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On Playing My Last Game

Discussion of non-quizbowl topics
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wca
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by wca »

In playing my last game I just wanted to share something for which I cannot take credit. Some of it is applicable, some is not. Number one is definitely not applicable for my team.

1. It doesn't matter if you hate your team as long as you can win together.
2. Most teams are made up entirely of idiots who play one tournament a year. Don’t judge the quality of your team by these teams.
3. Bringing a laptop leads to you never getting to see it.
4. Foot pedals suck.
5. It's okay to hate everyone around you, as long as there's no violence involved.
6. At the end of the day, it's still a game.
7. Listen to the coaches; they're smarter than we give them credit for most of the time.
8. Freshmen. Die.
9. Cramming rarely works.
10. It is possible take fourth place with a losing record.
11. Any team can beat you at any time.
12. Cracker Barrel is everywhere.
13. Know the name of the school you're playing in.
14. When all else fails, BS the answer, because sometimes it’s right.
15. Know a name from every subject. Better yet, know a noun and the name of a male and a female in every subject.
16. Buzz hard. Be right. Don't screw up.
17. Eventually, Dickens will be the answer.
18. If clueless on an art questions, guess a Ninja Turtle.
19. There aren't enough hours in a day to learn everything you need to know.
20. Learn from more experienced players. Their nuggets of wisdom may come in handy.
21. Tournaments are cures for the common cold.
22. Always shake hands with the opposing team.
23. Be the well mannered, dominating team, not the assholes.
24. Trust your gut.
25. Leeches suck, but sometimes it will be necessary to be the leech.
26. Sir Walter Scott, not Ivan Scott.
27. Tom Ridge is from Pennsylvania.
28. Tommy Thompson is from Wisconsin.
29.Learn from past mistakes.
30. Science Bowl, Academic Decathalon, Beta Club, and Science Olympiad will inevitably schedule their competitions on the same day. They may even decide to use the same day as a PUBLISHED SAT test date. Go figure.
31. Adapt or die.
32. Overnight trips are suppose to be alcohol free.
33. Science Bowl, Scholar's Bowl, and Science Olympiad have the same core nucleus of players.
34. Nephrons are not in the liver.
35. America has no emperor.
36. Uhh and Ummm are considered to be words in some places.
37. Quiz-A-Matics will survive WWIII. We won't.
38. Scholar's Bowl is as close to religion as some people have.
39. Winning is a lot better than losing.
40. ACE is sleep deprivation survival camp.
41. Do not eat hot breakfast at Furman. The eggs sweat.
42. Nobody really cares about this game except the people in it.
43. Play for the love of the game, not for recognition or college applications or all that other crap. If you want to put something on college applications, join band or play a sport or get a job.
44. Respect the game. It was here before you, and will last long after you.
45.Everything has a double meaning.
46. Don't screw up the buzzers.
47. Cartoon worksheets, Walton's Simpsons worksheet, and Chip Beal were all created by Satan to torment the world.
48. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, the Beatles, and the Simpsons are neither pop culture nor trash.
49. Life is good when you win. It’s not so good when you lose.
50. One day when all this is over, we'll probably look back on it as the best time in our lives. Unless of course, you win the Nobel or some crap like that, in which case you more than likely will never do anything important for the rest of your life. Or if you become an artist or writer. In that case, get tested for STDs every month.

Feel free to add your own.

mujason
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by mujason »

That list looks familiar, I think I've seen it somewhere before, I just don't remember where.

wca
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by wca »

I got it off the hsquizbowl.org forum. I thought it was pretty funny. As I said, I regretfully cannot take credit for it.

mujason
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by mujason »

Yeah, there are very few Missouri people on that forum; me, a couple of Wash U and Truman people, and someone called el guapo. Do you know who el guapo is? All I know is that he (or she) plays in the St. Louis area.

wca
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by wca »

that would be me, the handsome one

JimmyL
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by JimmyL »

I definitely cannot agree with "6. Cramming Rarely Works." Haha, the night before, I read up a little and crammed, and 3-4 direct questions were asked from what I studied. Then, in the car ride to Columbia, Chris went over every country in Africa and what European countries owned them....and while he was blabbing on and on, I barely picked up anything, but still, it's so ironic that those exact same questions were two different tossups in the prelims. Then, we went over Canadian bays/Capitals...which was a tossup, and bonus, respectively. And there are still a couple i'm forgetting im sure....But number 6 is kind of true, since the number of questions we "predicted" was freakishly high.

mujason
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by mujason »

Yeah, cramming does help, but steady practice over the course of a year is the best. Question topics can be predicted somewhat (especially when one is familiar with the company providing the questions). Note: I think one can find out what question supplier MSHSAA uses by checking their web site, so the question source is not a secret.

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Jeffrey Hill
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

Since cramming doesn't work too effectively, figuring out the exact order of the subjects being the same doesn't help. I figured out [Straight A?] uses a lot of American History and not so much ancient (good for me since I'm more of a modern history studier). We were one of the weakest math teams, because Dane, Michael, and I are all good at math, and all of us try to get it fast enough so the other people don't buzz in and say the wrong answer, when in our haste we miss stuff and get it wrong (like when they wanted X and Y and I only got X and forgot I had time to complete my answer, or in the final round when they threw a curveball and said the product/difference instead of sum/difference; I should have known something was up when I got decimal answers)

JimmyL
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by JimmyL »

oh man, i remember that question with the product/difference...i was like....wtf were they thinking? haha....although the same applies for me, i heard the question correctly and still said 15 and 17, even thought eh product ended in a 4....IDIOT. BAH.

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Jeffrey Hill
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

I remember hearing product but since I'd been used to sum all day I did it as I had been. If they hadn't thrown that isolated one in there I would have gotten it (again, Michael had the correct answer and I buzzed in on it). Also on the multiplying time one, I had 15 minutes written down and I thought "wait a minute, 15 minutes times 7 can't be 15 extra minutes"... I saved myself on that one.

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DeckardCain
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by DeckardCain »

I know the feeling... I screwed up two easy math questions against Richland that probably cost us the game, one about multiplying time and the other about distance between two points.

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Jeffrey Hill
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

In the SLUH game, there was so much we could have been more careful on. Our math bonuses were good when we got the right answer to Michael. Also, I was thinking Uncle Tom's Cabin (3rd round), but since I'm not a lit guy, I didn't buzz in, and a SLUH guy guessed it.

mujason
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by mujason »

I remember I actually had a bonus part at the Mizzou tournament in fall 2002 that included naming novels from subtitles; UTC was one of the answers.

JimmyL
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On Playing My Last Game

Post by JimmyL »

oh man, i cannot believe that Uncle Tom's Cabin question....i remember reading that "life among the lowly" subtitle in my American History book a couple of months ago....i knew i knew it, just couldnt make the connection in time..unfortunately, this was before chad buzzed in, not having heard "19th century" and only "historical significance" and randomly gussed Boccacio's Decameron...haha.

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On Playing My Last Game

Post by East Buc & UMR »

yeah matt I was looking at the rest of the questions you had left after the 4 root 5 answer and I figured you would of beat richland by 15

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DeckardCain
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Post by DeckardCain »

Yeah, it was a shame. The same thing happened on that other question - I had everything right on paper, but looked at it wrong and said the wrong number. Frazzled nerves, and trying to go too fast.

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Post by East Buc & UMR »

I really felt bad for you. You seemed to have a good team with you. and the crowd seemed to really be behind you.

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DeckardCain
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Post by DeckardCain »

Yeah, throw out those two screw-ups, and we would have won. That didn't hit me until today, which is probably a good thing, although I wasn't really that upset about getting second to Richland. It does make me feel a little better to know that if I had taken my time I would have gotten beat on the 4 root 5 question anyway (because I heard someone trying to buzz in right as I did). Oh well... nothing I can do about it now.

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Post by East Buc & UMR »

yup time to move onto college. I don't think richland had the questions at the same time you did. was it me or does richland's math person look like he is 20?

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DeckardCain
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Post by DeckardCain »

Yeah, I'll just have to take it out on Jared two years from now against MU :lol:

He does look pretty old. I could have swore I heard someone try to buzz in right after me on the 4 root 5 question, maybe not, but I'll go on thinking they did, just so I won't feel so crappy about the ordeal. Also, I believe Daniel Sprague (the guy sitting on my far left I think - your right) is going to Rolla next year as well. I talked to him when I went out there for PRO. He didn't say whether he was planning on playing next year, though.

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Post by East Buc & UMR »

on richlands team or yours? I do not have my program with me.

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DeckardCain
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Post by DeckardCain »

He was from Richland's team

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Post by East Buc & UMR »

so the old guy, haha

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DeckardCain
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Post by DeckardCain »

That's him I think, I can't remember for sure which one he is

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Post by East Buc & UMR »

tracy (the scorekeeper) and I had the disscussion on his age. We were thinking he is about driscoll's age.

jkath29
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Post by jkath29 »

That's hilarious. Daniel has been shaving since like the 5th grade. One time, a new teacher asked another teacher what subject Daniel taught when he saw him in the hall. But rest assured, he is only 18 (maybe 19).

Side note: you should have seen him last year when he had long hair and an amish beard.

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Post by East Buc & UMR »

i guess every class has one of those kids

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