Wings by the Pound and Trivia!

So I'm back on the pipeline this week in Baxter, MN, working and also continuing the northern Minnesota dinner tour. Deric (partner in pipeline crime) and I went to this place called Grizzly's Bar and Grille on Monday night. They had a beer glass special where you pay 3.75 and get a 16 oz beer along with a Grizzly's Bar and Grille beer glass! Then each additional drink you get is 1.75. This is what it's like to drink in Baxter, MN. Cheap! Anyways while we were sitting there we were looking at the weekly specials. Tuesday was buy one burger, get one free (seems to be a theme here - The Uptown restaurant in Wadena also has this deal. I mean we're talking half pound burger and fries here, a whole plate not just a little burger. The Uptown also has all you can eat ribs on Tuesdays which, I might add, is amazing...they also taste good.) Anyways Wednesday night was the wing special. You get 2 pounds of wings and 60 oz of beer for 10.99. Only in northern MN. When a deal like this comes up, you take it. So tonight we went back to Grizzly's and ordered. Our waitress was a little confused at first, assuming that we'd split 2 lbs of wings. No, no....each. And the pitchers of beer? Each...but we shared as to not have a pitcher at the table for both of us. Now let me tell you, 2 pounds of meat is a lot. I probably had 24 wings. But these are not normal wings, no. These are probably twice the size of a regular "let's go out for wings" wing. Huge. I almost prefer them because you can eat them easier and while only paying half attention. Why was I only paying half attention? Because I was playing Buzztime!!


I'm sure you've all been to a bar and grille before where they have those trivia games that you follow along with on a TV. They ask a question and then the timer starts for you to buzz in on your own little pad which you have at your table and answer. The faster you get it, the more points you get. As time passes, they give clues and eventually pretty much flat out give the answer. There are 15 questions. The points start at 1,000 if you get it in the first 5 seconds or so. By the 3rd clue, the dead give away clue, the points are like 280 or so if you've got quick fingers on your keypad. So what do two nerdy biologist do when they're getting paid to eat wings and drink beer? Play trivia. So the first game we play was a Topix game, all questions relate to one particular topic. In this case, Famous Artists. Awesome. Why don't we ever get a "plants" category? Anyways, turns out Deric's dad was an art teacher for a while and he got guilted into taking an art appreciation class in college. He rocked on that one. My input was that I put two and two together and assumed Van Gogh died by committing suidice because he was crazy enough to cut off his own ear. Barely broke 8,000. The next one was also Topix, Science Fiction. Sweet! Star Wars, Star Trek, maybe some Asimov in there...should be good for both of us. Well. Not quite. We got like 5,000 points. Movies and TV series from the 1950's that were cancelled after one season. Sure...we know that. Ugly. Anyways, the next game was just random trivia and, as it turns out, our time to shine. We got the first 5 right for 1,000 each. Amazing start! Then we dropped to 986 or something. Quick hands, Deric! Then 999. We end up with 14,202 out of 15,000!! Of course since this thing is all networked, they show you how you did out of everybody playing at that time. Out of 12,000+ teams playing in the country, we got 10TH!!! 10TH!!! That's the top 0.1%!! Sweet! Anyways, we felt good about ourselves so we left on a high note. I'll admit though, that we'd have gotten 4th if I knew that it was Catherine Zeta Jones who won best supporting actress for Chicago and not Renee Zellweger. Damn!! We also have the top establishment record for the month. So if anybody reading this wants to best us, go to Grizzly's in Baxter, MN before July ends and beat 'Bryan'. (Deric decided our team name, not me). Now I'll go shrink into my bed and go from trivia king to oil pipeline peon tomorrow...