Geeks Who Drink
Cocktails and competition
Article Tools
More Recap
The nationwide Geeks Who Drink franchise has hit upon a killer concept: Why stay at home, drink your own store-bought beer, and play trivia games with your friends when you can go to a bar, pay twice as much to drink, and play trivia games with complete strangers? All kidding aside, a few rounds of Scene It? in your apartment spiked with Miller High Life is only fun for so long, which is why most “game nights” your friends have tried hosting end up shuttering after only a few awkward weeks. Better to let Geeks Who Drink do all of the hard work for you: They pick the place and write the questions, and all you have to do is show up (hopefully with a few friends in tow) and drink to your liver’s discontent. Oh, and spill out the minutiae cluttering your brain, piece by piece.
The Austin chapter of Geeks Who Drink meets at Opal Divine’s on Sundays at 7 p.m. and on Mondays at Fado at 8 p.m., which helps to fill in those otherwise dead days of the week you would otherwise waste on reading a book or spending time with your family. Participants compete in teams of up to six people, preferably under a funny and slightly immature name. A recent match featured 10 teams slogging it out under names like “Nerdcore,” “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Balls,” and “Stabby,” under the watchful eye of emcees Alison and Becca. Since it was their first time hosting, they seemed a little overwhelmed—especially when the breeze (or as the tad hyperbolic Alison termed it, “hurricane force winds”) began picking up.
Gameplay was divided into six rounds, wherein each group was given a few minutes to confer over questions ranging from popular “Girl’s Toys” to “Famous Firsts.” As a bonus, each teams is allowed to allocate one round as a “joker,” which means they’re entitled to twice the points—a potential game-winner if played right. Appropriately enough for Austin, three of the six rounds were devoted to music: One involved odd covers of TV show themes, usually in a foreign language; another was dedicated to “Bad Love Songs.” The most head-scratching round had to have been “Hipsters Ruin Everything,” which asked contestants to identify somewhat ironic covers of songs by the likes of Salt-N-Pepa and Color Me Badd. Alison explained she meant no harm: “I love hipsters! I live in East Austin, so technically I am one.” (So does that also go for all the Joose drinkers and prostitutes hoofing it on Pleasant Valley?) Every other round was followed by a bonus question that entitled the team with a correct answer to a free pint. That’s one free pint. So much for teamwork!
After a hardscrabble last round ended with two teams neck and neck for first, Alison and Becca delivered the tiebreaker final question: What was the name of the cat owned by Ralph on The Simpsons? (Correct answer: “Mittens,” though you could be forgiven for thinking it was “Cat.”) Though every team gave it their all, only two could walk away with first and second prize: $20 and $10 Opal Divine’s gift certificates—which were unfortunately not transferable to that night’s bar tab. Kind of a backhanded gift, when you think about all the pints that had been downed in the process—but then at Geeks Who Drink, it’s not whether you win or lose. It’s how you play the game. (And how much you drink, of course. It's right there in the name.)
Facebook
