Pop quiz, hot shot

I'm afraid we're not adventuring as much as we used to, so I apologise for the slowdown in blog posts. We haven't forgotten you, it's just that, well, how much do you really want to hear about Guitar Hero? And the new episode of House?

But I have been working on something for the past few weeks. We decided to have a pub quiz for Democrats Abroad Victoria. I was in charge of doing everything - booking the microphone from the pub, writing the questions, buying the prizes. Because I was the one to get the prizes, I got what I thought was most appropriate and best for the situation - $220 worth of American candy. It was awesome. I got Butterfingers, Mike and Ikes, Jolly Ranchers, Now and Laters, taffy, Baby Ruths, 3 Musketeers, Jelly Bellys, the list went on and on. The shop woman looked at me a little strangely as I went to pay for it all. It may not sound like much to you who have access to this stuff all the time, but over here in Oz these things are hard to come by. There's a candy shop in one of the malls in the city that carries it, so I took two of just about everything they had. The first prize was an enormous bag of candy, the second prize was a slightly smaller bag of candy, and the third prize was just a jug of beer.

I spent weeks working on the questions. My picture round was pictures of presidential pets, and teams had to identify which president owned which pet. I had originally cropped the pictures so that just the pet was in them, but Leslie said that was too hard. So I expanded them out again, so in some pictures the president or a member of the president's family was visible in the picture. I think this made it too easy, as many of the teams got all the questions right.

The trivia was due to start at 8pm, and by 7.45 no one was there except me and another committee member. I was really nervous that no one was going to come, and I'd have been so disappointed if no one had because I'd spent so much time (and money) preparing for the night. But it all worked out in the end - we had six teams, about 30 people. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and I think the questions were not too hard nor too easy. We'll probably do another trivia night sometime soon.

It was a relief to have it over with, and a lot of fun on the night. It made me feel a great sense of accomplishment to have seen the entire project through.

In other news, we bought a car. It's a red Mitsubishi Lancer, and it seems fine. We bought it from some friends of ours who bought it 10 years ago, and a mechanic has recently replaced the clutch and declared it to be in perfect working order. Leslie drove it home from our friends' house today, and it seemed to drive fine. I was against having a car, as I fear that it will mean that we won't cycle as much, but it was getting ridiculous to expect Leslie to schlep all his gear on the tram.

He's very busy at the moment with school projects. He has a major fashion shoot assignment due soon, and he's shooting some of the images for that tomorrow. I think he likes the creativity of planning these big photo shoots, but it stresses him to have so much work to do. Still, it's good practice for the big bad world.

We also saw the latest Indiana Jones movie last night. I really liked it, I thought it was a rip-roaring good time. But Leslie said it was a disaster, it shouldn't have been made, it lost the heart of the original three. Take from that what you will.