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yendiJust spent the last 27 hours or so in Chattanooga, as Jet_li_wannabe, Gerry, Steve, and I hit UTC to represent Emory at TRASHionals 007: LAZENBY!. This was my first quiz-bowl style event in ten years, and I was rusty, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. Trash tournaments have come a long way, and I like the current set-up a lot.
We managed to place tenth. We started out 6-1 in the prelims, but dropped our last two rounds, ending with a 6-3 prelim record, which took us into the second playoff bracket (Brosnan -- each bracket was named for a Bond actor, with the top six teams making the "Connery" bracket). We only went 2-3 in the playoffs, but that was still good enough for tenth out of the thirty total teams in the tourney, which is no shame, considering the quality of the competition. We went in wanting to not finish last, and we did way better than that.
Notable questions I got: I caught almost every comics toss-up (and there was one per round), excluding a Poison Ivy one that someone else hit before me. Nailed Alpha Flight and She-Hulk ones on only a few words, A Wrinkle in Time after the opening line and "not Bulwer-Lytton," and a Michelle Trachtenberg one after Inspector Gadget and Harriet the Spy. I got a toss-up on the video-game Mafia based only on knowing the fictional city it's set in, and an audio clue on Chess after about two beats of "One Night in Bangkok," (barely beating in Jet_li_wannabe -- I don't think the other team had a prayer on that one).
But my favorite was the autoerotic asphyxiation one.
You see, in the same round that had the Chess clue, there was a question about Russian Roulette, which started out by describing some famous folks who died as a result of it (before eventually getting to the easy Deer Hunter clues, when Gerry put it away for us). Someone on the other team buzzed in early and said, "autoerotic asphyxiation," which was horribly wrong, but also horribly funny. Jet_li_wannabe later mentioned that if that had really been the answer, they'd have mentioned Rising Sun.
So, this morning, a long clue starts up by mentioning that it's about ways to die, and then leads into, ". . . it was the cause of a character's death in Michael Crichton.'s Rising. . ." at which point, I gave the answer. I think the judge was kind of stunned that all four members of our team were attempting to buzz in that early on such an odd one.
Anyway, I went 26-5 (twenty-six toss-ups, five interrupts), which was better than I expected (although I think that they failed to record one of my interrupts), so I'm pleased. Some of my interrupts were just plain horrible (I just choked when I had "Apache Chief" come up as a clue, redeemed only mildly by the fact that the other team didn't get it), but after ten years of rust, that's not a surprise. I definitely will be doing some more trash tourneys. We were a well-meshed team in terms of areas of knowledge, and we really nailed stuff on bonuses well.
Oh, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thermidor : I saw two familiar faces -- Brian (from the '93-95 Emory teams) and Marc Dawson (from GSU).
Last night, we also hit Sticky Fingers, where everyone but Gerry had full slabs of ribs which were damned fine. We then headed on a search for a miniature golf course, and played 36 holes before heading back at midnight. Today's late lunch was spent at Lupi's, whose calzones are amazing creations (mmm, garlic).
And now I'm back home.
We managed to place tenth. We started out 6-1 in the prelims, but dropped our last two rounds, ending with a 6-3 prelim record, which took us into the second playoff bracket (Brosnan -- each bracket was named for a Bond actor, with the top six teams making the "Connery" bracket). We only went 2-3 in the playoffs, but that was still good enough for tenth out of the thirty total teams in the tourney, which is no shame, considering the quality of the competition. We went in wanting to not finish last, and we did way better than that.
Notable questions I got: I caught almost every comics toss-up (and there was one per round), excluding a Poison Ivy one that someone else hit before me. Nailed Alpha Flight and She-Hulk ones on only a few words, A Wrinkle in Time after the opening line and "not Bulwer-Lytton," and a Michelle Trachtenberg one after Inspector Gadget and Harriet the Spy. I got a toss-up on the video-game Mafia based only on knowing the fictional city it's set in, and an audio clue on Chess after about two beats of "One Night in Bangkok," (barely beating in Jet_li_wannabe -- I don't think the other team had a prayer on that one).
But my favorite was the autoerotic asphyxiation one.
You see, in the same round that had the Chess clue, there was a question about Russian Roulette, which started out by describing some famous folks who died as a result of it (before eventually getting to the easy Deer Hunter clues, when Gerry put it away for us). Someone on the other team buzzed in early and said, "autoerotic asphyxiation," which was horribly wrong, but also horribly funny. Jet_li_wannabe later mentioned that if that had really been the answer, they'd have mentioned Rising Sun.
So, this morning, a long clue starts up by mentioning that it's about ways to die, and then leads into, ". . . it was the cause of a character's death in Michael Crichton.'s Rising. . ." at which point, I gave the answer. I think the judge was kind of stunned that all four members of our team were attempting to buzz in that early on such an odd one.
Anyway, I went 26-5 (twenty-six toss-ups, five interrupts), which was better than I expected (although I think that they failed to record one of my interrupts), so I'm pleased. Some of my interrupts were just plain horrible (I just choked when I had "Apache Chief" come up as a clue, redeemed only mildly by the fact that the other team didn't get it), but after ten years of rust, that's not a surprise. I definitely will be doing some more trash tourneys. We were a well-meshed team in terms of areas of knowledge, and we really nailed stuff on bonuses well.
Oh, and
thermidor : I saw two familiar faces -- Brian (from the '93-95 Emory teams) and Marc Dawson (from GSU).Last night, we also hit Sticky Fingers, where everyone but Gerry had full slabs of ribs which were damned fine. We then headed on a search for a miniature golf course, and played 36 holes before heading back at midnight. Today's late lunch was spent at Lupi's, whose calzones are amazing creations (mmm, garlic).
And now I'm back home.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-18 03:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-18 03:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-18 04:14 pm (UTC)I miss colleg bowl occaisionally. Who ran this tournament? A few years back I wrote some rounds for a trash tournament- it was pretty fun. Maybe I need to start playing bar trivia again :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-18 06:21 pm (UTC)"Just spent the last 27 hours or so in Chattanooga as Jet_li_wannabe..."
and wondered what you were doing as someone else in Chattanooga and if Jet_li_wannabe did not want himself back.
Sounds like fun!
Date: 2004-04-19 05:24 pm (UTC)I've never heard of this TRASHional thing. I did the Academic Decathalon in high school, so I am guessing this is a take-off on that, but with a more geeky/comics/scifi twist? Tell me more! How did you get involved, and why are you still playing if you are not in school anymore?