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Scene 1) A group of kids, Boss Man, Spirit Girl, Timid Boy and Valley Girl were cruising in an old Chevy, looking for something to do. After getting bored with cruising Central Avenue and yelling our rude insults to the homeless bums and crack whores, Boss Man asked what else could they do. Spirit Girl suggests that they go to the old BWW place, where rumors of ghosts eliminated from the McCarty Cup are said to reside.
Upon arriving, Timid Boy is coerced into asking an assistant manager if there used to be a McCarthy team in the establishment. The manager says, “Oh yeah, they used to hang out in that side room.” Then Valley Girl pops off, “Yo bro, why’d they hang out in there, it looks like a garage.” The manager sighs and says, “It’s an enclosed patio. And I guess they were embarrassed to carry on like they did in front of the regular customers.”
Worn-up Round
1. A triumvirate is a group or association usually made up of: THREE POWERFUL PEOPLE. 2. Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a male choral group from: SOUTH AFRICA. 3. The rock lobster is also known as the ___ Lobster: SPINY. 4. “Free gifts,” “revert back” and “foreign imports” are common: REDUNDANCIES. {This question has been brought to you by Buzztime’s Department of Redundancy Department.} 5. In the medical acronym “BMI” the ‘M’ stands for: MASS. 6. First published in 1936, ‘Jamaica Inn’ is a historical novel by: DAPHNE DUMAURIER. 7. Commercial fishing, naval, and recreational are three forms of this type of boat: TRAWLER. 8. ___ Ham is a prosciutto, or dry-cured, uncooked ham: PARMA. 9. The world’s top tennis stars played at the PNB Paribas open in ___ earlier this year: CALIFORNIA. 10. Who wrote the famous nonsense poem ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’? EDWARD LEAR.
A perfect round…well almost, but isn’t the PNB pair-a-bras a female doubles team? And how could that be played in California, where no women wear a bra?
Scene 2) Just after sunset the cruising kids enter the side room. It looks normal enough, but it has an air of despair permeating it. Not knowing just what to do, the decide to start a séance. Not long after, Spirit Girl is spooked by an eerie groan. She says she could swear she heard it say BLZBUB.
Valley Girl asks “Whoa sista. Can you really hear the spirits, for reals?” Then asks her if she’s some kind of medium or something. Spirit Girl says although she hates to admit it, she can feel and sometimes hear spirits. She goes on to explain that there were once strong spirits in this room. Just then a strong wind buffets the windows, and the whole sky becomes nearly black with ominous clouds. “Aw, it’s just the NM spring windstorms,” says Boss Man as he laughs it off.
Ground-down Round
1. In urban slang, the ‘rubber ear’ is roughly equivalent to this familiar expression: COLD SHOULDER. 2. In medicine, an ‘AFT’ is commonly called: AMNIOCENTESIS. 3. ‘The ___ Orchard’ is an acclaimed play by Anton Chekov: CHERRY. 4. Vernon and Irene ___ were the premier ballroom dance team of the early 20th Century. CASTLE. 5. How many character alignments do you have in Dungeons and Dragons? NINE. 6. In the world of food, spelt is a type of: WHEAT. 7. Klezmer music is the music of: EASTERN EUROPEAN JEWS. 8. Eiders are large: SEADUCKS. 9. Ancient Egypt’s Hathor, Canaan’s Molock, and the Celtic Cernunnos are all ___ gods: HORNED. {Hey you Buzzhead bastards, what about Hebrew’s Ba’al Zevuv, modern day’s Beelzebub?} 10. ___ results from the lack of melanin: ALBINISM. 11. Born in Wales in 1862, Bartholomew Roberts was the most successful ___ of his day: PIRATE. 12. Kodo is a Japanese ___ known worldwide for its excellence: DRUM ENSEMBLE.
There were communications difficulties on GDs 1, 2 and 9. Otherwise most of these were pre-calls. However, I have it on good authority the BLZBUB, Lord of the Barflies, will demand compensation for his exclusion.
Scene 3) In the back of the room several TVs suddenly spring to life. They are showing the logo of something called Buzztime, and as questions begin to appear on the screens, there is a dull murmur of disembodied voices in the room. Spirit Girl, the girl medium, says she hears someone who calls himself DUFF yelling “question up!”
Just then an apparition wearing a jersey with the number ‘82’ enters the room, and Timid Boy gives a startled yelp.
Scatology Round
S1. THE WILD WEST v Presidential museums
This Dodge City saloon, notorious for its gunfights, burned down in 1885:
LONG BRANCH {Nobody knew this for sure, but most all of us grew up watching “Gunsmoke” on TV, so it seemed reasonable.}
S2. Greek mythology v ENGLISH KINGS
In what year did King George III ascend to the British throne? 1760. {DUFF, our Time Lord, landed our TARDIS on this one.}
S3. Insects v TV’S MAD MEN
What character does actress Elizabeth Moss play on ‘Mad Men’?
PEGGY OLSON. {There was a brief commercial interlude before the June Taylor dancers spelled this one out for the points.}
S4. ENGLISH KINGS v the wild west
All these statements about English King William I are true except: FORMER KING OF DENMARK. {DUFF and CHILL ruled on this query.}
S5. TV’s mad men v GREEK MYTHOLOGY
Pasiphae, Queen of Crete, is the mother of Ariadne, Phaedra, and this monster: MINOTAUR. {DUFF knew the Minotaur was a cretin. You know what I mean.}
S6. PRESIDENTIAL MUSEUMS v insects
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum is in ___, California. SIMI VALLEY. {Cali native LOONEY pre-called this one.}
That perfect round more than makes up for the first two.
Scene 4) The apparition has unnaturally golden hair and approaches the group. “Hi, my name is Louie, and I’ll be your server tonight,” he says. There’s a relieved twitter from the kids. Then Boss Man snidely asks, Dude, what’s up with the hair. Valley Girl punches the Boss in the arm and says, “Hey, chill B.M., Louie is stylin’, and I like it. For reals.” This is followed by Timid Boy asking Louie if he knows anything about the rumors of the dead McCarthy team.
Frightening Round
1. In March 2015, the U.S. Ambassador to ___ was the victim of a knife attack: SOUTH KOREA. {HEBEGB!} 2. ‘Bringing It All Back Home’ is a seminal 1965: BOB DYLAN ALBUM. {MEERA!} 3. Jose Eduardo Dos Santos is the controversial President of: ANGOLA. {BLZBUB, you schmuck } 4. The classic short con called ‘Find the Lady’ is commonly called: THREE-CARD MONTE. {After correctly answering this question CHILL volunteered to demonstrate the FULL MONTE.} 5. The Xingu River is a tributary of the ___ River. AMAZON. {BLZBUB!} 6. The hero of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Tinder Box’ is a: POOR SOLDIER. {Poor choice } 7. The idiograms called emojis were invented by the: JAPANESE.
Well the team had brain farts on F 2 and 6, but did well enough to keep our hopes of a huge score alive.
Scene 5) Louie informs them that they used to frequent the place, but they were wiped out by a street gang that goes by the name of the Danny K’s. “Wow, was it horrible?” asks the girl medium, “because I can feel a chill in the room when you talked about them.” Sure enough, the Valley Girls shivers and says, “C’mon bro, that jus’ got real chill in here.” Boss Man chuckles and confidently says, “Aw, that’s just the air conditioner vent kicking on.” He looks less than confident however.
“Oh’” says Louie, “CHILL used to be one of their leaders, but he died trying to protect the team. In the end they all died.”
Py-Ram-It Round
P1. Wars fought between the U.S. Army and various ___ nations lasted from 1849 to 1886. APACHE. {CHILL’s arrow went straight to the heart of this one.}
P2. Which structure’s address is 600 Montgomery Street? TRANSAMERICA PYRAMID. {LOONEY pre-called this self-referential question about a pyramid in the Pyramid Round.}
P3. The choroid is the vascular layer of the human: EYE. {Sadly we couldn’t see our way clear to putting everyone on this answer.}
P4. It began as a delivery business in 1850 in Buffalo, New York: AMERICAN EXPRESS. {MINRVA made the earliest call on this one, seconded by BLZBUB and LOONEY.}
P5. Francis Blair, Amos Kendall and Roger Taney were all members of the:
KITCHEN CABINET. {CHILL called it and then speculated on how they all fit in there.}
This round finished with six boxes on 5 of 5 and all the rest on 4 of 5 correct. A clean final round would lock in a big score.
Scene 6) Just as Louie talks about CHILL, the whole group can hear an agonized cry that sounds like “Five Way!” followed by exclamations of disgust. The teens look up to see the TV screen displaying something called “Final Strategy.” As the question gives way to five possible answers, the murmurs increase in intensity. The five answers slowly drop away until just one is left on the screen…Loudly enough for all the kids in the room to hear, the DUFF voice yells, “FUCK.” The murmurs give way to the death groans of a McCarthy team dying in the night.
“Let’s get out of here,” says Timid Boy. “This place gives me the creeps.”
FINAL TRAGEDY
Tonight’s topic: LITERARY CHARACTERS {“so this is going to be a question about Truman Capote,” says BLZBUB}
Which literary character commits suicide?
1. Newland Archer
2. Henry Fleming
3. Jake Barnes
4. Hedda Gabler
5. Molly Bloom
The order of the eliminations was 3, 1, 5, and 2, leaving #4, HEDDA GABLER as the correct answer. Yeesh, the tension was palpable. Clearly no one had a clue on this one.
The final individual scores of the top six boxes totally scrambled the rankings going into the final round. These scores were 52557, 52004, 49222, 49039, 48693 and 48493. The team broke the 50K barrier by the slimmest of margins. The final team score was 50,001 points. This would be good enough for FOURTH place in the Mt/Pac zone of play. System-wide the team came in at FOURTEENTH place.
Kudos to the Mt/Pac top team, DANNY K’s, as they also finished First system-wide. The Ragged Rascals at the BWW in Albuquerque can honestly say we were eliminated from the McCarthy Cup (two weeks ago) by the very best.
_________________
}}}--( (x) (x) )--->
Oh my gawd, they killed
Ken Z.
You bastards!
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