DePauw DUCK Bowl, 4.23.05
Results: License to IL
(Charlie, Flax, Alma, Leah)
As much as I love TRASH, I love Trash - the
packet-submission kind - even more. I think that's because people don't stick as
hard and fast to the distribution suggestions as the corporate TRASH writers might, and in
general the writers are probably younger-minded, so you're left with either more
recent-skewing questions, or questions that, while asking about older things, do so with
clues that are easier for me to pick up because they're written the same way I'd write a
question like that. It's probably the former, mostly.
On the other hand, after yesterday, I'm inclined to think it's just
because the clues are more direct and I have good speed when I'm not psyched out by the
potential difficulty of the questions. There were very few yesterday that I sat on
and didn't end up getting anyway, and I only had one neg.
As for the team as a whole, I think we played pretty well
together. Unlike with Ryan or Colby, no one on this team really had crossover
specialties. Strangely, though, it seemed like everyone else's didn't come up as
often as they might have - many of the country music questions were older stuff so that
Alma was mostly boxed out on that count, though she did have some good TV buzzes; drinking
and gambling seemed pretty sparse, but Charlie still picked up some questions and didn't
neg much (in fact, the team in total had only six in nine rounds, which is great); the few
indie rock questions seemed to include some bands so impossibly indie that no one could
get them, but Leah still got a number of music questions and helped out on TV shows that
none of the rest of us had seen. More importantly, no one snapped at anyone else
during rounds, even in the couple of rare occasions when bonus parts were biffed due to
minor miscommunications. It probably helped that we were playing at a very high
level all day and there's no need to get mad at teammates when the games aren't that tense
and you're not making bad mistakes in them, and of course Alma is a very smart captain who
goes with the right answer 99% of the time, as often as anyone could, so that's going to
help keep everyone having fun and not bitching at each other.
Favorite Tossup: There were a ton, as will be
explained below. If I only had to pick one or two... I can't. So here are the
ones that drew looks, because I'm a ham like that: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,
Mathnet, Miss Wormwood, 1969 New York Mets, Gimme Three Steps, Garden State, Five for
Fighting.
Favorite Bonus: I never write these down, because it's
Trash and there are so many 30s. Instead, I will note here the interesting rules
under which DUCK Bowl was played. Rather than with lames and saving of lamed
bonuses, DePauw had two rules. The first was the punt. With punting, teams are
forced to play the most accurate kind of defense. It's like a lame, only instead of
hearing a new bonus, your team watches as the other team tries to answer the bonus you've
lamed (or punted, as the name goes). Whatever they can't get, you get points for -
so if they answer all 30 points, you get a big old zero. (We did that to at least
one team.) There's also the intercept. If you hear a bonus lead-in you really
like, yell out "intercept" and you get to have that bonus the next time you get
a tossup. I can only recall using it three times - one ended up not working out, but
the ones on NCAA tournament upsets and baseball Triple Crown winners worked out to 30
points each time. We did have a couple taken away from us that I would have
preferred to have (you can't re-intercept, obviously), but usually the bonuses that we got
in replacement were about as good. Of the 112 bonuses we heard over the weekend, we
30d 36 of them while zeroing just five.
Worst Neg: Well, there was the one, and it came in the
last round. I recognized the name "Kate McQueen" and then when Dan Hedaya
was mentioned, I buzzed with "Blood Simple", the Coen Brothers' first
film. The answer ended up being "Fair Game" - McQueen was Cindy Crawford's
character - but the other team didn't get it anyway. The next tossup was annoying
because I knew from the start they were talking about Azteca, the Mexican soccer stadium,
but couldn't come up with the name. Again, at least no one else could.
This Time It Was: After negging on Paula Dean at
TRASHionals, I picked up the Rachael Ray question in the first round this week.
Sorry!: I reaction-buzzed on Gretchen Wilson
immediately after "Pocahontas, Illinois" and on Keith Urban immediately after it
was established we were looking for a male country artist from Australia. I think
these were the only two modern country tossups of the entire day, and I took them both
away from Alma. She forgave me, though, and I backed off on the Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince tossup in the last round, which we both knew immediately after the other
team had negged - after taking a couple in her wheelhouse, there was no need to be a dick
just to pad my own stats.
Dang: Round Five was easily our worst - it was one of
only two under 300 points, we had just seven total tossups (our only round under ten), and
we lost 240-225 to eventual undefeated winners Western Indiana Bible College (my joke name
for the Stan/Philpy/guys Stan knows team, which was named after the radio station Stan
works at, WIBC). I'll take an 8-1 record and a 15-point loss to the best team, but
the previous round we'd put up 565 points - switch the teams we played against and maybe
we go all the way. We did have better stats than WIBC in every category except wins
and losses. On the other hand, this isn't TRASHionals; pretty much the only thing
coming in first would have gotten us that coming in second didn't was a box of Nutri-Grain
bars (ah, getting your prizes in a quick run to WalMart). And they beat us fair and
square in the head to head; just because it was our worst packet doesn't make it
non-legit.
Yikes, In a Good Way: Not only did I lead in scoring,
but had I not taken that neg in the last round, I would have averaged exactly 90 PPG for
the day. My previous high in packet submission Trash? 55.5 at the 2003 Ann B. Davis. Heck, I
wasn't even including the 2004 Burns
because I played solo there, but I still only averaged 72.86 in tossups per round at that
one (I did average more at last
year's DUCK Bowl, but I don't include that as it was theme packets only). Alma
and Leah charged me with arrogance when, by the end of the day, I was noting that I
appeared to be outscoring several entire teams, but really that's just my response to the
shock of doing this well. I know I'm pretty good at Trash, but I never expect stuff
like this (like losing only to Craig and Dwight at the Burns); generally I try to be
pretty humble about it, but I do like funny statistical things too (such as my note about
Jan and I both outscoring Oakton at 2003 CBI Regionals). Plus
it's hard to know what to do when you break precedent so dramatically - excluding the
Burns, I had as many as 100 points in one round just seven times before, and only twice in
TRASH/Trash (where you don't get the benefit of powers), and both of those were exactly
100. My personal-record-shattering tally for the day at DUCK Bowl: four rounds of at
least 100 points, including a new record 140 in Round Four, which also saw a new record
for team points in a round of 565 (breaking the old record of 545 at this year's ABD).
Things Not Related Entirely to Quiz Bowl: I rarely
find myself talking about the trips in these things, but I probably should. I had
managed to book us into what was apparently the last hotel room in Greencastle, a king
suite at the Super 8. I wasn't sure how big it would be, but it turned out great, as
it had two sections to the room, one with a king bed and one with a fold-out couch.
We watched the worst shows ever, Elimidate and Blind Date, before going to bed.
After leaving the tournament we decided to try an alternate route home - west on 70 and up
57, instead of east on 70 and up 65, the way we'd come down. Turns out the reason we
take 65 is because it's rather a bit faster.
Round Robin
Round One: License to IL 255, Pitt 166
Round Two: License to IL 475, Robot Chicken 20
Round Three: BYE
Round Four: License to IL 565, Cincinnati B 50
Round Five: WIBC 240, License to IL 225
Round Six: License to IL 300, Cincinnati A 145
Round Seven: License to IL 395, Iowa A 70
Round Eight: License to IL 400, Iowa B 10
Round Nine: License to IL 320, Rose-Hulman 65
Round Ten: BYE
Round Eleven: License to IL 325, Illinois-Springfield 30
Final Record: 8-1 (second out of ten teams)
Personal Stats: Questions Answered
No one's asking you to care about it. Powers would be in bold if they existed in Trash, neg-5s are in italics with the real answer following. Anything in plain text was just ten.
Round One
Jenny was a Friend of Mine (by the Killers)
C.C. Sabathia
Frank Darabont
Master Shake
Hart Trophy
Parker Posey
Rachael Ray
Jim Boeheim
Round Two
Dale Hunter
The Heidi Game
Jim Bunning
Juventus
Jeff Gordon
Audrey Tautou
The Scorpions
Wil Wheaton
All My Children
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Round Four
Sports Night
The Kingdome
Mathnet
Tony Kornheiser
Quadruple-double
Blister in the Sun
Wild Wild West
Orson Welles
Miss Wormwood
Elgin Baylor
Alice's Restaurant
Death to Smoochy
Peter Sellers
Ray Guy
Round Five
J.K. Simmons
Archie Griffin
Eaters of the Dead
Hard Rock Cafe
Hulk Hogan
Round Six
Constantine
Gumby
THX 1138
1969 New York Mets
Round Seven
Gimme Three Steps (by Lynyrd Skynyrd)
Vezina Trophy
The Wild Thornberries
Keith Urban
Reggie Jackson
Charlie Kaufman
Own goal
The Weathergirls
Predator
Bruce Weber
Round Eight
Cruella De Vil
Alex Sanchez
Lewis Black
Maus
Steve Young
Mike D'Antoni
Sally Brown
Gretchen Wilson
Boxcar Racer
Garden State
Max Schmeling
L.L. Bean
Round Nine
Johnny Bench
Oscar Robertson
Five for Fighting
Kyle Busch
Yes
Richard Crenna
Matt Doherty
Come What May
Cinco de Mayo
Round Eleven
Blood Simple (really Fair Game)
Two Weeks Notice
17th hole at Sawgrass
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Norman Dale
Private Eyes (by Hall and Oates)
Death Race 2000
Kyle Petty
Stripped - Christina Aguilera
Hurling
Total PPG: 89.44