Lawrence Trivia, Hour One

The funny thing about Trivia Weekend is that, when I was in school here, I avoided it like the plague because I didn't want to be branded a nerd. Which is all relative, since you have to be a bit of a nerd to attend Lawrence in the first place. But whenever I walked past my dorm lounge and saw it strewn with phone cords duct-taped to the floor, dorm phones, clunky old desktop computers (this was in those distant halcion days of the 1990s, before wi-fi, cellphones, networked laptops, or even useful EtherNetworking. Kids from the conservatory, the computer science department, Lamba Sigma, and the Phi Taus (the nerd frat) would be sprawled across the floor and the lounge couches. I would hurry past them on my way to my own sorry excuse for a social activity, equally nerdy in its own way.

But now I'm back up in the Fox Valley, my first visit in three years, soaking up the familiarity of my old nerdy stomping grounds. I'm actually in Little Chute, a village in the paper-mill industriopolitan sprawl of which Appleton is the epicenter, in a big house owned by a wealthy man whose son has spearheaded the off-campus Trivia Weekend champion team for several years now. We have a full kitchen from which we can special-order meals, and about eleventy-thousand networked computers, most of them Apple laptops, I'm proud to report.

I don't really know any of these people, except Ransom and Angie, who rode up separately, and Aden. I don't know if I'm actually going to be of any service to the team, but I welcome the opportunity to get out of Chicago and surf the web in a room of people surfing the web. And I did just answer a Simpsons-related question off the top of my head.

Tomorrow I also plan on going to the campus and walking around a bit to see how the place has changed since I graduated. I will probably have a beer or six at the Viking Room and generally be Johnny Nostalgia all weekend long. Just a warning.

Hour Six

You know what this reminds me of? Church youth group lock-ins. Except without the awkward flirtation, and with the potentiality for getting drunk. Although the trivia center is alcohol-free, which is probably a good thing, since the goal is to stay away. Aden and I bought Ephedra once we crossed the border into Wisconsin, since Illinois jumped on that whole "follow federal dictates and ban meth ingredients" bandwagon. So we've got that, and coffee, and some Diet Dr Pepper.

The Alcohol Hour just ended, where every question had to do with alcohol. At first I was intimidated at the prospect of being in a house full of people who are smarter and more computer-savvy than I am, but I've gotten pretty good at keeping people entertained and coming up with fake team names. See, as long as the phone lines are open and the radio station is accepting answers, the idea is to clog up the lines to prevent other teams from submitting correct answers. So after our team answers correctly, we keep calling with fake answers and fake "jam team" names. E.G.: The answer to "Which city worldwide sees the highest number of crimes per capita, per year?" is Vatican City. My jam team name was Pope A Cap In Your Ass.

Oh. I think my heart just skipped a beat. Maybe Ephedra's being banned for a reason.

Anyway, I enjoy sitting next to Ransom and nerding at 4 a.m., and copying exciting software from Aden's hard drive, and Poisoning those few guilty pleasure mp3s I don't already have, and leaving inside jokes on the answering machines of faraway people.

I miss you.

Hour Fourteen

I just contributed my first correct answer (i.e., I came up with it before anyone else on the team did). Q: Who was the World Mustache & Beard Champion of 2003? A: Karl Heinz-Hille of Berlin, Germany. And what a beard.

I've had about three hours of semi-comfortable sleep on an antique sofa with no blanket or pillows. Let me have this.

Up there, it's their time! But down here, right now, it's our time!

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