Penn Bowl Trash II Discussion

[Jamnman23]

Now that all the mirrors for Penn Bowl Trash have finished up, I am now opening the set up for discussion. I want to thank everybody who came out to play and staff at the different sites, and hopefully, all you guys enjoyed the set.

[MicroEStudent]

I enjoyed this set as well as the rest of my team. The only foibles I found were that there were a few questions where the powermark came way too early. When the set is uploaded, I may find a few more questions that had this issue, but Heidi Montag (size H breasts clue) and Appalachian State (Dexter Jackson 2nd round pick clue) had easy clues very early.

Also, I may just have selective memory, but there seemed like there were a lot of things tied to West Virginia University.

[joenguyen90]

I enjoyed this set as well as the rest of my team. The only foibles I found were that there were a few questions where the powermark came way too early. When the set is uploaded, I may find a few more questions that had this issue, but Heidi Montag (size H breasts clue) and Appalachian State (Dexter Jackson 2nd round pick clue) had easy clues very early.

Also, I may just have selective memory, but there seemed like there were a lot of things tied to West Virginia University.

I wrote both of those questions, and I agree that the powers on both of those questions were probably too early. I figured Dexter Jackson would be a middle part, but it just happened to be at last part of power. Also, I don't know that many good clues about Heidi Montag considering that she doesn't... um, well, do anything.

As for WVU questions, the only ones that I can think of was the racing/motocross/baseball/football Adam Jones toss-up and the toss-up on West Virginia football toss-up itself. I don't remember any other West Virginia questions.

[MicroEStudent]

I wrote both of those questions, and I agree that the powers on both of those questions were probably too early. I figured Dexter Jackson would be a middle part, but it just happened to be at last part of power. Also, I don't know that many good clues about Heidi Montag considering that she doesn't... um, well, do anything.

Ah, I didn't realize Jackson was so close to being out of power.

For Montag, I think that the first clue was too obvious because of how soon she said that before the first iteration of the tournament.

As for WVU questions, the only ones that I can think of was the racing/motocross/baseball/football Adam Jones toss-up and the toss-up on West Virginia football toss-up itself. I don't remember any other West Virginia questions.

My mistake. I thought it may have been just selective memory. I liked the Adam Jones idea, but I don't know how many people got that before Pacman. I'm also happy that my knowledge of Amos Zereoue got me points.

[Mike Bentley]

I thought the tournament was better than last year but there's still a lot of room for improvement. Some bonuses awarded 20 or 30 points for even the most cursory knowledge of a subject (e.g. the Friends bonus which I'd be surprised if any team didn't 30) while others were much tougher. There were more instances than I would have liked where tossups became really easy to figure out based on "well this has to be this" rather than rewarding real knowledge.

For instance, let's take a look at this Calvin Borel tossup:

14. He has nearly 4,800 wins in his 27-year career, as he became the 45th North American to reach 4,000 wins in 2005 at Oaklawn Park. He currently lives in Louisville with his fiance Lisa Funk, but he got his start in his home state of Louisiana. Listed at five feet, five inches and weighing 110 pounds, he has notable wins in 1993 atop Rockamundo at 108-1 odds and in 2006 with Seek Gold at 92-1 odds. He gained fame for his win at the Kentucky Derby in 2007 riding Street Sense, but he may be more famous for his run at history in 2009 to become the second person to win the Triple Crown while riding more than one horse. Winning the Kentucky Derby with Mine That Bird and the Preakness with Rachel Alexandra, name, FTP, this jockey whose willingness to ride close against the railings of the tracked earned him the nickname "Bo-Rail".
A: Calvin H. Borel

I know like two things about Calvin Borel but was able to buzz on "atop" because at that point it became obvious that 1. this was a jockey and 2. there's only one reasonable answer choice here.

Another example:
20. Notable people on this show include Melvin Lardy , Mike Smith and Mike Pihl, all owners of their respective companies. The season two finale of this show revealed that Rygaard, a company out of Port Washington, had the largest load by the end of the season, while S&S had the lowest. The show that premiered in March of 2008 has an opening theme of the Jimi Hendrix song “All Along the Watchtower”, and this show is narrated by Thom Beers who does voice work for various Discovery Channel shows like “Deadliest Catch”. This series on the History Channel saw its season three premiere in January 2010 with returning owner Jay Browning, who wears a prosthetic hand that allows him to operate a chainsaw. FTP, name this documentary series about the logging industry and the titular lumberjacks.
A: “Ax Men”

From the first line this tossup reveals that it's a reality show about companies. By the time you say "largest load" there's pretty much only one thing this can be if you know the basic premise of the show (loggers collecting loads of timber).

Anyway, this was a lot more fun to play than something like TRASH Regionals and hope to see more events like this in the future.

[Sima Guang Hater]

Myself, Auroni Gupta, Mike Cheyne, and Matt Bollinger wrote the video games and comics for this tournament, and I for one would appreciate any comments.

EDIT: Forgot Trygve Meade. Sorry man.

[Dresden_The_BIG_JERK]

Are the questions uploaded anywhere? If not, can they be?

[Mike Bentley]

I'll put them up on Wastebin soon.

[Frater Taciturnus]

Myself, Auroni Gupta, Mike Cheyne, and Matt Bollinger wrote the video games and comics for this tournament, and I for one would appreciate any comments.

I thought the part on Jigsaw was really hard, Rick Jones was almost too hard, Doctor Faustus you at least realized need a stealth academic clue to make easier, the Storm tossup was sorta out of order (everything between claustrophobia and FTP should go before claustrophobia), Lois Lane featured solid early clues on an easy answer, the Luann tossup was probably too hard,the Riverdale question was iffy but that may just be my dislike of Archie Comics, and the Casper/Wendy/ Cadbury bonus seemed to lack a hard part, as the third part reduced to "if you don't know it name a British confectionary company." I'm not big on newspaper comics questions because those seem to be dependent on "do you get your local paper and does it carry this strip?" The Elasticity Tossup makes it sound like the 2 clues for Elongated Man are different people.

In video games, the chrono trigger lead in seems to suggest that you are talking about Chrono Cross.

[Cheynem]

Apparently George hated all of my questions! Heh.

Anyway, to briefly respond:

-I guess you're referring to Jigsaw as too hard to ask about not too hard in the question because I described him pretty clearly. I guess I figured as the Punisher's only recurring, unique to him nemesis and a villain in one of the Punisher movies, it seemed like a decent hard part.

-Rick Jones was a hard part, but the other parts were pretty manageable (Skrulls, and name a teammate of the Thing that makes sense in this context).

-I'm not sure what the problem with Luann and Riverdale are, other than perhaps personal preference or unavailability in your local paper. I know the latter can be a problem in writing comic strip questions, but I felt like I should get some comic strip questions in the tournament.

-Yeah, the elasticity thing was written sort of confusingly, but I wasn't sure how to get around it other than resort to convoluted writing like "That first character with this power..." I assumed if you knew what was going on, you didn't need me to spell out that I'm only talking about two characters.

-I can't find my copy of the Storm tossup--what were the out of order parts?

[Frater Taciturnus]

That was how I meant all of those things- Evan Adams is the only person I've met who has seen the Punisher movies, the skrulls bonus was fine even though I still think Rick Jones was right on the border of too hard for the target audience, and here is the storm tossup:

This character temporarily lost her powers when she was shot with a special gun by Henry Peter Gyrich. While a youngster, this character encountered the evil Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King, as well as her future mentor. Her parents were killed when a plane crashed into her house, burying her under rubble and giving her intense claustrophobia. She once defeated Callisto to become the leader of the Morlocks and in a 2006 storyline, she married the king of the African nation of Wakanda. For 10 points, name this wife of the Black Panther, whose real name is Ororo Munroe, a member of the X-Men noted for her ability to control the elements.

If you don't get this off claustrophobia you aren't getting this until either Wakanda (if you hopped into comics in the last two years and this is all you know about Storm) or off the very giveaway.

On a more general note, the tossups seemed really long and strung out, and some of the lead ins seemed like things that were dug up for the some purpose of making the tossup longer.

[Cheynem]

If you're referring to my stuff as too long, I thought they were pretty short--six lines. I agree that some other tossups in this tournament seemed really long.

That's a reasonable point about the Storm question--I guess I thought the marriage thing was more well known the claustrophobia thing. I should have put the Morlocks thing earlier--that's just my old person "B-b-but I like this comic!" kneejerk mentality coming to the forefront. Ah, well, I think the earlier clues are pretty cool.

[gregpweinstein]

I am going to have to agree with Mike on the Jigsaw bonus. I believe that was supposed to be the hard part and it was a good one, maybe in fact on the easy side of it. He was the main focal point of the movie and as Mike said, is the Punisher's main recurring villain. Also, more people should see that movie, the deaths were awesome! And yeah Luann and Riverdale definitely had to be in your wheelhouse, because my teammate got that like midway through, whereas I wouldn't have gotten it till the end, just due to my Archie/old comics/comic strips disinterest.

Otherwise I would like to say I really enjoyed the tournament and I was really happy to have hosted a mirror of it. The only advice I would have for next year's packets is that some of the bonuses were really easy, there wasn't really a hard part on a good few of them. But again kudos and I await next year's set!

[Auroni]

I wrote the tossup on the Brotherhood of Nod and the bonus on old school mmorpg as well as the bonus on independent games.

[Jamnman23]

The only advice I would have for next year's packets is that some of the bonuses were really easy, there wasn't really a hard part on a good few of them.

If people can cite some specific examples of this, that would be really helpful. Also, if there were any answer lines that people either enjoyed or found particularly egregious, that would also be nice to know.

[MicroEStudent]

The only advice I would have for next year's packets is that some of the bonuses were really easy, there wasn't really a hard part on a good few of them.

If people can cite some specific examples of this, that would be really helpful. Also, if there were any answer lines that people either enjoyed or found particularly egregious, that would also be nice to know.

Off the top of my head, the Happy Days spin off bonus was really easy.

I liked the idea of 3000 hits but I remember writing a note about it, but my note is locked in my desk at RIT and we're on break so I don't remember what it was.

I'll have more after Mike posts the set. I'd also like to thank Mike for having Wastebin.

[joenguyen90]

The only advice I would have for next year's packets is that some of the bonuses were really easy, there wasn't really a hard part on a good few of them.

If people can cite some specific examples of this, that would be really helpful. Also, if there were any answer lines that people either enjoyed or found particularly egregious, that would also be nice to know.

Off the top of my head, the Happy Days spin off bonus was really easy.

I liked the idea of 3000 hits but I remember writing a note about it, but my note is locked in my desk at RIT and we're on break so I don't remember what it was.

I'll have more after Mike posts the set. I'd also like to thank Mike for having Wastebin.

I take full blame for the Happy Days bonus. I figured it was too easy, and I was going to replace it. However, I had to concentrate on finishing up with the rest of the tournament and forgot to go back to make it better.

[Rothlover]

The only advice I would have for next year's packets is that some of the bonuses were really easy, there wasn't really a hard part on a good few of them.

If people can cite some specific examples of this, that would be really helpful. Also, if there were any answer lines that people either enjoyed or found particularly egregious, that would also be nice to know.

Off the top of my head, the Happy Days spin off bonus was really easy.

I liked the idea of 3000 hits but I remember writing a note about it, but my note is locked in my desk at RIT and we're on break so I don't remember what it was.

I'll have more after Mike posts the set. I'd also like to thank Mike for having Wastebin.

I reaction-buzzed off Cap Anson, just logically, even though it could've been a dozen things logically (such as reach 100 RBI in a season, which was rare in Japanese ball too.) Also, Anson was NOT the first to reach 3000 hits, in that initial totalings of his career hits total neither factored in NA play and left him about 80 hits short of 3000. In the interim, before the publication of the revised Baseball Encyclopedia, numerous players reached 3000 hits as noted as such. Also, if you factor in league quality, the Japanese league q could've been confusing because numerous players have reached 3K combining professional work, where in Japan there isn't truly the demarkation between league quality. Any time you write about baseball to an audience, you have to really dip into it, because more people really know shit about baseball, and you can confuse the hell out of them. For instance, I've seen TRASH lead-in with Paul Hines in 1878, which is non-uniquely identifying (as he did two notable tuable baseball things then), as well as 100 other examples that don't come immediately to me.

Far worse, however, and I did not remember this abortion until Nate mentioned the 3000 hit q, was the question on slugging average/percentage. It was riddled with useless and often wrong clues. Branch Rickey made up a lot of statistics, and saying Rickey stat A was a forerunner is practically useless. Not to mention, this stat had actually been around before, even if Rickey had some way of calculating it, which I'm not convinced of. It said some card set was the first to include it, which is blatantly untrue, since several tobacco sets even, going back to the turn of the century featured percentage of bases to at-bats (which is what Slugging is.) And then, we lost the tu on burden of knowledge when it said "Albert Pujols is the active leader in it," to which our opponent, after getting it correct said, "what else could it be?" Well per baseball-reference, Pujols is tied for the active lead in OBP with Helton, leads in BA, Slugging, OPS, OPS+ and offensive winning percentage (an important stat created by Bill James,) and I'm sure he also leads in Runs Created per 27 outs and 10 other tuable stats. When your lead-ins pile on wrong or non-uniquely identifying clues, horridness will ensue, and knowledge will often be punished.

The Hideki Matsui tu was unpowerable. The first useful clue, about consecutive games, was after power, and isn't IMPORTANT.Though I had a stupid neg on Carlos Quentin, the HBP clue is more of a "lateral bone" sort of clue, because there are plenty of high HBP prospects in the minors, some of whom make it to the majors, and a true baseball follower shouldn't logically come to the conclusion that a tu on a left fielder who only has one season with more than 100 games played and a 113 OPS+ is a logical tu choice at an "easy" trash set.

The Kindle tu blew "this thing sold out quickly and was OOS for a while, hey there is an ipod app for it" "FIFFFTEEEEEEEEEENNN!" And, as noted, there was wild bonus difficulty variance, which, thankfully didn't make any difference in any match we played. I liked the general importance of much of the old TV. If bonus diff was more controlled, asking about things like Streets of SF is super.

This was still a well-above replacement level trash set, and given the youth of many of the editors it was encouraging, and I hope they can fine-tune their weak areas and eventually produce sets at the Bentley or even CO Trash level of quality.

[MicroEStudent]

Far worse, however, and I did not remember this abortion until Nate mentioned the 3000 hit q, was the question on slugging average/percentage.
...
And then, we lost the tu on burden of knowledge when it said "Albert Pujols is the active leader in it," to which our opponent, after getting it correct said, "what else could it be?"

I forgot about that slugging question. Not a good question. The baseball card clue confused me as I used to collect baseball cards and still collect football cards.

An aside, I believe I was the one that outbuzzed you on that question. I remember buzzing at Pujols and I said something very similar afterwards. I only knew that Pujols was the leader in slugging and didn't know about the other stats, although I had an inkling about OPS.

EDIT (more info): I'm fairly sure now that I wrote a note about the slugging question as well. Alas, I won't be back at RIT until Monday

[Cheynem]

I agree with all of Dan's points except the Matsui one which I powered in a mock game on a buzzer race on the clue about the Rookie of the Year and Angel Berroa (unless I'm misremembering the power mark, but I thought that was an early clue). That was a really important Rookie of the Year vote which seemingly punished Matsui for not being a "true rookie."

[Rothlover]

I don't know, I just don't think RoY placing has ever had any actual historical notability. That clue may have been "known" (I for one can't name most RoY's, I mean they give them to like Marty Cordova and Pat Listach and sometimes forget who is technically still elligible etc.) it doesn't really have substantive value to me. I'd even rather have clues on the articles over how well his stats would translate citing specific papers, as those were more substantive and probably of longer true value (and they would be uniquely identifying because they do it for everyone from Shinjo to Kaz Matsui to Colby Lewis, so you could know actual H. Matsui articles related to his Japan tenure.)

[Mike Bentley]

The set (and TIDUS) are now on Wastebin: http://www.doc-ent.com/trash/index.html.

[Jamnman23]

Also, Anson was NOT the first to reach 3000 hits, in that initial totalings of his career hits total neither factored in NA play and left him about 80 hits short of 3000.

Yeah, I didn't realize when I first discovered that fact that is was so controversial and contentious. If I had, I would certainly not have included it in a tossup. I apologize to the people who were misled by that clue.

[AKKOLADE]

You're actually wrong on this one, Dan - that RoY vote was a pretty big news story because of the number of "no way we're voting for a "rookie" who played in Japan for 10 years!" votes. I think that clue, at least, passes the sniff test.

[Rothlover]

That was an issue with Nomo too, and Ichiro (though he of course won) and with the guy Tampa Bay used in the late 90s and Kaz Sasaki, and I think at least two other Japanese players finished in the top 5 in Roy voting. Its been as much a staple of Japanese players making the jump as the articles about translation etc (matsui's were particularly notable because of the question of how his power would translate, and indeed those who thought it wouldn't were supposedly vindicated by his rookie numbers, until he added more HR power.)

[AKKOLADE]

As I pointed out in IRC, Matsui is the only case of a Japanese player not winning that had a real argument for winning. It was a Big Deal at the time in the sports media.

[MichaelKearney]

Here's my attempt to be constructive and helpful to the writers of this tournament.

There are 4 additional lines after the characters Riff-Raff and Columbia are mentioned in the Time Warp question, 3 lines after you mention Steve Wiebe and Fistful Of Quarters in the Billy Mitchell question, and 4 lines after The Game Plan and Doom to get to Dwayne Johnson. Jason Mraz had his most famous song and album mentioned halfway through. Why bother writing 8 line tossups if people are actually going to buzz in halfway? That's extra work that could be used elsewhere in the editing process.

Giveaways shouldn't reward anyone with a pulse. A good example was "FTP, name this Scottish actor who portrayed King Leonidas in 300." That's the most famous thing Gerard Butler has done, and it's right at the end. Bad ones are like "name this 1982 hit by Toto, which shares its name with the continent on which Nigeria is located.", "give this word often contrasted with lightning", "name this location most often juxtaposed with hell". Those are REALLY terrible, and require zero knowledge of anything but the English language. A lot of the bonuses were doing this, too. "Bill Pullman also stars in this movie about aliens coming to Earth, which should not be confused with July 4." and "They sell their LCD TVs under the “Aquos” brand, and their name is also a desirable quality for a knife." being two particularly egregious examples.

Incorrect information showed up in a couple places. "In 2001, he starred in the 15-minute long music video for the Michael Jackson song “You Rock My World”." doesn't actually refer to Marlon Brando, it's Chris Tucker who stars in the video. Brando's got a cameo in it, sure, but Chris Tucker does most of the dancing and acting.

[CSQuizJags]

Here's my attempt to be constructive and helpful to the writers of this tournament.

There are 4 additional lines after the characters Riff-Raff and Columbia are mentioned in the Time Warp question, 3 lines after you mention Steve Wiebe and Fistful Of Quarters in the Billy Mitchell question, and 4 lines after The Game Plan and Doom to get to Dwayne Johnson. Jason Mraz had his most famous song and album mentioned halfway through. Why bother writing 8 line tossups if people are actually going to buzz in halfway? That's extra work that could be used elsewhere in the editing process.

Don't forget the one about the Burger King bonus part for Loving You that ended "...it's the home of the Whopper." Really? Is there anyone out there who either didn't 1)- see the commercial or 2)- know who serves Cinnamon Minis??

And the one where you went apoplectic and we feared having to break out the tasers (another good bonus BTW) about Sallinger's son in Captain America when it was Animal House.

The questions were alright. However, not that I'm complaining, but for an event that was to be "a regular difficulty trash tournament that should be accessible to casual players, but at the same time fun and entertaining for the more hard-core members of the trash community" there was a lot more "old school" material than new, at least from what I remember. If mirrored again, I'll gladly play them. Sadly, as someone who had to also read the questions, they were WAAAAAY too long. I can't remember how many times I heard/read "this____" in a TU- I was spot editing words and phrases on the fly to try and shorten the TUs (and at the same time preserve question clues)- still didn't help. I know it's important, but usually once or twice is good enough (the only one I really remember was "this league"...."this league"...."this league"....). Having only 5 TUs on one page is a bit excessive. Again though, the content was good.

And yes, I too nailed the Heidi Montag TU off her breasts...there is no shame in Trash.

[Jamnman23]

for an event that was to be "a regular difficulty trash tournament that should be accessible to casual players, but at the same time fun and entertaining for the more hard-core members of the trash community" there was a lot more "old school" material than new, at least from what I remember.

For the major categories, I wrote about half of the questions to be before 1990 and half to be after, but looking back at some of the packets, I think there was content that skewed even more recent than that. In general, I did pick quite a few old answers, but I thought these were answers that were relevant to pop culture. If this is not the case, it would be good to know.

[CSQuizJags]

For the major categories, I wrote about half of the questions to be before 1990 and half to be after, but looking back at some of the packets, I think there was content that skewed even more recent than that. In general, I did pick quite a few old answers, but I thought these were answers that were relevant to pop culture.

For the most part they were relevant. In one round, a teamof young-uns got angry we "old people" (average age: 32) were getting all the "old stuff" (in this case, Get Smart). I mean the first four seasons of M*A*S*H were before I was born but Ive seen all the episodes to get the basic idea. I thought they were fairly balanced, although the "Moonlighting" TU was a bit odd...we got it fairly early against...you guessed it...a younger team. There's room for the "classics" of movies, music and TV. If you truly want to be trash-worthy, you learn about that stuff. That or make sure you have an "old guy" on the team.

[journterp]

I didn't get a chance to play this set, so I don't know how it played in a tournament setting, but reading through it, I'm a little disappointed with the sports in the set. Too often, the tossups fall into the TRASH-style format of clue-dense but choppily-written sentences that have clues that are technically factually correct, but too often fell into the "I need to answer this based on relative dates mentioned," rather than bringing in interesting material about those players. I'll pull the Baron Davis tossup as an example:

As a youngster, he attended the Crossroads School with Cash Warren, a current movie producer and the husband of Jessica Alba. In the 2002 All-Star game, he was selected as an injury replacement for Vince Carter. After many nagging injuries, he was traded in February 2005 from his original NBA team for guard Speedy Claxton and forward Dale Davis. In 1999, he was drafted third overall by the Charlotte Hornets and backed up Eddie Jones and David Wesley during his first year removed from UCLA. In July 2008, he signed a big contract to move from a northern California team to a southern California one in the hopes of playing alongside Elton Brand. FTP, name this often-bearded guard who signed with the Clippers in 2008 after several successful seasons at point guard for the Golden State Warriors.
A: Baron Davis

Now, Davis is among the most interesting players in the NBA, but you wouldn't know it from this question. The first line clue is basically a throwaway unless you know about The Baron Davis Project, but it's at least interesting to hear if you don't know about it (and I didn't.) From that point on, though, the tossup basically tells you, "He's a really good guard from the past ten years, here are some teammates and he played for the Warriors and Clippers." This is a pattern a lot of sports tossups fall into, where you've got to know a guy's wikipedia and basketball reference page inside and out to get the question. The clue about claxton/davis (aside from being useless) is almost literally pulled straight from wikipedia:

Wikipedia - "On February 24, 2005, Davis was traded from the Hornets to the Golden State Warriors for guard Speedy Claxton and veteran forward Dale Davis after tension with the Hornets coaching staff and several nagging injuries"

It prioritizes list knowledge over knowledge that actual NBA fans would have about Davis, stuff that would be significantly more interesting even for the non-sports fans hearing the question - his epic dunk-then-shirt-raise against Andrei Kirilenko, the youtube practice video (since pulled) that famously showed then-teammate Stephen Jackson narrating Baron's trick shots, the series against the Mavs where he teamed up with Jackson and Jason Richardson to become the first true 8-seed to upset a 1-seed (NYK in 98-99 doesn't count - lockout year.)

I've probably gone on longer than I should here, but I wanted to point this out to try to stop this trend in sports tossups. When you write about athletes, the most boring, inane stuff are the "This man won four batting titles, and in 1974 finished with a career high .419 OBP." Try to use interesting anecdotes about the player's life/play on the field or court rather than just stats. It makes for a better question to listen to, as well as a better judge of who pays attention to sports - a person who knows a lot about Davis has probably youtubed that dunk a half dozen times, but couldn't tell you he got traded for a broken down davis/scrub backup like claxton.

[stevebahnaman]

I just read the Maryland packet because I had been reading the TIDUS questions by Jeremy. Maryland knows how to write ACF questions and good stuff in general, but I'm being nitpicky because some of these things I notice are sort-of-philosophical trash-writing observations I've had recently. I just scrolled up here to note that these comments got longer than I thought they would. I'm submitting them anyway because I care about trash writing for some reason.

A large percentage of the questions, including answer choices, are just awesome. (Thank you so much for not making the recent Idol winner the easy part!)

1. I saw Avatar. I didn't remember that the people were called the Na'vi. No one has this movie on DVD yet, so it's not exactly Star Wars in terms of the memorability of specific names of things from it. People should be really careful about writing stuff like this in general, especially about recent movies that 80% or more of their respective viewers have only seen once.

2. "You Must Remember This" is the *first* line of one of the *most* famous things about Casablanca. I've seen questions that do this fairly often: "A different thing that makes reference to this answer is called 'pretty famous thing from the answer.'" And it always makes the question too easy at that point, or pisses off people who thought 'nah couldn't be that' and decided to wait.

3. Sports question stuff. The first two clues that say "He went to Mississippi State and made multiple all-star teams including 1988 with the Cubs" is way too easy so early for Rafael Palmeiro, though; lots of people know both of these things or can figure it out. Multi-time all-stars/pro-bowlers who made their "first" with some team other than their best-known team are just shreddable by people who know the sport. Same with the 1976 ABA finals: only 4 ABA teams made the NBA and most sports people know that too easily.

4. More on the Nuggets tossup. I've seen 'team from coach clues' and 'team from all-star clues' questions a lot of times. I am completely on the fence about whether giving mostly coach clues (or things like that) are useful aesthetic limits for tossup construction, or whether they don't allow for as broad a variety of knowledge about the answer. A lot of people know stuff about like...Michael Adams or Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf or Dikembe Mutombo that would be good middle-ish clues; that upset playoff win over the Sonics is also relevant and not too easy anymore. In the Nuggets question, the coaches (minus relatively recent Jeff Bzdelik who later went to Air Force and then U of Colorado for some regional gettability; and minus LMU/Lakers former coach Paul Westhead who had them leading the league in PPG but losing anyway) are then replaced by some players, which kind of jumps off the coaching theme anyway. But the question stands: are these kinds of information clusters useful or do they create tossups that don't reward different kinds of knowledge about the answer?

5. You did it so right on the Idol question, but there is no easy part in the BCS Championship question. I think it's supposed to be Shipley but he's not *that* easy. Garrett Gilbert is really hard these weeks later (I gave "Garrett" as the answer when reading this to myself because his names are obnoxiously interchangeable); Marcell Dareus has no other clues given for him here (even position! He is "player") and is known to most people for hurting McCoy. "Texas" is obviously too easy, but ask for a coach or Mark Ingram or something. Bagel city for me, and I watched the game.

[stevebahnaman]

=
The Hideki Matsui tu was unpowerable. The first useful clue, about consecutive games, was after power, and isn't IMPORTANT.Though I had a stupid neg on Carlos Quentin, the HBP clue is more of a "lateral bone" sort of clue, because there are plenty of high HBP prospects in the minors, some of whom make it to the majors, and a true baseball follower shouldn't logically come to the conclusion that a tu on a left fielder who only has one season with more than 100 games played and a 113 OPS+ is a logical tu choice at an "easy" trash set.

Hideki Matsui is disproportionately more famous than other people he is comparable to as a ballplayer, because he is Japanese, a Yankee, a big free agent this offseason, and nicknamed Godzilla. Famousness rather than notability of accomplishment is usually the correct reason for being a tossup answer in Trash tournaments. Bill Lee is more gettable than Frank Tanana.

[Rothlover]

=
The Hideki Matsui tu was unpowerable. The first useful clue, about consecutive games, was after power, and isn't IMPORTANT.Though I had a stupid neg on Carlos Quentin, the HBP clue is more of a "lateral bone" sort of clue, because there are plenty of high HBP prospects in the minors, some of whom make it to the majors, and a true baseball follower shouldn't logically come to the conclusion that a tu on a left fielder who only has one season with more than 100 games played and a 113 OPS+ is a logical tu choice at an "easy" trash set.

Hideki Matsui is disproportionately more famous than other people he is comparable to as a ballplayer, because he is Japanese, a Yankee, a big free agent this offseason, and nicknamed Godzilla. Famousness rather than notability of accomplishment is usually the correct reason for being a tossup answer in Trash tournaments. Bill Lee is more gettable than Frank Tanana.

My point was the consecutive games clue wasn't something IMPORTANT. Then, seperately, that Carlos Quentin isn't tu-worthy (and that the HBP clue wasn't really unique to people with deep knowledge and was more lateral to people who remember the specific prospect breakdown of him, reinforced by finding numerous top minor league prospects of that era with 30+ HBP.)

[stevebahnaman]

Oh now I get it. I thought you negged WITH Carlos Quentin and it was all one paragraph so I got cornfuzzed.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

2. "You Must Remember This" is the *first* line of one of the *most* famous things about Casablanca. I've seen questions that do this fairly often: "A different thing that makes reference to this answer is called 'pretty famous thing from the answer.'" And it always makes the question too easy at that point, or pisses off people who thought 'nah couldn't be that' and decided to wait.

Could you elaborate on this?

[stevebahnaman]

2. "You Must Remember This" is the *first* line of one of the *most* famous things about Casablanca. I've seen questions that do this fairly often: "A different thing that makes reference to this answer is called 'pretty famous thing from the answer.'" And it always makes the question too easy at that point, or pisses off people who thought 'nah couldn't be that' and decided to wait.

Could you elaborate on this?

The song referred to by the not-quite-existent line "play it again, Sam" and the actual line "Play it, Sam, play 'As Time Goes By'" is "As Time Goes By," which goes "You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply as time goes by." That scene is probably the most famous scene in the movie, or it is equifamous with a bunch of scenes from the movie, which itself is something close to the most quoted movie in the history of time. It just doesn't feel like you should drop the first line of "As Time Goes By" in a Casablanca lead-in, regardless of what it's associated with. I've heard a tossup to which the answer was Alice in Chains that mentioned that Godsmack was named after one of their songs; that's not even quite as bad because the AiC song wasn't a single. Not quite as bad but it still felt kind of blech.

As I said I was being way nitpicky. Or maybe I just know Casablanca way better than I think I do and should be happy with my points?

[Cheynem]

It's a pretty famous line. I don't remember how the question went though.

[stevebahnaman]

First clue. I imagine no one is buzzing before that point unless they have read the Robert Coover story, which is barely trash.

This movie is paid homage to by a Robert Coover short story that uses exact quotes from this movie, features an explicit sex scene between this film’s two protagonists, and is entitled “You Must Remember This.”

[Papa's in the House]

1. I saw Avatar. I didn't remember that the people were called the Na'vi. No one has this movie on DVD yet, so it's not exactly Star Wars in terms of the memorability of specific names of things from it. People should be really careful about writing stuff like this in general, especially about recent movies that 80% or more of their respective viewers have only seen once.

This holds true... right up until David Garb gets that question somewhere before the halfway point (I think in the first line, but I can't really remember).

On another note, writing common link questions that involve multiple categories (movies, foods, TV, songs, video games, etc.) in one tossup seems like a bad idea (see the Halo tossup in the first packet on Wastebin, which had elements of all five of those categories). These tossups seem to reward the "do you know this random thing that is named Halo" rather than "do you know a lot about Halo the video game or the various songs named Halo." As for the Baldwin brothers bonus, you probably should have required "Adam" for the first part, as you are writing a bonus on more than one Baldwin (as a side note, glad to see Firefly in a question). I'm sure I'd find more problems like these if I looked through the set completely, but it's trash.

[stevebahnaman]

1. I saw Avatar. I didn't remember that the people were called the Na'vi. No one has this movie on DVD yet, so it's not exactly Star Wars in terms of the memorability of specific names of things from it. People should be really careful about writing stuff like this in general, especially about recent movies that 80% or more of their respective viewers have only seen once.

This holds true... right up until David Garb gets that question somewhere before the halfway point (I think in the first line, but I can't really remember).

See the problem is that I also "knew" the answer about where he did but couldn't remember the name of the civilization, having only seen the movie once. "Someone got it early" does not mean "it was a good tossup." Move the Krogan tossup from TIDUS into a regular trash packet and it goes early in 2 rooms and unanswered in a bunch of other ones because the answer should be "Mass Effect" or "Mass Effect 2." I fully expect that someone got it early; I also expect that in several rooms this one was "aw crap I don't know what they were called...ugh" for all 8 players. "Do you remember the name of the civilization in Avatar" is not a good tossup; I bet a lot of people knew that's what it was quite early.

[Mike Bentley]

1. I saw Avatar. I didn't remember that the people were called the Na'vi. No one has this movie on DVD yet, so it's not exactly Star Wars in terms of the memorability of specific names of things from it. People should be really careful about writing stuff like this in general, especially about recent movies that 80% or more of their respective viewers have only seen once.

This holds true... right up until David Garb gets that question somewhere before the halfway point (I think in the first line, but I can't really remember).

See the problem is that I also "knew" the answer about where he did but couldn't remember the name of the civilization, having only seen the movie once. "Someone got it early" does not mean "it was a good tossup." Move the Krogan tossup from TIDUS into a regular trash packet and it goes early in 2 rooms and unanswered in a bunch of other ones because the answer should be "Mass Effect" or "Mass Effect 2." I fully expect that someone got it early; I also expect that in several rooms this one was "aw crap I don't know what they were called...ugh" for all 8 players. "Do you remember the name of the civilization in Avatar" is not a good tossup; I bet a lot of people knew that's what it was quite early.

This tossup was not a good tossup for lots of other reasons, but I don't think asking about one of the most famous things in the highest grossing film to come out in a long time is unreasonable at all, and I think it was probably converted in almost every room where it was heard. Furthermore, there has been lots of supplemental literature on how the Navi were created, interviews about their language, etc.

I think a more reasonable argument of this type would be against the Bobby Boucher tossup. I determined what they were asking about on the first line and then spent the next two lines remembering what his name was before realizing that he was called "the waterboy" many times during the time. But, unfortunately, this was only good enough for a prompt and resulted in me negging the question. I'd much rather have seen this tossup just be on the film itself.

[Cheynem]

I think the "Jackie Moon" tossup and the "Billy Mitchell" tossup also fell into this category, although I think it's okay to have a few character tossups. I knew pretty early it was the dude from Semi-Pro but could not remember his name, and as someone else pointed out, it's pretty clear that the other tossup is about the dude who's really good at video games.

While I disagree with Charles about the general application of cross distribution (some of my favorite tossups!), I do think that a number of questions like that in this tournament tended to be "Wiki Disambiguation" like questions that were not really about important things in the first few lines.

[stevebahnaman]

Jackie Moon and Bobby Boucher are way better (worse?) examples of this.

My apologies if I used the wrong example, or something, but I still feel like 'It's that thing, FUCK what's it called' should be avoided as an emotion in tossups (and not so much bonuses) when it is quite reasonable to do so. This 'tip of my tongue' thing will always happen because sometimes people don't remember the names of things, but questions should not usually come down to 'do you know the name of this thing even though everyone already knows what it is.' This should be avoided when it is remotely easy to do so. Hence my continued semi-objection to "Na'vi" as the answer choice. The people who know the name if others don't are going to get the answer first either way, and you can now say "Na'vi" in the FTP line.

On the general topic of characters, characters are fine if the work they are in is really notable (in a trashy sense) and if they are really notable as part of it. The names of the main characters from Semi-Pro and The Waterboy, neither of which fall into the category of *really* notable movies, probably have no reason to be tossed up.

[CSQuizJags]

. The names of the main characters from Semi-Pro and The Waterboy, neither of which fall into the category of *really* notable movies, probably have no reason to be tossed up.

I disagree. While Semi-Pro did tank a bit, The Waterboy was a really popular film (prompting several quotes from it to be spewed out after I got that TU), hence why I feel that character is trash-worthy. Just because YOU don't know it doesn't mean someone else shouldn't. Trash is like that. I don't know certain sports figures, but I don't complain when someone else gets one (unless, of course, it causes them to win the match). Sports isn't my bag, baby, but I respect someone else's knowledge in the category.

Same thing goes with the "new stuff." Being a HS teacher I'm always hearing about what the "young-uns" are watching, reading, or hearing. Being a trash player, I tried to learn more about it, and it's always funny when an "old guy" gets something a 17 year old knows about and the young-un gripes about it. That's Trash, y'all.

[CSQuizJags]

But, unfortunately, this was only good enough for a prompt and resulted in me negging the question. I'd much rather have seen this tossup just be on the film itself.

You were prompted?!?! I said "The Waterboy" and it was accepted in our mirror. Did it say "accept early Waterboy?"

[swwFCqb]

.The Waterboy was a really popular film

Yeah, 12 years ago! Despite how well it did back when it was released, I don't think its one of those well-aging movies that people want to watch 12 years after the fact. IMO it's not even one of Sandler's most recognizable film roles! Asking someone to name the main character in a movie that was popular for several months over a decade ago is not a good idea. I haven't seen that film in years, and if it weren't for the fact that I watched that movie scores of times while driving on a family vacation to Alaska, there's no way in hell I would have remembered his name either. Personally I didn't mind seeing it come up, but if you must write on it then "The Waterboy" should be acceptable. Asking someone to come up with "Booby Boucher" is a little much.

EDIT: I was prompted on "The Waterboy" as well, and I buzzed in on the first clue. I was one of the few that was probably actually able to pull Boucher out of that.

[Papa's in the House]

1. I saw Avatar. I didn't remember that the people were called the Na'vi. No one has this movie on DVD yet, so it's not exactly Star Wars in terms of the memorability of specific names of things from it. People should be really careful about writing stuff like this in general, especially about recent movies that 80% or more of their respective viewers have only seen once.

This holds true... right up until David Garb gets that question somewhere before the halfway point (I think in the first line, but I can't really remember).

See the problem is that I also "knew" the answer about where he did but couldn't remember the name of the civilization, having only seen the movie once. "Someone got it early" does not mean "it was a good tossup." Move the Krogan tossup from TIDUS into a regular trash packet and it goes early in 2 rooms and unanswered in a bunch of other ones because the answer should be "Mass Effect" or "Mass Effect 2." I fully expect that someone got it early; I also expect that in several rooms this one was "aw crap I don't know what they were called...ugh" for all 8 players. "Do you remember the name of the civilization in Avatar" is not a good tossup; I bet a lot of people knew that's what it was quite early.

You misinterpreted why I posted that. I didn't say it was a good question, I just don't agree with you that the race from Avatar is non-memorable because it's not on DVD. A lot of people saw this movie many times and some of those people can quote large sections of it. Had I played the set, I also would not have been able to pull anything beyond "it's that race from Avatar," but this does not mean that the Na'vi shouldn't be tossupable (much like other important parts of notable movies). The type of question is good, the actual question... not so much.

[Cooper98]

I liked this set. Good job!

[CSQuizJags]

The Waterboy is shown on TNT, TBS, et.al. all the time, so the "lack of exposure" card doesn't play here. There are plenty of other films that, while not THAT popular now, are still fair game.

And you know, a lot of trash topics happened before I was born, but seeing as I grew up around some of that stuff (listening to an oldie's station in middle school, among other things), I learned about them, so quit playing the "that happened before I was born card" too. Pearl Harbor happened before I was born but I still know about it!