Sunday, January 31, 2010
No Sister Kissing!
It's the final countdown
That being said the fried chicken is awesome!
What is google thinking???
Yes we can!
Thanks guy that sounds like Cleveland Brown!
http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/index.html
Standings
Latest Scores
01. | Food Bank of Kaukauna: Put your buns ... | 1240 |
02. | Trivia Pirates Argh | 1225 |
03. | The Lawrence Undead: Alumni with Noth... | 1096 |
04. | Six Feet Under | 1090 |
05. | Karen Carr Presents Bucky's Banastitu... | 1040 |
06. | Synchronized Chaos | 975 |
07. | Morgan Freeman and the north side pla... | 972 |
08. | Silver Anniversary Teabagging Iowans | 970 |
09. | Super Mega Soviet Gang Bang Dream Tea... | 969 |
10. | Hobgoblin of Little Minds | 94 |
The sweet sweet feel
Because nothing is better!
Q: According to Fredrick Jemeson's translation of Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold what is Albrerish dragging as the 3rd scene opens?
A: The shrieking mime
My Trivia Question:
Q: What's better than a shrieking mime?
A: Absolutely Nothing!
Controversy
Also, what's up with the Bank of Nerds jam team? Bastards!
Scroatie Foster is also pretty good.
Fun
Nothing to report
I'm the only one
Even though I don't get many of the answers
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Strage
Remember
A crying on the inside type
Transcript
Now, for those of you who have been at this for a while, you’ll probably think its odd that I have gone to the trouble to prepare these remarks, as my tradition is to hop up and spout a few rousing remarks; a cuss this or that and send us barreling into this 50 hour slog. And while I have certainly always fallen back on that approach in times of desperation, I have to admit to you all that every year I think to myself that this is going to be the year when I actually take the time to really think through what this weekend, this contest, and—most of all—what all of you really mean to me.
Most years, I just can’t get up enough enthusiasm to pull that off.
But this year is different. This is 2010. A chance for a record tenth win in a row. And I figured if that’s not sufficient motivation, then I just don’t have it in me.
I have to stop here for some facts to set this up right. By my count, we have 28 people playing trivia this year. Those 28 people represent 12 states (Wisconsin, Florida, Minnesota, Iowa, Washington, Illinois, Massachussetts, Tennessee, Texas, California, New York, New Jersey) and the district of Columbia. Using my, admittedly rough math skills, that’s better than 20% of the country’s states represented. We have won 9 in a row. 11 of the last 13, with 2 second place finishes sprinkled in there. By my count, this is the 14th consecutive year that the Bank of Kaukauna has fielded a trivia team. It’s our fifteenth consecutive year if you count Sam, Jason, Shannon and I playing the contest out of my bedroom, and it’s my 17th total year if you count the year I played with some folks at Lawrence and the sophomore debacle whereby Jason Maxham was introduced to my sister whilst dancing on my dad’s sub-woofer. This from the man who styles himself an audiophile.
Seventeen years. Holy cuss. I just turned 34 years old. I have been playing this game half my life. Let me put that in perspective. I did not know—but just looked up—the average length of first marriages in this country. It’s 7.8 years. And we’ve all been together twice that long. Which I think is definitive proof that married people should only be allowed to spend 50 hours together once a year. Preferably playing trivia.
When you think about it, it’s pretty remarkable that we all get together to do this thing. As we get older, our lives are increasingly full of stress and commitments. Vacation time is at a premium, and in the midst of the Great Recession, spending limited resources to go play a stupid game is crazy. Another fun fact: there are 8,765 and change hours in a year. We bill about 1800 of those to clients, which leaves 6,965 hours to do with as we please. Factor out an optimistic 8 hours of sleep a night (or, in Maxham’s case, 12 hours a night) and you have a little over 4,000 hours left. You’re about to devote 1.25% of your non-work, non-sleep life to trivia. The good news is that you’re going to make it up by not sleeping.
But it is remarkable that we keep doing this, and I am always surprised that we manage to convince as many folks as we do to play. Because contrary to popular opinion, this whole playing trivia all night thing actually sucks when you have jobs and kids and other cuss to deal with. I spend 8,715 hours a year dreading trivia. But I spend 50 hours a year loving it. Unfortunately, it’s the first 50 hours after it’s over. In all seriousness, though, you don’t play trivia for 50 hours of sheer fun. You play it for those handful of moments throughout the contest where you happen to know the answer to a question off the top of your head, or where you find a website that makes you lose it, or when you’re singing Africa at the top of your lungs.
I am at the point in my life where I now forget more things than I remember, but I can recall with vivid clarity the moments when I knew that some of you would be trivia lifers –
Joel – Chuck Norris
Mark – the top score on Pac Man
Kyle – smashed to pieces in the still of the night
Patty – the moment you said, “I do.”
And whether this is your first trivia contest or your 14th, that’s what this contest is all about. The little moments where we forget ourselves, our lives, our jobs and focus on something so small, so minute, so trivial that we change profoundly, if imperceptibly. The next 50 hours are a free pass to slow down, answer a question every 5 minutes, meet some new people, bathe a little less, sleep a lot less and forget about Monday morning.
Now, if I’ve lured you all in with this quasi-new-age-love-thy-trivia-
Make no mistake. Three questions is not a victory. It’s a margin of error. If you aim for a three question advantage, you risk losing nine years of hard work not because somebody managed to find an answer to a Garuda, but because you were talking through a question. Or because nobody listened for our name and they won’t give us credit. With a margin that small, there is no error for mistake. We have to be 50 hours of perfect. We have to treat each and every question like a Garuda, like it is the question that will make the difference between winning and losing.
And that is my challenge to you this year. Can you answer every question as though it’s the one that makes the difference? Can each of you commit to answering, somehow, some way, the impossible question? Because if you can find a way to do that, we are going to win this thing. And better than that, we’re going to make it look like it wasn’t even close.
They are going to come at us hard. There is nothing they want more in the whole world than to end our streak right here. There is nothing they want more than to have me walk up for that second place trophy. And they think they have us figured out because all they need to do is answer three more questions right. Don’t give them that satisfaction. Don’t give them that satisfaction.
You are my friends, and you are my team, and for the next 50 hours we will live and eat and breathe and play as one unit. If you do that, we will make history. Now, let’s go do it.
***************
I'm Back
Things Bears Love
Joel has gone to bed
Having a hoot reading "finds" at href="http://www.foundmagazine.com".
Question
Braaaaaiiiiiiins!
When do we want them?
Braaaaaiiiiiiiiiiinss!
It is Zombie hour!
S-L-O-W
Not Quite Sure How This Is Going To Work
Scapple Jacks FTW.
Kyle just called someone on redial that wasn't a trivia phone person. Good Comedy!
Still not getting this one.
20. On Gremlin's movie list what two films feature the actor who is the self-proclaimed nephew of the host of a japanese cooking show?
Cradle to the Grave. Brotherhood of the Wolf
Before I play the piano, I like to feed a goat
Friday, January 29, 2010
Africa!!!
Hurry Boy! They're Waiting There For You!
Impressive
Braaaaaiiiiiiiiinnns!
Geek Test
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Links of Interest
I got to write about the contest on my work blog this week.
Some of the other teams:
Trivia Pirates
Skull Squadron
Too Much Trivia In The Pants
Iowans
We Need More Cowbell, Martha!
2010 - Two Angry Tivia Bears
trekked out to Sunny Kaukauna for another year of the Great Midwest Trivia Contest. Another 50 hours of sleeping on the floor or drinking massively dehydrating volumes of coffee. Our second littlest trivia guru is also a dangerous bear. She's also the second coolest bear next to our good friend Lily up in Ely, Minnesota. I'll start with some updates soon since we are still looking at nearly 2 hours before Trivia starts. I am about the have my third cup of coffee and am looking forward to the joys of caffeine shakes. W00T. Since I have nothing better to do right now than harass the wife. Note the early 90's called and want my clothes back. I did trade my red chucks for my disintegrating MONKEY SLIPPERS. More on that later....
Monday, January 26, 2009
Heading Home
Anna just had her Green Card approved! Finally! After a long and mind-numbing process, she has learned that if you are persistant enough they will let just about anyone into this country! Eventually! It is great news.
Throughout the week, I'll flesh out some of the smaller posts and add some additional feedback on the "placeholder" posts from the middle of Friday and Saturday night. I will also fix spelling and typos from posts I didn't edit closely.
I've got a broomball game in St. Paul at 6 PM and then a long and deep sleep--this signals the return to the mundane normalcy of my life.
Cheers!
Joel
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Garrudas Time @ 10:30
Garrudas are significantly more difficult that they standard questions and are worth anywhere from 25-75 points. We also get more time to solve them. For example, we got one Garruda last year for 25 points. "What was Jim Morrison's Passport Number?" We were able to find a copy of his death certificate online and get the number from there.
After the Garrudas, we have one Super Garruda which is typically worth 100 points and honestly are virtually unanswerable. The last time someone officially got a super garruda was the Bank in 2001. If all goes well, we call random strangers and wake them up in bed.
All Mine!
I Done Wet My Britches!
Last question of the non-Star Wars hour.... Here's the answer
http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF089-Caring_for_Your_Turtle.gif
Another great one from the same website http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF050-An_End_to_Gopher_Trouble.gif
If only she was real!
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=73410940
"Introducing Dahsheeka (pronounced Dar-shee-car) the feisty, straight-talking object of the infamously buttas MC Gremlins unwanted affections. Born Dahsheeka Monisha Elisha Rhiena Beyonce Ashanti Brown in Peckham it was clear from a young age that Dahsheeka had a definitive taste for the high life, her first words to her parents being Moschino and I want. A round-the-way-girl with the clich attitude to match, Dahsheeka, or Sheek as shes fondly called by her peers, enjoyed growing up in Peckham as it taught her many valuable life lessons such as: the California yakky at Deepaks wholesale on the high street tangles too quickly, or Chantels mums boyfriend can get designer D&G bags much cheaper than Tyrone and Bavin behind the flats! 19-year-old Dahsheeka is one of the founding members of TFC which stands for the Too Fine Crew 04, alongside her best friend and fellow hot gal Maneetah (every pretty girls ugly best friend), their main ethos being to look buff come rain or shine. Maneetah ironically has a deep crush on Dahsheekas gruesome chief pesterer MC gremlin, COULD YOU BELIEVE IT!? But hes not amused and continually spurns her advances of lust! For more on Dahsheeka and the gangs hilarious animated capers visit www.buttas.com "
Kremlins or Gremlins Hour
Great Jam Team: In Mother Russia trivia jams you!
Fubar Hour
**Update, It's a Fail Hour**
We just got an insane question featuring the awesome band Galatic. We didn't get the answer, but neither did the Pirates.... Whew!
Shout out to the Stevens Point Contest.
The Interwebs is Fixed
My Belly
It isn't an easy task since we've had a significant number of folks come through the doors since Friday night. We've been well fed with nice home cooked meals--rather than the pizza and Chinese takeout one might expect. Some of the highlights were the beef, bean or pork enchiladas for dinner last night and Friday's homemade macaroni and cheese with brocoli. I have absolutly no recollection about breakfast yesterday but I am sure it was awesome.
The folks that feed us are amazing and selfless people. And I must admit, that it's better than gorging on Cool Ranch Doritos, Cheetos and other junk food and getting MSG remains all over my keyboard.
My well shaped belly says "THANKS!"
49 In A Row....
The question that tripped us up refered to who currently lives in the home of Glenn and Annie Greenwood from Free Willy.
Any Whale You Want It, That's The Whale You Need It
264. IN ONE OF HIS BIZARRE SIGHTS CARTOONS MARK LYNCH DEPICTS AN ANIMAL ON TOP OF A WHALE, WHAT TYPE OF ANIMAL
AND WHAT IS IT INSERTING INTO THE WHALE'S BLOWHOLE
** Whale's In The Sky Keep On Turnin' **
Genius Idea Oregon!
http://www.winglitch.com/articles/dynawhale.htm
Random Thoughts
I wish we had a cat cam back home right now. To be honest, our cat doesn't do much. It would just be hours of a live feed pointing at a wall or the couch cushions. We refer to her ability to stare at the green cushions as watching "CouchTV, always on!" She can stare for hours. I suppose it would be more effective to put a mirror under her nose and a cam on that to track if she's alive and kicking.
Where are the Shriners?
Time for Some Zzzzzs
Jam Team: So this seal walks into a club...
I don't get it...
Started over to cover some dead air.
If you thought your life sucked, but was better than John Carney's, this might also make you feel better. http://danstheman.com/Jenny.htm Dude had too much free time.
Crunch Time
Observations, it's hard to sound 'metal' while saying "catfish sandwiches"
NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA
FYI according to question 201, "planting a timebomb in a local library is a felony."
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVhqcMIF8H4
2 Robins, 1 Batcup
Saturday, January 24, 2009
More Choad Humor
The Long and Winding Choad
Country Choads Take Me Home
Cotton Eyed Choad
Goodbye Yellow Brick Choad
Every Rose Has It's Choad
Only Halfway There
The good news is there's beer in Texarcana.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnRwQjTYfGI
Wow!
http://www.darwinawards.com/personal/personal1999-15.html
Stop! Hammer Time!
Dog Fight
Death To All Flying Things
Just like the Red Baron (except when battling Snoopy), it appears that Canadian wind turbines destory everything that dare to come to near.
According to Discovery, bats have been dying in large numbers do to rapid pressure changes when they get near the turbines.
"Here's the science" http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/25/wind-turbine-bats.html
"You say tomato, I say pimp"
Yuck!
Trivia Hour Is Over
On another note, the trivia geniuses requesting Sweet Caroline by "Elvis" should really recheck their music collection.
*Update* I stand corrected. There's a reason I've never heard the Elvis version, because frankly it sucks. No joy in listening to the King destroy a wonderful song with the dulcet tones of a man who is trying to pass a kidney stone.
I just broke my own heart
Here's a remixed reminder http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks5zxOxR97U
Moose
Yum! Twigs.
That's a big difference from today's meaning of "Dude with a big butt that works really hard on the sports field."
The wife has left the building....
Choad sighting: Choado Baggins
No Matter How Much You Think Your Life Sucks
Question 120: Which four NFL positions possess the football during a miraculous lateral field time expiring only to have their kicker miss the field goal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Od9C2dKiCI
Not 10 Minutes Later
The answer? Part 2 of the post below. Random!
I guess it pays to discuss Wikipedia articles on a long car ride.
Jam Team Name: Wii-Not Fit
More on Random Animals
Also, the duck-billed platypus is a misnomer since there are no other types of living platypuses (or platypodes if you are funky-Greek) to distinguish the duck-billed from. Go figure.
Yes, I am a geek
Risking that I might just appear a little geekier than I did one day ago, trivia might be the intellectual equivalent of the BSG episode 33. In the first episode after the miniseries, the Galactica and surviving members of the fleet have to execute a jump every 33 minutes for over five consecutive days. Instead of starting a jump clock, every three minutes multiple players on our team holler out “QUESTION!” To get all the chatty folks to shut up so we can hear the next, well… question. We shut off all the cooking devices and everyone refocuses—no matter how tired you are—to hear it and start the search for an answer. Every three minutes, until late Sunday night.
I didn’t get much sleep from 8 to 10:30 because every few minutes I would be awoken by someone screaming “question.” Speaking of which, we just had an on-campus and off-campus shut out… So it’s time for the hoot of “Question!”
*Hey Gaeta, I seem to have lost something on New Caprica. Perhaps, you Cylon buddies know where it it*
Lob-stah!
If Celebrities Were From the Midwest
I believe this may be funny even after trivia is complete.
Hopefully Our Breakfast Won't Include Scrotato Pancakes
For a while, it looked like we had broken the interweb. I'm actually serious. The cable went out and we were scrambling, losing the feed and only hearing parts of questions, which sucked. Luckily, the interweb fairies have fixed it and we're back to full strength.
Things I've learned in the past few hours of trivia...
- Illinois once thought that "American" was a language...
- The first Olympian born in China was actually Scottish
- Apparently it is possible to paint a life-like image of Charlie Chaplin onto a cat's butt
- You should never tattoo someone's name on your thigh because you might regret it at a later date
Africa - Toto
I wasn't around the year this became a trivia meme, but it is a good one. Much better than being Rick Rolled....
If you'd like to join in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPT_3PEjnsE
Another good Jam team name: Global Missonary Positioning System
6:42 AM - The Great Depression is now in HD
So far so good.
Stephen Hawking's Karaoke Machine
Just a quick explanation of what a Jam team is....
This is a call in trivia contest, and teams rely on people to answer phone banks. Since each team is only supposed to call in with one person to answer the question, there’s a gamble that multiple callers will get in to the answerers at the same time. The resolution to this dilemma is to have the second person in with the correct answer give a fake (usually humorous) team name. This practice is frowned upon by the trivia masters and of course the BoK would never stoop to such low practices.
Zombie Photos
http://blogs.lawrence.edu/trivia/
Woot!
#50 In the movie half-baked a group of friends is revealed to have given names to two treasured possessions. What are these names?
Billy Bong Thorton and Wesley Pipes
Another Jam Team Name
Rocky Choad Ice Cream
Left-handed midget - blah
Not a Jam Team
!!Skull Squadron!!
Yum!
OMGWFTBBQ!
Yes, Barbeque Sauce.
Random things...
Solid as Barak
Honey Bunches o' Scroats
Was just introduced to the Starz Bunny Promotional Videos... Link goes to Twilight in 48 seconds, but I have to recommend 16 candles if you aren't easily offended. http://www.starz.com/Promotions/bunnies
This doesn't trump the absolute comedy of Turtle v. Wok from last year. Then again, that probably was only situational humor. If you want to youtube it, I will have to let you know that it's NSFW--if you can actually tell what's going on.
Zombie Hour
Sample Zombie Question: #25 According to the Zombie Sex Guide what stomach turning sexual act is great foreplay for eating brains.
Speaking of Zombies, I know this will come as a shock to most of you, but we don't drink the entire weekend. Yes, I do this sober. *Gasp* However, if there is a high level of incoherency in anything I might type this weekend it is from exhaustion and not booze. Scout’s Honor! Even if I was never a scout nor, do I support their political policies.
More likely the wife and I will be talking like Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America the day after the inauguration. Link to the video with commentary on Gawker http://gawker.com/5136396/diane-sawyer-still-obviously-intoxicated
Finally Got Here!
It’s already 12:46 in the morning and I’ve been in a car since 3 PM, but we’ll have to get going for a while.
Team Name:
Bank of Kaukauna: Is That A Stimulus Package in Your pocket, Or Are You Just Happy To See Us?
Previous team names:
Federal Bank of Kaukauna: Well Past Our Subprime
Bank of Kaukauna: This One Goes To Eleven
Friday, January 23, 2009
Freaking Telemarketer Scam
Fiona and I are on the do not call list. We have had several “discussions” with them about not calling us anymore. Today’s conversation was the best though.
I get the recorded “urgent” action needed on your credit cards before Visa or MasterCard raises your rates. I hit #6 to speak to an agent. When he asks me if I called to lower my interest rates, I reply “no, I hit six so you would stop calling me. I want to be taken off your phone list.”
He tells me there is no phone list. What kind of crap is that? I tell him that we are on the Federal Do Not Call list and they need to stop calling us. Even though we’ve gone this route three or four times already, it can’t hurt to try again. My head exploded when he says, “there is no do not call list.” All rational thought went out the window. He then asks me if I’ve ever seen the list. Does he mean the list of phone numbers of people who don’t want telemarketers calling them all day long? Actually, I don’t know what he’s talking about. I muster a touch of calm and say, “no, I haven’t looked at the list, but I have read the federal regulations on it.” He’s not swayed. Since, neither of us has viewed the do not call list—evidently it must not exist.
Pictures or it didn’t happen. My bad!
When I get back from Wisconsin, I am going to figure out who these people really are, and find someone I can call every single day until they stop. There does seem to be quite a bit of information about them here http://honeypot.net/scam-calls-card-services
Grrrrrrr.