salamanca wrote:But that is neither here nor there, 'cause what we are really here to talk about is Khon Hoc. As Andrew notes, Khon was some dude on Maryland C or sometimes D who just decided to write tournaments. His questions were insane. For instance, he wrote a literature question on the play _Antigone 2_, which was an unpublished work written by the prof. who taught the Honors symposium that Khon had taken. What's even more amazing is that somewhere in my notebooks I wrote down characters for this play, you know, just in case it were to come up again. Packets at Khon Hoc could have random themes, like birthdays or wrestling, and, worst of all, later when he became a dental student, on dentistry. They were incredible to read aloud. I remember actually having to leave the room because I was laughing so hard as Phil O'Donoghue read through a Khon Hoc Finals with all the gravitas he could muster.
Birdofredum Sawin wrote:Finally, the tournament always concluded with everyone going to the Maryland student union bowling alley, where the Maryland players of that era (who all, mysteriously, appeared to have taken a college course on bowling) displayed their impeccable form.
salamanca wrote:what we are really here to talk about is Khon Hoc.
Inkana7 wrote:Someone needs to find these question sets.
In case anyone else is having trouble finding them, they're just listed under 1997 Ad Hoc Bowl II.Cheynem wrote:Some of Khon Hoc (1997) is on the Stanford Archive, although it seems fairly nondescript from what I can parse. Perhaps it was crazier the first year?
I believe it is those boxes that Jeff gave me to scan. They didn't contain anything that I could identify as Khon Hoc, although there were a number of packets that I couldn't identify at all.grapesmoker wrote:Berkeley used to have many boxes of printed sets. I wonder if those still exist and if they do, whether the contain any Khon Hoc.Inkana7 wrote:Someone needs to find these question sets.
bird bird bird bird bird wrote:Believe me, late-stage Khon Hoc is very identifiable.
Birdofredum Sawin wrote:I hope this will prompt some other veterans of those early-2000s tournaments (especially the delightful Kleist and Artaud!) to regale us with further anecdotes of those halcyon days.
Birdofredum Sawin wrote:Our "double espressos after every round" regimen proved unfortunate.
vinteuil wrote:Birdofredum Sawin wrote:Our "double espressos after every round" regimen proved unfortunate.
Paging Max Schinder
Since Chris Borglum is so fond of crowing about his team's triumph over us at this CO,
Birdofredum Sawin wrote:Since Chris Borglum is so fond of crowing about his team's triumph over us at this CO, I feel I should explain the mitigating circumstances. That year, Subash had taken a part-time job at Bloomingdale's, not because he needed the money (he was independently wealthy) but because he wanted to get an employee discount (for reasons best known to him). Just before CO, he gave me a very nice espresso machine as a present, and I had the bright idea to lug it from my apartment to CO so we could have all the free espresso we wanted during games. Until that tournament, I had always assumed that Zeke and I shared an equivalent tolerance to caffeine; in the course of the tournament, however, we learned otherwise. Our "double espressos after every round" regimen proved unfortunate, as Zeke started negging uncontrollably in the afternoon (including, as I recall, each of the last five tossups in our game against Borglum's team). Zeke was so wrecked that he was unable to eat during our traditional post-tournament dinner at Tango Sur, the beloved Argentinian restaurant on the North Side--to this day, the only time I have ever seen him incapable of eating steak!
ValenciaQBowl wrote:Since Chris Borglum is so fond of crowing about his team's triumph over us at this CO,
I am indeed fond of crowing about that win, Andrew, but I hope you understand that's because I was on a team that beat a team that had you, Zeke, and David Hamilton on it (was Paul Litvak the fourth? Can't remember). And I picked up a "Ten Days That Shook the World" toss-up after you negged in a buzzer race with me for it. We appreciate the largesse! But any kind of win against such a historically formidable line-up is something I'll cherish, even if y'all weren't at the top of your respective games. It's a compliment, not that you need it!
That CO win came the same year my Valencia team beat a Lafer-led Michigan team in a DII semi-final at ICT and then lost the DII final to a Vinokurov-led Berkeley team: a good year!
ValenciaQBowl wrote:Since Chris Borglum is so fond of crowing about his team's triumph over us at this CO,
I am indeed fond of crowing about that win, Andrew, but I hope you understand that's because I was on a team that beat a team that had you, Zeke, and David Hamilton on it (was Paul Litvak the fourth? Can't remember). And I picked up a "Ten Days That Shook the World" toss-up after you negged in a buzzer race with me for it. We appreciate the largesse! But any kind of win against such a historically formidable line-up is something I'll cherish, even if y'all weren't at the top of your respective games. It's a compliment, not that you need it!
That CO win came the same year my Valencia team beat a Lafer-led Michigan team in a DII semi-final at ICT and then lost the DII final to a Vinokurov-led Berkeley team: a good year!
AuguryMarch wrote:For instance, Mark wrote a 14 line tossup on Fela Kuti
grapesmoker wrote:I demand salsa tastings at future opens.
I played D2 in 2002 and that happened in 2003 so your memory is faulty there, Borglum (sadly, i think I'm being mistaken for Chris Frankel).
Really, the important thing is that we belatedly tarnish Chris Borglum's sense of accomplishment.
icarium wrote:Also our team name was Samer's Evil Twin, which began my years-long on and off again attempts to troll Samer, a guy who was such a douche that he often kept his moderating "stats" on the chalkboard in his room.
icarium wrote:4. ACF/NAQT Regionals/Sectionals - Despite improving over the course of the season, these two tournaments only solidified the fact that we were considerably behind Chicago and Michigan at both formats. Over the course of the next two months, I probably worked as hard as any time in my life over the last 20 years with the possible exception of preparation for parts of my medical boards. What I did, I can expound upon if people are curious, but isn't particularly a fond memory and therefore better left for another post.
Birdofredum Sawin wrote:Also, I can't remember now, but that might have been the first tournament at which we were introduced to the charms of Monical's in scenic Rantoul, Illinois. The sight of Subash grandly ordering a Monical's waitress to bring another round of pepperoni pockets (or whatever the things were called) is one of my favorite post-Illinois-tournament memories.
Birdofredum Sawin wrote:Also, I can't remember now, but that might have been the first tournament at which we were introduced to the charms of Monical's in scenic Rantoul, Illinois. The sight of Subash grandly ordering a Monical's waitress to bring another round of pepperoni pockets (or whatever the things were called) is one of my favorite post-Illinois-tournament memories.
AuguryMarch wrote:Also wasn't there some joke around Lorin Burte from 3 Boys and a Goy wearing a T-shirt that said "SLAM!"? I remember yelling "SLAM" a lot for no reason.
themanwho wrote:icarium wrote:4. ACF/NAQT Regionals/Sectionals - Despite improving over the course of the season, these two tournaments only solidified the fact that we were considerably behind Chicago and Michigan at both formats. Over the course of the next two months, I probably worked as hard as any time in my life over the last 20 years with the possible exception of preparation for parts of my medical boards. What I did, I can expound upon if people are curious, but isn't particularly a fond memory and therefore better left for another post.
I'm certainly curious.
Birdofredum Sawin wrote: The first was on Spenser's "Colin Clout's Come Home Again" (seriously!). Michigan had no idea what that was, unsurprisingly.
Birdofredum Sawin wrote:(One year a Virginia teammate and I finished second in the school's intramural spades tournament, and thus narrowly missed being confronted with the question of whether we would play CBI regionals or spades regionals. Yes, the latter was an actual thing.)
Birdofredum Sawin wrote:We narrowly beat a Jeff Johnson-led Harvard team in the finals to win, after which my teammate Brian Rostron started screaming "justice!" before he fell off the stage accidentally.
Birdofredum Sawin wrote:Montclair State ... we deaffiliated from CBI shortly after winning the tournament, which I like to think contributed substantially to the format's decline and eventual disappearance.
Princeton's lexicon wrote:At 1997 CBI nationals at Montclair State, Jenn somehow convinced the team to spend an evening at the mall, where Jeff Crean and Peter Coles found a malfunctioning basketball game that gave free plays. Crean and Coles, well documented College Bowl addicts, displayed their typical insanity and played the game for three and a half hours, accumulating 4000 tickets which they redeemed for a slinky and a football.
Return to Quizbowl History Forum
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests