It’s the time of year when many University students start to feel the drudge of work and the insatiable desire to play. No doubt, some will choose to play a little too hard, amassing their sorrows in liquid form. Playtime, however, need not be work the morning after.

One group of fun-loving intelligentsia has discovered a way to ease the harried into the weekend, while still preserving the overwrought mind. Meet Geeks Who Drink, a Colorado-based “pub quiz” group which has recently spread its sagacious tentacles into the Charlottesville area.

Get ready — they have a few questions for you.

For about a month, the Geeks have hosted quizzes every Thursday night at Rapture at 8 p.m.

John Dicker and Joel Peach began the group in Denver, Colorado in 2006. Dicker played pub quizzes in New York and found ones elsewhere to “be sorely lacking in creativity.” From this disappointment “blossomed” a movement toward scintillating and engaging pub-quizzing, Dicker said. Currently, the Geeks host 74 weekly pub events in five states: New Mexico, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Colorado.

According to the group’s Web site, Geeks Who Drink has a staff of more than 21 question writers and a team of research librarians who fact-check every quiz.

Geeks Who Drink brings people from all over the country to Denver for training as “quizmasters.”

Through Facebook advertising and word-of-mouth, the Charlottesville pub quiz has attracted a number of regulars. Charlottesville’s quizmistress is Khristina VanHall, who tried out for the position after finding the job in a Craigslist ad.

It is “not too much [of a] commitment,” VanHall said.

Don’t let her nonchalance fool you, though, as the quizmaster must truly be the chief of pub-test ceremonies: he must entertain, inform and keep potentially rowdy bar-goers in check.

During the Sept. 24 pub event, VanHall was accompanied by a quizmistress-in-training, Arts and Sciences Graduate student Caroline Varney, who took over some duties of the night in preparation for her own quizmaster initiation.

A costume design major at the University, Varney’s effervescence lit up the noir-atmosphere of Rapture’s bar — and brought in some more customers. Fellow graduate students huddled around a booth and hunched over their answer sheets, ready for the contest. Other contestants took their places around high-top tables, pitchers in hand, pens rolling across the floor, as the eight rounds of quizzing commenced.

The quiz’s eight rounds include two audio rounds, one music round — think truncated random sound bytes of long-forsaken heavy metal — an occasional movie sound byte and five regular question-and-answer rounds. Each contestant works with a team of up to five other people to complete a collaborative answer sheet.

Two weeks ago, the evening’s first round was “Eight questions about fast food.” Before anyone could even scribble out “Chik-fil-A,” Varney enumerated the three rules of the game: “Do not … mess with the quizmaster. Do not shout out answers. The QUIZ is fixed.” With this critical information in mind, contestants drank and contemplated and debated through eight rounds of high-brow trivia. The crowd grew as the game waxed — several large groups and a few scattered couples competed for the ultimate crown.

During the evening, University students and locals clutched with white knuckles to fading memories of Bruce Springsteen songs and literary devices. People ordered more beer while trying to define unreliable narrators and political homosexual relationships — turns out the “gayborhood” is in Philadelphia, not San Francisco.

Monica Dade, who works in audiology at the University’s Medical Center, said she was surprised by the game’s entertaining, yet tough, questions.

At the end of several rounds a bonus round may be enacted. To win bonus points, or rather bonus pints, a team must be the first to shove the answer on a piece of paper in the face of the quizmaster.

After all eight rounds, the quizmaster names that night’s winner based simply on whomever has the most total points. Winners receive gift certificates to Rapture ranging from $10 to $25.

The group also maintains a weekly e-mail question, which hardcore pubbies can answer online. Winners of these e-mail questions can receive not-so-ordinary items such as flying nuns and rubber chickens. The Geeks, Dicker said, “tease five of the eight themes of each quiz so people on the [e-mail] list have a competitive advantage.”

The pub quizzes, however, are not just for the over-21 crowd. Underage students are welcome and invited to play, only with coffee or soda as their stimulant. Geeks Who Drink pub quizzes are free and require no signup before the event.

Still think fun can only be found in a basement on Rugby? Next week, try combining study time with bar time, mixing a little work with play.

“Hey girl, you want to go to the gym with me?”

“You mean, ‘Do I want to go to the gym and have my self-esteem reduced to -12 on a scale of 1 to 10 because that girl has been running for 40 minutes straight and I get winded walking up stairs? Do I then want to bump into 20 people I know, and haven’t seen in forever, while looking like a disgusting nightmare?’ No, no I don’t want to do that.”

I am not going back to the gym.

Inevitably, going to the gym is a never-ending process. First, you start going to get fit. Then you see someone who is fitter than you, making you feel inadequate. So now, you start going to the gym more and more. And then, success. You’re fit and can finally stop going to the gym! Right? False. Now you have to go to the gym just to stay fit. And you have to keep going until you die, probably from exhaustion, because of exercise.

I’ve decided the fit life is not for me and that living in the IRC provides me with more than enough exercise. It takes 13 grueling minutes (this campus is all uphill, how does that happen?) to get to Cabell. By the time I get there, navigate the most poorly designed building on earth and go back home, I have walked for 30 minutes. And if you round up, exaggerate and ignore the fact that I sometimes take the bus, that’s an hour of vigorous cardio every day. Who needs the gym when life is that strenuous?

Add to that my diet, which consists mostly of tomatoes and hummus, and I’m golden! Well, I also eat a lot of brownies and have raw cookie dough pretty regularly, but that’s okay, because think about all the tomatoes. It’s a scientific fact: eating more tomatoes than brownies actually cancels out the brownies. Really, it’s true…

Should my excellently balanced diet and lengthy vigorous walks fail me, I have also come up with a few ways to deal with the girth that would soon overcome me.

First, pictures are out. No pictures, under any circumstances, ever. If someone took a picture of me, I would destroy the camera.

Second, I would always stand to the side. After a while, this pose would become generally ineffective, but early on, it would be sufficient.

Third, I would instruct my friends to lie to me at all times about my appearance. I would ask, for example, if a shirt makes me look fat. My friends should then immediately scream, “No,” tell me I’m insane and then explain how no one has, or ever will, look as great as I do.

After, I would expect them to start convulsing into hysterics because of how ridiculous the question was. If there were even a one-second pause between my question and this exact response, I would have to cut that friend loose. I’d just have to find someone who is willing to lie to me, and say I look great even when I don’t, like a true friend would.

Fourth, I would only wear outfits of one solid color.

Fifth, I wouldn’t eat anything “healthy” without something unhealthy to accompany it — at least not publicly. Eating healthy foods leads others to believe you are a) trying to lose weight or b) trying to keep it off. And because I will soon be past the ‘keeping weight off’ stage, the former assumption will prevail. If people start thinking I’m trying to lose weight, my whole, “I haven’t gained any weight” cover would be blown. So, if I decided to eat an apple, I would first have to smother it in frosting.

Going to the gym would be absolutely out of the question. Once you hit the frosted apple stage, there’s really no going back. The gym is for already fit people, with matching spandex outfits and an inability to sweat, so my presence there would be an affront to everyone. My being there to “stay fit” would also undermine the gym’s true purpose, which is to showcase sorority T-shirts with mildly witty sayings that allude to 80s movies. All of my T-shirts are giveaways from the activities fair. I just don’t belong.

And finally I would wear a lot of makeup. As someone who usually doesn’t wear make-up, this would be unbelievably effective. People would look at me and think, “Who’s that girl? God, she’s wearing a lot of make-up,” instead of, “Who’s that girl? Her body is so un-gymed.”

What an oddly perceptive stranger…

At this point, you may think it’s ridiculous that I am going to go through all this trouble when I live across the street from Memorial Gym, not to mention the fact that I worked there last year. Wouldn’t it be less trouble to go to the gym than to spend my days crushing cameras and painting my face like a clown? Doesn’t it take less than three minutes to get to the gym? Don’t I like the facilities and the people there? The answers to these questions are all, “No.” Well, I mean technically, if accuracy is a concern of yours, the answer to all of those questions is yes, but that is not important.

What is important is that I would rather wear an entirely purple outfit than go back to the gym.

Belle’s column runs biweekly Thursdays. She can be reached at b.gamble@cavalierdaily.com.

Lag time

Student Financial Services must address the flaw putting holds on the accounts of compliant students

Students are all too familiar with receiving e-mails from the University warning them that holds have been placed on their accounts. Holds most often originate from outstanding financial charges. These blocks generally prevent students from making changes in their enrollment information and also bar them from requesting official transcripts.

On Oct. 5, a number of students with charges due on their Student Accounts were notified via e-mail that holds had been placed on their records. Students were instructed to check their financial information online and ensure that all payments be made no later than Oct. 30. The problem is that not all of the notified students were delinquent in addressing their outstanding balances.

Last spring, the University instituted a new monthly payment plan that allows students to spread out the payment of tuition and fees to five monthly intervals during each semester, interest free. Facts Management Co., a third party vendor that contracts with the University, withdraws the tuition money each month from the student’s (or authorized payer’s) private account. As it turns out, a number of students participating in this plan received the University’s e-mail telling them they had outstanding or overdue payments — despite the fact that the money was supposed to be collected automatically. Evidently, there is some sort of lag in the system causing students to be improperly given a temporary hold.

The monthly payment plan is a smart program that undoubtedly helps out many families. One of the goals of such a system, however, must be to ease the stress that comes with time-sensitive financial obligations; the program is supposed to remove some uncertainty from the process. If these students are being told that they have holds on their records, it is naturally going to cause undue disconcertion.

Student Financial Services is not solely responsible for the problem, but it can put students’ minds at rest by addressing this flaw in the system and reconfiguring its timetables. The time of collection each month by Facts Management may not be negotiable; nevertheless, the University should adjust its schedule for putting holds on student accounts. Administrative blocks should not be doled out until after the monthly payment plan balances have been given ample time to clear. This move would probably reduce Student Financial Services’ own work as well by eliminating calls and e-mail responses from panicked students. Logistical errors like this one understandably happen from time to time, but it would be unacceptable to let them persist without further examination.

Hook, line and sinker

The University is right to raise student awareness of phishing scams

If you happen to see a woman strolling across Grounds in a fish costume this month, do not be alarmed — it’s just University Information Security Analyst Karen McDowell.

Throughout October, the University’s Information Security, Policy, and Records Office will be promoting awareness of phishing scams. These hoaxes are often targeted at students and attempt to trick Internet users into providing valuable personal information to an unseen con artist. An unsuspecting person may be deceived into giving away financial information that jeopardizes his savings. McDowell will be talking to students about these risks and handing out literature that encourages smart computer security practices.

The University is sensible to call students’ attention to this issue. Phishing scams usually ensnare several students each year. Furthermore, many undergraduates are at a point in their lives when they are first beginning to take personal responsibility for their finances and banking information. Students will encounter phishing schemes and hoaxes for the rest of their lives, not just their remaining time at the University. Information about safeguarding against this threat is both immediately useful and important for everyone in the long run.

Starting today, presentations will be held in Newcomb Hall throughout the month to provide advice about combating security theft and managing other Internet safety concerns. Included in these events will be material about protecting personal information on social networking sites — an area of particular relevance to students. Administrators will also discuss the upcoming release of an enhanced NetBadge system for the University.

It is never a bad idea to help students defend themselves against fraud in all its forms. Members of the University community should take advantage of the opportunity to brush up on the evermore creative ways that criminals will try to access their private information. Heed the wisdom of the fish lady.

Fifteen minutes. This is approximately the most amount of time it will take me to briskly walk to my furthest class (10 if I break into a jog once or twice). For some it is more — for most, less. And for those Brown scholars tucked nicely into the bosom of Grounds, five minutes would be the max unless you have that dreaded discussion in McLeod. What to do? Although fifteen minutes isn’t too atrocious, we efficient human beings are always looking for one more excuse to hit ‘snooze.’ While most have assumed that ten more minutes isn’t really going to get you through the day without passing out in your next class, some have found the light. This light shone down as a metal contraption with two wheels, a combination lock, and a potential to scare the hell out of pedestrians.

I’m speaking, obviously, of bicycles. Efficient, economical, expeditious — bikes stand (rather, wobble) for the qualities we strive for in our lives. We want to get to class early, to the dining hall before it closes, and to Scott Stadium before kickoff (not a joke anymore). Yet, as nimble as you may be on your feet, getting between one and the other is not going to happen as fast as you would like. Bikes provide a means of getting from Point A to Point B in a third of the time and also a means to look super cool while doing it. How many of you out there sneer or chuckle at that nerd (me) running to the catch the UTS bus before it leaves in one minute? Most likely there are a fair amount of y’all out there; but would you rather be this guy: the newest Astana member in training whipping through traffic, knocking girls over, and popping the occasional wheelie? Although the attitude towards them may not be haughty or condescending, mine certainly is one of anger. The University has taken strides to ensure safety for the bikers, but have hung the poor pedestrians out to be picked off one by one.

In 2007, the University noticed this increasing use of bicycles around Grounds and was swift in enacting a master plan of sorts to alleviate the problems they were encountering. Their questionnaires targeted staff, faculty, and appropriately students to gain substantial knowledge ranging from how often they lock the bikes to where they ride them. Over 80 percent of this sample owned a bike and 64 percent use them to commute to grounds. Assuming that this survey can be representative of our community as a whole, this indicates that over half (a few thousand) are biking to and around Grounds every day. Clearly this is not the case, unless I am missing this stampede inundating McCormick every afternoon, but on any given day there will be more than a handful. The problems exist in the 50 percent of riders admitting to riding on sidewalks and brick pathways to get to class, clearly practicing for their mountain bike time trials the next weekend. Substantial designated bike pathways have been painted and identified with the image of a bicycle on them. Stay off my sidewalk, please. The roads have been widened. The “Watch for Bikers” signs have been posted. Why can’t you use them?

The Share the Road movement picked up a lot of relevance and popularity in recent years with the hike in gas prices and hike in the amount of commuters travelling on bikes. They preach to car drivers to be wary of fellow bicyclists as they have the same rights to the road as you do and to ensure their safety as much as yours. What some cyclists have yet to realize though, is that the street goes two ways.

Fight all you want for more rights on the road with motor vehicles, just understand that those laws that drivers get ticketed and hounded for still apply to you. You still have to obey all traffic devices; just because a light is red and the cars have stopped does not mean you can come barreling through a crosswalk at 30 miles per hour. Use your hand signals and especially recognize when the pedestrians around you (possibly your friends or professors) cannot see you. I was even shoved once last week by some over-assuming biker who thought it was my fault he almost put a few of Newton’s law of motions to the test between us. Ride predictably, and most importantly, ride on the road. When was the last time you saw a car cruising down the sidewalk? Unless it was on the World’s Most Extreme and Dangerous Videos in Taiwan, I doubt you have at all.

Many cyclists riding to class see themselves as the equivalent of pedestrians and try to get there as fast as they can. They fail to realize the danger they are placing themselves and us in doing so. The University has its responsibility as well to recognize and control these problems. As insignificant as it may seem to pull over and ticket a rogue biker, I don’t find getting my foot run over and broken insignificant at all. How fast would you get around if I popped your tire? Then we’d both have a bad wheel.

Bobby Laverty is an Opinion Editor for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at b.laverty@cavalierdaily.com.