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.

A Bitter Bunny.

I am bitter at life right now. There is simply not enough time for this, that, and the other. School's started and the last ten days of my vacation were spent in a whirlwind attempt to prepare curriculum for the new class I'm teaching in addition to all the other back to school stuff I do each year. I had so many things I wanted to do this summer and now I feel like those opportunities must be set aside for another year and THAT makes me bitter.

Since school started I've not been able to exercise like I was doing in the weeks before and that is in part just because I'm busier and I don't have the extra time, not just for the exercise but to cram in the second shower of the day before doing the next thing on the list. And now this week I've had another workout obstacle--I've come home from work tired... I mean, DEAD TIRED. Yesterday I had a couple things planned after work and that ended about 7 pm, without any intention of doing so I managed to turn "resting my head for a second" into a two hour "nap" and I would have probably slept until morning had I not been awakened by a phone call. In the end I figure I slept about 11 hours last night and, despite the extra sleep, I still overslept my alarm by an hour.

The thing I am MOST bitter about is the fact that the Democratic National Convention has been on and I've not managed to see one bit of the coverage. I hear about it the next day at work, but I've not had the energy or the time to turn on the TV and find out what's going on. I've glanced at the newspapers each day at work, but even those I've not had time to read because once the day starts, there's no stopping. Part of the problem is that in the midst of the chaos of my school world I actually FORGOT about it and when I could haVE been at least DVRing it to watch later, I just spaced it out entirely. It's like I have some kind of exhausted survival mode going that requires me to simply do the next thing on the list and forget everything else that isn't essential. When I hear folks talk about the DNC I get wistful and Sara at Midwestern Position said she's addicted to it, and I know that was my intention... to eat up all the speeches and the coverage I could. I missed the entire Olympics, though that is something I am less enthusiastic about. I know I could watch some of that coverage on the Internet or on You Tube and I will, I'm just bitter that I haven't been able to relax and enjoy it.

I know that this sounds all "the glass is half empty" and that's a bit how I feel right now, but it's only because there are too many things pressing me to be done all at once --some of them fun and frivolous, but things that I've committed to nonetheless... Ashlee Hewitt concert on Tuesday, drinks with friends, and last but not least, preparation for trivia hosting --which has been a joyless effort since Barry, the former trivia host is bent on sapping every bit of pleasure I can get from that experience... I'm sure when things start to settle into a routine I'll be able to take on as much as I have been with greater ease and won't feel the mounting pressure I feel today. But that won't bring the Democratic National Convention back and so I guess I just have to just suck it up and watch the online version of things and get over it.

Mmmmmm.... music.

After a busy day of babysitting and later book club and then trivia, I stopped at my mom's to survey the garage sale situation for tomorrow. I still had two boxes of stuff to price and bring back to her place but she mentioned that my uncle brought over several boxes of record albums. I was intrigued. With hosting trivia often on my mind I'm always on the look out for new music... even if it's really OLD new-to-me music. I discovered that if I wanted any music by The Four Freshmen, he certainly had a lot of that. In fact, I wish they had a record player set up there in the garage because I might have given them a listen. I was shocked at all the musical goodness waiting for me in the boxes. And the album covers were delightful. It was almost worth the price JUST for the cool ass covers (I didn't go crazy for those like I wanted to, but I did buy a few albums for my collection). At 25 cents an album, who could resist a few or twenty and so I loaded up on a few I knew I wanted like Bruce Springsteen Born to Run and Carole King Tapestry. One of my all time favorite albums is Rumors by Fleetwood Mac and I only own it on CD so I had to buy it. And so it goes. I walked away with a stack of known and unknowns that were calling my name.


Then back home, I immediately threw my "new" Olivia Newton John on the record player while I marked my goods. It was decent, but not going to replace my favorite LP by her--Let Me Be There. Then I got all giddy for Grace with Jefferson Starship. I do not own ANY of this incarnation of the band. I have Jefferson Airplane and Starship but nothing in between and I love them in any decade really. I'm going to be listening to records all week.

Is it crazy to go back for more tomorrow? I really am loving on these.

She Likes to Play Games

For ages now, I've been lobbying for some good old fashioned game nights. Finally I got my wish. And Ang will understand this joy in this... it wasn't something I had to plan and host. I was invited. Yay. Because El Roco trivia just isn't enough for a Saturday night Chris and Lynee invited some friends over for games. We played the "All American Version" of Trivial Pursuit. It seemed easier or more interesting than the 20th Century Version I have here at home.
I brought over the classic word game, Password--a past Christmas day family favorite. This one was a bit tougher but the ladies were victorious. We'd been discussing the game earlier in the evening because of a Betty White reference and I recalled watching her as a celebrity partner on the new game show "Million Dollar Password" or whatever it's called. It was intense and fun to watch. I would want Betty White for a partner any day. Though she always looks a bit freaked out.

Finally we played another trivia game called "The 80s Game" and I discovered how much I do NOT know about the 80s. Perhaps I was just too young and too engrossed in my Anne of Green Gables books to really absorb it all. Who knows?

At any rate, I hope we repeat this event soon and next time Pam brings over Balderdash. A game I truly love. Or maybe we'll play Tripoly. Or just plain old pinochle. I could really see this turning into something.

Let it Snow!

Well, it's here. Winter, I mean. And Christmas is sure to be white. Right now I want to do a million things all at once, I want to blog... and I have blogger's block.

Here are just some of the things bouncing around in my brain:

• Shopping... I need to buy some gifts for my siblings and get them in the mail before too much more time passes.
• Pepparkakor (Finnish Gingerbread Men) ... a recipe I found in the newspaper today. It looks yummy and fun.
• The Subtle Knife... I am obsessed with reading and am not finding a lot of time to do so.
• My grain shovel ... WHERE the heck is it? I want to put it in the trunk like every other good North Dakota girl in case I need to dig myself out... there is a LOT of snow out there.
• Cards or Letters ... Once again, I must decide what to do about my Christmas letter. I agree with Rachel and with Sara and find myself torn and still undecided. Best figure that out soon.
• Audacity ... a new program I downloaded that allows me to split mp3 versions of songs so it will be easier to make round 2 trivia cds in the future.
• Correcting... not even going to think about the STACK of papers and assignments calling my name.
• Bell Ringing... later tonight I'll be joining my colleagues at the mall to ring a Salvation Army bell.
• Pictures... I want to try to capture some seasonal shots with my camera. Who has the time or the proper lighting?
• Movies... I have Sicko, Christmas in Connecticut, La Vie En Rose, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End all enticing me to veg on the couch.

SuperDuperPsychoBusy

This past week flew by like... like something really fast. That's how tired I am, I can't even think metaphorically. Sigh. Here's how I've been keeping busy:

• On Tuesday and Thursday, I helped my sister pack for her 2 months and ten days trip to Australia in addition to working with Pam on trivia questions and participating in parent/teacher conferences on Thursday.
• On Friday, I celebrated The Day of the Dead at Pam's with the DNA trivia folk.
• On Saturday, after having lunch with Tara, I hauled Ashley's luggage to the airport to weigh it. Thank goodness we did... one bag was 3 pounds over and one bag was 2 pounds under so we shifted and removed things and got it all under control. Then I finished writing two "free drink questions" for trivia and went off to host.
• On Sunday, my mom and I drove Ashley to Minneapolis because her flight to LA left at 7 am, the next morning. We enjoyed a couple yummy meals, half price books, IKEA, and Crate and Barrel and then we hugged and kissed the wee one good bye and mom and I headed home... Ahhh... just TEN hours in the car. (By the way, it was the first out of town trip for my car... it got 34 miles to the gallon. Not too bad, I don't think)
• Oh, and I'm already failing miserably at NaNoWriMo... it turns out I don't have enough time for LIFE (like sleeping and doing laundry) let alone writing.. but I've not given up yet.
  

Ladies Night

Last Saturday, Pam and I hosted trivia. I understand our questions were a little tricky. I guess they don't SEEM difficult when you KNOW the answer. Maybe people were just confused by our stunning good looks and impeccable taste in obscure music. Well, here's a tip for all you would be trivia players.... we host again in August. Brush up on your ABBA.