Sorry we didn’t keep you all updated this year, but we were a little busy. Our numbers were significantly reduced, and yet we’re looking at our best finish ever. In fact, we were even in the lead through 100 questions! Unfortunately, we couldn’t keep pace with teams fully stocked with dozens of people, but we’re incredibly proud of what we accomplished this year. New members joined us for the first time, and old friends gathered around once again; old traditions were carried on, and new ones were created. And, most importantly, everyone had fun.

And now for the Garrudas…

We're all gathering around. There are a handful of trivia virgins on hand, so Ben is explaining the rules. We'll try to keep this updated, but you can check our Facebook page for updates as well.

Just over ten hours, people! OMG!!!

…here is this year’s Lawrence press release, filled with quotes from Grand Master Ethan Landes and last year’s champs, The Iowans:

Saluting the Insignificant: Great Midwest Trivia Contest Marks 48th Year of Serious Fun

UPDATE: And here is the Post-Crescent’s coverage of trivia, nearly plagiarized verbatim from the Lawrence press release:

Lawrence trivia contest to kick off its 48th year

We’re down to only two more days until the start of this year’s contest, and we’re all bursting at the seams with excitement!

As concerns the blog this year, I cannot guarantee that the comments will work, and the entries will still certainly be NSFW, but we will at least try to be a kinder, gentler blog. In other words, we will try to keep our criticism of the trivia masters to a minimum (except where definitely warranted). Let’s all just have fun, okay? Great!

For those of you who have not heard the good news, Too Much Trivia in the Pants is returning to participate in the Great Midwest Trivia Contest for a sixteenth year, meaning that if our team were a person we would be old enough to drive now.

If you are a current or former member of the team (of recent vintage), you should have received your annual edition of PantsWire this morning via email. If you did not and want to know the details on this year’s War Room and such, drop me an email or contact us on Facebook and I will get you that information.

See you all January 25th!

Everyone is gathered around the War Room awaiting the start of the garrudas following a very successful and enjoyable weekend. The time following the end of the regular questions had a very relaxed atmosphere this year as everyone was gathered around, socializing, sipping wine, and reliving the weekend. We’re obviously hoping to land a garruda (or two), but, no matter what happens, everyone should be headed home happy.

Also, we want to thank the trivia masters—and especially Grand Master Jake—for a very well-run weekend. This was the smoothest I can remember trivia running in years! Sure, we got a little frustrated at times (as evidenced below), but overall it was outstanding. Kudos to you!

Now, bring on those garrudas!

♥k!

than 1 smoot plus an ear.

if you're only going to read off numbers anyway?

when the point of trivia masters went from asking questions to being obnoxious asses. These two are awful, and for no good reason.

I don’t think we have gotten one right in two hours.

Oh, it’s on!

Kaz’s response on eating last year’s final cheeseball.

Fifteen people right now—a decent gathering to start the weekend. Now if we could just find parking for everyone…

It would appear that somebody finally pointed out to the trivia masters just how bad, bad, bad the idea was to expect everyone to listen to the contest via a Flash plug-in on the WLFM site, as a link went up some time this morning to listen to the feed directly. (Yes, it’s the same feed that your pals here at TMTitP have been linking to—and were planning on using this weekend—all along.) That’s one imminent trainwreck that has now hopefully been averted.

As for the comments on this site, yes, I am fully aware that they still don’t work—I’ll do what I can to get them up-and-running this afternoon, but I make no promises.

♥k!

COMMENTS UPDATE: MT 5 is a flaming bag of turds. I have tried everything I can possibly think of to fix the comments, and yet they still will not function properly. I never should have upgraded from MT 4.x, but that’s my mistake. At any rate, the comments do not work, and I refuse to waste one more second of my life pretending I will ever get them to work. It seems to work (for me, at least) if you click “Preview” first and then “Post”, but that is obviously a huge pain in the ass. At any rate, I have better things to do.

No, but seriously, trivia is just over forty-five hours away, and the best weekend of the year is calling. College students take a break from their studies, and the rest of us take vacation from our regular lives. For what? For bed pans and dirty mattresses? NO! For pride! For fun! For bragging rights! It all flies by quicker than any of us can imagine, but it’s sooo worth it! I look forward to seeing the rest of the team this weekend, and best of luck to all teams—off-campus and on-campus—for a fun and rewarding weekend.

I really can’t believe we’ve kept up these shenanigans for fifteen years! FIFTEEN YEARS! What started out as just a group of high-school friends has expanded to much, much more. Honestly, we certainly wouldn’t exist as a team were it not for all of the wonderful people we have met since high school, and I’m sure there are plenty of teams out there who are in the same situation as the rest of us. (BT-Dubs: If any original members of the Insidious Grannies are reading this, feel free to e-mail me, and I would gladly invite you guys to join us. I miss our rivalry, but I miss our friendship more!) The P-C might be concerned with other B.S. that sells newspapers, but we love everyone, and our team will continue on ad infinitum (or until we get bored).

♥k!

Hey, y’all!

Trivia is still a couple nights away, but I’m experimenting with WLFM feeds to see if there is a difference in lag time. It would seem that their preferred method for teams to listen to the contest this year is via the Flash-powered feed on the new WLFM site. I’m not gonna lie: I have pretty mixed feelings about listening to the contest this way, because all it takes is one person accidentally closing a window to lose your feed, but I guess that’s the world we live in now that WLFM is no longer a real radio station. At any rate, I’m no technical expert (and I’m sure there’s a perfectly good technical explanation which one of you could give me), but I note that the lag time listening this way is significantly reduced compared to listening via an outside application like iTunes or Windows Media Player. Anyone else experiencing this as well? Listen to the external feed here, compare it to the listening directly on the WLFM site linked above, and let me know what you think.

♥k!

P.S. Yes, I know comments are not working yet. I will try to rectify the situation before this weekend, but I make no guarantees.

Update: Sometimes the comments work and sometimes they don’t. I don’t get it, but I’m fed up with dealing with it at this point. I think they *do* work so long as you click “Preview” first and THEN “Post”. I probably messed up one minor thing in the coding that is messing it all up, but, well, deal with it.

See you all in Appleton one week from tonight!

SERIOUSLY?! Ninety days?! Where has the time gone?

…you’ll be mildly amused for minutes by Paula Deen Riding Things. Enjoy!

Check ’em out and let me know what you think.

Well done Ben, and well done team.

Hey, don’t get me excited. I had, like, a week long boner after watching “Precious”.