Chuck the Writer Ain't Thrilled with Sunset Rec's Saturday Night Trivia

The headline says it all. I won two pitchers of beer, an order of wings, and I'm not going back to that trivia competition ever again.

First off, let me say that I do enjoy playing competitive trivia. And when I heard that Sunset Recreation, an Albany-based bowling center, was hosting Saturday night trivia at its adjacent bar and grille, I figured I'd give it a shot.

Trivia started at 9pm, and was scheduled to go until 1 in the morning. Yikes.

Apparently the rules changed with each round, and I don't think the host was able to keep up with the rule changes that he himself was putting together. At one point he offered a question as to "how many different versions of Absolut are there?" (I guess there's 19 of them), and he gave points for each correct one mentioned. So that meant someone on another team was able to nab 8 or 9 points right then and there.

During one round, I tied with one team for best score, and the host brought a rep from both teams (my one-man Street Academy team meant that I went up there myself). Suddenly I noticed that the other team didn't feel like sending a representative, so someone from ANOTHER team stepped up to play. And they won, beating me 3-1 in "name that tune." So I lost to a team who couldn't even be bothered to send someone up from THEIR OWN SQUAD to play? STRIKE ONE

At around 10:00 p.m., the host asked people to write on the back of their answer sheets three TV shows and three movies that he would consider for trivia next week. Okay, what the heck, I wrote down three TV shows (including Friday Night Lights and Deadliest Catch), and three movies (including Ghostbusters and Animal House). Surprisingly, Ghostbusters and Animal House became categories THAT VERY NIGHT - in fact, I think the host was writing the questions in the middle of the trivia competition!

Which of course wouldn't surprise me, in that a round would take ten minutes to complete, then there would be 10 minutes of music - the scores would be read - then there would be ten more minutes of music before the next question was announced. I gotta wait 20 minutes between rounds? STRIKE TWO

In the end, however, I had an 8-point lead and looked like I could cruise to the finals. I also had coupons for two pitchers of beer, a dozen wings, and $100 off the host's DJ or karaoke services. Then all of a sudden the host changes the rules around - now, questions that had incorrect answers cost teams points. And he took off points for spelling! And in the end, my 8-point lead dropped to a half-point deficit - just in time for the house team to win the game.

STRIKE THREE - I'm out of there. Not even worth my time.