GRAB BAG - Skype Mirror 11/26/17

[Mike Bentley]

This is an announcement for GRAB BAG (Generally Recognized as Being Bentley-esque Answerable Garbage), a pop culture tournament I've written. A Skype mirror will be taking place on Sunday, 11/26/17. You can sign up at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing. In-person mirror sites will be posted if they materialize.

It's something of a hodgepodge (or, dare I say, grab bag) of questions I've written over the past few years, which is why it has this eccentric distribution:

6/5 Movies (mainly films released in the last couple of years)
5ish/4ish Music (more on the rock and indie side than if I was writing a full tournament)
3ish/3ish TV (mainly "prestige" television)
2/2ish Sports (mainly other sports)
2ish/2ish Videogames (not a lot of recent vidoegames)
3/4ish Other (don't expect a lot of comics)

Let me emphasize that this wasn't written with a holistic view towards a unified set. So you're going to see a decent number of sub-distributional quirks.

Difficulty wise, it will be similar to trash tournaments I've written in the past such as COLT.

The tournament is 6 rounds with tossups and bonuses and is fully written (but not yet fully edited). There's a slight possibility I'll produce a 7th packet if I have time and it makes the schedules work better.

The Skype mirror will cost $40 per team, with funds going to a TBA charity.

Note: This tournament partially consists of trash questions I've written for University of Washington quizbowl practices over the years. Thus, if your name is Joelle Smart or Alejandro Lopez-Lago you probably shouldn't be playing this tournament.

[Mike Bentley]

I'll end the date poll tomorrow, so get your vote in.

[Mike Bentley]

Okay, we're going to do a Skype Tournament on Sunday, 11/26 starting at noon eastern time.

Sign up here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Right now I'm capping the field at 6 teams. Will expand if there's enough interest and moderators.

I'll also offer this tournament up to in-person mirroring from November through around the end of February. E-mail me at bentley.michael.j@gmail.com if you want to mirror it.

[Mike Bentley]

Looks like there will be an in-person mirror of this at University of Ottawa on November 5th. I've also heard there will be a Minnesota mirror but details aren't worked out yet.

[ErikC]

Loved this set! The focus on recent movies was probably my favourite part of the tournament along with the punk representation.

[Mike Bentley]

Loved this set! The focus on recent movies was probably my favourite part of the tournament along with the punk representation.

Thanks! If anyone else has feedback or corrections from this mirror, feel free to e-mail me at bentley.michael.j@gmail.com. I probably won't set up a private forum for this, but you can at least get in contact me that way.

[Mike Bentley]

Reminder that this is taking place in about a week. If you're on the fence about signing up as a free agent, please do so soon so I can get a better sense of how many people are playing. If there's not a big surge in people I may turn this into doubles so that the schedule works out better.

Also, if you're interested in moderating please let me know.

[Mike Bentley]

We'll go with teams of 3 for now. If more people sign up I'll consider expanding it to teams of 4.

[Mike Bentley]

One more heads up: since this tournament has bonuses, it's going to be a real drag if you don't have a headset. These things are available for as little as $10 on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01I095OO4/re ... il_2?psc=1). As a result, I'm going to charge a $10 penalty to anyone playing without one.

Edit: Headphones and standalone microphones are also fine.

[Mike Bentley]

Looks like we have enough people to have teams of 4. I'm going to pair up any remaining free agents who haven't already formed a team of their own by tonight.

[Mike Bentley]

I just sent a logistics mail. Let me know if you didn't receive it.

[Valefor]

Is it too late to sign up for this and jump on one of the 3 person teams? I wasn't sure if I was going to be free until this morning, but I am.

[Mike Bentley]

Beef (disambiguation) went 4-1 to win the tournament. All teams played a final consolation match which didn't count towards the final standings. Stats are available here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/4780/

Thanks to Alejandro and Joelle for moderating.

By the way, please let me know in the next two weeks if you plan on mirroring this tournament. If I don't hear back by then I'll be posting it around December 10th.

[Mike Bentley]

I've now posted the set.