Too Much Trivia in the Pants

Next Year Is Year Ten

§ Tuesday, January 31, 2006 @ 3:19 AM

Okay folks, so we wrap up another year of trivia. Once again, our points and place fell, as we dropped to only 745 points and 13th place - our lowest point total since we left the world of dial-up. Nevertheless, I don't think anyone would say it was bad year by any means. For those who are interested, I have the photos from this year's contest posted on the photos page. Once again, there are even more than last year. And finally, I want to congratulate the team What's the Frequency, Lawrence? for their fine performance this weekend. They snuck back up to second place this year, and hopefully it's only a matter of time before they unseat Bank.

Well, we'll see you all in 2007, when Too Much Trivia in the Pants will celebrate its tenth year in the Great Midwest Trivia Contest.

Pantsless Garudas

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 10:46 PM

Pantsless Hour got pushed back, but we just wanted to let it be known that we will instead be doing Pantsless Garudas. Everyone ready?

SQUISHY!

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 10:27 PM

Squishy was the answer to a question! You go Squishy!

Drunk Action Jammers

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 7:40 PM

Zak and Luke came back completed wasted. Zak is passed out in a chair, and Luke went back to answer phones, but it sounds like he's on his way back.

Trivia...

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 7:28 PM

it's all about the steamers.

2 Million Imaginary Points!

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 5:24 PM

Dude, we're totally kicking ass now thanks to Zak and Luke jamming another on-campus action question - this one involving alcomohol. Hell's yes.

oh crap

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 3:58 PM

JEOMK... just ejaculated on my keyboard. This is getting out of hand.

Team drink

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 3:32 PM

The official TMTITP drink for this year is "coffee" aka Pabst Blue Ribbon in a can. Many of us have fallen for this offer of coffee.

-D

Music Request

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 1:49 PM

Trivia Masters, we have a request fo you to play some Hilary Duff. Then to mix in a duet with Wesley Willis. Thank-you.

Trivia Masters Are Now Our Bitches

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 11:51 AM

Dave has planted the flag and declared the station in the name of Too Much Trivia in the Pants. If I'm not mistaken, that makes all of you our bitches! Hahahahaha! We own you!

Stop Talking

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 10:24 AM

I don't want to sound like an ass, but these female trivia masters are making themselves sound like quite the idiots this morning. Who is Tom Selleck? Adlai Stevenson? Phil Niekro? JOHN BROWN?! Really, for your own good, just stop talking.

Sorry, I know that wasn't very nice, but it really had to be said.

Century Milestone

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 8:48 AM

Question 236 and we only just finally answered our 100th question of the contest correctly.

Rotating Cast and Guests

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 8:29 AM

Squishy came back from answering phones, but Sean went home to grab some sleep. Zak and Ben came back. Corey is still passed out on the couch with the keyboard in his hands. Trixie was here with another girl from Nudge, but they had to head back. Squishy is getting accused of being mean on the phone and Zak is looking at boobs (but on his own computer this time).

Awesome Twosome

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 6:55 AM

Go figure - it's Sunday morning, and there are only two of us playing, but we're doing okay. Squishy is down answering phones, Corey is passed out next to me, and Sean and I are rockin' the phones and the answers.

Arrrgh!

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 6:13 AM

They finally have a "Simpsons" question, and all of our Simpsons folk are gone.

We're too dirty for dirty hour

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 3:55 AM

The trivia masters insisted that they would read dirty jam team names before asking question 201, but they refused to read most of our jams anyway because they were too dirty for dirty hour.

500

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 1:03 AM

We just reached 500 points. Corey plotted our points accumulation on excel and found that we have a very steady linear increase in points for the entire contest with an R-squared value of .99

Corey is a freakin' nerd.

-D

We are fat asses

§ Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 1:00 AM

With the arrival of a giant platter of buffalo wings and blue cheese dipping sauce we now have for all practical purposes reached infinite food. In addition to our 11 pizzas, 30 hamburgers, dozens of bags of chips and dip, two bags of cheese wheels, eggs, hashbrowns, toast, lasagna, sandwiches, hot beef & bread, cookies, pastries, and gallons of soda, beer, and liquor we now have a ton of wings to eat. Plus we still have more food coming from Erbert and Gerbert's, Fridays, and Tom's drive in. Fellow trivia teams if you're hungry feel free to stop by, we can't even put a dent in this.

-D

Saturday Night

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 10:42 PM

Krist is napping and others are at the bar. We've got 5 people to trudge through this portion of Saturday night although I may leave to answer phones fairly soon.

-D

wtf

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 9:16 PM

Hmm, I'm pretty sure that Krist is mentally undressing me while he rests that 40 on his crotch. I'll keep you posted. I'm just a little leary after spotting him oiled up and dancing on that parade float last week...

-D

Helicopter Fun

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 9:08 PM

How the help am I supposed to shoot down 10 helicopters with a fucking bow & arrow? Stupid game.

-D

Yuck

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 8:59 PM

Eeeeew! I spotted Squishy's balls peaking out while he was adjusting the flap on his pajama pants.

Technical DIfficulties

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 8:56 PM

Well so far this weekend we've lost power, our internet connection, and dealt with 30 second plus broadcast delays. We should go back to carrier pigeons and abacuses.

Stop with the shitty questions

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 8:02 PM

Trivia is starting to get boring, which is causing our ranks to thin, and those who are here have generally lost interest in the contest. What's the cure for this? How about some questions that don't suck? Works for us.

Getting Back to the Trivia

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 6:45 PM

We're starting to get people back. Can't declare yet whether or not we're doing better - yet - but things can only look up... we sucked during Jew Hour.

This is kind of creepy

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 4:43 PM

Charlton
Heston
Is
My
President

C.H.I.M.P. - "Planet of the Apes"... creepy

Near Tragedy

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 3:58 PM

Woah! Power went out! It's back on now and we didn't miss a question, but could have been bad.

MAKE IT STOP!

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 2:48 PM

Enough with the kid jokes already! And. by the way, TMNT kick dragon ass.

Buttery Rolls

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 12:44 PM

Real men really do butter their own rolls. Just ask Krist.

Nonajam

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 12:43 PM

Nonajammin'!

Picking Up Again

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 8:48 AM

We were slow before, but we've been picking up again lately. Could be doing a lot worse.

Fuck Horror Hour

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 2:38 AM

I thought Hipster Hour sucked last year, but fuck Horror Hour. Really. Who came up with these shitty questions?

At the bar

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 2:21 AM

I think half our team left to go drinking at Jim's Place. What the hell?! We have beer here!

Trivia Master Jerk

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 2:14 AM

Trivia Master Jerk can bite my ass.

COREY!

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 1:42 AM

Corey just showed up and brought Grain Belt Premium with him

PIZZA!

§ Saturday, January 28, 2006 @ 12:22 AM

Benny just showed up with the Domino's - sweet.

Friggin' Portland Questions

§ Friday, January 27, 2006 @ 10:32 PM

Damn it Reid! Enough Portland questions! And as for the Bishop's Barbershop question - fuck that shit. Got my hair cut there last March. Like I really went to more than one... the one on Hawthorne only had High Life....

$186

§ Friday, January 27, 2006 @ 10:02 PM

Dave just arrived. He got a speeding ticket trying to get here on time. $186. Anybody want to contribute to Dave's speeding ticket fund?

Orange Whips!

§ Friday, January 27, 2006 @ 9:53 PM

Orange whip? Orange whip? Orange whip? Three orange whips!

The orange whips are out... thanks Ronnie.

Jeremiah Johnson

§ Friday, January 27, 2006 @ 8:17 PM

The pre-trivia viewing of "Jeremiah Johnson" has begun.

UPDATE: Thanks for the rifle Hatchet Jack!

UPDATE: "Woman, I am your friend."

UPDATE: "I make damn good biscuits."

UPDATE: "Sure, sure - I got a fine horse under me."

UPDATE: "You skin-headed sonofabitch - you almost got me killed!"

UPDATE: "You've been up here too long Johnson believing in this."

UPDATE: Watch out dude, he's behind you! Sorry, too late.

UPDATE: Jeremiah Johnson just ended. Good thing they held off the start of trivia for the movie to end.

We're Official

§ Friday, January 27, 2006 @ 6:47 PM

Okay folks, TMTitP is registered - we're official. Watch out folks, because it's on....

Phone Numbers Posted

§ Friday, January 27, 2006 @ 5:37 PM

Trivia masters updated the trivia website with the phone numbers. Answer line for off-campus teams is 920-832-6937. Complaint line is 920-419-6624. Answer line is the same number to call for off-campus team registration between 6 and 9.

Fingers Crossed

§ Friday, January 27, 2006 @ 2:44 PM

I have my fingers crossed that nothing happens to this weblog. For some reason, all of my other weblogs have stopped functioning in the last three days. All of the other pages on my websites still work, but any weblog page - archives or otherwise - have quit working, with the exception of this one. I really have no idea why, and I'll have to try emailing my host at some point to find out what the story is, because this is pretty obnoxious.

Thursday Night's Photos Are Posted

§ Friday, January 27, 2006 @ 2:44 AM

Even despite returning home and having to deal with a dial-up connection, I have a set of photos from setting up the War Room Thursday night posted already on the photos page. Nothing too exciting, but you can see just how messy an undergrad's apartment can get, along with a rare photo of me (drinking a Blatz).

Setting up the War Room

§ Thursday, January 26, 2006 @ 8:24 PM

What is it about setting up a war room that makes me thirsty? We're getting the war room set up right now and downing beers. The place is a mess, but we'll be set up by the end of the night. Trivia!

UPDATE: The War Room is about as set up as it can be for tonight. We seem reasonably organized this year. This might be the first year that the War Room was dirtier before trivia than after trivia. Food is all lined up, the network is working, and it seems that our connection to the WLFM webcast is working fine. Squishy is loading the dirty thirty in the fridge as I type. Not sure how the delay is going to work, but whatever.

Dealing with Dial-up

§ Tuesday, January 24, 2006 @ 11:43 AM

GM Stratton is back with some good news for those still using dial-up (like, say, MY PARENTS):

Good news for dial-up

January 23, 2006

That's right, we've benn able to ensure that dial-up users can connect during Trivia weekend. During the contest we will lower the stream levels so that even slower connections should be able to access Trivia. Of course, higher speed connections will still be able hold a connection better, so we highly recommend your team use a broadband connection to connect to WLFM.

Elsewhere, he's also asking that "no more than one computer per household (or per team) connect at one time. This will help reduce congestion and hopefully improve everyone's ability to tune in." While this is a very noble and honest request on the part of our beloved Grand Master, there are only two MAJOR problems with this. The first is that there is no way to patrol this request, making this potentially the new "jamming". The second problem is that every team would be stupid to only connect using one computer (unless, of course, they only have one computer). If the connection starts buffering or the webcast is somehow otherwise lost, there goes the possibility of answering that question. No, every team is certainly going to need at least one back-up connection, so let's hope they took this into account.

» The Great Midwest Trivia Contest

This Year's Lawrence Press Release

§ Tuesday, January 24, 2006 @ 11:23 AM

This year's edition of the Lawrence press release concerning trivia was finally posted late yesterday. Mostly just the same old thing, except there's something I love about this paragraph:

In some ways, the broadcast format switch is merely catching up to the sea change the contest's "landscape" has undergone the past half dozen years or so. Gone are the days of closets stuffed with index cards, encyclopedias and ready-reference books on movies, music and television shows that get unpacked each January. Laptops with high-speed Internet connections have made books passe and become the weapon of choice for all teams serious about silliness. A search engine guru is now just as important as a good quarterback on a football team for this generation of triviaholics.

The paragraph begins by trying to put a positive spin on the transition to going webcast-only on WLFM, then goes on to state a falsehood - chiefly that teams no longer use books. Granted, our team has had a serious dearth of books since our first year (when we answered one question thanks to the use of a world almanac), but any of the older teams are still loaded down with books and files and other non-digital notes. Oh well.

Sitting at the bar eavesdropping on conversations the last couple weeks, I'm really surprised how few people realize that WLFM is no longer on the air. I think most of them have been working their way through the dial, heard the new station broadcasting at the 91.1 FM frequency, and just assumed it was still WLFM. Just more evidence of how under-the-table this entire elimination of the broadcast was.

» Lawrence University Press Release

Annual Post-Crescent Article

§ Monday, January 23, 2006 @ 1:33 PM

For those of you who might have missed it, the annual trivia article in the Post-Crescent appeared in yesterday's paper. Not surprisingly, the focus is on the big story of this year's contest: the transition to a webcast-only format. I suppose the photo of GM Reid Stratton is a slight step up from last year's photo of Jonathan Roberts, but not much. He sounds rather optimistic in the article that the webcast will work well, but please forgive me for being rather pessimistic about it. Unless they're adding enough bandwidth for over 1000 connections to the webcast, I have a hard time believing that (a) the system won't get overloaded and bogged-down, and (b) some teams won't get blocked from listening in by other teams with 40 computers or more. The article also notes that GM Stratton is from Portland (a fine town, I must say), making him the second Oregonian grand master in three years. Please, Reid, for the good of humanity, don't repeat Phred's Oregon Hour....

» LU contest prepares to move into the unknown [Appleton Post-Crescent]

Changes to WLFM, Website

§ Monday, January 16, 2006 @ 2:53 AM

Unfortunately, I caught the news a little too late, but WLFM apparently held a community open house Saturday night to show off their new studios, which have been converted following the station's change to a web-only format. Here is the press release about the open house.

Coinciding with the changes to the studio, WLFM is also launching a new website, which is yet to be posted, but here is a screenshot of how it will apparently look. I have to say, it definitely looks much more professional and up-to-date than their crappy old site.

Now, the only question is: Will there be enough webcast slots available for all the teams, or are some teams not going to be able to participate in the contest because all of the slots will be full? I guess it's all a game of wait-and-see.

Grand Master Speaks - Shall We Listen?

§ Tuesday, January 10, 2006 @ 10:07 PM

I've gotten plenty of questions from people in the last few weeks about trivia. It looks like Grand Master Reid Stratton has gotten around to addressing *some* of the questions about how this year's contest is going to work. Hey, we feel for ya', man - this first year operating web-only is going to be a bitch. Speaking of which, if the station is no longer on the air, and if Lawrence sold the signal, do the call letters WLFM technically still apply to the station? Anyway, here's the text of GM Stratton's message, which you can also check out for yourself by going to the official trivia website linked below.

Message from the Grand Master

January 9, 2006

As many of you already know, WLFM, Lawrence University's student radio station no longer broadcasts using an FM signal, but instead broadcasts exclusively over the Internet. Since Trivia depends on WLFM to reach its players, Trivia has also moved to an Internet-only format.

Naturally there are many technological issues related to this change, but rest assured that we are working very hard to make sure that this year's contest goes off without a hitch. This includes supplying extra bandwidth for the contest, testing connections, and working very closely with IT Services to get everything set.

At this point it appears that only computers with a broadband connection will be able to listen to Trivia this year, though we will be working on a solution for dial-up listeners in the coming weeks. Please email me at strattor@lawrence.edu if this presents a problem for you.

In fact, all of you out there can help me very much by connecting to WLFM sometime before the contest and email me to tell me how well it works, how long it took you to connect, how often it buffered, what speed your connection is, and where in the world you are located.

Thanks for much for your help, Trivia mates. And don't you worry about the contest: we have some great things in store for you.

-Reid Stratton

» Official Great Midwest Trivia Contest Website

Three Weeks

§ Friday, January 6, 2006 @ 5:52 PM

We're now down to only three weeks left before trivia. I've been working all day on getting the website updated in time for this year's contest. For those of you who have not yet done so, please get back to me with your meal ideas and requests. I'm hoping to get a provisional meal schedule and menu emailed out to you in about a week if you get back to me with enough requests.

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