Rather than do a serious hijack of Xploder’s thread asking for lifeline volunteers (which, since I am too lazy to link to, is on the first page of MPSIMS and does NOT feature the word “sex”), I thought I’d . . . yup! Make a new thread.
So it appears that Juniper200 and I are both members of the quizbowl community. And I know there are high school dopers out there doing things like scholar’s bowl and It’s Academic. In fact, I could name two right off the bat (Nocturne and Garf), but I don’t name names ([sub]oops[/sub]).
So is there anyone else who does high school competitions, college bowl/quizbowl/CBI/some other amalgamation, or who used to? Would be good to know, if for no other reason than that I’d know NOT to ask for movie quotes for the tournament I’m helping to write for July.
Former Quiz Bowler here (Juniper and I whooped ass on the same high school team). Tons o’ fun, but some people took the damn thing waaay too seriously - like the guys from Trenton who must have been genetically engineered for Quiz Bowl (and lost to us anyway in the regular season! - this is the proudest moment of my life thus far).
I even remember the first QB question I answered:
“For ten points, why is the wolf spider different…”
Buzz “The, uh, wolf spider, um, doesn’t make a web.”
I decided not to do it in college because I finally met a kid who was better than me. But I’d be happy to think up questions for you.
Some of them take it waay too seriously. And some have this habit of retiring and then un-retiring. I could name names, but I don’t think we need that:) I will say that one of them briefly retired after TRASHionals this past year when he got caught making disparaging remarks about the quality of players, and another one got bumped off the UMCP team. And I’m still waiting for the ex-coach of GMU (and the founder of the program at Randolph Macon) to un-retire, once he convinces his wife, who he introduced to quizbowl, and for whom he quit:)
tsarina, thanks very much for the question offer, though as Juniper200 evidently sees the occasional GMU packet I’d rather keep questions as safe as possible. But I will be looking through trivia threads to come up with sports and tv boni:)
Another College Bowler here. Currently on the same team as Juniper, in fact. But feel free to try a couple questions on us, we’ll promise to forget the answers.
I remember a guy a few years back from Iowa (Can’t remember which team in Iowa) who also took it way too seriously. One of the guys on my team happened to be in the bathroom when this guy (I think his name was Kubacheck or something like that) put his hands on the sink and started grunting. Loudly. For a minute or so. Then left. Interesting.
I did Quiz Bowl all through high school and college. One of my most treasured high school memories was beating Ballard High’s Mark Roseberry – who had a reputation for being an absolutely brilliant math genius – on a math question.
I do In The Know, which is a high school quiz bowl. We were awesome this year, we made it to states aand got an invite to nationals. Not too shabby : )
Ahhh… Quiz Bowl… one of the few fond memories of high school. We were the first team to win any kind of trophy for our school (OK, it was a 4th place trophy, but still).
In the Know? If you’re referring to the Columbus, Ohio version, I’m an alumnus from the WBNS-TV / Hunt Carlisle days (and I don’t blame you if you say “Huh?”, kid). Lost the semis in OT my senior year.
Then, College Bowl when Don and Richard Reid were restarting it, later Jeopardy and Millionaire contestant (semisuccessful, but I still have to work for a living). Meanwhile, chat game host and player on Prodigy (RIP), less so now on AOL which has a different atmosphere, but I still made a lot of friends that way.
Congrats on winning the tourney, reddragon, and kick some butt in the nationals. Gee, I wish we’d had those to play for …
Yes, there are a few people who take it too seriously. In high school, we eliminated a one-man team whose ace player was seen talking to a tree in the WBNS lobby before the game. But the parties at College Bowl tournaments were well worth it - the legal drinking age was 18 then :).
I am a former high school quiz bowler. This year was our first year, and we did pretty darn well getting second in districts. What sucks is that I am a senior so I don’t get play anymore. I am still considering playing in college though.
tsarina: What do you mean, you “finally” met someone better than you? You’ve known me since high school!
Tree man sounds kind of familiar ElvisL1ves. I once played against a 1-man team (literally one guy–this was a wacky tournament) who conferred with himself on bonuses. Weird.
And now I take advantage of the SMBD Quizbowl community: anyone want to help write packets for the Missouri Academic Invitational? It’s a high school tournament we host every year, and I fear we’ll be woefully short on questions by the time November rolls around. Email me if you’re interested, and you’ll have my eternal thanks.
Hey, Juniper, why not email Edmund Schluessel and see if you can get some of the questions from Gamow I? I wrote most of two packets for that tournament.
Or you could always just go to the stanford or penn bowl archives and rewrite questions:)
To those who are graduating this year and are considering playing for college teams: go for it! Make sure there is a team. If not, hell, start your own. I know one guy who’s done that twice.
Anyone in here familiar with the following names?:
John Nam
Phil Castagna
Rick Grimes
Shawn Pickrell
Adam Fine
The Gerbils
James Dinan
(Sorry Juniper, gonna say something about the packets. I know you know, but I’m gonna beat you to the reply since you’re heading to work right now.)
The problem with getting premade packets is the format. Here in Missouri, all high school quiz bowl teams are subject to MSHSAA (Missouri State High School Athletics Association), and they’re pretty darn picky about the questions. There has to be a particular number of questions in 5 categories. And the bonii rebound, and must be worth 30 points. We’ve cut through other packets before, but sometimes it’s a b*tch getting a third part to a bonus.
And I’ve heard of Shawn Pickrell and Adam Fine. They were quite active on the listserv when I was in charge of the mail account. Coincidentally, has most of the listserv activity moved to the yahoo group or something?
UC Irvine quiz bowler here. I’ve been doing this for less than a year, but I love it. I wish my high school had had a quiz bowl. I would have loved it, and the xc might have gotten me into a better college. Oh well.
Anyway, I’m currently making a study sheet, containing information on everything from American history to impressionist paintings to geography. I’m hoping to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, and catch up with everyone else.
Former H.S. quiz Bowl team, 4 years. My senior year we were one game away from appearing on TV, but that final game was the first one we ever played against another team… we never expected to get that far, and so we never practiced with buzzers. Not that we had any to practice on, for that matter.
Well, by all means send me a link to the format, or whatever, and I’ll see if we have what you want. The Virginia guidelines (if that’s what they’re called) consist of three parts, each a bout, though individual bouts don’t mean anything. Way useless. But when we wrote the packets for the HS tourney, the boni rebounded. So we didn’t have any 5-10-20-30 or whatnot.
“And I’ve heard of Shawn Pickrell and Adam Fine. They were quite active on the listserv when I was in charge of the mail account. Coincidentally, has most of the listserv activity moved to the yahoo group or something?”
You, having heard of Shawn, will perhaps be pleased to know that he founded the club here and was its first coach until his retirement, first from active play and then from the whole scene. Hayden said Shawn staying away from qb was like al gore staying away from money.
I did quiz bowl in high school. We crammed a lot of data in our brains. I was the secondary science/math guy. Other team memebers concentrated on history, geography, ect., and there was one guy who could do ciphering faster than I could. But I had a much sharper grasp of the periodic table and the history of science. We didn’t win much, but it was a fantastic challenge, and I received a broader education in those cramming sessions than in my whole high school career.
Then in college, three friends of mine and I put together a team for their quiz bowl. We were sharp, and we felt we couldn’t be beat. I was now the tertiary science guy, the other two being far and away better at it than myself since I had converted to the liberal arts, but I had become the primary literature guy, and still not too shabby on the history of ideas. We also had a history major who was also a pretty sharp Latinist. We couldn’t possibly lose, except…
All the questions were about MTV, Madonna, Michael Jackson, TV shows, screwball comedies, fucking pop culture. We got thrashed.
I will mourn this experience all of my days. I come to college to get away from the sinkhole of ignorance that was my high school, only to find that the standards in college were actually lower.
I am still considering playing in college though.