The Bar: Jabu’s Pub (Queen Anne, 174 Roy St.), Mondays at 8:30 PM. My girlfriend and I were among a mere half dozen people there at 8:30 on the dot, but a stream of 10-15 regulars filed in over in the next fifteen minutes. There was a definite “young professional” vibe going on: a lot of slack-buttoned dress shirts, loose ties and offhand comments about synergy and whoever was fucking up in the LA office — which usually equates to a lot of host/contestant tension and fierce competition.That wasn’t present tonight. A good trivia night has most of its patrons frustrated, but in an active, thought-provoking sort of way. There’s a fine line between that and mere annoyance, one Jabu’s crossed for the worst. I was practically begging for any asshole in a sport jacket to scream profanities throughout the second round’s alt-country-saturated music round, but no one seemed to want to expend the energy.The Host: Not present. The regular host, Erin, was apparently “tuckered out” and a substitute was brought in as a favor from one of the bar staff. I didn’t ask the substitute’s name, because he quite clearly had no interest in being there. On an unexpected note, his sardonic delivery of the questions might’ve actually heightened the night’s entertainment. At one point, in the middle of a particularly grievous run-on sentence, the sub simply laughed and voided the question altogether. I would’ve taken offense from a substitute barely attempting to deliver someone else’s hard work, but there was such an insidious apathy behind mercilessly long-winded questions that it actually came as earnest for someone to just come out and say “yeah, I don’t even know what the question is here, I’m moving on.”The Quiz: There was a $10 buy-in per team, regardless of how many members show up. There were five slips of purple paper handed out to all the teams. Only four categories were actually part of the quiz, as the substitute host announced he “had another job.” I really don’t know how this had anything to do with anything, seeing as how said sub was actually e-mailed all of the quiz’s questions. This was essentially par for the course.The difficulty curve of the quiz’s questions was horrifically imbalanced. Questions went from “Who was the fourth person to walk on the moon?” to “What’s the fourth closest planet to the sun?” without a single wink to the audience. Easing people into a category is one thing, but constantly tossing gimme questions right after ridiculously hard ones just drew attention to how much time the quiz wasted. The result of this imbalance was a set of near-identical scores with a few teams just barely edging out the rest of the entire game. This essentially means the quiz could’ve been five questions long while reaching the exact same outcome.Answers were given after every round and were either greeted with total silence or half-hearted jeers. No one seemed to care, even the lead team, who was set to win $50. I couldn’t blame them — split up five or six ways, they weren’t getting paid enough.Length: Forgivingly short. This was probably the night’s highest honor, as my girlfriend and I were out of the bar after little more than an hour and a half of quizzing.Special Effects: None, unless you discount the substitute host’s total disdain for every word of every question the original host created. Apparently the winning team gets to choose a category for the next round, creating a sort of Moebius Strip for specialized awfulness. Yay. Drink/Bar Food Specials: None. It pretty much seems like Jabu’s has Trivia Night and Karaoke just so they don’t have to serve anything discounted for two nights of the week.The Verdict: They played AWA Wrestling on one of the bar’s TVs for a while, so that was pretty cool. Unfortunately, once the bartender noticed someone was gaining any satisfaction whatsoever, the channel was immediately changed to dated NFL highlights.There really doesn’t seem to be any reason to go to trivia at Jabu’s Pub unless you’re a regular, you can’t be burdened with walking more than five blocks from your Queen Anne cave, or you really, really, really love BBC’s Casualty and any of its myriad spinoffs.It could be that Jabu’s regular host is full of charisma and would’ve delivered the quiz wonderfully. It could be that I came on the worst possible day, and the quiz is usually a seamless affair that keeps the regulars coming back week after week. Furthermore, let it be known that I love Jabu’s Pub. It’s an awesome retreat on Lower Queen Anne, whose only idea of handling traffic post-Sonics is ticketing any visitor who parks within a two-mile radius.Jabu’s may be a king of the bottom of the hill, but unless you’re very attuned to the idiosyncrasies of this particular quizmaster, I can’t possibly recommend its trivia night. Go to Jabu’s for stiff drinks, a calming game of pool or good conversation, not a series of convoluted questions.