Ann B. Davis Tournament at U of Michigan, 1/20/02

Results: Northwestern Damn You All!
(Colby Burnett, Robert Flaxman, Shannon Mok)

    Although I don't think anyone suffered from the illusion that we were going to do well at MLK (though I think our A team didn't do terribly, six or seven wins compared to B's four and C's zero), I expected us - my team, anyway - to do pretty well at Ann B. Davis.  After all, our A team did well enough last year, and since Colby and I are easily the best Trash players on the team (and this is not to be arrogant; it simply happens to be the case, especially now that Tyler is gone) I was hoping for a good showing.
    Well, it wasn't quite TRASH Regionals good, but then there were more of "those" teams here (the really really good ones).  (Neither Craig Barker nor Dwight Kidder, for example, were at our TRASH regional - the big advantage in going to Midwest rather than Great Lakes.  But they were sure at this one.)  In any event, we finished with a winning record, which I was pretty satisfied with since I had been blown out of the water the day before at MLK.  I also put up my best PPG since going for 65.4 at Carleton last year (which included rounds of 115, 100, three separate rounds of 80, and one of 75), and the second-best in my college career for which I still have the stats (I don't know what I got at last year's ABD or NAQT Fall 2000, the only two that could actually challenge this one for second).
    One thing to note about Ann B. Davis: it has weird rules.  For one thing, it has powers, which you don't tend to see in Trash tournaments (or TRASH tournaments, for that matter).  It also has its rounds divided into three periods of seven tossups each.  In the first period, the points on any unanswered tossup carry over to the next one (I'll note such things below).  In the second, there's unlimited guessing on any tossup that is read all the way to the end and your team doesn't neg on.   There aren't any special rules in the third, which is a darn shame.  There are also action tossups, to which end see the last round of the playoffs.
    Favorite Tossup: It's Trash, so as usual there were a lot I liked.  I think my favorite was probably Bo Belinsky, which I probably would have powered if I'd made the connection just a little faster.  I got it off the quote "If I'd known this was going to happen, I'd have gotten a haircut" but took a couple seconds to remember that Belinsky had said it after throwing a no-hitter in his first career start (and then proceeded to win only 27 more games in his career or something like that).
    Favorite Bonus: The best two were the one on #16 seeds who almost won (answers: Western Carolina, Fairfield, Princeton) and the one on The American President.  The latter was really easy (the answers were Rob Reiner, Aaron Sorkin, and Frank Capra), but I always appreciate questions on things I know insane amounts about because I've spent so much time watching or reading about them (just like the Tintin bonus at JrBird, which was also child's play).
    Worst Neg: The Price is Right for Sale of the Century.   It's not that it was really that off in theory, but the dates given at the start of the question made it very obviously not The Price is Right and I guessed it anyway.
    Most Disappointing Moment: The Onion's Least Essential Albums of 2001 bonus (written by Selvey and featuring Attack of the Killer Underline).   I knew Aaron Carter was the first one but didn't know the name of his stupid second album ("Oh Aaron"); for the second one, I knew it was SHEDaisy and I knew it was a remix of their album "The Whole SHEBang" but I didn't know the exact title of the remixed album ("The Whole SHEBang - All Mixed Up").  It's gotta be the only bonus ever where I've really known all the information (as opposed to "Well, I've heard of it") but gotten a total of zero points.
    Update Time (1/24): Despite being screwed out of 50 points in the final stats, I still managed to finish third at the tournament in individual scoring, which makes me pretty happy.  (To be frank, of course, adding the fifty points would also have put me in third, so it doesn't matter in that sense.)

Prelim Rounds (Round Robin)

Round One: BYE
Round Two: Northwestern Damn You All! 265, Medina Sod 65
Round Three: Northwestern Damn You All! 300, Joan Jett and the Samurai Blackhearts 271
Round Four: Defending Linnaeus' Manhood 155, Northwestern Damn You All! 130
Round Five: Northwestern Damn You All! 280, 9th Bearded Infantry 160
Round Six: 75% Gerbil Free 386, Northwestern Damn You All! 165
Round Seven: Northwestern Damn You All! 210, Soul Prowler 170
Round Eight: Radek Bonk's Adventure 235, Northwestern Damn You All! 125
Round Nine: Shelby Foote Soldiers 315, Northwestern Damn You All! 220

Prelims Record: 4-4 (fifth place, Hendrix Division)

Playoffs (re-bracketed round robin)

Round One: #H5 Northwestern Damn You All! 346, #C6 Catholic High School Girls in Trouble 110
Round Two: #C4 The Moe Szyslak Trio Featuring Homer 331, #H5 Northwestern Damn You All! 235
Round Three: #H5 Northwestern Damn You All! 230, #C5 The Men from Nantucket 160

Final Record: 6-5 (eighth place overall; second place, Sheraton bracket)

Personal Stats: Questions Answered

   No one's asking you to care about it.  Powers are in bold, as are questions where the points had built up (with points netted noted); neg-5s are in italics with the real answer following.  Anything in plain text was just ten.

Round Two
Pee-Wee's Playhouse
Cornelius
North Texas
Code Red

Round Three
Bobblehead doll
Kenan & Kel
Mario Andretti (really Alex Zanardi)
Tom Green

Round Four
Michael Ian Black
Bay Area CyberRays
George Foreman Grill (really Showtime Grill)
John Frankenheimer
Jack Morris

Round Five
Phil Nevin
Pause (really Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the exact wording of which I couldn't quite get to in time)
Rob Thomas
Woodrow Dantzler
Heart

Round Six
Glitter
Dan Rather
Bo Belinsky
Star Wars
"Living in a van down by the river"
Frank Sinatra

Round Seven
David The Gnome (+20)
Nuke LaLoosh (really Andy Van Slyke)
The Abyss
Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella
Pacific Coast League
Lynda Barry

Round Eight
Someone Like You (+30)
Mr. Bill
Buffalo Braves

Round Nine
Jerome Bettis
Kate Beckinsale
The Get Up Kids
Squaw Valley
The Third Man
Hertz
Peter Jackson

Prelims PPG: 49.4

Playoffs Round One
Manute Bol
Snood
Pat Riley
The Price is Right (really Sale of the Century)
Tomcats
Carl Pohlad
Lori Loughlin
The Strokes
Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas
Bill Clement

Playoffs Round Two
St. Louis Browns
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Alejandro Amenábar

Playoffs Round Three
Gary Busey
Green River
You Can't Do That on Television
Lifehouse
*sang first four lines of "Yankee Doodle Dandy"*
Gedde Watanabe

Playoffs PPG: 61.7

Overall PPG: 52.7