-themed art, stalwarts, theories of science, Publisher’s Weekly, American presidents and their previous job qualifications, bone marrow, Hollywood power couples, unusual words, the art of the album, vapor arie /arias, Africa under the stars, famous sisters, mammals in funny costumes, letting go, Irish music, candy for your thoughts, Scientific American, books you have actually read, marsupials, basketball, and Shakespeare.
You will hear one question with a Fathers Day theme – have you made appropriate plans for that “holiday”? Speaking for a moment on behalf of all fathers, we don’t need any more stuff, though I must admit that my sons helped me pick out some dress socks at JC Penney over the weekend. And with regard to that shopping experience, no matter how hot it gets, let’s all do what we can to support and preserve our downtown Davis merchants so that Davis never becomes known for its three-quarters-empty (of stores) shopping malls. Investing in a pint, or a movie ticket at the Varsity, or a cute blouse at Haute Again is a great way of voting with your wallet for character, art, and vibrancy in our fair city.
See you tonight!
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
1. Mottos and Slogans. What soft drink billed itself as The Uncola?
2. Internet Culture. A new version of the Xbox video game Halo will be available this coming November 6. What number Halo will it be? Hint: It’s not Halo I.
3. Newspaper Headlines. John Edwards was found not guilty on one count, and the jury was hung on the others. How many charges, total, was Edwards facing?
4. Four for Four. Which of the following pop songs, if any, rhyme the word “swagger” with the name “Jagger”? Black Eyed Peas’ “The Time “ (sometimes called “Dirty Bit”); Cher Lloyd’s “Swagger Jagger,” Kesha’s “Tick Tock,” Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger.”
5. College Towns that Start with the Letter A. What largest city in eastern Alabama was named by US News and World Report to be among its top ten list of best places to live in United States for the year 2009?