TRASHionals at Boston University, 4/12-13/03
Results: A Charitable Grant from the Jeremy Goodwin Foundation
(Northwestern)
(Marc Bauer, Colby Burnett, Robert Flaxman, Tyler Johnson)
TRASHionals used to bug me because of its insistence on
using scoring system from defunct sports leagues like the NASL or last year's woeful
choice of CBA scoring. This year there were no fancy tricks, and we benefited
(though I think we played well enough to have survived the tricks anyway). We
largely rolled through the round robin, going 9-2 (losing the two games by a combined 50
points, about which more anon), getting into the top bracket and guaranteeing no lower
than a sixth place finish. We ended up going 10-4-1 to finish fifth; last
year 11-4 got us thirteenth. Uh, yeah, I'll take a fifth place finish in a
national tournament... though considering that, according to Colby's stats, we led in all
four of our losses on the 15th tossup (three-quarters of the game), it's almost a bit
disappointing. Who would ever have thought we'd be that close to winning?
Favorite Tossup: I had 55 tossups last year and this year, but
my favorites this year were more subdued. Brian Urlacher ("His brother Casey
plays for Division III Lake Forest-"), Criterion Collection ("Its most recent
releases are Straw Dogs and-"), and Donald Kaufman ("He is getting lucky with
Caroline, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal-") were probably the three best ones based on
actual knowledge. Also "Duke Nukem," which I got off "He has a cameo
in parts 2 and 3 of 'Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure,'" which is a game I actually played
back in the day.
Favorite Bonus: I actually did not write any down
because there just weren't any great ones for my own sake. The closest would be the
baseball logos visual bonus, mostly for the Cincinnati Reds (I'm sorry, how you can
dislike a mustachioed baseball is just beyond me) and St. Louis Browns. The coolest
our team had was probably the "identify the person being discussed in these police
reports," though the coolest overall was the Dance Dance Revolution during the
finals.
Worst Neg: Three of my negs were just bad reflex
buzzes and the fourth (Davis Cup for its female equivalent) was monstrously legit, so I'll
have to say it was the worst of the reflex buzzes, Stephen King for his collaborator Peter
Straub. It clearly wasn't King, but I heard "The Talisman" and
buzzed before I could stop myself. Air Bud for Beethoven sucked too, since I know
full well Air Bud is not a 1992 movie.
Heard It!: I guess there are only so many ways one can
open a question about Terry Tate, but the one in Round Three opened the exact same way
- "He is played by Morgan State alum Lester Speight" - as the one in Quintong's
ACF Detox packet, which I read in practice last week, did. Gee.
Most Annoying Moment: Our various close losses sucked,
but Round Three was the most annoying, particularly in retrospect. Trailing by 25
going into the last question, I nail the Terry Tate question, meaning we need 20 on the
bonus to win. It's a movie bonus... but on John Wayne, who I don't know as much
about as maybe I should. There were a lot of easy 30s this weekend, but this was not
one of them. True Grit was easy enough, but the third part was ungettable.
(The Big Trail?) The second part could have been something reasonably
easy like The Searchers, but instead it wanted the film in which Wayne played
Genghis Khan, which I've heard of but could not name. Colby said "The
Conquerors," which sounded right - but of course it ended up being The Conqueror,
and so we lost by five. More annoying still, Rutgers somehow managed to beat us and
BATTLEPLANET!!!, the top two teams in our bracket, but then finished 6-5 in the round
robin.
Studying Does Occasionally Pay Off: We never have any
auto racing knowledge, so I decided to look up some NASCAR facts before the tournament.
I got distracted and ended up only reading one thing, which was that Michael
Waltrip won the 2003 Daytona 500, and then I looked him up and found that he also won the
2001 race, the one in which Dale Earnhardt (who was also team owner) was killed. So
this racing question comes up in Round Eight and eventually gets to "his 2001 victory
was marred by the death of team owner Dale-" Holy shit, I just got a NASCAR
question.
Infamy: Bauer, who was only playing because Andy
couldn't/wouldn't go and because Bau is living in Boston at the moment, grabbed the worst
neg title for the whole tournament when he rang in with "Dorf" and the answer
ended up being "Kim Jong Il."
Round Robin (Gammons Division)
Round One: Jeremy Goodwin Foundation
455, So Much for Shock and Awe 85
Round Two: Jeremy Goodwin Foundation 270, Snow White Trash 210
Round Three: The Voltron Crew 250, Jeremy
Goodwin Foundation 245
Round Four: Jeremy Goodwin
Foundation 330, Tia and the TRASHmen 235
Round Five: Jeremy Goodwin
Foundation 280, They Have Sports in Pittsburgh? 165
Round Six: Jeremy Goodwin Foundation 370, Talia Shire Fan Club 75
Round Seven: BATTLEPLANET!!! 300, Jeremy
Goodwin Foundation 255
Round Eight: Jeremy Goodwin
Foundation 365, Dept. of McDonaldland Security 195
Round Nine: Jeremy Goodwin Foundation 465, Rise and Scheisse 65
Round Ten: Jeremy Goodwin Foundation 400, Rally Monkey Knifefights 125
Round Eleven: Jeremy Goodwin Foundation 335, The Replacements 140
Prelims Record: 9-2 (second place, Gammons division)
Playoffs (Williams Division)
Round One: #M1 Mike Keenan
Employment Agency 370, #G2 Jeremy Goodwin Foundation 240
Round Two: #G2 Jeremy Goodwin
Foundation 245, #M2 Too Damn Lazy to Think of a Team
Name 245 (tie)
Round Three: #R2 Don't Be Like Them 295, #G2
Jeremy Goodwin Foundation 270
Round Four: #G2 Jeremy Goodwin
Foundation 235, #R1 Spork River Anthology 205
Final Record: 10-4-1 (5th out of 34 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. Audio questions appear in red.
Round One
Air Bud (really Beethoven)
Boxing Helena
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue
The Yardbirds
Brian Urlacher
Dwarf tossing
Douglas Sirk
Round Two
Iron Man
Kangaroo Jack
Round Three
Penn and Teller
Connie Nielsen
Average White Band
Terry Tate
Round Four
Julia Stiles
Stephen King (really Peter Straub)
Round Five
NBDL
The Music City Miracle
The Joker
Round Six
Ocean's Eleven
Tongue splitting
John Woo
Clocks (by Coldplay)
Round Seven
Jaromir Jagr
Viggo Mortensen
Round Eight
Hugh Grant
Davis Cup (really Federation Cup)
Steadicam
Twenty-One
Michael Waltrip
George Roy Hill
Round Nine
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
Byron Scott
A Boy Named Sue
ECHL
Round Ten
Jackalope
Nehru jacket
Barton Fink
Frank Zappa
Round Eleven
Paperboy
Criterion Collection
Atlantic Ten
French fries (really potato chips)
Chris Simms
Butt plug
Aladdin and the King of Thieves
Playoffs Round One
Vanilla
Donald Kaufman
Chuck Palahniuk
Playoffs Round Two
Rachel Weisz
Dan O'Brien
Sarah McLachlan - The Rainbow Connection
The Animatrix
1972 Miami Dolphins
Playoffs Round Three
Kami
420
John Cazale
Aurora
Playoffs Round Four
Duke Nukem
Michael Gambon
PPG: 35.33