My first (I think) blog post about NTN Buzztime was written nearly a decade ago

Today I am celebrating my ten-year anniversary of blogging. In doing so, I'm going back into the archives and pulling up some old posts that I wrote about various topics.

I ran across a July 2, 2005 Ontario Empoblog post about NTN Buzztime that quoted from the buzztime.com website - from a page that no longer exists (or perhaps was moved). It tells a bit of the history of NTN Buzztime, including the company's first game - and no, it wasn't Countdown. Here's what I grabbed from NTN Buzztime's own website:

NTN Communications is the brainchild of two executives from the Houston Oilers football team. The spark that lit the fire in the two men - Don Klosterman, executive vice president and general manager of the Oilers, and Dan Downs, ticket and stadium manager -- came in 1967. They conceived of an interactive strategy game that fans could play during a live football game.

They obtained a copyright, but for the most part the idea stayed in their heads for the following 15 years. Technology finally caught up with them in the early 1980s. The pair decided to create their own interactive broadcasting company and offer QB1 -- their interactive football strategy game -- as its first product.

Klosterman and Downs, along with several new partners, incorporated NTN Communications in April 1983. The NFL granted NTN a license a year later. By January 1986, players in 12 locations played QB1 during the Super Bowl.

The Olive Pit in Orange, California, revisited...on national TV

Even though the Olive Pit in Orange is only a few miles from my work, I haven't been there in years.

The last time that I mentioned the Olive Pit was in a 2008 post - and even then, my last visit was in the past.

(And I still remembered what had happened when I visited the Olive Pit in Orange for the first time in several months, only to discover that they had dropped trivia in favor of poker.)

While I was staying away from the Olive Pit, it turns out that other people were staying away also - until the people from Bar Rescue showed up.

Bar Rescue is one of those shows where an expert goes into a business, cusses people out, and gets the owner and employees to fix the business. And that's what happened at the Olive Pit.

Games (or lack thereof) weren't really a topic in the show, other than the relocation of some of the coin-operated games. At the end of the show, the place had been renamed "The O.P.," food and bar service was much better, and the original owner had been encouraged to retire and let his daughter run the place.

However, The O.P. is no longer running any type of Buzztime game, according to Buzztime's location list. But it rates halfway decently on Yelp - note that some of the ratings were from before the Bar Rescue makeover, but that some of the post-makeover ratings aren't five star.

But if you're in Orange and want to play Buzztime trivia, the O.P. is out, and Scottie's Smokehouse is out, so head down to Danny K's. (I've actually played there a couple of times; it's sort of the Buzztime mecca in Orange.)

I think I need a small vacation...so I'll go to Juneau

Happy 2013! Yes, this is my first post in this blog for 2013. And this post has little to do with NTN Buzztime.

If you read my Empoprise-MU music blog, you may have seen my post about a mysterious Zoominfo entry that I discovered.

Although it took me some time, it turned out that this Zoominfo entry was automatically generated in 2009, based upon an Empoprise-MU post about the song "Wichita Lineman."

The Zoominfo entry included a number of interesting board memberships for this John Bredehoft from Wichita. I was able to decipher most of them.

Board Memberships and Affiliations

Founder
Empoprise-MU News

Founder
Empoprise-BI News

Founder Atlantic City.

Founder
It's...just...a...tool...

Founder
NTN Buzztime

Founder
Repeat.

Founder
Triangle Club

I'm sure that the principals at NTN Buzztime would be pleased to know that I (or, more accurately, my Kansas counterpart) actually founded their company.

But one of the entries that threw me off was the "Triangle Club" entry. Had I written something about former Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson?

Eventually, I figured that one out also. It turns out that I briefly wrote about the Triangle Club in a 2009 Empoprise-NTN blog post. This is a Buzztime site in Juneau, Alaska. I was no longer able to find the 2008 Juneau Empire story about the Triangle Club Bar, but I did find the bar's website, which includes a history of the Triangle Club Bar.

The Triangle Club has offered continuous service at it's (sic) historic location for over 60 years. In 1947, Joe Thomas, Sr. purchased the club from Wilbur Burford and Emmett Botelho. Following in his father's footsteps Joe Thomas, Jr. continued to perpetuate the Triangle's tradition by offering a warm friendly haven for sports enthusiasts and a refuge from the Taku winds. This excellent tradition continues today under the guidance of Joe Jr's daughter Leeann Thomas. The Triangle Club still offers the same hospitality today as it did 2 generations ago, making it one of the truly unique establishments in downtown Juneau....

The club's diverse clientele has included everybody from governors to carpetbaggers, making it an inviting "watering hole" to exchange tall tales and solve the world's problems. Equally entertaining from the club's vantage point is the "people traffic" on Front and Franklin Streets, arguably one of the best places in town to enjoy a drink and a good view.

I don't know if then-Governor Sarah Palin ever visited the Triangle Club Bar, but conversations at the bar could switch to state business in a snap:

The ‘Jewels of the North’ stood in the crook of the horseshoe shaped end of Juneau’s Triangle Club’s bar regaling the assembled Sages with the tale of her encounter with four bears behind the back porch of her downtown condominium....

The ‘Jewels of the North’ had broken up a bear fight. Governor Sarah’s got nothing on her.

The Stroller offered up this observation for the consideration of the Sages and they agreed with him before the conversation disintegrated into a spirited debate about Governor Sarah and the validity of the Alaska Legislature’s report concluding she had violated Alaska’s Executive Ethics Act by applying illegal pressure on the Commissioner of Public Safety, and his department, to fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper....

In addition to governors and carpetbaggers, the Triangle Club Bar also attracts gamers. The Triangle Club is still an NTN Buzztime site. As of today, the Triangle Club is leading all competitors in the Tri-State Topix Challenge, although the Ram Restaurant in Puyallup is a close second.

I wonder if there are a lot of Glen Campbell fans in Puyallup.