ANNOUNCEMENT: TRASHionals 11 (4/04/08 - 4/06/08)

[Kilby]

TRASH is happy to announce that TRASHionals 11: One Louder will be held at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on the weekend of April 4-6, 2008. The tournament directors will be Rebecca Golden and myself (John Kilby).

Bids and other important information will be announced in the coming weeks. If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to e-mail me (john [dot] kilby [at] gmail [dot] com).

[Kilby]

TRASH would like to announce the teams who are being invited to TRASHionals 11.

If you are on the list, you have until February 15, 2008 at 11:59 PM to accept or decline your invite. To do so, send me an e-mail (john [dot] kilby [at] gmail [dot] com) with "TRASHionals 11 Bid" in the subject line. If we do not hear from you by then, your bid will be automatically declined.

If you are not on the list, you still have a chance to attend TRASHionals. We are now opening the waiting list for teams. Most years, we have a number of teams who cannot attend due to various reasons. We expect to take at least a few teams from the waiting list. We will give preference to teams based on their TRASH Regionals performance. Teams that did not attend TRASH Regionals will be added to the end of the list (below Regionals participants) on a first come, first served basis. To add your team to the waiting list, e-mail me (again, john [dot] kilby [at] gmail [dot] com) with "TRASHionals 11 Waiting List" in the subject line. Once the deadline has past, we will start sending out invitations to teams on the waiting list.

I will be contacting Regionals hosts in order to make sure all teams are aware of this announcement. Please spread the word around.

Without any further ado, here are the invites in alphabetical order:

TRASHionals X Winner:
Mike Keenan Employment Agency

Canada:
Brock (*)
Pitt Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (**)
Shhh..You'll Wake The Baby
Team Soviet Canuckistan

Great Lakes:
Michigan (*)
What About Rob? (**)
Unverified Voracity

Mid-Atlantic:
Charter (*)
College Park Retirement Castle
Delaware (*)
Maryland A
Pastor of Muppets (**)
Pirahna Club
Schrodinger's LOLcat
Team Juan Valdez
Temple A

Midwest:
Alcoholics Synonymous (**)
Lords of Fighting In The Street
Missouri S&T (*)
Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

Minnesota:
Minnesota (*)
Tia & The TRASHmen (**)

Northeast:
Brandeis (*)
BU A
Gerbil Baby Gerbil
NYU A
NYU B
Travis Henry's Illegitimate Children (**)

Southwest:
Bill O'Reilly Pinhead (**)
LSU
Romero et al. (*)

Southeast:
No-Name Trilogy Quartet
Pasty White Skolnicks (**)
While My Guitar Hero Gently Weeps

West:
ASU A
ASU B (**)
Sterling Gates and Friends
UC-Irvine (*)
UCLA

(*) Indicates host bid
(**) Indicates region winner

[Bigfoot isn't the pr]

So Charter and Delaware have a bid? I highly doubt (but its not entirely impossible) that both teams will attend. Just thought you should know for determining teams, etc.

[answerguy]

We were unsure who to award the bid to so we decided to be on the safe side and invite both. We probably wouldn't have done that for other regions, but that was the largest regional; only two other regonials were even half its size.

A spot was also freed up by UTC (who hosted the SE regional) hosting TRASHionals rather than fielding a team, though they may end up being a fill-in team if we have an extra space and adequate staffing.

[Kilby]

Thanks to the teams who have responded regarding their bids. With less than a week before the bid deadline passes, we still have yet to hear from the following teams:

Brock
Gerbil Baby Gerbil
Missouri S&T
Pastor of Muppets
Romero et al.
UC-Irvine
UCLA
Unverified Voracity
Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

Teams have until February 15, 2008 at 11:59 PM to respond. If your squad needs more time to decide, please contact me (john [dot] kilby [at] gmail [dot] com). If you did send me an e-mail and I missed it for some reason, feel free to post in this thread.

[Coelacanth]

I talked to the Minnesota people at the SCT and they aren't coming to TRASHionals.

[Kilby]

I talked to the Minnesota people at the SCT and they aren't coming to TRASHionals.

Thanks for the heads-up.

[Kilby]

Continued thanks to the teams who have replied. I've updated the list of teams we are still waiting to hear from.

[Kilby]

One last reminder: the deadline for accepting or declining your bid is the end of today. Once more, I've updated the list of teams who haven't contacted us yet.

[Kilby]

TRASH would like to announce that the official hotel of TRASHionals 11 will be the Sheraton Read House. The Read House is located downtown and is minutes away from UTC. More information on the hotel can be found here:

http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/ ... rtyID=1474

The sales manager is allowing us to use the rate previously negotiated with UTC's Athletics department for the weekend. The rate is $85/night. To make a reservation, call the Read House directly (423-266-4121) or call Sheraton (1-800-325-3535) and ask for the "UTC Athletics" rate. If you have any problems, get the name of the person you talk to and contact me.

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If you are interested in attending TRASHionals and have not received an invite, please let me know. Due to some teams declining bids and some teams having to cancel, we have a few spots left.

[alkrav112]

I apologize for never formally getting back to you all, but both Unverified Voracity and the host Michigan team will be declining their TRASHionals bids (at least this year). Thanks for a fun Regionals tournament!

[Kilby]

Hello, everyone. I have a lot of updates to post, so I'll get started without delay...

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We still have room for a few more teams. If you (or someone you know) is interested in playing, e-mail me.

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If you are looking for a team to join or looking for someone to add to your squad, drop me a line and we'll try to find you a team or players.

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Some people have reported having problems with booking a room at the Read House at a discounted rate. If you have issues, we have made arrangements for an alternate hotel.

We have arranged with the Holiday Inn Chattanooga Choo-Choo (http://www.choochoo.com) for a rate of $89 per night plus tax. These are standard, two-double bed rooms. Rooms are available for booking until March 26. To make a reservation, you can either call 423-266-5000 or 1-800-872-2529 and ask to book a room under the group name "UTC Academic Trivia Association."

Also, this hotel has a 24-hr complimentary airport shuttle. Just call the hotel and ask for security - give them your arrival time and number in the party, and they'll pick you up. Alternatively, call from the Choo-Choo phone in airport baggage claim. The free downtown shuttle begins at the Choo-Choo as well, so you can get to everything downtown easily.

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For those who will be attending: we need to get both your team name as you want it listed on the schedule/program and your player names, both real and any pseudonyms your team members will be using. Please e-mail this information to Rebecca Golden (dersprokkett [at] toast [dot] net) BY FRIDAY, MARCH 28. If not, we will make up team and player names... trust us, you don't want us to have to do this.

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For those who are curious, here is a general schedule of events:

Friday:
Welcoming Party (optional): Time and Location TBD

Saturday:
Registration: 8:00 - 8:45 AM
General Meeting: 8:45 AM
Dismiss To Rooms: 9:00 AM
Play Begins: 9:15 AM

Theme packets and rounds (optional) will be held on Saturday night.

Sunday:
Play Begins: TBD (an announcement will be made Saturday)

We plan on having awards and the finals over by 2 PM EST at the latest.

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Here are the tournament fees for TRASHionals 11:

Base Fee: $140

Discounts:
Working Buzzer: $10
Working CD Player with Speakers: $5
Moderator*: $10
Theme Packet/Round For Saturday Night**: $10
All Team Members In Costume: $5
Travel Discount (> 100 Miles From UTC***): $10

Minimum Fee: $80

* Moderators must be able to staff on Saturday and Sunday.
** You must e-mail us by April 1 with your packet or round's theme to
receive this discount.
*** Google Maps will be used to determine this distance.

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As mentioned above, we will have theme packets and rounds on Saturday evening after play concludes for the day. This is entirely optional, but writing and hosting a round will net you a discount on your team's entry fee.

If you are going to write or host a round, please e-mail with a title and description by April 1. If we get your info after April 1, you can still host the round... you just won't receive a discount off your entry fee.

We hope to see some fun rounds again this year!

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That's it for now. If you have any other questions, feel free to e-mail me (john [dot] kilby [at] gmail [dot] com). We look forward to another excellent edition of TRASHionals!

[Kilby]

I just sent out a final update to all team contacts... if anyone did not get that message, please contact me. Otherwise, we will see all of you this weekend at TRASHionals 11!

[Kilby]

Congratulations to The Republic of Dirkadirkastan (Meghan Clancy, Chris Hendry, Michael Kearney, Al Przygoki, and Dren Rollins) for winning TRASHionals 11: One Louder. They defeated the Mike Keenan Employment Agency, LLC (Craig Barker, Mike Burger, Anne Traicoff, Geoff Zmyslowski) in the finals.

Thanks to our staff, including TRASH members Anthony Bush, Fred Bush, and Tim Young, TRASH alum James Dinan, volunteers Rick Catibog from the University of Toronto and Wes Eddings, and UTC's Shannon Edmondson, Ruth Jackson, Charlie Steinhice, and Jacob Vannucci. Also thanks to Chris and Meghan from the Dirkadirkastan team for moderating when they were sitting out a game. Extra props to Charlie for some pre-tournament assistance, Ruth for doing stats and whatever else needed to be done, and UTC's Wally Edmondson and Shane Sawyer for their assistance with buzzer and CD player setup.

Full results and stats will be posted once your tournament director has had some sleep.

-- John Kilby
TD, TRASHionals 11

[Kilby]

Stats for the first eleven rounds can be temporarily found here:

http://www.terminallytrivial.com/quizbo ... dings.html

More detailed stats (including ones from rounds 12-14 and notable buzzes like insanely early ones and gloriously wrong ones) will be posted later.