The Quizbowl Resource Center

Hello everyone,

This year's #quizbowl Festivus celebration will forgo the traditional Airing of Grievances in favor of, as the name might suggest, an all-Feats (of Strength) schedule. What this means is that if you have written, or want to write, any sort of novelty packet of any size, I encourage you to write it by December 23, on which date you'll hopefully have a decent audience waiting in the #quizbowl IRC channel to read it to. Packets can be any length, at any difficulty, on any subject; the important thing is that they be fresh and entertaining. Depending on participation, we can play improv-question games too--we recently had a successful night where a bunch of people hanging around wrote and read tossups on the last three songs they'd listened to, for example. We'll also fill in schedule gaps with old and/or bad questions from the archives, so hopefully there'll be something to do in any case. Things will probably start in the early-ish afternoon and continue until everyone gets bored.

Please drop a post in this thread if you're planning on writing/reading something.

For the Columbia team's end-of-semester party, I wrote a packet on architectural trash that I could read for this. If you enjoyed my architecture tournament's tossups on _Luigi's Mansion_ or the _House of Usher_, you may enjoy this packet.

IF I get the chance to write enough before Festivus time, I would be willing to read a packet I've been planning in my head for a while. The theme would be "music I like" and it would be of moderate difficulty with a slight tint of vanity/personal touch.

Edit: Rather unsurprisingly, I won't have time to finish this before Festivus due to ACF Regs and STIMPY being higher priorities. It might happen eventually.

the charm wrote:IF I get the chance to write enough before Festivus time, I would be willing to read a packet I've been planning in my head for a while. The theme would be "music I like" and it would be of moderate difficulty with a slight tint of vanity/personal touch.

So just watch every episode of Todd in the Shadows ever and tossups will be firstlined, right? (/lame joke)

I'm planning a thing for this.

The Canadian field enjoys my meta questions. If I were to do something equivalent for this, clues would exclusively come from qbwiki, stats pages, and forum posts so I don't offend anyone I don't know. Hey, writing a tossup on a famous quizbowler I have never met is just like a trash question on a famous celebrity I have never met, right?

Oh, I should mention--don't worry about hitting some acceptable minimum number of questions. More is better, obviously, but if you sit down to write "a packet" on whatever and only come up with 17 (or 10, or 3) tossups, it's cool. Just show up and read what you got!

I have a Spongebob packet (currently at 17/12, but I can bring it up to at least 20/20) that I'd like to read for this.

I might be traveling this day, but would there be interest in a Wodern Morld-style packet if I get some time?

In honor of Saul Hankin's "Lock S-foils in attack position" tossup from his Star Wars packet, I'll write a movie line packet, all tossups, as many as I can do from now until the 23rd. I might throw some good lines in from TV shows too, haven't decided yet. The scoring will be 10 points for the quote, and an additional 5 points for the character (only if you get the quote right).

I'm also hoping the guerilla Archer event that I heard several people were doing in the wake of my packet comes together for this!

update: this is going remarkably slow due to other things going on, but I still hope to have 12+ questions written.

I'll see if I can write a 20 3-4 line tossup packet of anything in my interest by then.

I'd be willing to churn out a sub-20 number of musical theater/musical film questions [EDIT: I now have at least 3FIFTEEEEEEN of these] and/or pun questions, many with ridiculous answer lines, if interest exists. (hi john lawrence) [FURTHER EDIT: As of now, puns probably aren't happening, but musical questions are.]

If the number of packets and/or players really does get insane, perhaps a second room could be set up simultaneously to run different things than the main room.

I'm currently through 11/20 tossups for a Pokémon packet I'll call ORAS-cular Spectacular to claim another quizbowl MGMT pun. I might add bonuses if time permits. Although not all questions will relate to the recent remakes, a lot of them will in some way. Note that this is NOT the Pokémon/academic mashup packet with Tejas, although a few tossups have been written for that.

I won't write anything for this.

I will write some amount of James Bond tossups.

Ike

I will write some amount of Ike Jose tossups.

James

Matthew Jackson wrote:I'd be willing to churn out a sub-20 number of musical theater/musical film questions and/or pun questions, all with ridiculous answer lines, if interest exists. (hi john lawrence)

Hi, there!

Ike wrote:I will write some amount of James Bond tossups.

And hello to you too!

If I find time, I'll write an all cartoons packet, on a mix of Looney Tunes, Hanna Barbera, and 90's Cartoon Network stuff.

ThisIsMyUsername wrote:

Matthew Jackson wrote:I'd be willing to churn out a sub-20 number of musical theater/musical film questions and/or pun questions, all with ridiculous answer lines, if interest exists. (hi john lawrence)

Hi, there!

Ike wrote:I will write some amount of James Bond tossups.

And hello to you too!

If I find time, I'll write an all cartoons packet, on a mix of Looney Tunes, Hanna Barbera, and 90's Cartoon Network stuff.

Yes to this, yes to everything

EXCEPT POKEMON

naturalistic phallacy wrote:Yes to this, yes to everything

EXCEPT POKEMON

:/

Also, I'm 6/10 tossups through a progressive rock packet (this final number might change). If it turns out that Will Nediger is the only one who wants to play this, then I'll save it for another time.

UPDATE: The Pokémon packet has 17 tossups/6 bonuses currently written. I'm aiming to get this to 20/20. The prog rock packet has 9 tossups currently written, and will probably be tossups only. Both of these packets will have powers and superpowers.

UPDATE AGAIN: The Pokémon packet will be 20/20 (20/12 are complete), and the prog packet will be 10/0.

Cape Fear wrote:

naturalistic phallacy wrote:Yes to this, yes to everything

EXCEPT POKEMON

:/

Also, I'm 6/10 tossups through a progressive rock packet (this final number might change). If it turns out that Will Nediger is the only one who wants to play this, then I'll save it for another time.

Progressive Rock? Why of course late-middle/early-high school me would like to play this packet!

Since it's more than halfway done, I'm going to try to finish what was going to be my 2015 music packet in time for this.

Cheynem wrote:I won't write anything for this.

Yeah right.

Kouign Amann wrote:For the Columbia team's end-of-semester party, I wrote a packet on architectural trash that I could read for this.

I wrote a dreadful packet (15 short tossups) for this same party on "things from my classes this semester," "sports I follow," and "real answers with Columbia meta clues." I could read it after changing the meta clues to real clues.

Wasabi wrote:In honor of Saul Hankin's "Lock S-foils in attack position" tossup from his Star Wars packet, I'll write a movie line packet, all tossups, as many as I can do from now until the 23rd. I might throw some good lines in from TV shows too, haven't decided yet. The scoring will be 10 points for the quote, and an additional 5 points for the character (only if you get the quote right).

This sounds like a packet I was born to play. No doubt I'll underachieve horribly.

Wasabi wrote:I'm also hoping the guerilla Archer event that I heard several people were doing in the wake of my packet comes together for this!

Cory Haala and I have been working on one. Predictably, my tossups are mostly short, dumb common links. Cory's are even worse.

various people wrote:musical theater/musical film questions...James Bond tossups...an all cartoons packet...

Yes, yes, and yes.

EDIT: Didn't read the Columbia party packet, but did read the Archer packet. Scores for that are below. (I believe Rob is posting all the day's packets somewhere, including that one.)

Vasa: 7/2 = 60
Victor: 9/7 = 55
Trevor: 2/0 = 20
Eddie: 2/0 = 20
Jason: 2/2 = 10
Will H-M: 1/0 = 10
Joelle: 1/0 = 10
Will N: 1/0 = 10
Tejas: 1/0 = 10

I'll read a brief assortment of questions from various abortive attempts at writing theme packets.

I will have a thrilling literary packet to read for this.

I'm going to write something for this.

I currently have 15/13 written so far but this is what I'm planning:

5/5 Relatively easy non-spoilery A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones (if you have read the first book or watched the first season, you're fine, although reading more books will help you get early clues)
5/5 Hard spoilery GRRM (pretty much anything connected to George R.R. Martin except for The Winds of Winter)
3/3 Community
3/3 Avatar: The Legend of Korra (knowledge of The Last Airbender is helpful but not required)
3/3 South Park
1/1 Manga

EDIT: This is now complete, and the tossups are powermarked.

Ukonvasara wrote: This year's #quizbowl Festivus celebration will forgo the traditional Airing of Grievances

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I may have a packet for this with a mystery theme!!!

I have a mercifully short number of questions on economics and things sort of related to economics.

Is there any way a schedule for this could be drawn up? I'm interested in some of these packets but can't hang out in IRC for the entirety.

I might rework a couple questions from the Star Trek packet I wrote for Eric and Mike some time back and read it if people are willing to hear it.

I will be present and may possibly have a Warren Zevon themed packet of questions (no actual knowledge of Warren Zevon's music necessary).

RexSueciae wrote:I will be present and may possibly have a Warren Zevon themed packet of questions (no actual knowledge of Warren Zevon's music necessary).

Now I have to show up.

I'd be willing to read/play some of these packets on a later date for those who won't be around, but it probably won't be until January.

Charbroil wrote:Is there any way a schedule for this could be drawn up? I'm interested in some of these packets but can't hang out in IRC for the entirety.

The best way to do this is probably to have an operator maintain a "queue" in the topic of the channel, so people can claim as they're ready to read that their packet should be added to the reading order, and those in the chatroom can see the order of what's up next.

For what it's worth, my packet will not happen before 6:30 PM at the earliest.

Matthew Jackson wrote:The best way to do this is probably to have an operator maintain a "queue" in the topic of the channel, so people can claim as they're ready to read that their packet should be added to the reading order, and those in the chatroom can see the order of what's up next.

This is what I plan on doing.

I may have missed this, but what time does Festivus usually start?

Depending on what I can get done in the next couple of days, I might have some impossible speedcheck rejects. If I get really ambitious, I'll have a packet of (at least fairly) famous MLB/NBA/NCAAB plays.

The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi wrote:I may have missed this, but what time does Festivus usually start?

Festivus is about as unofficial a thing as there can be, as it's really in the spirit of just hanging out and enjoying a mutual hobby, but I imagine people will be chatting about nonsense and getting ready to start if not quite reading packets sometime in the fairly early afternoon eastern time. But that's all subject to whimsy.

Ukonvasara wrote:I will have a thrilling literary packet to read for this.

I have finished this--30 tossups, each exactly as delightful as the last.

Dmitri Shostakovich wrote:I have a Spongebob packet (currently at 17/12, but I can bring it up to at least 20/20) that I'd like to read for this.

This is done. I have 44 tossups and 0 bonuses of 6 - 7 line tossups with no powermarks, covering Spongebob seasons 1 - 4 and the 2004 movie, and I can read as many or as little questions as people want to hear.

jonpin wrote:Since it's more than halfway done, I'm going to try to finish what was going to be my 2015 music packet in time for this.

I have 20 tossups and expect to expand the packet to 25. Almost all are common-link/theme/word and have at least some reference to a popular song from the last 5-10 years (though the subject matter does reach back further than that).

Matthew Jackson wrote:I'd be willing to churn out a sub-20 number of musical theater/musical film questions [EDIT: I now have at least 3FIFTEEEEEEN of these] and/or pun questions, many with ridiculous answer lines, if interest exists. (hi john lawrence) [FURTHER EDIT: As of now, puns probably aren't happening, but musical questions are.]

Eh, I'm up to 18 now and may as well fill out a full 20 tossups on works which contain both dialogue and sung music. So I will. There should be something for everyone.

This sounds fun; I am especially looking forward to the SpongeBob packet. I have a packet that has been on the burner for many months that I will read for this. It's a video games packet with a heavy focus on hard answers from hugely popular Nintendo games, mainly major franchises, mainly N64. It consists of 20 power-marked tossups, each with an extra-tough one-part related bonus for the lucky player who answers the tossup. It aims to delight and instruct.

I will have some random questions for this.

Auroni wrote:I'm planning a thing for this.

Unless people really want to hear eight tossups that are only funny to me, I am no longer planning a thing for this.

Would anyone be interested in (very few) somewhat difficult opera tossups written off lyrics and plot because I don't know how to describe music?

RexSueciae wrote:I will be present and may possibly have a Warren Zevon themed packet of questions (no actual knowledge of Warren Zevon's music necessary).

This is going to happen. I currently have 10 tossups of dubious quality (more may occur, depending on circumstances), which take the form of common links on themes, people, or places mentioned in Warren Zevon songs (including songs that Warren Zevon covered). Each tossup contains at least one Warren Zevon clue (which is usually, but not always, in the latter half of the question), and is completely playable by people who have never actually listened to Warren Zevon's music (although if you haven't, you really ought to).

I'll be on the IRC tomorrow from whenever I wake up (probably late) to whenever people lose interest.

My 20-tossup cartoon character packet will hopefully be done by tomorrow afternoon/evening.

Grace wrote:Would anyone be interested in (very few) somewhat difficult opera tossups written off lyrics and plot because I don't know how to describe music?

Sure, I'm in! (That's basically what almost all opera tossups are, anyway...)

EDIT: I figured out the rest of the tossup answers

Hello all: http://tinyurl.com/festivus2014