We did not win the pub quiz tonight. I will get that out of the way right now.

Of course, we were without M. Giant and Trash, because they are a little bit preoccupied with all this baby stuff -- go figure, they blew off the pub quiz to hang out with their child. WHATEVER. In their places, G. Grod and Zen Viking and I were happy to welcome the Weapon again (Woot!), and special guest star Space Waitress.

I went in with basically the same strategy as last time -- try not to talk the team OUT of any correct answers. And it worked . . . you know, mostly. Except for one incredibly egregious, totally conspicuous failure.

The question was what country's soccer team is known as "the Azzurri." (That's how it was spelled by the host . . . he is not always reliable, but whatever.) Zen Viking pointed out that it sounded like "blue," but he also took us in the direction of Greece. You know, with the blue flag. The Waitress pointed out that "Azzurri" sounded like "blue" in a Romance language, but . . . not necessarily in, you know, Greek. She suggested Italy. That sounded good to everyone. Zen Viking wrote down "Italy," and we held the paper up to be collected and scored.

And then somebody said the word "uniform," and something in my brain rattled. Brazil! Brazil has those blue uniforms!

Yeah, I know. They actually don't, as it turns out. They have those YELLOW uniforms. But my brain saw blue, and saw "Brazil," and I said it out loud. Not emphatically, but I suggested it. And a couple of different people seized on it. "Yes! That's right!" "No, no!" I said. "I have no basis for that! I'm just saying . . . is that possible?" "We like it!" came the response. So ZV took the paper on which we had written "Italy," and he changed it to "Brazil."

When the papers had been collected, I turned to G. Grod and said, "Dude, it's going to be Italy. And I'm going to cry, because I did it again. I talked the team out of a right answer."

When he went to read the answers for that round, I actually scrunched up my face and closed my eyes as he read the answer. It was, of course, "Italy." This was the funniest thing that had ever happened to G. Grod in his entire life, essentially. I started to apologize. "I suck, I did it again! I made us lose!" "Hey, everybody went along with it," ZV said in an understanding manner. "Don't worry about it." "Don't tell her not to worry about it," G. Grod said matter-of-factly. "She fucked us! She made us lose!" And then he laughed some more.

So that was my one disaster.

I had some good moments, too. Who knew that I knew that Bobby Kennedy was shot in the Ambassador Hotel? I certainly didn't. But there it was. "The Ambassador Hotel," I said, just as if I'd known it all my life. Which maybe I had, but I'd forgotten that I knew it. Come to think of it, that may actually be the only thing I knew. Damn.

Anyway, as usual, our music round was our double-points "joker" round. So as usual, we knew we could make up some distance in that round. However, we also knew we were even farther behind than usual, and a comeback was very unlikely. And in fact, we did not come back.

What we did do was come in second. And what rocks about coming in second? On this particular night, coming in second meant that you won four cases of beer. Not good beer, but . . . beer! In fact, when they announced that prize at the beginning of the quiz, we all looked at each other and said, "Screw the trophies. Maybe we should come in second." Not that we did it on purpose, because we didn't. Although it's possible that I, with my brilliant insight about Brazilian soccer uniforms, singlehandedly got my team four cases of beer by preventing us from winning. We did not go and find out exactly how many points we lost by. I really didn't want to know.

The good news is that finally, the trophies that cover our last two victories finally showed up. The host got us extra-big trophies, since he owed us two sets. They say on them, "3rd Place Dick."

Tonight, of course, we were not called "3rd Place Dick." In honor of M. Tiny, all evening long, our team went by the name "Baby's First Rave." And if you don't get that reference, you don't read Velcrometer, which you totally should. Especially now, because if there's anything going on that's more riveting than the tale of M. Giant, Trash, and their unbelievably cute child, I don't know what it is. Seriously. If his daddy didn't do such a faboo job of blogging all about it, I would have spent Friday and Sunday and Monday telling you all about how amazing it is to hang out in the NICU with them, and how great they are, and how great their kid is. It's a really neat tale unfolding. Even though -- well, go read what's going on right now, which was totally scary.

But still? Great. And we missed them at the pub quiz. We failed to identify a Blondie song in the music round, and I personally believe that M. Giant would likely have nailed it.