What's the capital of El Salvador ?

.. San Salvador apparently, and not knowing this cost my team outright first place in last night's "bowlo trivia night". Instead, we had to be content with equal first place, along with three other teams, meaning we received only one quarter of the $80 prize money up for grabs. I have posted about "the bowlo" before. The "Wests @ Turner Bowls Club", of which I am now a member (I signed up last night), in the great tradition of not-for-profit drinking establishments, provides some of the cheapest beer prices in town.

There had been talk for sometime of going along to a trivia night, and so this week I decided to take the intellectual plunge, and organised a team for last night's festivities. The team, named "Bowlo - Heart of the Nation" (though I was pushing for "Bowlo - feel the power"), consisted of a very strong line up of genius minds. Of course, anyone who has participated in a trivia night would know that it is important to have people on the team, that can cover the wide spectrum of potential quiz questions that may be asked. In our team, however, there appeared some reluctance among individuals to proclaim a particular topic as their area of expertise. Instead, we decided it best to just allocate each person a topic for which they would be blamed, should we not be able to answer a question for that topic. I believe it is essential to the efficiency and functionality of the trivia team, that someone be made personally responsible for a given topic, and be bagged for any incorrect, or unknown answer in that topic. This allows frustration to be vented, and competativeness to thrive (of course, people usually end up hating each other at the end, but the prize normally makes it all worth it). As it turned out, however, we had some trivia heavy weights on-board, in the form of Shaun Press and Tim Baynes, and so little blame was attributed to anyone. Both showed exceptional knowledge of some of the most pointless things. Aff also showed her superior intellect, by putting an artist to the mystery tune (Ans: Guy Sebastian). Unfortunately, none of my strong points: Logie award winners, Neighbours, Honeybees and model trains, came up, however, I still managed to put a name to the famous female tennis star of yesteryear (Ans: Gabrielle Sabatini).

Of course, no trivia night is complete without some dispute within party ranks. The question: "What Islands are known as the friendly islands?" started some behind the scenes lobbying of the team scribe (me). Shaun answered Vanuatu after some very convincing verbal reasoning. Tim, however, waited ten minutes and then quietly whispered: "Marshall Islands". Seeing the passion in his eyes, I hesitantly made the change, un-beknownst to Shaun. I was, of course, aware that this could blow up into a full trivia riot. This was the two trivia buffs of the team, in dispute, and pride was at stake.

The answer was Tonga.

Despite not coming away with the full $80, the $20 prize has been placed in a "bowlo trust fund", and will be used to fund future events at this great Canberra institution.

"Bowlo - Heart of the Nation" were:

Janine Walker - official blamee for English Literature
Nick Barnes - official blamee for Mongolian Frogs
Affrica Jenkins - official blamee for Australian Idol (apparently).
Peng Dong Xiao - official blamee for Chinese History and winners of the Stawell Gift"
David Shaw - official blamee for "Miscellaneous" topics
Shaun Press - not to be blamed for anything..
Tim Baynes - official "Cartman" impersonator - also not to be blamed for anything.
Philip Blackwell - official beer supervisor.
Chris McCarthy - official blamee for spelling mistakes, and keeper of the bowlo kitty.