I love trivia games. I also love pool and drinking beer. Well, these three vices came together in a perfect storm with Zack’s Bar. Sadly, Zack’s closed and I am now old. For me, in my late 30s, hanging out in bars is downright pathetic. And I hate the smoke, and those days are over. I have not cast my shadow on Bar Trivia kiosks in years. And since I don’t yet speak German, even if I went out to bars in Berlin, I would lose all the trivia games: wrong culture and wrong language. Well, my man CC Chapman hooked me up with Trivya — bar trivia taken to the next level: live competition and real money winnings! In fact, now that I have wasted spent hours on making and losing money on Trivya on Facebook, I think I am going to throw my hat in towards winning a $10,000 trivia tournament in March. Hopefully, I won’t atrophy before the tournament begins. While what Trivya is may be called casual gaming, I call it a night at Zack’s without the hangover, without the credit card debt, and without clothes smelling of smoke.

No matter how much that sounds like a regular trivia game, you’re wrong: this is a for real, this is big bucks, this is hardcore. While you can play Trivya via the web, using TriviaOnNet, the real magic happens when you play it from within Facebook with the Trivya Facebook Application. And, like I said before, when you sign up, they spot you $5. And, once you get going and getting your boat legs, you’re eligible to sign up for the $10,000 trivia tournament in March.I like to portray myself as all intellectual and so forth but it is all a ruse. I hate crosswords and scrabble. My friend David kicks my butt around the block. My real skill is trivia because I am a pop culture garbage can. A real compost heap for TV and Movie trivia. Crew Scrabulous on Facebook I am all about Trivya on Facebook!

What I like about Trivya is that it is a social network of gamers. Like many online games and MMORPGs, you can meet up with your competition well ahead of your competition. Sometimes you need to wait for a couple minutes before the games begin which give you a little time to say hello or even try some trash talk if that’s how you roll.

As part of the outreach that CC is doing at the moment for Trivya, his client, he put together a social media press release about Trivya (which is a really gorgeous SMNR, truth be told) if you want to learn more. Trivya also have some teaser videos that they did before CC got involved with them that have a retro vibe to them.

News Facts from the Social Media News Release from Trivya

• Trivya offers a great way to win money simply by playing and having fun. The game platform is the most advanced software available today on the web. It features crisp graphics, fast pace and exciting competitive environment.
• Trivya hosts a community of over 20,000 trivia fans that communicate with each other using fun networking tools such as blogs, create friend lists, write their own quizzes and take quizzes created by others. Players can also chat and invite each other to games on the game platform itself.
• With their newly launched Facebook application, Trivya is taking it’s unique gaming platform a new arena of consumers looking to play casual online games.
• This March trivia aficionados from across the world will compete for their share of $10,000 in total prize money. All are welcome to go head to head with the best trivia minds in the world. The top 10 players will receive cash rewards.

My XO Laptop Goes to Bars, originally uploaded by Chris Abraham.

I know the “one laptop per child” XO laptop is for kids but mine is a “one Newcastle Brown per laptop” XO. I Call him XX because of his mature nature and tendency to drink. Here XX is at Zack’s Taverna on the Hill in Washington, DC

I did attend the Haters Happy Hour last Friday night which ended up being a real great time of bloggers, blog-lurkers, and old friends.

Last Friday night, I got to see Sarah from Zack’s and her friend Heather. I got to meet a girl named Gusty and realized that Kathryn looks like Bo Derek.

All this and more at my old friend Steve Maguire’s new club, Science Club, and reported by Kathryn On…

Fantastic. Left close to midnight. Then, a prat fall, a slice, and off to a cinco de mayo party.

Rumor has it that Zack bought the Greek Taverna for big bucks and that Zack’s shall return.

In memory of the too real bar known as Zack’s we introduce its replacement at 613 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, the The 18th Amendment, which will be yet another offensive simulacrum. Via David Gelles.

“The upper level will offer a full bar with high-end liquors and about eight beers on draft in an art deco-inspired room. The basement bar — ‘the kind of place where gangsters would have hung out,’ Spore said — will have furniture fashioned from old whiskey boxes, barrels and pews and a small lounge with couches.”

Oh Lord.

David Gelles may be a lush, but he has also become a mighty fine pool shark.

To quote him, his “final month of tabs at Zack’s: $275 . . . and that doesn’t count the buckets of quarters I poured into the pool tables and jukebox.”

Zack and Cindy sold me Molly when I wanted something by which to remember Zack’s, my favorite bar ever. If you haven’t been, April 30th from 5PM until 3AM is your very last chance.

It is true that Zack’s is closing. The last night is 30 April from 5PM. Last night, David, Andrew, Oliver, Aimee, Minh, and Tenley mourned with Zack and Cindy. Both David and I bought cues from the glass case for half-price. He bought a Scorpion Cue and I picked up a gorgeous green McDermott by the name of Molly Malone.

Last night, over a game of pool with David at the Capitol Lounge, we heard a rumor that Zack sold Zack’s to the owner of the Capitol Lounge. It cannot be true. Do we need to fire up a Save Zack’s campaign?

No, not war on pornography, but war and pornography as the two biggest engines for technological and logistical innovation the world has ever seen.

I was at Zack’s the other night and I was talking to a recovering lawyer about how Internet innovation was led by porn.

To paraphrase, the only thing that could keep someone sitting on a slow connection waiting for a choppy postage stamp-sized movie to load in the age of dialup was porn.

It was exactly not video phone or video conferencing.

Makes me doubt the official stories of the telephone (phone sex?) and the Gutenberg printing press (the Holy Bible, please).

All the rest of technological innovation can be directly attributed to winning the arms race, even if it is hidden behind the guise of science, advancement, medicine, learning, progress, or what have you.

Thanks to the Ace of Spades HQ for being the catalyst.