Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Out of the Park Pizza

In a January 2 post, I mentioned that I was looking for a new place to play in Orange County.

a search of the Site Finder reveals a new (to me) NTN Buzztime location, Out of the Park Pizza in Anaheim Hills. Oddly enough, however, as of January 1 no one had played Lunchtime Trivia there. And their website doesn't mention NTN Buzztime at all - not a good sign.

So anyways, I was driving to lunch on Tuesday. Vaguely remembering where Out of the Park Pizza was, I drove out that way and found the place.

And I must confirm that Lunchtime Trivia apparently is not popular there. I was the first person to play Lunchtime Trivia in the month of February.

But that's the only negative thing I can say about the place. When I asked for a Playmaker, the waitress/cashier/bartender/(possibly the owner) immediately knew what I was talking about. She initially grabbed one that was only partially charged, and promised to check the charger for a fully charged Playmaker, which she found. I had to promise not to beat her if she started playing, and she mentioned that it's easy to beat the players at night because they're drunk. And there were several screens showing trivia, which is always a plus. I've been to places where the staff doesn't know what you're talking about, where you have to beg for a screen, and where the Playmakers die on you - no such problems at Out of the Park Pizza.

Out of the Park Pizza is at the Imperial Highway exit off the 91 (head north, turn left on La Palma, and turn left at the next light). Their Facebook page is here.

Oh, and my Lunchtime Trivia scores - 1000 (for the 7th question only), 5133, and 5304. The waitress/cashier/bartender/(possibly the owner) probably would have beaten me.

Friday, February 3, 2012

So does that mean I can't play against RoadDog?

I missed this message first time around, but I caught it subsequently. Here's an excerpt from a January 26 NTN Buzztime post:

The first fantastic game-changing difference for Buzztime and The Buzztime Nation moving forward is that there will be a Buzztime East Network and a Buzztime West Network. I’ll let that mind-blowing news sink in....

With Buzztime splitting into two Networks (East and West) everyone in the Buzztime Nation will now have convenient game times. The Networks will be split by time zones in the following way:

•East: CT, ET, AT Time Zones
•West: HI, AK, PT, MT Time Zones

Buzztime’s premium games will now start during our “primetime” hour (more on that next week). Your favorite games will now run from:

•East: 7:30pm ET/6:30pm CT - 9:30pm ET/8:30pm CT
•West: 7:30pm MT/6:30pm PT - 9:30pm MT/8:30pm PT

Note: Premium content for Canada will begin one hour earlier Tuesday through Friday.


Now there are certainly advantages to the new setup, as the post points out. When people in Halifax, Nova Scotia are getting off work, people in Honolulu, Hawaii haven't even eaten lunch yet.

But the biggest disadvantage to this is that Buzztime no longer allows continental competition. Certainly you will still get to compete with people who may live hundreds or thousands of miles away from you...but it's still a slightly smaller network.