Thanks to the attendance rule, in which one must show up for 75% of the 16-week tournament in order to qualify for the finals, there’s really no way my Street Academy team won’t make the cut. At this point, it’s just show up, order food, and play.
But I’m tired of just showing up and hoping I can earn bonus points. I need to make sure that I can do well in the finals.
What does that mean for me?
It means bringing in reinforcements.
And those “reinforcements” are the members of my Monday night Brown’s Brewing team, Jeremy and Alexis. How smart are they? Jeremy’s an accomplished physics professor at Siena; Alexis is a chem major at RPI that could recite the entire Periodic Table of the Elements without using any Tom Lehrer-created melodies.
They arrived at Elbo Room last night after playing in an Ultimate Frisbee league over at the UAlbany campus. We were ready for battle.
In fact, we picked up the halftime free pitcher by holding the lead, and stayed at or near the lead throughout the night. We nailed questions about what card game has a championship called the Bermuda Tournament (bridge), on what continent could you find the Orange Free State (Africa), and the names of the two lead actors in the upcoming film The Wrong Guys (Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg).
As the final question rolled in, we were only 18 points off the lead. The final question, 21st century music was the category. “Rolling Stone magazine voted a song by what group as the best song of the decade?”
This one was out of our ballpark. There were so many possible answers. I started to write down Coldplay, Jeremy and Alexis both said that’s not the answer. Jeremy suggested U2, I wasn’t happy with that answer. Alexis thought maybe because of their popularity, that the Black Eyed Peas might have had the song of the decade. I liked the answer, considering that the Black Eyed Peas are not only on the cover of Rolling Stone this week; they also have songs that have spent entire months at #1 on the Billboard pop charts.
What the heck, we wrote down the Black Eyed Peas and handed it in.
The answer was “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day. Some teams did get that answer correct; not us. In fact, Woo Hoo a Go Go also thought Coldplay had the song of the decade, while Da Bears thought the song of the decade came from Gnarlz Barkley.
How obscure was that question? Big Red Machine picked up a playoff point for third place by betting no points for the final question, as other teams wrote down answers like Staind and Creed.
So I don’t feel so bad that we missed that final question. In fact, outside of not picking up some points on some of the bonus answers, we did quite well up until that point. What we did do was work together on answers, skipped when we weren’t sure, and hit the right questions at the right time. Good teammates are hard to find, and I’m glad I’ve got some for this tournament.
So after nine weeks, here are the standings. I’m not going to list teams that haven’t shown up any more; I will still keep the attendance list going, however. Twelve black stars (one star for each attendance) earn you a green star, meaning you have fulfilled attendance requirements (to be in the finals, you must attend 75% of the qualifying weeks). If your team has a “red star” next to your name, you are in danger of being disqualified for not showing up for the requisite 12 out of 16 weeks to qualify for the tournament.
| Trivia Team | Points | Totals | Attendance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Skidmarks | 18 | ★★★★★★★★★ | |
| 2 | Con-Fear-Acy | 3 | 17 | ★★★★★★★★★ |
| 3 | Stern Fans | 5 | 15 | ★★★★★★★ |
| 4 | Da Bears | 11 | ★★★★★★★★ | |
| 5 | Woo Hoo a Go Go | 9 | ★★★★★★★★★ | |
| 6 | Big Red Machine | 1 | 4 | ★★★★★★ |
| 7 | Touched by an Uncle | 3 | ★★★★★★ | |
| 8 | Street Academy | 2 | ★★★★★★★★★ |
Seven weeks left to go.
Chuck The Writer 
Safest no bet we’ve done in a while on the final question. Plus we got to plug my brother’s band! I have to admit it was funny to hear so many “What?!”s coming when General James said “The Pains of Being Pure at Heart” as our guess.
LikeLike
A bunch of aging Gen-Xers think Green Day had the song of the decade. Cute. Every honest appraisal of the decade inevitably leads to “Fergalicious.” YOU KNOW IT IN YOUR HEART.
Alas, I got overruled, again.
LikeLike
It’s the Bermuda *Bowl* – but, nice to see bridge get a mention at all :).
LikeLike
boy chuck, talk about backing into the playoffs. do i see a sense of urgency here to get back to respectability? you know something’s up when you walk into trivia and see other people sitting with chuck. i think its just time to face facts, the age of street academy is over. the time of the skidmarks has come.
LikeLike
And gone. Just like that.
LikeLike
Leave Street Academy alone! He is like the fat kid that no one wants to pick for a game of kickball, but you have to because you have to let him play, and there is no one else left to pick.
Similarly, Street Academy gets to waltz into the money game, simply because they showed up, as if showing up is somehow indicative of talent. What is wrong with our society today?
What if Bluemoond showed up, to one game, and won it? Would that eliminate the Street Academy from contention? It should, but because of this attendance rule, it won’t. If I knew there was a chance to do it, I would be there, with the intent of knocking out Street Academy via winning one game.
Teams playing at the Elbo Room, do me a favor, and make sure this joker doessn’t win the money after he placed 3rd twice in order to clinch his spot in the tournament. Oh yea, don’t let me forget, he did show up too.
-Wayne
LikeLike
“Back to respectability”?! “Age of Street Academy”?! Never was …never happened. Nope. Never. No way.
LikeLike
“What if Bluemoond showed up, to one game, and won it?”
Well…I guess in THAT fantasy world anything is possible…
LikeLike
The rage of Bluemoond will rain down upon you at next trivia bowl, D357!!!
LikeLike
For the record, the last question asked for the single of the decade, which voted by the readers of Rolling Stone, was Green Day’s “Boulevard of broken dreams.” The song of the decade, as voted by Rolling Stone staff, was, as my brother correctly answered, “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. “Boulevard” only made #65 on that list. We were in the right church, wrong pew.
LikeLike
#6: 90% of success is in just showing up. In the last tournament we placed second without once winning first place in any game. Don’t worry, Wayne, we’re pulling out all the stops (except the cellphone, we’ll leave that to Mayh-uh-Confearacy) to shut him out of yet another Elbo Room Tournament.
LikeLike
Of course, the whole “backing in” concept is one reason that I don’t like the attendance requirement. The last few times we all had to be worried that some new team was going to creep up on us at the last second.
LikeLike