Tonight: Trivia Preview - The Edge of Wetness

May 14th, 2008 Tony posted in Trivia, Housekeeping | No Comments »

This adorable creature might show up. Also the dog.In giving a nod to the gorgeousness of the day today, we’re going to do at least two different rounds that will remind you of how good we’ve got it these days. The era of six-foot snowdrifts may be pretty much gone, but we’re not yet in the age of ninety-degree winters and coyotes wandering in from the outer boroughs looking for cactuses and prairie dogs among the potholed ruins.

Yes, we’re in the sweet spot where global warming is working in our favor. Come on out and enjoy it before New York becomes Algiers with inferior street drugs.

Also, if you’ve been avoiding the DSO trivia nights because they’ve been too crowded for the last little while, this might be a good time to come back and stake a claim again. It’s far from dead, but good tables can be got without having to squat for hours these days. And besides, I miss a few of youse.


Follow-up: Gong Show Needs Contestants!

May 14th, 2008 Tony posted in Game Shows, NYC, Trivia, I Found This Interesting | No Comments »

Further to last week’s announcement that the Gong Show was returning, it turns out that they’re actively recruiting contestants. To pull Dave’s quote from Dead Frog, where I heard this news:

Help me kill American Idol. If you’re a weird freak with a debatable talent, write me at gongshowcasting@aol.com.

I know some people who need to give this a shot, somehow. Get on it, people. America needs you now, more than ever.


Tom Waits Press Conference

May 12th, 2008 Tony posted in Music, I Found This Interesting | No Comments »

Like Joey says, be sure to watch this through to the very end. The payoff is excellent:


I Did Not Know This

May 9th, 2008 Tony posted in Game Shows, NYC, Music, I Found This Interesting | No Comments »

…but Adam Green of the Moldy Peaches also appeared on Cash Cab. With his mom!

I’m glad he won, but I’m also glad I did better than he did. It means I’ve got something on him, which is frankly all I care about.


The Gong Show Returns

May 9th, 2008 Tony posted in Game Shows, Trivia, I Found This Interesting | 1 Comment »

That’s right. After decades as the butt of worst-game-show-ever jokes, Comedy Central has decided to bring back Chuck Barris’ greatest masterpiece, deciding that specialized ripoffs like Rock of Love, Flavor of Love, I Wanna Be A Superhero and, yes, America’s Most Smartest Model need to see how the whole peons-debasing-themselves-on-national-television-for-embarassingly-small-amounts-of-money thing is really done.

Barris was a crazed genius, as anyone who read his amazing autobiography (or saw his biopic) knows, but shows like The Newlywed GameThe Dating Game went over because Chuck was active and hands-on in every part of the show, either behind the scenes or in front of the camera. I don’t know how connected he’s going to be to the current version of The Gong Show, but it can’t be as much as thirty years ago. It’s still going to sink or swim based on how well the new host and the panel treats it.

Your new host, wondering what the hell he's gotten himself into.Oh yeah, the new host of The Gong Show? Dave Attell.

Like that choice or not, they had to give him another show. Insomniac was a modest hit shot on a tiny budget, and which really had its moments. (And Comedy Central gave Lewis Black a show, which was also deserved, even if it’s currently sucking and sinking under its own stupidly tight premise. Everyone involved with that show deserves better.)

I like Attell, though I’ll need to be convinced.

So, given that the host is set, who would be good to be on the panel? I have some ideas. Past the usual Daily Show alumni, Friars Club regulars and Best Week Ever retreads, who would be able to properly and entertainingly wield a mallet on the new Gong Show?

Here’s who I’m thinking would be good at it, and would also be willing to try it (I’ll add to this list, but it’s a start):

  • Arianna Huffington
  • Tucker Carlson
  • Quincy Jones
  • Toby Keith
  • Kelly Andrews (the female announcer from The Soup)
  • Jocelyn Wildenstein
  • John Daly
  • Madeline Albright
  • George Takei (or Leonard Nimoy, come to think of it; Shatner’s too hammy)
  • Tonya Harding
  • Busta Rhymes

Feel free to add to this list if you’re so moved.


Trivia Recap: Team Names

May 8th, 2008 Tony posted in Trivia | 2 Comments »

Team names this week skewed slightly toward the Hillary/Obama developments of the last week, with only one team picking a Burmese disaster theme.

I’m going to start analyzing these things as if they were weather patterns, or stock market trends, or something. (I watch one episode of Meet The Press and suddenly I’m the Chuck Todd of trivia. Or something.

Congratulations to the winners:

1st place: Hill To The No!!!
2nd place: It’s Time To Put Her Down
3rd place: Euphemisms For Sex Acts

Followed by, in no particular order:

  • We’d Put Our Lot In An Elite Economist Any Night
  • Turbo Power Team, Go!
  • Two Man Army Of Darkness (& Lightheartedness) (or, Death To The Sickoids, Stat)
  • Team Woot Pwned Your Ass (not affiliated with these guys, who are ace)
  • The CC Cocks
  • Douchehat
  • Best Dressed (who, narrowly, weren’t.)
  • Live Every Week Like It’s Shark Week
  • The Rangoon Typhoons
  • Me Myself & I (later, Two’s Company)
  • Sweatpants Boner!
  • Redcoats (winners of the Best Dressed award; they came late and did very well)

Cryptograms

May 7th, 2008 Tony posted in Sports, Trivia, I Found This Interesting | 1 Comment »

'It’s astonishing how much you can hide in type.'

Pentagram Interactive provides a quick list of fourteen cryptograms, or word-puzzles, for you to decipher. Each one is fairly simple, with a different trick, and they all come from a holiday book they printed a couple of months ago.

The puzzles are extremely elegant, and if you get stumped, just mouse over the images to get the key. The secret is not to think too hard, even on the ornate-looking ones.


The Best Photograph Ever Taken

May 6th, 2008 Tony posted in I Found This Interesting | No Comments »

How many ways do I love this group photo of the 1975 Redondo Beach Stoned Rollers bowling team? It’s a mixed 5 league, but there are six in the picture. Velma and the preacher on the far right look higher than Jesus, the ofay in the middle is doing some kind of frottage on the black dude in the middle, who’s reacting as if he just woke up after having been drugged and dragged into the shot, Mary Ann, second from left, is a foot shorter than anyone else and is blissfully oblivious of the party going on at 5′6″ and above, and the guy on the left, well, this team may not have been his idea, but he decided he was going to be the man on this team, because that’s what the ladies love, man, they can’t get enough of the Blakemonster and his rollin’ party, man! Check out Blake, man, he’s got the funk, the beat, the groove, man! He speaks of the pompitous of love, and he’s always carrying, man, but it’s cool, man, he can be right with the fuzz if shit goes down. This is the best day of his entire life, and he doesn’t even know it, man.

Also, I can very easily imagine everyone in this photograph not wearing pants.


People Doodle.

May 2nd, 2008 Tony posted in Trivia, I Found This Interesting | No Comments »

Amy Winehouse Much? 

 It’s been known to happen. A couple of drinks and a piece of paper can turn even the mildest-mannered aesthete into Pablo Picasso. I’ve got a half-dozen examples waiting to be scanned of amazing artworks that have been turned in on the backs (or the fronts) of answer sheets, and my promise that I’ll post them remains un-unfulfilled. (I’m gonna post them, I promise. Maybe a Friday Arts thing or something.)

But here’s a fine place to start. Aside from answer sheets, there’s always cocktail napkins, and Katherine (who has a Tumblr Log) has decided to anthropomorphize common household items for the enjoyment of her friends.

It’s something.

(DSO has a Tumblr log too, which is mostly a picture and link repository. When things are dry here, you can always check it out there. Or at Twitter, or my Google Shared Items list, which I’m using as a clippings page full of what I think is interesting reading material. Check the full list of the places I actively use over on the right, and feel free to add me.)


Trivia Recap: A Twofer

May 1st, 2008 Tony posted in Trivia, I Found This Interesting | No Comments »

Because I didn’t do a recap last week, I’ll give youse two for the price of one this time through. Here are the teams who contested for the golden coaster these last two weeks. First, from last Wednesday:

1st - Reduce Reuse Re-Suck My Dick
2nd - I Feel God In This Dempsey’s Tonight
3rd - Hillary Clinton Says: Hoosier Daddy?

Comrade Neve, Clean Hair Is Sign Of Capitalist Pigdog Oppression! Good Work!Followed by, in no particular order:

  • Jonathan Taylor Thomas Jefferson Starship Troopers
  • Fried Pig’s Ears
  • David & Tully
  • WH Auden
  • Drunk On The Blood Of Christ
  • Apparently We Suck Ballz!!
  • Smart People Are Out Enjoying The Weather Today, So We Might Have A Chance
  • Quizadillas
  • Templehof & Don’t Call Me Shirley
  • It Ain’t Easy Being.
  • TBR
  • A Girl Named Sue
  • Tim O’connor Has Manboobs
  • It’s Getting Hot In Herre! Really!

And this week:

1st - Communist Bloc Party Of Five
2nd - Two Man Army Of Darkness + 1 Evil Dead
3rd - Team Cram It In Your Cramhole

Followed by, in no particular order:

  • Sweatpants Boner
  • Paprika 5
  • We’re So Bad, Jimmy Carter Won’t Even Talk To Us
  • Turn Your Head And Cough
  • How To Beat A Bitch
  • Forget Coachella, I’m Going To See Neil Diamond
  • Jem & The Triviagrams
  • We Don’t Know About Asses, But We Stole Penises In Africa
  • North Dakota Rocks! (formerly The Naked Pygmys!)