Thursday, October 21, 2010

Trivia is hard, but funny team names are easy

Last night I went to trivia night at a local bar and realized that I don’t know about enough trivial stuff. I mean, you’d think that surfing the Internet all day and reading random blogs, news articles, and copious amounts of sports articles would prepare me to run away with any trivia night. That turns out not to be true unfortunately. What it does prepare you for is coming up with (I think) terrific team names.

My keys to coming up with a good team name are:
1.  Topical – Your team name should show that you don’t live under a rock and that you’re “in the know” with current events. Try to make sure that the events are current and not several months old. For example, do not reference Tiger Woods’ mistresses any more. That is tired and is old news now. Move on because the rest of the world has too.
2.  Humorous – Make the quiz master laugh, at least to him/herself, and if you can make the rest of the bar laugh when they hear your team’s name the better. Often times there are prizes for best team name, so even if you suck at trivia that night you can still win something. Plus, being funny is way cooler than being smart. Who wants to hang out with Steven Hawking when you could be hanging out with Louis CK? No one.
3.  Self Deprecating (if possible it can also be self defecating too) – This ties in the other two keys to make it a triumvirate of awesomeness. Often the best humorists poke fun at themselves and point out their own flaws so others may laugh with/at them. This serves as a good defense mechanism in case you do end up sucking at trivia, because you can always say “I knew that we sucked, so we put it right in our team’s name”.

Here are some team names that we came up with last night: These trivia questions are too damn hard party; Our chances of winning are smaller than Brett Favre’s penis; Like Christine O’Donnell, I’m not sure what’s in the bill of rights either; Reigning three time Trivia Champion at the Gathering of the Juggalos; and I hope none of the questions are “how do magnets work?”. All topical (the Insane Clown Posse ones are a little old, but those guys are just so funny that I’ll let them slide), all self deprecating, and all slightly humorous.

Slacking off at work and reading blogs (including this one) can help you with your trivial knowledge and take you to the top of the standings at the end of the night. But, there’s always that one category that you’re going to suck at (who cares knows if raavi* is a type of cheese or a font? Not me, that’s who), so make sure you’re prepared to dominate the only part of trivia night that actually matters by having the best team name.



*Raavi is a font.

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