Alisa Stewart   Queen of Quizzery
Quiz Writer & Creator of Pub Quiz USA

When Alisa isn't screwing around in Maui, she is a musician by night and highly qualified personal injury paralegal by day. She graduated toward the top of her class at Oregon State and moved to Chicago to pursue a theater career. After attending Columbia College in pursuit of a Masters degree, she found that drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and being broke was a lot more fun than taking classes. For seven years she worked in professional theater before moving back to the Pacific Northwest, where she started a band and released her first album, Little Things Unseen, in 2000. She toured the west coast and hopped the pond to the UK, where she had her first glimpse of pub quizzes in between gigs. Upon moving to Seattle in 2002, she started attending pub quizzes every Thursday with an English bloke by the name of Paul. Although they did pretty well, Alisa got tres' frustrated when the same team would win every week.

Paul eventually moved back to England and Alisa eventually moved back to Oregon. Upon her arrival, she couldn't find a pub quiz to save her life. Most people would look at her funny when she asked, "Do you know where a pub quiz is?" (most responses were "What's a pub quiz?"), so she decided to start one, in her own style, making sure to put mechanisms in so that the same team really couldn't win every week.

Alisa passed all the Mensa tests & could be a member of the elite group, but she'd much rather write quizzes, hang out in pubs, drink beer and give money & pitchers of beer away. Besides, Mensa meetings have got to be boring.

Polly Pospisil   Quizmaster Goddess

It was the allure of the glamorous lights, rubbing elbows with Portland's elite crowd, no, wait, maybe it's the copious amounts of attention, and amazing fan mail. Really it's simply holding all the answers and commanding a microphone all at the same time that drew her to Pub Quizzes, well that and the good beer. Polly has a wanton desire to be interesting, gathering wardrobe, hair colors and accents from everything and everyone she meets, which makes her the perfect fit for for sharing knowledge with you at a pub quiz.

Polly hails from the armpit of America, small town Ohio, where coincidentally the state mascot is a Buckeye, a poison nut. Polly has had many illustrious careers ranging from Waitress, sales of tours of stars homes in Nashville, to Wine Stewart and has won some prestigious Christmas party awards, one that includes a medal for "Miss Vivacious." After pursuing academic interests she landed at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio and earned her degree of Applied Sciences in Interior Design and within a year of work in her field under her belt, she had something else growing under her belt as well and that led her to a life of exile as a suburban stay at home mom. Drowning in Khaki, trips to the gap, and a life of luxury travel and time, Polly formed a new resolution for the Year of 2006 break out of suburbia before you forget why your doc martens were cool, and what Indie Rock means.

If you get too serious, you could die of starch. - Cyndi Lauper

Dave Walker   Quizmaster Extraordinaire

"The world we live in is not as it seems." Some guy whispered that to me as he was getting off the bus the other day. 'You're damn right!' I said, even though he freaked me out a little and smelled something of goats. He seemed to be taken aback from my response and stumbled a bit on the steps of the bus. Just before the door closed, I leaned my head out and shouted after him, "The real question is can you be... but not seem?" The door closed as the man turned around and I never saw him again.

Dave Walker tells that story to anyone who will listen. His story started when he was born to a minister and his wife just outside of Pittsburgh, Pa. Since that auspicious start, he has made it his goal to travel to as many places that weren't actually located within in the Monongahela valley as he could. Since his journey began, he has stepped foot on five continents, 15 countries and all 48 of the contiguous United States. He has also had the opportunity to attend five institutes of higher learning... and three of the lower kind.

Through it all he has tried to keep his sense of humor and more importantly his limbs intact. But there is something that he has learned recently that really sums up his experience in this tiny blue sphere of existence... the world we live in is not as it seems. Right on little freaky goat man.... right on! Hey did everything just taste purple for a second or two? Weird.

Wendy Holmes   Quizmaster Extraordinaire

How did my legend begin? My earliest recollection of my parents was one filled with ominous green light, screams and a scary, hooded being who took my parents' lives; leaving me to be the only one to survive the Killing Curse. Wait...that was Harry Potter's beginning.

I lived most of my life in the Sacramento Valley of California in a little, rural community called Yuba City. I was one of those awkward teenagers who just wanted to be accepted. I met a young man who liked me and we started dating. I married my high school sweetheart and had 2 children with him. Shortly after we separated, I shed my California tan for a Portland umbrella, and my kids & I share our pad with my new beau, his Rottweiler, and our 2 cats. I love dancing, shooting excellent tequila, camp, hot tubbing, more dancing, movies, and did I mention dancing? My daughter and I like to be couch potatoes on Sundays, catching up on all of the reality TV shows we DVR. My boyfriend and I hit up the karaoke every week. It's one of my moments to be famous. LOL. And here we are!

Leandra Binder   Quizmaster Extraordinaire

Leandra Binder is a byproduct of the cultural sludge that seeps from the Las Vegas Strip (via Yucca Mountain, very viscous), through the suburbs and into the desert. Unbeknownst to most sociologists the toxic sludge of Las Vegas is only harmful to interlopers ("tourists"), so Leandra rode that slimy wave straight through her M.A. and onward into Portland. Now washed anew by Portland's fresh air, she reports the only side effects are a tendency to drawl and a distinct fetish for shiny lights. Magpie tendencies aside, Leandra is a strict believer in red wine, Russian literature, and her quest for the perfect sentence (which she will find, but probably not while teaching writing courses at Chemeketa Community College).

Jeremy Henrickson   Writer & Quizmaster Extraordinaire

When I'm not Quiz Mastering at the Horse and Hound in Hood River (Shout out to my peeps!) I practice my art of underwater basket weaving. I graduated from Portland State after a stint at the University of Oregon. I have a degree in Literature with a minor in writing, so you know my word Kung Fu is strong! I'm all WHAM! and CRACK! I could go on all day with the Batman sound effects.

I previously worked in the hustle and bustle of a newspaper called The Argus. Now, I am living happily in Beaverton with my cat, who demands most of my free time. When I do get a moment, I am always up to things of a notorious nature with my buddies over in Portland. It never ceases to provide new and interesting ways to get into trouble. The good kind of trouble - not the Big Trouble you'd sometimes find in Little China. With Kurt Russell.

John Patrick Pullen   Quizmaster Extraordinaire

A dual Irish/American citizen, John Patrick Pullen was born on St. Patrick's Day in Boston. He spent a stretch living in Ireland, and an even longer stretch residing in South Boston. He drinks Guinness and Baileys and like most people, enjoys U2 when Bono isn't being too preachy. Still, despite all these cliches, he's a pretty run-of-the-mill fellah, unassuming and even average looking. Basically, he's the kind of guy you'd ask for directions on the street, and many people have, in fact.

However, since he spends his days working as a freelance writer, people mostly ask him to write and edit various things. Once upon a time, he edited the third best inflight magazine in the country. He has also worked on the world's most colorful direct marketing industry trade publication, a women's website where he - using an assumed name - gave brides-to-be advice based on his very limited experience of being (and staying) married just once, as well as several travel magazines for places he's scarcely been. David Sedaris has called him "very nice," and Ira Glass once left him a voicemail message. And yet while none of these things qualify him to be a Quizmaster, his adroit manner with the English language, comfort with public speaking in general, years of experience as a pub trivia player, and crackerjack ability to recite lyrics of 1980s sit-com theme songs somehow make him perfect for the job. Oh yeah, and he was a Resident Advisor in college, so he knows how to handle pain-in-the-ass drunks.

Kurt Edelhauser   Quizmaster Apprentice

Living half of his childhood on the mean streets of the OC and half in a Seattle suburb (attending such infamous institutions as "The Chateau On The Plateau"), Quizmaster Kurt Edelhauser settled down in southern California. Then a Colorado ski resort. Then southern California. Then the same Colorado ski resort. Then southern California, Seattle, southern California, Seattle, southern California, a brief stint in Oklahoma, and now back in Seattle (Kurt got tired of typing "then", that would have gotten old). So we will say that Kurt is well-traveled and much wiser for the experience. So basically, his carbon footprint is about the size of a mid-sized archipelago. Sorry, Earth!

Kurt is classically trained in the art of Radio/TV/Film from Cal State Fullerton. He worked for free on several shows, including "Two and a Half Men", "The New Tom Green Show", and most primetime ABC shows during an adventure on the Disney lot. If you need advice on how to order lunch and pick it up, pump gas, or get a car wash, just ask. Despite this experience and his thorough education, he does something completely unrelated, working for The Man (not The Dude).

For some reason, Kurt purchased leather pants at one point in his life, and wearing them one night, had Dennis Rodman grab his ass (a full double-cheek cup AND squeeze).

Kurt's usual mood is whelmed (not over or under, just plain whelmed). He enjoys fluffy little dogs, dark beer, dark rum, dark comedy, and, oh yeah, trivia!