Trivia at the Moose

I had to go to the Moose tonight...because I missed last night. You see ....last night I had to take Billy to the special Olympics in Dubuque. The Hopper was mad and so was the Puzzler because I told them I would be there. But Billy rang up my cell phone and told me about the Olympics and how he would be real good in the luge event......Well we headed for Dubuque.....actually it isn't a bad ride with the divided highway and all and we were looking forward to the sledding and all.......well i t all took place indoors and to say Billy was disappointed would we a huge understatement. We trucked home ...mostly in silence as Billy had the headphones "glued" to his ears most of the way, whilst trying to figure out the latest Wuzzle book.

I digress....So tonight I was able to go to Randyland aka the Moose.....The Hopper didn't show because he can only do one night in a row. Actually it is mostly unknown that the Hopper is a gourmet chef. He spends his free evenings glued to the Food Network. I suspect he was home preparing a soufflé. The Puzzler, a new spousal member of Elmcrust had to do a tour of the facility.....like he didn't know how to find the restroom or bar.....he was at both of them this noon.

Bernalidio and Deb were there....so was Big Al the Vegas odds maker. Also present was Electric Brian and Tom the interior decorator.....but my camera was in the car at that time.

I am a direct descendant of Christian Metz...the founder of the Amana Community in Iowa. He was the charismatic leader who become inspired from time to time and I am a lot like him in that respect. At certain times I become inspired to do a post to my blog and when Randy took charge of the group and suggested various trivia topics and started buying rounds of drinks....I became inspired and took note with mental recording and digital photos.

Jack the pill pusher was there, as was Rich the mortgage broker. Kirk the former roofer and Lowell in search of a recliner...made the round circle. the first trivia question was , "If you could party with any celebrity, who would you like to party with?" Mortgage broker began with Chicago....the band ...not the city and soon the rules committee established that it had to be individuals. Next the question came up as to whether living or dead.......it was determined that one or two dead people could be included. It should be noted that the cell phones were humming in an effort to get the trivia answers.

Andrea, the Moose's newest and very adept barkeep, kept us well watered and we were ready for more trivia.

The new categories included, "If you were in the center seat of an airliner and had to choose your two sidekicks for a lengthy flight, who would they be?" We also had a long animated discussion relating to Andy Griffith. Where was Steve Smid when we needed him?


Here are the answers...you make up your own hypothetical. Tom Cruise, Sean Connery, Anna Nicole Smith, Charlie Gibson, Burt Reynolds, Jack Nicolson, Hugh Heffner, Hillary Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Diane Sawyer, Dominica Davis, Alisyn Camerato, Courtney Friel, Julie Banderas, Tiger Woods...........

....but no Brian Kilmeade

Billy Parody

Every once in a while a really good parody comes along on You Tube. I don't do You Tube very much, I'm much too busy to waste my time with that. But thanks to friends who email me things I see all I need to see. And besides, if I post this Your Tube parody of Billy...I don't have to come up with anything original for today's post. Sit back and relax and enjoy.

A Gazette Milestone

I didn't sleep well last night. It was sort of like Christmas eve...the anticipation of the 125th Anniversary edition of the Gazette. I tossed and turned waiting for the "paper boy" and the delivery. In the old days the bag that the paper boy wore around his frame was almost as big as he. Nowadays, the "paper boy" is no longer a boy...its a paper man or woman who drives a car or truck with a leaky muffler that gives me advance notice that the Gazette is about to be delivered....hopefully to the dedicated box that I have at my front door and not under the bushes which makes the receiving of it more like an Easter egg hunt.

The puzzler gave me a tease when he made an announcement that the Wuzzles would be in color. A rare occurrence to say the least. About as rare as finding a sprig of mint in your back yard in January.

The color Wuzzle had the word 'all' in the color red and it was upside down. Which made the riddle...whats black and white and red all over... and that has two answers. 1. the Gazette or 2. A wounded nun.

I didn't even get to the cryptoquote...because they are too hard for me to figure out. I think its some sort of military code.

Post Caucus Partum

The post caucus blues and or celebration....it just dosen't matter. Its causes people to do strange things. People are now watching television again due to the fact that the political ads are virtually gone...I say virtually as I heard a Ron Paul ad yesterday....go figure.

Another strange sighting...the Puzzler slurping copious amounts of Tequila. This is strange just for the fact that his tastebuds have been shot for years. He can't tell the difference between a onion and a apple, gin or vodka, sugar & salt...you get the idea. There he was at Randyland with this fishbowl of a Margarita in front of him.

Another strange thing....it seemed like it was New Years Eve or the end of WWII at Times Square with all the smooching going on. Maybe there was a full moon.

Billy's financial Guru, Sylvia was there with her color corodinated eyewear. Billy's hair stylist (Only for photo ops), Stephie stopped by to say "hi".

After there were no more Margaritas to be had; it was determined that some food was in order and since the door to the Diner on First is barricaded (we suspect there must be a hostage situation in progress) we zoomed over to Who's On First, where the Puzzler had reserved a private smoke free and noise free room for us. We had our own dedicated personal server, Amanda. Amanda is studying to be a barrister and has a gift of gab...actually she should be in direct sales....maybe alluminum siding or used cars.

Iowa Caucus

I went to the Republican Caucus last night whilst sending Mystery lady across the aisle to the other side. You see I can't be in two places at the same time. I asked her to take notes and I picked her brain when she got home.

I didn't realize you could have brought your kids along or I would have parked Billy in the back of the room. At least that way I could have parked in a handicap space. The parking lot was full.....you'd have thought the Buckeyes were playing football in the gymnasium. By the way they did have some youngsters practicing football in the gymnasium of our Middle school precinct. I guess thats acceptable, since it is a school first.

The GOP started the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States. I know the words well as that is how we begin our weekly meeting of the Ex Club. Somehow it just wasn't the same though....I just can't put my finger on it though. The Godless Dems...dispensed with that time waster as they had more important business at hand.

We quickly "elected" a couple of delegates to the upcoming county meeting and then got to the business of voting for certain candidates. We passed a donation box and most of the GOP's in the room took out a handful of ones and wrapped it with a C note so Benjamin Franklin was in view when you dropped your donation. (Bloggers note: The Dems did not pass the hat and they had better food... they must have a government program in place working for them!)

The chairman asked if any one had something to say about each candidate and several had no one to speak for them. McCain, Romney and Fred had plants in the audience. Amazingly there was no one to speak about the "Huckster".

Here is the unofficial count as I recorded the numbers. I say it was unofficial as this was by a show of hands and some people would lower their hands and others held up both hands....sort of the hanging chad of Iowa.

Mitt = 29
McCain = 12
Fred - 19
Huck = 8
R. Paul = 7
Rudy = 5

Did you notice that Rudy got the least votes. I'm not sure why.... one of the factors could have been that our chairman did not know how to pronounce his last name...also no one spoke for him.
After the clerk with the clipboard announced the numbers Rudy's total was 10. We now had to revote and the number 5 was deemed correct. I told my table mates it must have been a New York count. I promptly replaced my Romney sign with one of Rudy's.

Since we are in Iowa's Iowa County, you would have thought we would have been representative of the now publicized results.

This whole process would have been over by 7:30 had we not been required to offer 'planks" to the platform. This process seemed to be a little more tenuous that actually picking the potential nominee.

As it turned out, I stayed till the end...the mystery lady left while they were still eating cookies, bon bons, shrimp cocktail, caviar and kibitzing and I was still home 40 minutes earlier. Its great to be with the GOP. God Bless.