Like Sands Through the Hourglass

So, is the time I spent on trivia.

Okay, I just now--at 1:54 am on Friday night--finished my prep for hosting trivia tomorrow. What is crazy is that I've been working on it more or less constantly since 8 pm. Yesterday I worked for 5 hours.

Prior to those 11 hours of trivia labor, I'd created the 16Q for my round one and selected all the songs for my round two and planned out three of my music free drinks and wrote one.. I didn't log the hours it took to do that... I am guessing that took another 11 hours spread out over the past couple weeks.

No, last night all I did was do my create my 18 music clips for round two and write my round three specialty round. Today I simply clipped my four music free drinks after extensive time spent trying to decide who to use for my 4th musical artist. I also worked on writing three free drink questions. Then I created a playlist and burned the disc (on the first try, this time, Pam). That's it. THAT took me 11 hours....

Assuming I spent even close to that much time writing the other two rounds and doing my one other written free drink and planning three music free drink questions... then approx. 22 hours of labor for one 2.5 hour night of hosting trivia? Really? Is it worth it? I am starting to wonder.

Now watch... all that work... and there's bound to be someone who will complain that my rounds were too hard. And then my free drinks will be too easy and all the labor that was poured into picking bands and selecting songs and ordering them to be "extra tricky" will be for naught when some spermologist gets the answer on the first three notes of the first song.

Okay... enough complaining. I AM actually relieved to be done.

I'll keep you informed of what actually happens tomorrow night. (Keep your fingers crossed.) I think I'll wear my lucky hat.

****************UPDATE******************

So, I survived. And people were kind. Maybe the desperate look on my face as people kept guessing my free drinks correctly on the first try was a clue that I needed praise. Or maybe people genuinely liked the rounds. At this point, I don't care! My rounds were not too hard, I guess... a few stumpers but there should be those, I think. People seemed to like the music clips I did for round two and my free drinks... well, with a few of those talented music guessers, I just didn't have a chance.

The way free drinks work is like this: I play several song clips by one artist.. you usually start with a cover song or a song that doesn't really sound like the artist. Then you follow it by another song that doesn't really sound like them or is a fairly unfamiliar song by that artist... then you might play a slightly more familiar one or a lesser known hit OR a song that sounds like them but is still not a hit. Then you play their hit song. If you craft it right it can go through several of those song clips before someone in the crowd guesses correctly. They way one guesses is by raising his/her hand and then I call on them, they answer, and if they are correct they get a free drink card and if they are wrong they throw a quarter on the dance floor. At the end of the night the winner of the last question gets a free drink and all the quarters.

What is funny is the musical group that I thought would be guessed immediately actually did make it to the second song clip... that band was the Beach Boys. After that, each of the remaining three free drink questions were guessed on the first song and not too many measures in: Samantha Fox, Concrete Blonde and John Prine. Oh well. What saved me was my free drinks that I read clues for. I did one on a book, one on a character and two different ones on people. Those work the same way as the music questions. As I read the clues I watch for folks with a raised hand and they make a guess when they think they know the book, character, or person I am reading clues about.

Trivia hosting is a great big stressful gamble and for some reason, more than any other time, I think I earned my money.