The Parmi Army Comeback

Fellow quizzers, the Parmi Army is back in full effect. As from 2nd September two of the founding members (we're all founding members actually as we all turned up at the first one but that's beside the point) are back in town. Andy (that's me) and Jan (that's not me) have moved back to Mission Beach to retake their rightful places in the Parmi team.

By all accounts things had been fizzling out a bit while we were away but that's all out of the window now. From now on there will be a continued effort on all our parts to retake our rightful crowns as trivia night champs and receivers of tacky merchandise. On the last outing we came a creditable third considering our long absence and the fact we were drinking too much. Had we listened to Greg a bit more we would have probably won. Greg, if you're reading this, be more assertive man and for f***ks sake don't listen to me.

On a down note, the new trivia master is a bit of a poor impersonation of Christy who use to get people going. On an up note, she thought World War Two (written World War II) was World War Eleven and insisted it was even though we were all pissing ourselves laughing at her appalling mistake. It's always good to poke fun at a f**kwit.

Are we going to win the next one? Bloody oath we are.

Come on you parmis.

Andy

So Close!

Well this week saw Chicken Parmi almost win.....so very very close. We lost by 4 points and the Guessalots who did win managed the highest score to date, so good on them and us. We started with a bang, getting 3 straight 10's, with one of them being a bonus round, imagine if two had been bonus rounds, phew!! And YEAH the Beach Bums didn't win.

The aim had been to win ( it always is of course ) as we are saying goodbye to Dawn and Alex who are heading over to Perth for 2 months, we thought as we had won on the night we sent Jan and Andy to the Gold Coast that it was only fair to do the same for Dawn and Alex. I'm sorry that that didn't happen, also because seriously it has been a while since we won any useless or sometimes useful alcohol branded merchandise.

Other additions to the team this week was my Mum, coming all the way from Victoria for our Trivia Night, ok maybe not just for trivia but she contributed well as did Shop Sharon who decided to join us too. We also welcomed back Tanya who had been missing in action for a couple of weeks, she gladly took over the job of writing the answers which for some reason seems to be a bit of a favourite thing amongst the girls, no actual fighting occurred as Kerryn handed over the responsibility with little fuss.

Another big goodbye was for our Trivia Master Kristy who is leaving town for a year, we will miss her a lot as she has encouraged a fun atmosphere for the trivia nights, plus the occasional “are you sure your happy with that answer” or offering up a little hint when we were stuck. Good Luck Kristy and we will see you soon!

Perhaps next fortnight I will have good news to report......one thing for sure though is we always have a good time.

We're Back

Its been a while!

Well we have been a little bit slack with our Chicken Parmi updates, unfortunately we have not had a win to brag about but we are by no means disgracing ourselves. Tanya and Greg have missed a couple of weeks for various reasons but Leanne, Kerryn, Dawn and Alex have been keeping the team alive with a couple of weeks assistance from Neil and Nick. We really do miss our pals Jan and Andy, are you sure you can't make a special trip up, we haven't had a win since your send off?? I know your back in the country now Jan so lets see what we can talk you into.

Now the most important fact coming out of last week, the importance level being rated high by Jules rather than me, ha ha ha, is that the Nudie Breaks have finally managed to beat Chicken Parmi, alas only by 2 points but a win all the same......and weren't they proud and yes we are proud of them too! We still need someone to beat those Beach Bum's though.

Tanya you will be really proud of us we managed to get an 8 + bonus round for Science, I really didn't think we could do it without your science brain but Nick and Alex came through for us. I will admit to having some doubts as I knew I wouldn't be able to contribute much. Kerryn and I came through with a picture round for movies........I will like to say though that as Nemo is by far the biggest star of his own movie Finding Nemo, I would have thought he would have been just a little bit bigger on his own front cover.....that big shark Bruce certainly took centre stage and confused us into thinking it was Shark Tale. I'm also going to take into consideration the fact that we had all had a big driving day with 3 of us going to Cairns and back and 2 going to Townsville and back. Nemo just shouldn't be small thats all I can say.

Alex is known for his great one liners but I will be pleased to say I think I may have beat him this week.....The question was who co-wrote a book with Karl Marx, answer being Engels not Marks & Spencer....managed a laugh from our table and the Guessalots who were correcting our answers this week :-)

Kristie, our fabulous Trivia Master, had the Chicken Parmi's coming in 6th last week but as 3 teams came in equal 3^rd surely that means we were actually only 4^th......he he he, I'm going to stick with that because 4^th is just that little bit better than 6^th.

Well thats it from me, I will make sure we are back on the ball with our regular updates from now on.

Missing The Parmi Ambulance

As Wednesdays come and go here on the sunny Sunshine Coast, one can't help to reflect on the good times had with the Parmis. If there's one thing I miss from Mission Beach (and there is only one thing aside from a few people) it's the parmi nights: how we guffawed with laughter when whispering our answers to the room; the copious schooners of Tooheys New; and everybody hating that Beach Bum team.

Now, if somebody invented one of those Star Trek teleport things we'd all be OK wouldn't we? So get inventing somebody. It can't be that hard to invent something like that.

Not A Good Week

It was not a good week for the Chicken Parmi's

Can we do it without Jan and Andy, maybe, maybe not, but if this week is anything to go by I'm just not sure if we can mange without them in the Chicken Parmi team. Having said that we were missing Tanya, Greg, Vinnie and Nick too, so perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to decide that.

Leanne, Kerryn and Dawn kept the Chicken Parmi team alive with the help of some friends, Neil & Alex. Thank goodness because we were a bit concerned about not being able to answer any of the obvious boy like questions. Our down fall was selecting the wrong bonus rounds, we managed to get a very respectable 7, 7 & 8 in 3 early rounds but then only had a 4 & 4 for our bonus rounds, I knew we should have backed ourselves with the Entertainment round because we are very good with them normally, but as it wasn't a picture round we didn't select it, a bit of an oops.

Of course our movie knowledge let us down a bit with the baffler question this week, boy were they cryptic clues. As there were so many missing from the team I thought I would see how you guys go with it. ( bear in mind I may not remember the clues word for word )

1. Often requires bleach.
2. When wet I am associated with small children.
3. I come from the latin word for nourishment.
4. In 2000 I was played by Reese Witherspoon. ( oh and thank you Kerryn it was not the car wash chick in Finding Nemo, which should have been Shark Tale anyway )

Now I'm not going to give you the next clue because it is the one that gave it away, I want to see if anyone can get the correct answer without it. Text or email me your guesses.

Kristy our trusty MC came up with our best one liner of the night this week, during the team introduction she presented the Chicken Parmi's and said that we should probably be called the Mini Parmi's this week. Nice one Kristy!! Not only were we a smaller team but a much quieter one as well. Good news is that the Beach Bum's didn't win either, is it naughty to be so happy about that.

Hopefully we will see Tanya, Greg and Vinnie on the 19^th March, I missed our Front Bar dinner as well as the raucous laughter that seems to go hand in hand with our Trivia Nights. Good news also in that Nick will be home on school holidays the fortnight later, it will be good to have some younger input.

Study hard (ha ha that's just in case any of the opposition are reading this ) and I'll see you soon.

Chicken Parmi Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 1 egg, beaten
• 55 g dry bread crumbs
• 2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 336 (16 ounce) jars spaghetti sauce
• 55 g shredded mozzarella cheese
• 25 g grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a medium baking sheet.
2. Pour egg into a small shallow bowl. Place bread crumbs in a separate shallow bowl. Dip chicken into egg, then into the bread crumbs. Place coated chicken on the prepared baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, or until no longer pink and juices run clear.
3. Pour 1/2 of the spaghetti sauce into a 7x11 inch baking dish. Place chicken over sauce, and cover with remaining sauce. Sprinkle mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses on top and return to the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

You're Going Home In A Parmi Ambulance

The good omens were in ascendance when, with my first and only bet of the past 12 months, I succeeded in winning myself the grand total of $6 by betting on Tubby Will. Actually I only won a dollar because my initial bet was $5 but that's by-the-by. Anyway, to Parmi matters.

In short, we won and it was all down to Jan and myself. As we now know, the team crumbles when we're not available for selection and the moment we come back we blast the opposition. After a slight mix up from the caller at the end who forgot to count our bonus round there was a huge cheer when it transpired that we had actually mullered those beach bum people who nobody seems to like.

We also learned a thing or two about our 'friends'. I won't name people but a certain Tanya persuaded Jan that there was $500 up for grabs and it was all a red herring. Jan had already earmarked the money for yet another top from Beach Bums and was to be left devastated by her realisation that it was all just a pipe dream.

I'm just going to list a few things in this book I'm reading from and you can elaborate on them in your own imaginations:

• The power is off, the bar is dead. It's back on now.
• Jan has cheesy ears but so did Greg.
• Tanya is a scientist.

Frankly, I don't remember in what context any of the above were written. Asking a man to remember something that happened over 30 minutes ago is a bit like asking a woman to forget something a man said (and regretted ever since) over 30 years ago.

Another moan at the Mission Beach resort chef. Put the bloody parmi back on the menu otherwise there will be an uprising. Tanya needs her parmi on parmi night or else. Watch out or I'll send those mad Maoris round to cook you up. What was in the water that night anyway? Freaks everywhere.

I'm off now, it's too hot in here. Thanks for the fun parmi team. We'll have to video conference in when we get settled down on the Sunshine Coast.

There's only one chicken parmi, only one chicken parmi...

Andy

Week 3 Disappointment

Hi Team

Missing in action this week was Nick, who of course is studying hard at school to blitz the opposition when he returns during the holidays, acceptable excuse of course, but also missing were Jan & Andy who decided their time was better spent in Port Douglas with friends from Sydney. I mean really Trivia Night is the highlight of our social calenders, and they make alternate plans......just joking I know that Jan was most upset at not being able to make it. We decided to include them with a quick call to help out with the Baffler question, just so they didn't feel too left out. Of course the text's kept on coming even after the baffler had been solved, we will have to start calling you Tanya soon, ha ha ha

Lucky for us Dawn's regular team mates decided not to come so she joined our team, a great help especially as somewhere along the way she managed to pay instead of Kerryn, I'm thinking her daughter has probably pulled that swifty before. We will give Kerryn another go next time, along with Vinnie I think. He will have no problems paying the $5.00 as he assures us he gets a discount at St Vinnie's shops.

Now it seems that the Chicken Parmi's are in need of some inspiration, I have 2 ways to help with this, first is I have spoken to the Head Chef about getting the chicken parmi back on the menu, it seems that at least one team member needs to have consumed a parmi before the trivia begins, it worked the first night and then dropped off the menu as did our winning ways. Secondly I think we should all wear our winning gear, I want to see caps on heads, stubby coolers on drinks, key rings in hand and of course Vinnie wearing his white aviator sunglasses and holding his umbrella, if nothing else it will keep the other teams minds off the game. Of course enthusiasm is a must and Vinnie showed that he is the most enthusiastic team member turning up on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday. Secretly I think he thought there would be so many people turning up for autographs that he would need the extra time.

Now on to serious business, it seems that my “morals” last week were spot on, Greg did his bit as requested by Tanya and brought along cheese supreme doritios & salsa only to have Kristy, our Trivia master, let us know that it was not on, so as much as I was looking forward to Vinnie's cucumber sandwiches ( not ) we will have to buy our snacks from the bar, or as suggested gather up from the bistro buffet. Oh and I'm not even going to say I told you so :-)

An explanation is needed for Vinnie's aviator sunglasses, he blitzed everybody by being the only person who could name the second title for Tina Turner's Simply the Best, for those that don't remember its What you see is what you get....how good is our Vinnie, and looking very smart too.

Comment of the night is actually confusion of the night this week, poor Kerryn couldn't quite work out what horses had to do with school curriculum, the rest of the team knew they were saying course....of course.

I will finish off by saying that Tanya has suggested that its time we went out on a whim and chose a not so safe bonus round, we managed a 10/10 for one, and a not so good first round, can't say what the score is because we don't want to disappoint our missing team members, but suffice is to say that it was not so good and we need to be brave next time.

Next Trivia night is on 20 February and I think its important that we send off Jan and Andy in style, lets go out winners. We really are going to miss you guys and the round table discussion is that you will have to come along electronically, we will set up a laptop at our end and you at yours and Skype our way through the night, lets put it to Kristy the Trivia master. A big win is needed Chicken Parmi.

Second Rate...

Yet another great Wednesday night was had by Chicken Parmi.

The standard for the evening was set by the “Parmi” itself. Last fortnight the chicken parmi was exceptional, as were we. This week it was second rate, it wasn't on the menu, but for an extra $2 I managed to get one. After all that there wasn't even any ham on the parmi!

Chicken Parmi were also missing their ham. Nick had to go back to boarding school, which will be good for us later in the year. Study hard and learn lots Nick, we need you. Ruth was resting up for next fortnight.

Once again we all contributed in our fields of expertise. Jan did a great job on the Royals, none of us Aussies would have a clue, but unlike Jan, we know what the “other” Prince Albert looks like! And yes Jan, it is rude!!

We selected our bonus rounds well with “Sport” and the “Mixed Bag” serving up some good bonus points. I think the entire team breathed a sigh of relief that we did not go with “Australiana” after we saw the round. I felt very un-Australian when I saw how badly we did on that round.

Greg wins the prize for comment of the evening. “The teacher's team need to be blood tested, we think they have been using performance enhancing drugs.” Well obviously it didn't do them any good as we still kicked their butt.

Unfortunately we had our butts kicked by 3 points and a blow in team of rogues, they won't last the distance though. I don't think we have anything to be worried about team. This rogue team are like the chips on the plate, small in numbers and smothered by the chicken parmi that always gets served on top!

Kerryn gets bonus points for being the only person in the entire quiz to answer the really hard question. “What 3 letter word can precede the following 3 words to make 3 new words? Age, date and hole.” The answer was man. Well done Kerryn, gold star for you.

Leanne “the good girl at school” out did Kerryn's potato flavoured biscuits for team snacks. She served up a plate of morals for us to enjoy! Which means we had no snacks because she didn't want to upset anyone by bringing food into a restaurant! (We love you Leanne!!) There are few things I would like to point out about where trivia is held. Gobble and go is not a restaurant, technically, where we sit for trivia there is no food service and lastly, I know that the Mission Beach Resort make a small fortune out our patronage throughout the year, just listen to Andy and Tanya's wheelie bins on bin day!!!

To ensure we get fed next week I am going to pass the snack torch to someone with less scruples, and that person is Greg. This does not, I repeat not, count as your at home cooking contribution for the week Greg!

We discovered quite a few things about Vinnie this week. The first is that he is as blind as a bat, so much so that he had to borrow Shop Sharon's glasses in an attempt to read the clues for one of the questions. Thanks Sharon for helping our team out.

The second thing we discovered is that Vinnie was once and actor. He played Colonel Birch in a Korean War movie, and his 15 minutes of fame included the line “Yes, the war is over.” Next fortnight we will be moving into the trivia area 15 minutes early so Vinnie can sign autographs and for a small fee you can have your picture taken with him, which he will then autograph. They will be all over eBay before you know it.

We did a much better job at keeping our answers top secret this time. I like Andy's style, take the answer sheet from the scribe and write the answer in without any verbal communication whatsoever. Smooth and stealth like. I know I need to practice my whispering this week, and I have been, I promise!

Thanks go to Jan and Greg for paying the entry fee this fortnight. Next time Leanne and Kerryn get to dig deep. Jan and Andy will be absent as they are planning on a dirty mid-weekend in Port Douglas. Let's hope Ruth can make it this fortnight, or Chicken Parmi will be missing their ham and the cheese!

Leanne will be in charge of the next quiz night blog and we will draw straws on the night to see who the scribe will be.

Well done team, and good luck next fortnight.

The Winning Debut

Ok all you chicken Parmi lovers....here it is our first official news letter. What an honour to be writing it!

First things first, apologies from Jan for basically making half the team late by deciding that I suddenly wanted to cut myself a fringe. I do like it though so the lateness was worth it for me and thanks for all being so understanding.

Secondly, thanks to Tanya and Andy for paying our subs. $5.00 each. Next time, it is Jan and Greg who are going to have to dig deep in their pockets for the sub money ($5.00 every five weeks per person! What value for all the fun and laughter we had!)

Keren very kindly bought nibbles (although they were a bit weird...biscuits that are potato flavoured? But hey that's us, a bit different and very clever!) Sorry Keren still very grateful, I did actually start getting into them....Leanne I have nominated you to bring the nibbles next time. See what you can find? Chips that are biscuit flavoured???

Well what can I say, the Chicken Parmi's first EVER quiz and we kicked arse!!!! (Our team was actually 5 times the size of the team that came 2nd. Do you think anyone noticed? Did we really have an advantage?)... But WE WON!!!! Well done Parmi lovers, we are the champions!!!! If we keep this up we will be in the nationals and all sorts and win $2000 (so Tanya said) We can all give up work, where will it end??? ( Am I wrong in being disappointed that we won 5 caps, 2 weird t-shirts, an umbrella (?!**!) and a cooler instead of hardcore CASH) Anyway the glory is worth much much more...I think, and that's our focus until we meet again. (on 23rd January)

Everyone participated and we used our collective brains to answer most of the questions. Well done to Tanya!! Did you know that it was bad luck to keep peacock feathers in the house???? When we got home I took all our feathers out of the house and threw them away, no wonder things kept going wrong! If I had only known. I hope you guys are all going to take action and get rid of those feathers....

Vinnie and his extraordinary brain answered 9 of the ten movie questions!!!! Nine you say, but it was out of ten? No worries, in comes Keren (is working in the video shop an unfair advantage?) and takes us up to the ten!!! Andy with his funny big computer brain answered some of our technical questions and I was particularly proud when I answered my physics question. I DID learn something at school, Mr Liles would have been proud! (physics teacher at school) it was a good feeling.....

Greg answered a lot of questions, all the weird Kiwi questions, that type of thing, although Greg, we need you to whisper the answers....can you practice before next time???? The teachers were so listening.....

We are going to have an award for dumbest comment each quiz...Tan you know this is for you!!!! You just couldn't accept that it was Yoko could you??? We will be all over it next time!!!! But when someone gets the answer Tan, the baffler is over, I repeat over, ok?

Until we meet again Parmi lovers, I will love you and leave you....seeing you again on 23rd January, it's a long wait but we'll make it! Happy revising on general random info and abbreviations (?) WLTM ( Would like to meet) LOL (laugh out loud) WTF (What the f**k) do these kind count?

Geez I nearly forgot! Seating plan next time is up to you but Greg and Vinnie have to be separated! How about the old classic boy, girl, boy, girl etc. If people are coming for food, 6.15 in the bar (You can have a parmi) or 7.15 at our table. We have to sit in the same place as it is good luck (not like peacock feathers in the house...)

G2G (Got to go) but see you guys soon for much more fun and laughter on 23rd.

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