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Can't Miss It: Monday
Tuesday night Seattlest won $35 playing pub trivia at the Boxcar Ale House in Magnolia. And we earned every goddamn penny -- it was a brutal slog of an evening. "I'm about to get stabby," said one of our teammates at about 9:50, when it was clear that we weren't getting out of there anytime soon.
The quiz was a reasonable 50 questions. And Tuesday's host -- we didn't catch her name -- wrote a decent set of questions.
But oh, god, the pacing was ruthlessly slow. We were forewarned by a friend that "they don't run a tight ship" at the Boxcar. So when the 8:00 quiz didn't start until 8:30, we didn't panic. Hey, that happens at Kate's every time we go, but once they get going they keep up a good clip. The first round of 10 questions was over by 8:45, and was a nice set of questions on advertising mascots. We muffed the name of the dog on the Crackerjack box and the mascot of Tootsie Rolls (talked ourselves out of the correct answer on that one), but it was a respectable showing. We were young, naive, and optimistic.
Then the first visual round started: ten stills featuring Val Kilmer, identify the film. The Boxcar runs their visual rounds off a laptop using TV screens, and technical glitches led to the round taking half an hour, when it should've taken 10 minutes tops. "It's the first time I've used the TV," said the host, clearly rattled. It didn't help that she accidentally skipped a couple of pictures, came back to them later, then couldn't decide whether or not to have us feature those as questions 2 and 3 or 9 and 10. (Note to other hosts: Have a backup round ready in case of technical difficulties.)
The third round was the best topic of the night: Pretty Pretty Princesses. 10 solid questions on, duh, princesses, presented the old fashioned "read 'em out loud" way. Princess Di, the 8 Disney princesses (apparently they officially consider Mulan and Pocahontas princesses in Mouseland), Nintendo's Princess Peach. Good stuff. Anyone can have a technical glitch! Things were back on track.
Or not. For some reason, this round also took 30 minutes. We're not clear why, but shortly after that round ended our team small talk dried up, violent undercurrents surfaced, and we kicked around the idea of leaving early.
We stuck it out for another visual round -- movie posters, again on the TV screens, which at least went quicker. For the final round, we got a handout: a map of Washington state with 12 county names left blank. And we got 7 weeks to fill it in. Technically our watch said it was 25 minutes, but we're pretty sure we were being subjected to an unethical physics thought experiment testing some aspect of relativity. Minutes passed like drops during a water torture session, and we were ready to beg for mercy.
In the end, we won -- movies are good rounds for us, and we managed to correctly name 9 out of 12 counties. (Sorry, Asotinites and Ferry folk.)
Anonymous host, you have potential. But you really need to keep things moving. Long, silent gaps kill any momentum that manages to sprout. "Beer questions" in the middle of rounds don't make up for it. (We're speaking for ourselves, there.)
Note: the Boxcar's MySpace page claims "Our host Jason packs the house by presenting interesting and exciting categories, including audio, video, and picture rounds. This makes him one of the best trivia hosts in the city, and it makes Tuesday nights a great time to bring your friends for a little team trivia at the Boxcar." QuizNight.net's page on the Boxcar claims "Winning team gets double the pot." As it turns out, there was no Jason there, and the pot was not doubled. There seems to be no permanent host right now -- like the Old Pequilar, it's a rotation.
Whatever the situation, that was inarguably the least fun we've had at pub trivia in Seattle. We haven't yet tried Magnolia's other trivia pub, Mulleady's, which hosts a Monday quiz, but we can't imagine it's worse. We do know that a number of other pubs have better Tuesday quizzes, even disregarding ours -- try the George & Dragon, the Northside Grill, Murphy's, the Hopvine, or drive to Redhook in Woodinville.
Confidential to the Boxcar: consider dropping the quiz and sticking with karaoke, which is apparently your strong suit.
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You're reviewing a substitute host. Jason hosted for a year straight until this month.
Jason went on a break 3 weeks ago. He's pretty good and gets through the rounds fairly fast.
The first alternate host was ok. Last week's was so bad that we skipped it this week. We went to the OP instead where the hosts this week were decent.
When Jason's back, I'll be happy to go again, though I'll probably have to bribe my teammates.
It's a pity that isn't made clear anywhere, though -- it's not hard to update a MySpace page.
Yea I agree its not hard to let people know. Especially since the subs have been painfully bad. Also, the pot only doubles when it reaches $50.
Mondays at Kate's in Wallingford is a solid trivia.
That does explain why the other thing my friend told me -- that the place got packed -- turned out to be completely untrue. There were 7 teams there on Tuesday, and at least one other was trying it for the first time (they asked us if we knew how it all worked).