Trivia NYC/DSO Media » Podcast

TriviaNYC Podcast #43: From The Surface Of The Sun Edition

Tony — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:58:25 +0000

This week marks the beginning of our Special 2010 Listener Drive, where I ask you, the awesome trivia geek who finds something in this worth listening to, to tell a friend about it. If you get someone new to listen to this who didn’t before, and you let me know about it(Tony Hightower At Gmail Dot Com), then when this podcast reaches 500 listeners (we’re at about 300 now), I’ll give you and the new kid each a great prize pack, full of prizes too swanky to give away at the regular quiz nights.

It’s getting to the point where I’m really starting to think TriviaNYC is on to something here, and it’s time we really turned this into something that can prove to everyone out there that trivia nights don’t have to suck, don’t have to be all about the ego of the host, and don’t have to be restricted to one kind of super-injokey bullshit. I really try to open our nights up as much as possible. I hope that shows. If it doesn’t, or if there’s something that might stop you from recommending us to someone, let me know. We’ll see what we can do.

Like the airlines say, we appreciate that you have many options in your trivia evenings. We’re glad you choose to fly with us.

This week, there’s an extra long list of great team names from the last two weeks. I don’t read every team name, but there are a lot of good ones these days, and they all deserve a little bit of dap.

Enjoy the podcast.

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(We’re on the twitters and the emails.)

Our Tuesday Trivia at Slainte and our Wednesday Trivia at Dempsey’s are both on in full effect, as always. Come out, see us in person, win something!

Have a great week.

Trivia NYC Podcast #42: Golden Balls Of Might Edition

Tony — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:59:22 +0000

I don’t know what the hell happened, but last week’s podcast didn’t upload properly. I didn’t realize that was what had happened until later in the week, and since I’m a lazy bastard, I figured I’d just take the extra weekend to prepare for a bunch of other stuff going on this summer and leave it at that.

We’ll be back next week with two weeks’ worth of best team names, and onward we go into the gorgeous heat. Stay cool, trivianauts.

(Note: The A/C at Dempsey’s was promptly fixed, and everything is fresh and sweet again.)

Enjoy the podcast.

Subscribe - RSS Feed | iTunes

(We’re on the twitters and the emails.)

Our Tuesday Trivia at Slainte and our Wednesday Trivia at Dempsey’s are both on in full effect, as always. Come out, see us in person, win something!

Have a great week.

Trivia NYC Podcast #41: You Never Sausage A Shamockeravesty! Edition

Tony — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 06:28:02 +0000

In which I go off a little on the way l’affaire Kobayashi was handled, and how contract disputes have become a part of every sport eventually, whether it’s company beer-league softball, NFL Football, whatever it is the kids on The Hills are doing, anywhere. That doesn’t make incidents like this any sadder, but to see the tut-tutting and ostracism of the greatest eater any one of us will ever know (Joey Chestnut could win ten Nathan’s Hot Dog Contests in a row and he still wouldn’t be fit to carry the Tsunami’s tennis bag) makes me weep a little bit for the innocence of a sweet and simple sport lost in such a needless and brutal fashion.

Kobi, I got your back on this one, even though life moves on. They never stop bringing the dogs, so someone has to let them out. And that person is me.

Enjoy the podcast.

Subscribe - RSS Feed | iTunes

(We’re on the twitters and the emails.)

Our Tuesday Trivia at Slainte and our Wednesday Trivia at Dempsey’s are both on in full effect, as always. Come out, see us in person, win something!

Have a great week.

TriviaNYC Podcast #40: The Burrito Fart Of Defeat Edition

Tony — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:30:32 +0000

Well, it turns out, to quote someone famous only in the sporting realm, they were who we thought they were. The United States Men’s National Soccer Team, ranked 14th in the world going into the world cup, made it to the round of 16 before losing to the Ghanaians. It happens, and it may be disappointing, but statistically, they did not disappoint. And hey, they did do better than the French, the Italians and the North Koreans. So that’s good.

So we were who they thought they were. Things are often what they seem. Black is the new black, 40 is the new 40, Glenn Beck is a raving junkie who doesn’t believe a word coming out of his own mouth, and more mountains are moved by spite than by glaciers. I’m kind of okay with that. Everything is where it belongs again. Go Mets.

Enjoy the podcast.

Subscribe - RSS Feed | iTunes

(We’re on the twitters and the emails.)

Our Tuesday Trivia at Slainte and our Wednesday Trivia at Dempsey’s are both on in full effect, as always. Come out, see us in person, win something!

One other note from the podcast: Pud Galvin, the first pitcher to win 300 games, as well as the first to be caught using performance enhancing drugs, got his nickname from the fact that he would reduce the batters he faced to pudding. Despite that, his nick is pronounced to rhyme with “mud,” not “good.” But still.

Have a great week.

TriviaNYC Podcast #39: Leprechauns With Vuvuzelas Edition

Tony — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:07:43 +0000

In which we dwell slightly on the musical talents of one Shaquille Diesel O’Neal, namecheck Mythbusters, Big Daddy Don Garlits and the dissident Andrei Sakharov, and I lose the ability to talk about anything but skorts for a moment, which I’ll totally pretend was intentional on my part.

The Queen song that ends the podcast, “‘39,” was one of the very first songs I ever learned to play on the guitar. It’s pretty much straight up Em-G-Am-C-D, which is a great exercise if you’ve been playing for about a week and a half. Also, as much as I think Freddie Mercury is pound for pound the best rock frontman of his era, the fact that Brian May assembled this one himself, super-high harmonies and all, with almost no help from Mercury, is kinda neat. (The lyrics are fairly standard seventies nerdwank, but whaddyawant, Brian May was doing what he did best.)

Enjoy the podcast.

Subscribe - RSS Feed | iTunes

(We’re on the twitters and the emails.)

Our Tuesday Trivia at Slainte and our Wednesday Trivia at Dempsey’s are both on in full effect, as always. Come out, see us in person, win something!

Have a great week.

TriviaNYC Podcast #38: Crazed, Orgiastic Banshees Edition

Tony — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 03:06:04 +0000

Did you see Dempsey’s Pub all over the teevee this week? You’d think they were showing all the World Cup Games there over the next few weeks or something.

It turns out that we Yanks care about what the rest of the world thinks after all. The London Mirror’s headline in their World Cup Preview (”England, Algeria, Slovenia, Yanks = EASY”) doesn’t look so hot now, does it? I mean, sure, the English are still the better team, but it turns out the Americans officially don’t suck at this game. And people all over this country are noticing it, so hell yeah for that.

I know there are other things going on in the world, and the environmental and social disasters that were going all slow-burn on this country and the world last week are still blowing up this week, but here’s how I see it: if you’re going to have bread & circuses, then at least have good bread and circuses that are genuinely entertaining. And that England/USA soccer game on Saturday was genuinely entertaining. Any meathead moron Americans who didn’t thnk so should go back to their golf telecasts and college (US) football kabuki foregone conclusions and give up the lie that their sports matter to anyone else, even other people into sports. Everyone’s welcome on this bus except haters, who can take one big step back.

Enjoy the podcast.

Subscribe - RSS Feed | iTunes

(We’re on the twitters and the emails.)

Our Tuesday Trivia at Slainte and our Wednesday Trivia at Dempsey’s are both on in full effect, as always. Come out, see us in person, win something!

Have a great week.

TriviaNYC Podcast #37: World Quiz Championships Edition

Tony — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:29:22 +0000

TriviaNYC Podcast #37: World Quiz Championships Edition

Right off the top, congratulations to everyone who participated in the World Quiz Championships, both here in New York and in the 28 countries around the world It was as difficult as expected, but we represented as a city, and as a continent against those Euro-polyglot-polymath know-it-alls. One of these days, and it might be sooner than you think, we’re gonna catch you. Just like soccer. We’re coming.

Full results are in this table, and the world results (as well as the details of what I’m on about, if you didn’t follow the goings on last week) are at the WQC Website.

Anyway, it’s good to be off hiatus. I love summer in this city, oppressive heat and all. A little quiz keeps blood flowing to the brain, preventing you from melting into a total puddle. Do it for yourself, your country and the gods you pray to (if applicable)

Enjoy the podcast.

Subscribe - RSS Feed | iTunes

(We’re on the twitters and the emails.)

Our Tuesday Trivia at Slainte and our Wednesday Trivia at Dempsey’s are both on in full effect, as always. Come out, see us in person, win something!

I don’t think I mentioned it, but the final song is an entirely appropriate one from Bongwater’s album “The Power Of Pussy.” This was what Ann Magnuson (yes, that Ann Magnuson) was doing when she wasn’t goofing off in sitcoms or getting bit roles as the mouthy best friend or the evil bitch-queen in romantic comedies. I think she’s friggin’ awesome.

Have a great week.

TriviaNYC Podcast #36A - A Little Wind Could Blow Me Away Edition

Tony — Mon, 24 May 2010 10:25:46 +0000

In which I issue a shortened podcast instead of a proper one, due to the fact that I’d like to try a couple of new things, and rearranging my schedule to accommodate these ideas seemed like the best thing. I’m doing this now because I am in fact going away this weekend, and even though doing remote podcasts isn’t something we’re entirely alien to, I do wish to keep this thing (as the kids say when they think the adults are around and want to include said oldsters in their conversation and yet make everyone feel “hip” and “with it” despite the word sounding delightfully postmodern to the boomer’s ear, approximately fifteen inches of eye-rollingly ironic to the Xer, and to abovesaid kids, so overdone as to be virtually meaningless as anything other than a placatory adjective) fresh.

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. Until then, enjoy this.

Subscribe - RSS Feed | iTunes

(We’re on the twitters and the emails.)

Despite our abbreviated podcastery, the Tuesday Trivia at Slainte and the Wednesday Trivia at Dempsey’s are both on in full effect, as always. Come out, see us in person, win something!

Also worthy of note:

The World Quiz Championships are on Saturday, June 5 at 2:00 pm, at Dempsey’s Pub. Come on out! New Yorkers tend to do pretty well, and the prizes include a trip to England to participate in a worldwide game show with serious prizes. RSVP to me (tonyhightower at gmail) if you’re interested.

Have a great week. I’ll see you in the middle of it.

TriviaNYC Podcast #36: One Shao-Lin Does Not Fit All Edition

Tony — Mon, 17 May 2010 11:18:29 +0000

In which I go on a bit longer than I initially expected about the apocalypse, and a bit less than I’d have preferred about the origins of the Wu Tang Clan. Eh, it happens.

So many square-themed things that didn’t quite fit in the podcast this week, which might have to wait until Podcast, um, 49. That’s one of the things about trivia; there’s always more of it.

But that said, I have a request if you’re on Foursquare, (like I am). There is no reason for me to be the Mayor of Dempsey’s Pub. Please, if you’re about, take that mayorship from me. I’m serious. I’m not going to stop checking in, but I’m certainly catchable. (Drop my name if you go in on a day other than Wednesday.) I actually have a special prize, courtesy of the Travel Channel, for whoever takes my Mayorship away.

Enjoy the podcast.

Subscribe - RSS Feed | iTunes

(We’re on the twitters and the emails.)

Our Tuesday Trivia at Slainte and our Wednesday Trivia at Dempsey’s are both on in full effect, as always. Come out, see us in person, win something!

Also to check out from this week’s Podcast:

According to the BBC, Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia is the fear of the number 666. (That list will spawn a future trivia round, I can pretty much guarantee.)

And seriously, The RZA’s book The Tao Of Wu is a great summertime read. Even if you’re not down with the RZA, GZA and ODB, it’s still a quick, cool, and full of thoughts that could easily be described as deep.

Have a great week. Stay cool, and if you graduated this week, congratulations. Seriously.

Trivia NYC Podcast #35: Cinco de Moustache Edition

Tony — Tue, 11 May 2010 03:00:59 +0000

In which I make a vaguely off-color joke about an actress from the early days of talkies, dare Fred Armisen to change my mind about his night gig, bring back the sexiest commercial I’ve ever aired, and throw down the gauntlet to myself, you and myself again about making this night even better than it already is.

Shyeah, as if that’s even possible. We rock. All day and all night. Sweet Suzy.

Here’s 15 more minutes of proof of just that. Enjoy.

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(Questions? Feedback? We’re on twitter and email.)

Our Tuesday Trivia at Slainte and our Wednesday Trivia at Dempsey’s are both on in full effect, as always. Come out, see us in person, win something!