Trashionals Thoughts

theblasmo · Tue, 03 Apr 2001 09:41:36 -0700

First, of course, major applause to James, James,
Dave, Alexis, and the rest of the crew for a series of
great packets and a tournament that was as challenging
as it was fun to play in. Sure, I had some problems
with certain questions and distribution, but, for the
most part, an exemplary job. Congrats to Chris
Walken's Dance Party for a well-earned victory and to
those teams we played who made the weekend a blast.
However, I have one major complaint, and it has nothing to
do with Trash as a company or any of the teams we
played this weekend.
I thought Edmund's "award"
ceremony at the final ceremony was both offensive and
elitist. Besides the waves of superiority spreading out
from the source, I felt annoyed that someone who's
placed enough commentable material on this page had the
nerve to comment on other people's ideas. The worst
thing that can come out of any competitive organization
or group is Elitism, a belief that just because you
can answer a bunch of questions on some subject, your
"blank" doesn't stink. First, I felt that Stan's idea on
the "ideal tournament" wasn't that far off base,
since it was a sincere attempt to try and balance the
Trash and Academic aspects of these competitions, which
might lead to more participation. Although I think an
even split might be too much, the idea has its merits
-- except to those who have problems with any
attempt to make the format more accessible. Next, I
attended both CBI and NAQT Regionals (Sectionals) and feel
that of the two, CBI's questions were of a better
overall level than NAQT's. My opinion, and, according to
many of the people in my region, a shared one. That
doesn't mean CBI's better than NAQT, or that NAQT is on
some sort of downward trend. I think CBI has gone out
its way to improve its overall standing, and NAQT
just had one of their lesser series of packets. Yes,
CBI is still considered a joke by some, but Mary and
the rest of the College Bowl company seem to have
taken our complaints to heart and are attempting to do
something about them. 
So, I disagree with some of the
"selections." Is that why I'm mad? No. What offends me the most
is that someone decided to make himself look good
while slagging some people -- admittedly some deserved
(those Africa comments?)-- after a tournament filled
with moments where people dropped egos and won/lost
with fun and consideration. If we offended anyone with
our usual over-the-top antics, I apologize. However,
we usually tried to be as much fun as possible, even
though that can sometimes (sometimes?) be annoying.

Next part to come...