Congratulations to My Big Fat Greek Gerbil (Greg Sorenson, Mark Coen, Shawn DeVeau, Chris Rosenberg), winners of the tenth annual TrashMasters all-pop-culture quizbowl tournament, held at UT-Chattanooga on Dec. 7-8, 2002. The Gerbils went 14-0 in the round robin and faced 13-1 Axis of Eagles (Tim Young, Phil Castagna, Brian Hight, Anthony DeJesus) in the finals with a one-game advantage. Axis of Eagles won a full round, forcing a 20-tossup shootout which the Gerbils took to take the championship. For their victory the Gerbils received the traditional TrashMasters team prize, a toilet seat; this year's trophy was the deluxe kind, a licensed product with Spongebob Squarepants pictured on the lid. Each member of the winning team also received notebook/folder sets with the likeness of Jar Jar Binks. For second, Axis of Eagles won a talking toilet game (in which its manufacturers took such pride that they trademarked the term "scuzz balls" for its use) and WWF yo-yos. Third place, along with the Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus CD game and Pez dispensers of lesser Star Wars characters, went to Trading Spaces: Special Victims Unit (Craig Barker, Mike Burger, Dwight Kidder, Kenny Peskin) at 11-3. From Beneath You, It Deflowers (Rebecca Golden, James Dinan, Julie Stahlhut, Doug Grote) took fourth in a playoff over Gamera and the Giant Peach (Gail Celio, Jeremy White, Keith Hudson, Alysia Vrailas) with nothing at stake except candy dispensers in the form of oozing body parts Full team results are below, but first some other stuff: K-TEL HELL In the 6th running of our name-that-tune musical interlude, we had our 6th different K-Tel Hellion, James Quintong. In taking home the K-Tel Hell championship belt, James made history as the first contestant to finish #1 in the written preliminaries and then win the buzzer round finals. (Dave Murphy had topped the field in both, but in different years.) Defending champion Tim Young finished 2nd, equaling Murphy with the closest finish by a defending champ. It didn't register at the time, but the K-Tel Hell written prelims yielded one instance of bragging rights, where only one player correctly identified the artist and title. Only UTC's own John Kilby got "Queen of Memphis" by Confederate Railroad. Lest anyone think the difficulty was just because it was country, the only other country song in the prelims ("The Devil Went Down to Georgia") was the only song all 25 of the top scoring contestants got right. ALL-STARS AND OTHER INDIVIDUAL HONORS The top ten individual scorers received All-Star recognition and chose their prizes from a hellish assortment of books (e.g., a novelization of Waterworld) and videos (the most trauma-inducing being My Personal Workout by Regis Philbin.) Tournament MVP Greg Sorenson of My Big Fat Greek Gerbil also received a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, DC Superheroes edition. This would be cheesy enough in both senses of the word without the added feature: a certificate of authenticity verifying that it was purchased in Metropolis, IL. On the certificate the word "book" was crossed out with the word "food" handwritten over it. Joining Greg as All-Stars were: James Dinan, From Beneath You, It Deflowers) Haircut 79: The Concorde (James Quintong), Edward MulhareCut 100 Keith Hudson, Gamera and the Giant Peach Jeremy White, Gamera and the Giant Peach Craig Barker, Trading Spaces: Special Victims Unit Derrick Coleman (Rob Barzegar), Nick Nolte's Drunk Driving Academy Mark Coen, My Big Fat Greek Gerbil Don Felder (Tim Young), Axis of Eagles and in a tie for 10th: Pope-1000 (Stephen Bahnaman), Vatican II: Judgment Day David Thorsley, John Kenneth Galbraith's Fiscal New Year's Rockin'Eve Full individual results are included below. As the highest scoring female player in the field, Emily Moore of John Kenneth Galbraith's Fiscal New Year's Rockin' Eve took the Title IX All-Star prize, a book proving the cultural superiority of women. Emily also received the prize for the most gloriously wrong answer -- she buzzed in with "dildo" when the answer turned out to be "soap on a rope." Ironically, Emily's prize, selected before that memorable answer, was a bar of glycerine soap with a figurine of Jar Jar Binks embedded in it. See below for a list of other gloriously wrong answers. Other special awards were given to Dren Rollins as the neg king and David Thorsley for the cheesiest of bragging rights (on "For Your Love," if I recall correctly.) ABUNDANT GRATITUDE Apologies in advance to anyone I omit herein... TrashMasters is a labor of love for me, and made much less of a labor by the help of a loyal and hard-working crew: assistant TD Stephen Taylor; stats goddess Dorothy Morisch; co-registrar Shannon Moore; buzzer setup crew chief Wally Edmondson, who also handled the all-important Krispy Kreme run Sunday morning; quartermaster (quartermistress?) Eileen Steinhice, who came bearing cough drops and posterboard; designated heavy lifter Russell Morisch; and house officials Victoria Rubin Groce, Toby Walter, Ruth Jackson, Travis Buck, Amber Graham, and Kevin Olmstead, who *finally* got to join us for dinner at Provino's this year. With a little help from those who so eagerly offered to read during their byes, TrashMasters 2002 ran smoothly and even finished on schedule. Eileen, Shannon, Wally, and Russ also helped out during the year by buying trashy prize material whenever they saw it to contribute to Charlie's Prize Closet of Doom. Thanks go to fellow trash prize shoppers James Washick, Alysia Vrailas, and especially Gail Celio. I owe a special thanks to freelance question authors scattered around the country who made my editing job much less frantic: Matt Larson, Miguel Ruiz, Jason Zuffranieri, Ryan Blay, the aforementioned James Washick, Rob Tribbett, Dave Dorman, Joe Grimes, Sean Phillips, and Michael Adelman. I'd like to give extra mad props to Mr. Adelman, of Rochester U., whom to my knowledge I've never met and whose work I'd never seen before. I used Michael's well-researched, well-written tossups for the shootout that ultimately decided the tournament. Speaking of mad props, hats off to Mike Burger and co. of Trading Spaces: Special Victims Unit for a memorable round where EVERY bonus was a visual bonus. It was the talk of the tournament, and very well done in my opinion. [A side note for quizbowl historians: to my knowledge, a Trading Spaces bonus and one of my own are the first known instances of a visual bonus in the 30-20-10-(5-)1 format. How poetic, considering one came from the originators of the 40-point clue and the other from the father of the 1-pointer.] Which brings me to another point... Another point. Get it? (sigh) QUESTION SALES Questions from this year's TrashMasters are now for sale for $20 per set. This is more than our usual rate, to offset the cost of the color copies from the *many* fine visual boni scattered throughout the tournament. The visual boni will also mean considerable extra bandwidth for electronic transmission. I'm going to see how much the visual files can be packed by WinZip and figure out whether they can be e-mailed that way. If you're interested in purchasing the questions, please let me know at steinhic (at) bellsouth (dot) net. OTHER GLORIOUSLY WRONG ANSWERS As you may know, Pitt's Michael Davies has started a website chronicling quizbowl answers that were memorably incorrect. They fall into two categories: mispronunciations or slips of the tongue ("Bob Marley" for "Jacob Marley"), or answers that made sense up to that point in the question ("7 Up" for "sudden infant death syndrome," the confusion involving very similar T-shirt slogans.) We noted these occurrences at TrashMasters 2002 that we think merit Mr. Davies' consideration. Those marked * are from visual boni rather than tossups. Player Wrong Answer Right answer Tim Young Blue Man Group Coors Light twins Scott Sherman Augusta National Alcor Life Extension Svcs. Chris Sloan Jeff Probst Kool-Aid Man Jeremy Vaughn Uncle Tom's Cabin Tom's Diner Dren Rollins Liberace Herb *UTC team Quidditch Australian rules football *UTC team Drew Carey Show Starr Report *Wichita St. team Bridget Jones' Diary Starr Report Jeremy White Bigfoot Oscar Meyer Wienermobile Greg Sorenson Dirk Diggler Jack Lemmon Vic D'Amico Astroglide Scotch Magic Tape [which I believe would make Astroglide join Enrico Fermi as the only answers to appear as both a right one and a wrong one in the Davies collection] and as noted above: Emily Moore dildo soap on a rope FULL TEAM RESULTS Here are the standings after the round robin: Team Name Win-Loss Points Opp Pts Diff/GM My Big Fat Greek Gerbil 14-0 4816 2190 187.57 Axis of Eagles 13-1 4516 2171 167.50 Trading Spaces: Special Victims Unit 11-3 4842 2270 183.71 >From Beneath You, It Deflowers 10-4 4201 2661 110.00 Gamera and the Giant Peach 10-4 4011 2596 101.07 Edward MulhareCut 100 9-5 4146 2527 115.64 John Kenneth Galbraith's Fiscal New Year's Rockin' Eve 8-6 2965 2876 6.36 Nick Nolte's Drunk Driving Academy 6-8 2632 3310 -48.43 Remembrance of Things Pabst Blue Ribbon 6-8 2812 3192 -27.14 Vatican II: Judgment Day 6-8 2481 3196 -51.07 Neverland Daycare Center 4-10 2075 3759 -120.29 Soul Truck 4-10 2511 3360 -60.64 47th Motorized Light Attack Penguin Brigade (elements) 3-11 2155 3647 -106.57 Mile High Club (Solo Aviators Division) 1-13 1697 4225 -180.57 TJ Maxx Beyond Thunderdome 0-14 811 4691 -277.14 FULL INDIVIDUAL RESULTS Final individual stats are as follows: Player Team 10 -5 Points Rounds PPG Greg Sorenson My Big Fat Greek Gerbil 72 2 710 14 50.71 James Dinan From Beneath You, It Deflowers 67 10 620 14 44.29 Haircut 79:The Concorde (James Quintong) Edward MulhareCut 100 57 7 535 14 38.21 Keith Hudson Gamera and the Giant Peach 54 3 525 14 37.50 Jeremy White Gamera and the Giant Peach 52 4 500 14 35.71 Craig Barker Trading Spaces: Special Victims Unit 54 9 495 14 35.36 Derrick Coleman (Rob Barzegar) Nick Nolte's Drunk Driving Academy 55 14 480 14 34.29 Mark Coen My Big Fat Greek Gerbil 48 2 470 14 33.57 Don Felder (Tim Young) Axis of Eagles 51 8 470 14 33.57 Pope-1000 (Stephen Bahnaman) Vatican II: Judgment Day 52 11 465 14 33.21 David Thorsley John Kenneth Galbraith's Fiscal New Year's Rockin' Eve 48 3 465 14 33.21 Dwight Kidder Trading Spaces: Special Victims Unit 47 2 460 14 32.86 Enos (Dren Rollins) Remembrance of Things Pabst Blue Ribbon 55 26 420 14 30.00 Kenny Peskin Trading Spaces: Special Victims Unit 45 6 420 14 30.00 Andre "Dirty" Waters (Phil Castagna) Axis of Eagles 41 5 385 14 27.50 Dennis Thibodeaux Mile High Club (Solo Aviators Division) 41 9 365 14 26.07 Tom Michael Soul Truck 29 1 285 11 25.91 Haircut 182 (Joseph Dion) Edward MulhareCut 100 36 4 340 14 24.29 Phil Groce Soul Truck 32 11 265 11 24.09 Opus-with-a-magnum (Edmund Schluessel) 47th Motorized Light Attack Penguin Brigade 36 5 335 14 23.93 Emily Moore John Kenneth Galbraith's Fiscal New Year's Rockin' Eve 35 5 325 14 23.21 Captain EO (Delano Barnes) Neverland Daycare Center 32 3 305 14 21.79 Keystone Shotgunner (Drew Wiseman) 47th Motorized Light Attack Penguin Brigade 31 2 300 14 21.43 Doug Grote From Beneath You, It Deflowers 31 2 300 14 21.43 Gerald Phelan (Brian Hight) Axis of Eagles 33 6 300 14 21.43 Haircut 76 Trombones (Stacey Helton) Edward MulhareCut 100 28 3 265 14 18.93 Willie Wells (Anthony DeJesus) Axis of Eagles 28 4 260 14 18.57 Rebecca Golden From Beneath You, It Deflowers 30 9 255 14 18.21 The Space Pope (Jake Armstrong) Vatican II: Judgment Day 28 7 245 14 17.50 Macauly Caulkin (Andy Green) Neverland Daycare Center 25 4 230 14 16.43 Gail Celio Gamera and the Giant Peach 23 0 230 14 16.43 Bubbles (Jeremy Hicks) Neverland Daycare Center 26 7 225 14 16.07 Anne Mitchell Soul Truck 22 6 190 12 15.83 Chris Rosenberg My Big Fat Greek Gerbil 24 4 220 14 15.71 Mike Burger Trading Spaces: Special Victims Unit 24 5 215 14 15.36 David Vasin John Kenneth Galbraith's Fiscal New Year's Rockin' Eve 27 11 215 14 15.36 Astronaut Jones (John Kilby) TJ Maxx Beyond Thunderdome 16 2 150 10 15.00 Patrick Chinnery Mile High Club (Solo Aviators Division) 24 9 195 14 13.93 Crazy Cooter (Chris Hendry) Remembrance of Things Pabst Blue Ribbon 25 12 190 14 13.57 Sergio Mendes & Haircut 66 (Scott Sanders) Edward MulhareCut 100 21 5 185 14 13.21 Rob Long Soul Truck 16 3 145 11 13.18 Roscoe P. Coltrane (Mark Dawson) Remembrance of Things Pabst Blue Ribbon 22 8 180 14 12.86 Bill Gates (Jeremy Vaughn) Nick Nolte's Drunk Driving Academy 21 6 180 14 12.86 John Paul Connor (Gerry Tarsey) Vatican II: Judgment Day 19 4 170 14 12.14 Shawn DeVeau My Big Fat Greek Gerbil 19 4 170 14 12.14 Aunt Entity (Wally Edmondson) TJ Maxx Beyond Thunderdome 18 3 165 14 11.79 Julie Stahlhut From Beneath You, It Deflowers 17 2 160 14 11.43 Noelle Bush (Lisa Edmonds) Nick Nolte's Drunk Driving Academy 14 1 135 14 9.64 Fire Marshall Bill Monroe (Nick Bradshaw) TJ Maxx Beyond Thunderdome 11 3 95 10 9.50 Shannon Moore Mile High Club (Solo Aviators Division) 13 0 130 14 9.29 Alysia Vrailas Gamera and the Giant Peach 15 5 125 14 8.93 Mario LeMieux with McDonald's Coffee (Tricia Southard) 47th Motorized Light Attack Penguin Brigade 14 3 125 14 8.93 Nick Nolte (Vic D'Amico) Nick Nolte's Drunk Driving Academy 16 7 125 14 8.93 Mutt 47th Motorized Light Attack Penguin Brigade 14 6 110 14 7.86 Hasta La Crista, Baby (Laura White) Vatican II: Judgment Day 9 1 85 14 6.07 Cleetus (Chris Walker) Remembrance of Things Pabst Blue Ribbon 11 6 80 14 5.71 Chris Sloan Soul Truck 9 6 60 11 5.45 Wendy Darling (Bethany Scoggin) Neverland Daycare Center 8 3 65 14 4.64 Jason Cox Mile High Club (Solo Aviators Division) 5 1 45 14 3.21 Scott John Kenneth Galbraith's Fiscal New Year's Rockin' Eve 9 11 35 14 2.50 Good Will Ferrell (Robby Trail) TJ Maxx Beyond Thunderdome 2 2 10 10 1.00
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