500 things...

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
Mephistopheles
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500 things...

Post by Mephistopheles »

...that quiz bowl taught us.

1. You can not win unless:
a. You have no souls
b. You are fighting for humanity
I am Spartacus.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by AndyShootsAndyScores »

2. Thou shalt not give first name unless thou art prompted.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

3. You only know the answers when you've been subbed out.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Tegan »

4. Bone does not equal cartilage.

5. When your coach says "there's no possible way we can advance because we can't possibly score enough points, so let's play the subs" .... double check the coach's math.

6. Chuck Norris can divide by zero, but he cannot do math as fast as Greg Gauthier. Period.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Tegan »

7. Scams come in many forms .... wether it is a mass mailing saying "you may have already qualified for our low, low offer", or it says "you may already have qualified for our national championship tournament; choose from one of three sites."
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Re: 500 things...

Post by rchschem »

8. There is more than one Danish astronomer and Elizabethan playwright.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by saskwatch1991 »

9. No matter how much time you spend trying to learn everything, you can't
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Post by Golran »

10) Never let a bonus go without an answer, you may just get prompted with your random guess.

11) Never guess "Jesus" for all three parts of a bonus in the middle of a thunderstorm.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by The Atom Strikes! »

12: The appearance of strength of a team and their actual strength are inversely proportional.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Blackboard Monitor Vimes »

13. Playing baseball with a Benet's encyclopedia and a tennis ball can be dangerous.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by AndyShootsAndyScores »

14. In high school, there is only one Norwegian of anything. Anything.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by The Infanta »

15. There is no shame. Only points.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

16. "There is no shame, only points" is an inaccurate statement. There is shame, and there are points.
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Nine-Tenths Ideas »

17. When your 4th player buzzes in, it's probably an accident.

18. Disconnect your 4th player's buzzer.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Stained Diviner »

19. If a kid backs out from a tournament at the last second, he will do it again for the next tournament.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Khalil Khayyam »

20. There is a Quiz Bowl God, and he does not love us all the same.

Approving administrator's note: Zurvan does so care about all of us the same (i.e. not at all.) I'm uncertain of Mukherjesus' view of this matter, though.
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One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Captain Sinico »

21. SCIENCE!
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Stat Boy »

22. Yes, that just came up.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Djibouti »

23. Something mentioned either the day before or in the car-ride to the tournament off-hand is ALWAYS bound to come up.

24. Stock clues.

25. You are most likely to not know something when you are most supposed to know something (or, said another way, pay attention to where your brother goes to grad school / your other brother's idle ramblings of MacArthur as the biggest momma's boy).

26. When you get something wrong, you will not cease to hear it in pop culture references / commercials / news for at least the next week.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by BuzzerZen »

Corollaries to 21:
21a. PHYSICS!?
21b. (Robot Factory Only) GEOSYSTEMS!?
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How are you actually reading one of my posts?
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Re: 500 things...

Post by dschafer »

BuzzerZen wrote:Corollaries to 21:
21a. PHYSICS!?
21b. (Robot Factory Only) GEOSYSTEMS!?
21b(i). GEOSYSTEMS!?
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Re: 500 things...

Post by dtaylor4 »

Djibouti wrote:25. You are most likely to not know something when you are most supposed to know something (or, said another way, pay attention to where your brother goes to grad school / your other brother's idle ramblings of MacArthur as the biggest momma's boy).
25a. You will always get beat to tossups about the namesake of your current/former schools.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Quantum Mushroom Billiard Hat »

25ai. You will generally get beat to (or neg on) tossups about the school you go to itself.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by pray for elves »

Klonoa wrote:25ai. You will generally get beat to (or neg on) tossups about the school you go to itself.
25ai1. ...or professors from your school.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Captain Sinico »

25ai1'. If you suck.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by theMoMA »

ImmaculateDeception wrote:25ai1'. If you suck.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Nine-Tenths Ideas »

27. The quality of a player is generally inverse to how much they talk during a game.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by theMoMA »

28 [1]. Learn things
29 [2]. Press button
30 [3]. Get points
31 [4].Win game
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Re: 500 things...

Post by quizbowllee »

32. Winning beats losing.
33. Losing beats getting stomped.
34. Getting stomped still beats not playing.
35. If you can't be right, be funny.

36. Sometimes it really is that Egyptian river...
37. If a question seems too easy, it's probably because you know the answer.
38. A lot of Presidents came from Ohio... and New York.
39. There are certain things that - no matter how many times they come up - certain teams will never, ever get correct.
40. There are at least a million different names for this game (quiz bowl, scholar's bowl, scholastic bowl, academic bowl, etc. etc.)
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Ondes Martenot »

41. Opera (or at least enough so that when an opera bonus comes up I look mildly competent)
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Warbourne »

42. Expect the English philosopher Locke to come up about once every game.
43. Always put Chuck Norris in a bonus when you have no idea what the answers are.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by AndyShootsAndyScores »

44. Whether it be a tossup or part of a bonus, T. S. Eliot will come up at every tournament. If it didn't, it was in a bonus you didn't get.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Quantum Mushroom Billiard Hat »

45. Sometimes 2+2 does = 5, and, at least for a moment, the "whole number square root of 165" was 15.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by the return of AHAN »

46.) The people with the most complaints about your tournament have never hosted a tournament themselves.

47.) No paycheck is sufficient compensation when you have the head coach of AHAN Jr. moderating at your tournament.

48.) The size of your tournament varies directly with the amount of food you should order to feed the participants.

49.) Never assume someone else understands #48 if they are placing your food order.

50.) David Reinstein is the god of editing pyramidal toss-ups.

51.) Attempting to introduce pyramidal style toss-ups to Illinois middle schoolers will draw positive attention and quality aid from the aforementioned Reinsteinn (Jeez, is there anything this guy doesn't know?).
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Stephen Colbert »

BarringtonJP wrote:46.) The people with the most complaints about your tournament have never hosted a tournament themselves.
My favorite piece of advice from Pam Riss for dealing with such complaints is to simply ask, "And when will you be hosting your tournament this year?" She then said if they can't come up with a date really quickly, she'll tell them exactly where to file their complaint. :wink:
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Re: 500 things...

Post by aestheteboy »

...and why can't you complain if you aren't hosting a tournament?
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Re: 500 things...

Post by AndyShootsAndyScores »

aestheteboy wrote:...and why can't you complain if you aren't hosting a tournament?
You can, just don't expect much compassion from the TD if you've never hosted a tournament before.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

BarringtonJP wrote:50.) David Reinstein is the god of editing pyramidal toss-ups.
...
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

I think participants have every right to complain about a tournament that they spend money for, especially if they come up with actual reasons why the tournament had flaws, no matter how many tournaments they've run in the past.
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Tegan »

Athena Starwoman wrote:I think participants have every right to complain about a tournament that they spend money for, especially if they come up with actual reasons why the tournament had flaws, no matter how many tournaments they've run in the past.
I agree, IF the complaints are legitimate. Complaints like: the questions were too long, they were too hard (longer than two lines), the moderators read too fast, etc are the complaints Dr. Price was talking about. And I totally agree, they mostly tend to come from people who have never tried to host anything, and expect the quizbowl world to cater to their every whim of what quizbowl should be like: lots of pop culture/industrial arts, short questions, slow talkers, lots of funn, Funn, FUNN!


putting us back on course:

52. After a loss: leave the buzzer, take the cannoli.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by the return of AHAN »

(psst... Dr. Egan... Think I can score Charlie Dees as a moderator next year? What would you pay to see that?)
And on that note:

53. Middle school coaches think high school moderators are mean.

54. 'The Simpsons' is an important subset of the scholastic bowl canon.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Whiter Hydra »

55. Tournaments never end on time. Never.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by cvdwightw »

hwhite wrote:55. Tournaments never end on time. Never.
56. They don't start on time either.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Tegan »

BarringtonJP wrote:(psst... Dr. Egan... Think I can score Charlie Dees as a moderator next year? What would you pay to see that?)
I would guess that he would be pretty good. He's very well spoken, quite knowledgeable on nearly any topic that would come up. I would hire him on to moderate.
BarringtonJP wrote:53. Middle school coaches think high school moderators are mean.
Despite my best efforts, I only got one player to cry yesterday. I will try harder next time.
BarringtonJP wrote:54. 'The Simpsons' is an important subset of the scholastic bowl canon.
Quoted for truth.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Nine-Tenths Ideas »

55. No one notices or cares when a tournament does start on time.

56. You will remember the answer approximately 2.5 seconds after you buzz in when you're operating on NAQT rules.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by Stained Diviner »

50.) David Reinstein is the god of editing pyramidal toss-ups.
If the list had ended there, it would have been 49 things and one false thing.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by quizbowl »

quizbowllee wrote:32. Winning beats losing.
33. Losing beats getting stomped.
34. Getting stomped still beats not playing.
35. If you can't be right, be funny.
Lee has been to a few too many tournaments at UTC.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by quizbowllee »

quizbowl wrote:
quizbowllee wrote:32. Winning beats losing.
33. Losing beats getting stomped.
34. Getting stomped still beats not playing.
35. If you can't be right, be funny.
Lee has been to a few too many tournaments at UTC.
True dat.

Actually, there is no such things as too many tournaments at UTC.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by The Atom Strikes! »

57) Always listen to what a question is asking for-- the wrong answer category can result in hilarious negs.
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Re: 500 things...

Post by AndyShootsAndyScores »

quizbowllee wrote:Actually, there is no such things as too many tournaments at UTC.
58. There is no such thing as too many tournaments at UTC.
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