ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by BuzzerZen »

I vaguely still intend to come, despite presently having zero teammates. I am going to attempt to rustle some up, however.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by at your pleasure »

Me and Daniel will be looking for someone if our plan for a Whitman A reunion falls through.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

According to legend, if you sacrifice a chicken using one of the hammers awarded as trophies at Whitman's Valhalla Classic, it summons Andrew Kincaid. Just something to consider.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Lagotto Romagnolo »

DumbJaques wrote:According to legend, if you sacrifice a chicken using one of the hammers awarded as trophies at Whitman's Valhalla Classic, it summons Andrew Kincaid. Just something to consider.
That's what they were for? Time to go pillage the old closet.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by silverscreentest »

Any announcements regarding starting time and building location?
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Theory Of The Leisure Flask »

BuzzerZen wrote:I vaguely still intend to come, despite presently having zero teammates. I am going to attempt to rustle some up, however.
Are you still without any teammates? Mehdi just bowed out, so we've got an opening.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

1572 in science wrote:
BuzzerZen wrote:I vaguely still intend to come, despite presently having zero teammates. I am going to attempt to rustle some up, however.
Are you still without any teammates? Mehdi just bowed out, so we've got an opening.
I just did the same, so harry/sarah/will also has an opening.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by BuzzerZen »

Frater Taciturnus wrote:
1572 in science wrote:
BuzzerZen wrote:I vaguely still intend to come, despite presently having zero teammates. I am going to attempt to rustle some up, however.
Are you still without any teammates? Mehdi just bowed out, so we've got an opening.
I just did the same, so harry/sarah/will also has an opening.
Methinks I shall join this team if they deign to have me.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by t-bar »

TJ would like to have its team name be "This second novel by Fitzgerald" in homage to the excellent bonus part from NSC.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

This tournament will run in the Armory - show up by 8:45-9:00 pm. I don't have the room info on me but Jeremy can post it, or I can edit it in here when I find out.

EDIT:

Also, can Ted, Dan Passner, and Nick confirm that they're still coming and if they've found a team/need free agents? Maryland players are available to be moved around like pawns, as usual.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by silverscreentest »

DumbJaques wrote:This tournament will run in the Armory - show up by 8:45-9:00 pm. I don't have the room info on me but Jeremy can post it, or I can edit it in here when I find out.
I hope that's a typo and you mean show up by 8:45-9:00 am.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

No, the tournament is just running on Tashkent time. Get with the program dude.

EDIT: So we're meeting in 0126 Armory. Be there or be Uzbek.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by BuzzerZen »

Passner's not coming.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

Yeah, looks like he actually made a post about that, sorry. That's a bummer. Make it down sometime this year dude.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by jonpin »

DumbJaques wrote:This tournament will run in the Armory - show up by 8:45-9:00 pm. I don't have the room info on me but Jeremy can post it, or I can edit it in here when I find out.

EDIT:

Also, can Ted, Dan Passner, and Nick confirm that they're still coming and if they've found a team/need free agents? Maryland players are available to be moved around like pawns, as usual.
If by Nick, you mean Nick Petrilli of Bloomfield, he mentioned to me last month that he wasn't going to be able to make it.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

If by Nick, you mean Nick Petrilli of Bloomfield, he mentioned to me last month that he wasn't going to be able to make it.
Somewhat not shocking. Ok, well have you found a team Ted?
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by SnookerUSF »

Chris,

Just confirm which e-mail address you want me to send the packets to (when they are finished).
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by at your pleasure »

Ted-Whitman Collective/"Smoothie King Thugz" has 1-2 slots open if you don't care about winning.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Durkheimdall »

Ted-Whitman Collective/"Smoothie King Thugz" has 1-2 slots open if you don't care about winning.
If you guys want someone completely incapable of winning, I'd love to join you.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by magin »

There's one open spot on the team consisting of myself, Chris White, and Jon Pinyan. I may give whoever joins a used book, so email me at jsmagin at yahoo dot com if you want to take me up on this exciting one-time offer.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by at your pleasure »

Pending Daniel's approval, you are most certainly welcome to join us.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Not That Kind of Christian!! »

Dan Passner, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your crazy cheap hotel room at The Legacy in Rockville is, by a freak of miscommunication, still up for grabs. Andy and I booked a crazy cheap room in the same hotel assuming we'd have a ride because the Pinyan caravan would be staying there, but said miscommunication has made this not happen.

Does anyone want this room? Even if nobody is going to take it, does someone want to shuttle us to the tournament? Has someone with a car already taken this room? I think this is the first time a tournament has had such a massive housing glut.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by at your pleasure »

You would be across the street from a Metro station, so you could probably take the Metro there if you're willing to hike from the College Park metro stop to UMD. Hopefully, Chris can clarify whether or not such a hike is a good idea.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Kouign Amann »

Game Boy Player wrote:You would be across the street from a Metro station, so you could probably take the Metro there if you're willing to hike from the College Park metro stop to UMD. Hopefully, Chris can clarify whether or not such a hike is a good idea.
This walk is under two miles, I believe. Also, buses exist. They take you places. They are cheap if you ride the Metro beforehand.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Sir Thopas »

HKirsch wrote:Dan Passner, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your crazy cheap hotel room at The Legacy in Rockville is, by a freak of miscommunication, still up for grabs. Andy and I booked a crazy cheap room in the same hotel assuming we'd have a ride because the Pinyan caravan would be staying there, but said miscommunication has made this not happen.

Does anyone want this room? Even if nobody is going to take it, does someone want to shuttle us to the tournament? Has someone with a car already taken this room? I think this is the first time a tournament has had such a massive housing glut.
I'm almost entirely sure that
(1) That room is not available, and
(2) We'll pick you up in the morning.

I'll let Jon confirm, though.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

You can do it, though I wouldn't recommend it - it's a decent 20-30 minute walk. I could probably pick you up during my usual pre-tournament Andrew Lim shuttling, though. Hannah, why don't you give me a call tomorrow (I might not have internet access) to work it out if you guys decide you want to metro it.

Also as things stand right now this remains a two-day event, with Jerry's edited VETO rounds possibly standing in if Darger doesn't happen. Shenanigans remain on the menu Saturday evening.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Mike Bentley »

The other thing about taking the metro from Rockville to College Park is that it takes forever. You have to go all the way into DC and then back out again, and then switch trains at Ft. Totten. In the morning when trains aren't running very frequently this will be a long trip.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Susan »

In case you wanted EVEN MORE encouragement not to metro/walk it, I believe I recall that there is sort of a dearth of sidewalks involved in the walk from the metro station to campus. I vaguely recall apologizing to my teammates for most of the walk last time we attempted such a foolish thing.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Mike Bentley »

myamphigory wrote:In case you wanted EVEN MORE encouragement not to metro/walk it, I believe I recall that there is sort of a dearth of sidewalks involved in the walk from the metro station to campus. I vaguely recall apologizing to my teammates for most of the walk last time we attempted such a foolish thing.
Depends which way you go. If you go out the back way (near the post office) you walk along a street that has a pretty good sidewalk and is not heavily used.

In short, though, it would take you around 20-30 minutes to walk to Jimenez depending on your walking speed.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by jonpin »

Scientific mythology wrote:
HKirsch wrote:Dan Passner, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your crazy cheap hotel room at The Legacy in Rockville is, by a freak of miscommunication, still up for grabs. Andy and I booked a crazy cheap room in the same hotel assuming we'd have a ride because the Pinyan caravan would be staying there, but said miscommunication has made this not happen.

Does anyone want this room? Even if nobody is going to take it, does someone want to shuttle us to the tournament? Has someone with a car already taken this room? I think this is the first time a tournament has had such a massive housing glut.
I'm almost entirely sure that
(1) That room is not available, and
(2) We'll pick you up in the morning.

I'll let Jon confirm, though.
(1) This is true. Matt Weiner, I believe, claimed it.
(2) This can be true. If Matt or someone else at the hotel can drive you, that's fine, but I believe it's only a few miles away from ours, so no worries. [edit to add:] Someone else driving you would be highly recommended if it does turn out that Katy is staying with either us or you unless someone doesn't mind lying across laps on the ride to the hotel. There's no way I can fit all 5 of the carpool plus Katy in the car. We'll clear all this up this afternoon.
Last edited by jonpin on Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Theory Of The Leisure Flask »

I've walked to the UMD campus from the Metro for a couple of tournaments, and really it's no big deal. Especially since we're apparently in the Armory this time.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by fleurdelivre »

jonpin wrote:(2) This can be true. If Matt or someone else at the hotel can drive you, that's fine, but I believe it's only a few miles away from ours, so no worries. [edit to add:] Someone else driving you would be highly recommended if it does turn out that Katy is staying with either us or you unless someone doesn't mind lying across laps on the ride to the hotel. There's no way I can fit all 5 of the carpool plus Katy in the car. We'll clear all this up this afternoon.
Yeah, I think I'm likely staying with you all, but I think we could probably manage a four-person backseat-as-sardine-tin in a pinch if it came to that.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by millionwaves »

Hey,

Chris is having some difficulty posting, so he's asked me to relay the following message:

Half of the staff for the Sun 'n' Fun mirror at Maryland have dropped in the last 12 hours! If you're in the area and you're available to staff, please, please e-mail Chris Ray at [email protected].
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

This tournament happened more or less along expected lines. I tried to find some question sets to smash, but I got lost in a giant labyrinth shaped like Cassirer's amygdala* and was sadly unable to smash anything but my own tu/n ratio.


"Brown" (Jerry Vinokurov, Eric Mukherjee, Ian Eppler, and Aaron Rosenberg) and Let's Talk About Gun Katta (Shantanu Jha, Ike Jose, David Sea, me) went 8-1 in the prelims, with Gun Katta losing to Brown and Brown losing to Magin's team (Jonathan Magin, Jon Pinyan, Chris White), who went 7-2 (losing to Gun Katta and I believe the Weiner team). TJ B and the house team left, so we ran two four-team playoff brackets, with Weiner's team (Evan Adams, Cameron Orth, Tommy Casalaspi, Matt Weiner) advancing to the fourth seed over the Anti-Edible Woman (Hannah Kirsch, Andy Watkins, Guy Tabachnick, Doug Yetman) based on ppg, as both were 6-3.

Weiner's team won like 7 straight games, including a sweep of the playoffs, after losing in round 5 to earn a spot in the advantaged final over Gun Katta by virtue of ppg, as only two packets remained. I had to leave before that but Brown won the first game, and thus the tournament. I believe the final standings from the top bracket are:

1. Brown (11-2)
2. Weiner (9-4)
3. Let's Talk about Gun Katta (9-3)
4. Magin (7-5)

I'm not sure what the results of the second bracket ended up being, mainly because someone unplugged the stats computer while we were running around before the finals, and the post-round 4 stats were lost. I have the scoresheets and will re-enter them and post final results as soon as I can, but it might be a couple of days since I'm still busy with moving stuff. Similarly, I'm not sure what the individuals stats were, but I'd guess Magin, Jerry, and Weiner were the top 3 in some order.

We were sadly unable to engage in the much-anticipated shenanigans, as we finished quite late thanks to the the National Student Leadership Conference groups who continually usurped our game rooms until the skeleton crew left in Jimenez during lunch took a heroic stand and forced them to relocate the Blood Spatter Room closer to the Necrotizing Fasciitis room, enabling us to finish the tournament. It was pretty much like the Trail of Tears if Leonidas and Lo Pan had been leading the Cherokee.



*That's HEINZ Cassirer, dude!
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Whiter Hydra »

From what I recall, I believe Kyabatkins got 5th, we (Watkins Pole Dancers) got 6th, and I'm not sure about the other two.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by at your pleasure »

I just wanted to thank Maryland for holding this and pulling it off despite all the non-quizbowl shenanigans.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by grapesmoker »

Not that I'm ungrateful for Maryland's running of this tournament, but why is it that the trend of late seems to be ever-growing delays on the start time of tournaments? I'm sure I must be annoying everyone to death with my carping on this point, but the delays on both Saturday and Sunday seemed to drag on forever. I understand that there were conflicts with room reservations, but for example, no one called us and told us this. Of course we didn't know so we showed up at the wrong building on Saturday, with some delay, but even then we had to wait for things to be set up. On Sunday, we showed up to the right building but a crucial person entrusted with buzzers despite his lack of a cell phone showed up to the wrong one. End result, we wait around for well over an hour to get started.

Let me make a suggestion to tournament directors: if you don't actually plan to start at the advertised times, then don't ask us to show up then. I'd much rather be sleeping than hanging out and twiddling my thumbs, waiting for things to start. Also, please show up well in advance of the advertised start time and set things up as much as possible; don't wait for us to do what can be done without us.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by fleurdelivre »

grapesmoker wrote:Let me make a suggestion to tournament directors: if you don't actually plan to start at the advertised times, then don't ask us to show up then. I'd much rather be sleeping than hanging out and twiddling my thumbs, waiting for things to start. Also, please show up well in advance of the advertised start time and set things up as much as possible; don't wait for us to do what can be done without us.
This tournament notably did not have a proper director - Chris was setting things up and then playing in the tournament itself. I'm still holding the scoresheet from the final because there wasn't anyone around to take it for stats. There was a room (I still don't know which one) running 10 minutes behind most rounds, and yet some of the best staff on the Maryland team were playing instead. True, was a summer open and external causes played a big role, but the whole tournament ended up being very ad-hoc, and yes, this was frustrating.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

I apologize for the issues with the events this weekend - I was also incredibly frustrated with everything that happened. Jerry, I'm sorry I neglected to call you and the other team who weren't there when we left for Jimenez - there was a lot of chaos when we walked over there from Armory and it slipped my mind.

I certainly hadn't planned on having any kind of organizational role with this event - I'm unbelievably bogged down right now in the midst of moving and my other responsibilities. Jeremy's week was similarly stocked. Our tournament director had an extremely legitimate family emergency and had to leave town suddenly, and the next day I found out that one of our staffers had to cancel for similarly understandable reasons. This all happened the day before the tournament, but we ended up finding a few more readers and remembered that Katy was coming (THANK YOU KATY PETERS THANK YOU), so it seemed like things were mostly ok.

When we got to the tournament site, we began setup procedures well in advance of the start time, only to encounter a legion of national student leadership council folk who insisted that we had to leave because they had paid for the rooms. We had those rooms, but because they had like 400 people and I have never encountered a situation in which we couldn't squat in Jimenez, we just walked over there. I'm frankly not sure if this was a mistake or not - if things had ended there it would probably have been fine, but they didn't, and it wasn't. When we got to Jimenez, a DIFFERENT group of NSLC people where there on the floors surrounding the rooms we intended to set up, so we had to search around for rooms and set them all up, etc. We also may not have been able to set up all the buzzers right away since Weiner's group hadn't arrived yet, but I'm not positive about that.

These delays were decently significant, but we weren't THAT drastically off track. It wasn't until people had left for lunch that yet another succession of the NSLC showed up, and told us that they needed to set up in these rooms. I told them we'd already moved once for them and had some of these rooms reserved as well, but they pretty much just started setting up a level 2 biohazard ward around our buzzers. Katy did some quick thinking and figured out that we could simply move every room up one level, which is what we did while other people were at lunch. This was actually finished up well in advance of everyone's return - until NSLC group number ten billion showed up and told us we needed to leave. I'd had enough of this and told them we couldn't relocate, and I spent the remainder of lunch finding them alternate rooms in Jimenez. We ended up having to move a couple of our rooms because some sort of director called me and insisted they get a certain kind of room or they'd call campus police (!), which created the delay after lunch. I'm happy to accept criticism for how we handled these situations, because god knows I didn't know what to really do, but I don't think that the fact that some of our team members playing the tournament helped out on the organizational side was the cause of any of the delays of frustration. If I'm reading Katy's post correctly, that's what she seems to suggest, and I'm not sure what would have been done differently.

Oh yeah, the staff situation was further firebombed when one staffer didn't show up and another one left after round 4, despite the fact that we had no other readers, because she "had a headache and wanted to make sure that she could come the next day" (which of course she didn't do). We absolutely needed a house team to fill out the schedule, and it played with one person some of the time. It's not like things were delayed because people who need to fix problems were busy playing a round, but it is surely not a way I would have planned to run an event - Katy is right that it ended up being ad hoc and that's surely our responsibility. Katy, I do not know why you're holding the scoresheet - I was under the impression that one of our team members stayed for the final and wrapped everything up. I'm sorry you had to fulfill this additional responsibility, particularly given your benevolence in coming down to help us. If you send me the information on the stat sheet, I'll enter it.

Again, I'm sorry for the delays. Most of them were things not particularly in our control, but the whole situation was not great - the Sunday morning stuff was definitely problematic, and I'd like to apologize to Jerry specifically, since I know you had wanted to get home as early as possible. Apparently the information about the start location didn't get to the places it needed to go, and that's entirely on me.

Rest assured that anyone attending a Maryland summer tournament will from now on be issued a taser designed for defense against NSLC members.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by BuzzerZen »

fleurdelivre wrote:Chris was setting things up and then playing in the tournament itself...some of the best staff on the Maryland team were playing instead
As far as I'm concerned, this is poor form. Obviously some sort of a house team was required to prevent byes in the schedule, but it is incumbent on tournament hosts to be civic-minded about providing staff. Granted, we still might have been waiting for Dan Puma to wake up after lunch even if Chris, Jeremy, and SteveJon were staffing and the other UMD team members playing instead, but things would be running more smoothly in the meantime. That being said, I don't feel like things went unconscionably slowly, under the circumstances.

On preview: it looks like you did your best, Chris, but still, maybe you could man up and staff a tournament your team is hosting one of these days, eh?
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by grapesmoker »

Hey, I understand the problem of the situation with the NSCLSLSCLSCLSCLSCSNSLSLCS people and their simulations of ebola virus epidemics (thus, I get that the after-lunch delay was not your fault). Also, obviously people have shit going on in their non-quizbowl lives all the time and that can't be accounted for sometimes, but you can't just decide to host a tournament and not have an organizational role in it. What I'm saying is that there are some things that can make events happen faster that depend on the organizers, things like telling people which rooms to go to, gathering up the buzzers ahead of time, and so on. Also, this isn't the first time the Maryland scheduling office has fucked quizbowl, so perhaps in the future it would be wise to check and double check about whether anyone has a claim to the rooms.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by Matt Weiner »

DumbJaques wrote:We also may not have been able to set up all the buzzers right away since Weiner's group hadn't arrived yet, but I'm not positive about that.
We arrived at 8:58 for this tournament that you asked people to show up for "between 8:45 and 9:00" and ultimately started well after 10:00, so please don't post things like this.

With that said, there were other factors that led to this tournament taking 12 hours to run 12 rounds independent of the TD playing on a team and the room conflict issues. People spent a lot of time chattering between questions (often by explaining how they knew everything about that answer that someone else just correctly buzzed in with, which is pretty obnoxious in and of itself). Please don't do things like this, don't discuss your opinion of the questions during the games, and so on. Allow the game to finish promptly and talk in the hall if you're waiting for another round. I know the temptation is there to socialize with people in the midst of the rounds, but you have to resist it or you're going to be just as annoyed as everyone else when the tournament drags on into the evening.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

. What I'm saying is that there are some things that can make events happen faster that depend on the organizers, things like telling people which rooms to go to, gathering up the buzzers ahead of time, and so on.
Yeah, and usually the TD will get all of this set up in advance so that things can get going right away, but the last-minute cancellations and the morning site-move made these things impossible.
As far as I'm concerned, this is poor form. Obviously some sort of a house team was required to prevent byes in the schedule, but it is incumbent on tournament hosts to be civic-minded about providing staff. Granted, we still might have been waiting for Dan Puma to wake up after lunch even if Chris, Jeremy, and SteveJon were staffing and the other UMD team members playing instead, but things would be running more smoothly in the meantime. That being said, I don't feel like things went unconscionably slowly, under the circumstances.
Nobody expected the staffing situation to develop the way it did the day before the tournament. I had no reason to think there would be a problem with the people we had reading - the slow room reader had read collegiate events for us before and there were no problem, I'm not sure what the situation was with that. I heard that there was an incident after a first round game where a certain team became somewhat confrontational with the reader over going "too fast," but I'm not sure if that actually made a difference. Honestly I think that the 14-line questions and unreadable copyediting would have made reading through the rounds quickly tough for pretty much everyone.

I'm not sure why you're calling me out specifically for not staffing, and quite frankly I'm a bit upset that I've become the face of this tournament's organization because I was the most qualified person to get things together in my ~30 minutes of free internet time from when I found out about the staff situation. There wasn't anything about me playing rounds 1-4 that would have sped up the tournament (well, I guess one of us could have replaced the slow reader, but the room didn't start finishing noticeably late until round 4 anyway. When we were waiting for Dan Puma after lunch, somebody else was reading until he got there, so there was no lost game time. On a personal level, I would have felt bad abandoning a team I had committed to - if I were just playing on the house team, I probably would have read.

To be sure, there were things we could have done that would have improved everyone's tournament experience, and those are things we'll do in the future. In particular, we'll make sure that there is an infrastructure in place even if things go haywire. But I really do not think that, had the perfect storm of the hard to read, unending questions, relocation fiascoes, socializing during rounds, etc etc not all converged, the tournament would have been delayed by any kind of significant amount.

EDIT: Eh, upon further reflection it doesn't really matter if it would have made a difference or not, we should have pulled some staffers when it first became apparent shit was amiss. Sorry about that, guys.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by jonpin »

BuzzerZen wrote:
fleurdelivre wrote:Chris was setting things up and then playing in the tournament itself...some of the best staff on the Maryland team were playing instead
As far as I'm concerned, this is poor form. Obviously some sort of a house team was required to prevent byes in the schedule, but it is incumbent on tournament hosts to be civic-minded about providing staff. Granted, we still might have been waiting for Dan Puma to wake up after lunch even if Chris, Jeremy, and SteveJon were staffing and the other UMD team members playing instead, but things would be running more smoothly in the meantime. That being said, I don't feel like things went unconscionably slowly, under the circumstances.

On preview: it looks like you did your best, Chris, but still, maybe you could man up and staff a tournament your team is hosting one of these days, eh?
Admittedly, I'm not up to date on current standards-and-practices, so this may be legitimately shouted down as wrong, but here's my thought. I know byes are bad and boring and people want to play as much as possible. But given what a crunch for staff there was, and given how I'm pretty sure most people playing were reasonably competent, if there wasn't a house team, the team on bye could have one or two people staff and then slow readers could be replaced (or given a scorekeeper/guy who makes sure things move along), sore-throated readers could take a round off, and things might've moved a little faster.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

Yeah, we considered that and might have gone with it had such a format allowed us to do a similar round robin/playoffs format, but since we had the exact right amount of rounds for our 10-team, no-bye field, we just kept it there. Again, half the staff problems happened as late as the morning of the event, with the latest drop occurring after round 4. So from where we sat when it came time to do the final schedule plan, we didn't really have a reason to suspect it would be an issue.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by fleurdelivre »

DumbJaques wrote:I'm happy to accept criticism for how we handled these situations, because god knows I didn't know what to really do, but I don't think that the fact that some of our team members playing the tournament helped out on the organizational side was the cause of any of the delays of frustration. If I'm reading Katy's post correctly, that's what she seems to suggest, and I'm not sure what would have been done differently.

Katy, I do not know why you're holding the scoresheet - I was under the impression that one of our team members stayed for the final and wrapped everything up. I'm sorry you had to fulfill this additional responsibility, particularly given your benevolence in coming down to help us. If you send me the information on the stat sheet, I'll enter it.
Apologies for my previous tone - it wasn't meant as a personal criticism at you, but it was frustrating to know that multiple Marylanders were competing when we kept sitting around twiddling our thumbs for 10 min between rounds in the morning (the staff swap for the afternoon actually improved this particular situation). Also, I do remember Steve John packing buzzers as we left the building - it's just that I didn't see him until after I'd already packed up the finals room, cleaned out my own room, and tucked the scoresheet into my bag because I didn't realize anyone was still there. I'll send you the info tonight when I get home.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

Hey, I seem to missing the scoresheet from the Magin-Weiner prelim game (round 8, I believe). If someone has the stats and could send them to me, that would be super. Thanks.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

For inexplicable reasons I'm actually missing both the weiner-magin games. Does anyone on those teams have those stats? I've got everything else entered. Keep in mind that I was once credited with an erroneous 5/15 statline and have been itching for some payback, so if you have the real stats, pony up.
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by grapesmoker »

Staaaaaaatssss... give me staaaaaatsss.

Seriously, are there stats?
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun X Mirror (7/11/09) at Maryland

Post by DumbJaques »

Actually I have all the stats except for, bizarrely, the two games where Magin played Weiner. I'll post them tomorrow as is, but if someone has the number for those games, I can put them in.
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