TRASHionals at University of Pittsburgh, 4/16-17/05

Results: License to IL
(Ryan, Colby, Flax, Alma)

    As of two weeks ago, we were going as a three-man team and Colby was going to play by himself after the rest of Northwestern dropped out.  When I found out about that, though, I immediately pitched to Alma the idea of picking up Colby to be our fourth player, and thus it was that two teams that probably would have finished in the middle of the pack by themselves came to form one team that finished fourth, the highest TRASHionals finish for anyone on it (topping by one the NU team from 2003 for Colby and me).  Yup, it was pretty awesome.  We didn't really have any close losses to feel bad about, and we had a few nice wins... all in all, a very good experience, and until the old guard of good teams either breaks up or gets old enough to be less effective, probably the best we're liable to do (especially as Ryan has indicated he won't play beyond this year).
    Favorite Tossup: Just like last year, I got three audio tossups.  I don't know that any of them were surpassingly impressive - the Meatballs one was a "name the movie from dialogue" which was kind of funny because I've never seen that movie, but recognized the lines being spoken from someone's signature on a message board Alma frequents.  The Titans/Bills one wasn't bad, though I think it took the longest.  I was proud of myself for being the first one in on 96 Tears, too.   For regular tossups, the best two were probably Peter Fonda (the opening clue was that John Lennon wrote "She Said, She Said" about him, and don't be bringing Beatles clues into my house) and Blink 182, which I got in the first line off the name of their demo album, Flyswatter.  The Tintin question was also great - it took me a minute because the opening clue was pretty much useless, but as soon as they said "Georges Remi" I was in.  Other good ones: Frank Miller, Aishwarya Rai, Oliver! ("last musical to win Best Picture" was perhaps too early a clue, but I was in right away), Deception Point, Miles Raymond, Tab, Fail-Safe, Boise State (got it in the first line because they named a former Bears draft pick), Flat Stanley, craigslist (the opening clue was about some of its pages being beamed into space this year).
    Favorite Bonus: I never seem to write these down at TRASH.  I mean, it's TRASH; 30s abound.  The only one I took note of was the Round Nine visual bonus asking us to name the TV network based on its logo.  The moderator actually laughed ahead of time at how easy it was, and he was right - Animal Planet, PBS, and Univision for a quick 30.
    Worst Neg: This was not as good a year for me as last year in terms of ratio - I had 57 tossups in 15 rounds but 7 negs.  Some were fair - Rachael Ray for Paula Dean, blanking out on Lynndie England (of course remembering the name right after time ran out on me), Wimbledon for French Open (though I should have waited) - but some were dumb, a result of me not hearing key parts.  The Hellboy buzz was a bad reaction buzz and I knew I was wrong when I rang in but had to say something anyway; they had already mentioned Aquaman's blond hair, but all I heard was the physical stats which gave a weight that seemed too heavy to be a normal superhero.  The farting buzz seems bad but they started talking about Ben Franklin writing about its odorific properties, and he did write a pamphlet about farting (knowing too much for my own good, clearly).
    Most Annoying Moment: I don't know if anything this year was all that annoying, since we lacked close losses.  Probably the most frustrating moment was the second half of our first loss, to the Simon Fraser-plus-Matt Levine team.  5-0 at the time and leading 120-95 at the half, we got just a single tossup, and 20 total points, in the second half while SFU answered nine of the ten tossups, 30ing five of the bonuses and 20ing the other four.  All told, they answered 11 of the last 12 questions and outscored us 365-20 in that time.  Ugly, and our only loss to a team that didn't finish ahead of us.
    Don't Call It a Comeback... Actually, Do Call It a Comeback: Several games saw us trail early only to roll back in the second half to win.  Round Four saw us down 140-105 at the half to Carey Clevenger's team, and after going 10-30 on the first two tossups of the second half we had three negs and no tossups over the next six to trail 210-170 with two questions left.  Colby got the first (Thomas Dolby), and 20 on the bonus brought us within 210-200... then Ryan got the last tossup, Sandy Koufax.  We needed only a single point on the bonus to win - as it was, we got all 30 and won 240-210.
    The very next game found us down 165-90 after thirteen tossups to Bowling Green.  We outscored them 210-0 the rest of the way, getting the last seven tossups of the match, of which I had five.
    Go U: In Round Ten against Tyler's team, we trailed 180-85 at the half, but recorded 8 of the final 10 tossups to win.  There wasn't a team there I would rather have lost to than Tyler's, of course, but beating them gave us the tiebreaker that sent us into the top bracket, so I'm certainly glad we had that second half.  It was a majorly Northwestern round at any rate - Colby and I combined for 9 of the team's 11 tossups, while Tyler added one for his team, and the moderator was NUQB alum James Quintong, who it turned out had schemed ahead of time to be the reader (when he saw that we were paired together, he chose the room in which our game was to be played as his room to moderate for the day).
    Thank You!: Our fourth-place finish was clinched with a defeat of Arizona State in the final playoff round.  We played pretty well, putting up 305 points on 12 tossups with no negs, but we were certainly helped in this pursuit by Arizona State's seven neg-5s, of which we picked up five.  I don't think I've ever seen a team shoot themselves in the foot that much.  We actually had a similar experience on Saturday, however: in Round Seven, NYU tied us at 275 on the 19th tossup, only to neg on tossup 20, handing us the match.  For that matter, UTC did a similar thing in the second playoff round - we led 225-175 after 18 tossups.  UTC negged on 19 to ensure they couldn't catch us no matter what happened, then got all 40 points on tossup 20 to lose by 15.
    Networking = Fun: Northwestern was never all that big on networking as a team - our major contacts in my years there were Leah and Alma, both of whom were fairly proactive in networking with us and not the other way around.  Alma was always big on networking with as many teams as possible, though, and she certainly had the right idea.  After hanging out with Tyler's team at lunch on Saturday, we had a hilarious dinner with DePauw featuring all manner of conversation and jokes.  And just in general, the more TRASH events I go to, the more people I recognize and can converse with, which really isn't a bad thing.
    Interesting City: This was the first time I'd ever actually been to Pittsburgh, aside from just passing through on the train.  It's a nice-looking city, to be sure, though it's not the easiest to drive in and it seems to have strange remnants of Blue Laws... the first restaurant we tried to go to on Saturday night had closed at six pm, which was pretty odd for a place within walking distance of PNC Park, where there was a night game (the Cubs won!).  On Sunday morning I tried to go to the nearby Eckerd to get some Rolaids, but they didn't open until 11 am on Sunday.  How you can have businesses in the downtown of a major city open that late on any day of the week, Sunday or no, baffles me.
    Nevertheless, it was nice to look at.  The Cathedral of Learning is a neat landmark on the Pitt campus (though it looks, as Tyler noted, like something out of Batman), PNC Park is a really nice-looking facility (though we didn't have time to go), and our hotel room, on the 17th floor, actually overlooked the Three Rivers junction - to my left, the Monongahela!  To my right, the Allegheny!  Straight ahead, the Ohio!  Being the geography guy, I was perhaps overly geeked out at being able to see the formation of a major river right in front of my eyes.  It's like going to Lake Itasca, but with the added benefit that you're not hundreds of miles from anything else that's even remotely interesting.

Round Robin (Mullet Division)

Round One: License to IL 350, The Player Haters 215
Round Two: License to IL 300, The Jimmy Stewart Experience 145
Round Three: License to IL 305, Your Company's Computer Guys 170
Round Four: License to IL 240, Allegheny County Kilted Yaksmen 210
Round Five: License to IL 300, Urban Meyer's Stepping Stone 165
Round Six: Tickle Me Emo 415, License to IL 140
Round Seven: License to IL 295, Animal, Terri Schiavo, Mineral 270
Round Eight: WWJDFAKB? 310, License to IL 270
Round Nine: License to IL 395, Charles Taylor All-Stars 140
Round Ten: License to IL 325, Ashlee Simpson's A Series of Unlistenable Events 190
Round Eleven: License to IL 280, Million Dollar Gerbil 135

Prelims Record: 9-2, second place, Mullet Division - advanced to top playoff bracket

Playoffs (Brad Pitt Division)

Round One: #B1 Bill O'Reilly Shower Massage 380, #M2 License to IL 120
Round Two: #M2 License to IL 225, #B2 Cuts Like a Spork 210
Round Three: #C2 Riders of Lohan 320, #M2 License to IL 200
Round Four: #M2 License to IL 305, #C1 Arizona State, Reporting 25 Pounds Lighter 95

Final Record: 11-4 (fourth place out of 36 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
My Sweet Lord
craigslist

Round Two
The Professor (from Gilligan's Island)
Wimbledon (really French Open)
David Caruso
Joel Schumacher
Oldboy
Tennessee Titans vs. Buffalo Bills
The Minutemen

Round Three
President's Cup
Hellboy (really Aquaman)
Boise State
Pontius Pilate
Farting (really asparagus)
Peter Frampton
Flat Stanley
Lombard Street

Round Four
Meatballs
Tab
Fail-Safe
Madeleine L'Engle
Del Cassidy (really Robert Romano)

Round Five
John G. Avildsen
The Brown Bunny
Hans Gruber
Tilt
James Patterson
The Postal Service
BTK Killer

Round Six
The French Connection
Wayne Knight

Round Seven
Merde
Daily Planet
John Melendez
American Express
Barbara Stanwyck
Billy Blanks

Round Eight
Miles Raymond
Penthouse Forum

Round Nine
Bert Blyleven (really Tommy John)
Connect Four
Bradley Whitford
Oliver!
Blink 182
Deception Point

Round Ten
Aishwarya Rai
Richard Simmons
Cotton Bowl

Round Eleven
? and the Mysterians - 96 Tears
Goodnight Moon
Blanked out, said "Rudolph" just to say something (really Lynndie England)
Diane Lane

Round Robin PPG: 39.09

Playoffs Round One
Cary Elwes

Playoffs Round Two
Rachael Ray (really Paula Dean)
Frank Miller
Tintin
State of Fear

Playoffs Round Three
William H. Macy
The Late Show

Playoffs Round Four
Charley Steiner
Anne Hathaway
Mexican jumping beans
Simple Minds
Peter Fonda

Playoffs PPG: 26.25

Overall PPG: 35.67