CBI Nats

[wd4gdz]

CBI sucks, and who cares who wins. However, I am interested in hearing about any chairs thrown by Jason Mueller or cans unsuccessfully crushed by Aaron Kashtan. Post here if you've got the inside scoop.

[bornonatrain]

Jason Mueller enjoying a mariachi band before tonight's team meeting:




Current number of chairs thrown: 0

[Rothlover]

Jason Mueller enjoying a mariachi band before tonight's team meeting:




Current number of chairs thrown: 0

Do you have any more amusing images, and in larger sizes? I need comedy images to spam people with.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

Why wasn't there a mariachi band at ACF Nationals? I feel ripped off.

[Rothlover]

Why wasn't there a mariachi band at ACF Nationals? I feel ripped off.

There was. Jonathan Thompson.

[wd4gdz]

Looks like Jason Mueller will have all day tomorrow to listen to marachi bands.

[Rothlover]

Looks like Jason Mueller will have all day tomorrow to listen to marachi bands.

explain/update?

[dtaylor4]

Prelim results

EDITS: Fixed the url

[Aaron Kashtan]

This tournament was infuriating, terrible, and ridiculous. The tournament amenities and the sightseeing were cool, but the questions... bleccch. I don't know what CBI is, but it's not quizbowl. It's a competition with similar rules, but which tests buzzer speed and the ability to read Mike Decker's mind, rather than knowledge.

So, yeah, CBI sucks.

[grapesmoker]

This tournament was infuriating, terrible, and ridiculous. The tournament amenities and the sightseeing were cool, but the questions... bleccch. I don't know what CBI is, but it's not quizbowl. It's a competition with similar rules, but which tests buzzer speed and the ability to read Mike Decker's mind, rather than knowledge.

So, yeah, CBI sucks.

and you went because....?

[wd4gdz]

I'm guessing a free trip to Los Angeles?

[grapesmoker]

I'm guessing a free trip to Los Angeles?

I can't imagine how that would entice anyone. Then again, I grew up in Southern California, so perhaps I have a slightly jaundiced view of LA's appeal.

[Chico the Rainmaker]

You grew up in Southern California and you still don't appreciate its appeal? I may have to reconsider my previous view of you as a worthwhile human being.

[Matt Weiner]

I can't speak for this year's tournament, but when I went to College Bowl nationals in 2001 in "Los Angeles," the sponsored hotel was in Pasadena and the tournament was at Cal State-LA in the middle of nowhere, with visits to the city's attractions after Saturday night matches requiring one to opt out of the College Bowl-sponsored transportation back to the hotel and instead pay for one's own cab. It wasn't conducive to anything L.A. may or may not have to offer. I hear USC is at least in a more...interesting...area but just remember that the sightseeing is often made difficult by the way the tournament works, even if you can handle the infuriating questions to attempt to get some net benefit out of the trip.

[ecks]

I'm guessing a free trip to Los Angeles?

I can't imagine how that would entice anyone. Then again, I grew up in Southern California, so perhaps I have a slightly jaundiced view of LA's appeal.

LA doesn't have any appeal to be jaundiced.

[NotBhan]

As for tournament results, BTW, Minnesota beat USC in the final match 330-295 to take the title. Williams was 3rd and Baylor 4th. I think Yogesh was the leading scorer.

Most of the tournament events were held at the downtown L.A. Marriott rather than at USC, so that gave better access to the train system. Public transport in L.A. isn't great, but one can get to places like Hollywood, Universal City, Long Beach, or Pasadena fairly easily from downtown. Still, a car makes things much easier in L.A.

[cvdwightw]

Public transport in L.A. sucks

Fixed.
For those of you who believe this is criticism and that the L.A. public transportation people will read this, I will attempt to elaborate.

There is some kind of subway/train thing that goes maybe 5 miles north and south of Union Station, which means it hits almost nothing worth seeing. Attempts to expand it so that you can actually get to things like the beach are continually being shot down by the city council (currently there's a big fuss that L.A. isn't getting its fair share of the money the state approved for highway improvement, which is much further up on the priority list). I don't know much about the actual train that goes further away. The bus system doesn't make much sense at all, especially considering that pretty much anything that isn't in the actual city of L.A. has its own bus system. It is theoretically possible to get to places by bus; however, now there's talk of bus driver walkouts (although I'm not sure this is a regional or statewide thing or just confined to, say, Orange County). In any case, I'm not a big fan of the bus system here. Renting a car doesn't make any sense because gas is like $3.50 a gallon right now. The worst part of it is that except for a couple bus lines nothing comes anywhere close to any of the airports, especially LAX. Of course, I may be completely talking out of my ass, as I attempt to avoid using the "public transportation system" whenever possible.

I'm not sure what "attractions" CBI planned for the L.A. excursion, or how they would have managed to get everyone around. I appreciate L.A.'s appeal, but not the amount of effort it takes to experience it.

[Aaron Kashtan]

I went partly because I was morbidly curious about whether it was really as bad as everyone claims, but mostly because it was a free trip to LA.

Also, we have to send a team to the CBI RCT, or else our student union won't fund us to go to legitimate tournaments. Obviously I don't agree with this poicy, and I wish that my school could just deaffiliate from CBI as so many others have, but I have neither the time nor the energy to do anything about this. (But we only have to send a team, not our best team, so I won't be playing CBI again, except possibly if the NCT is held in some really interesting location.)

They arranged a trip to Universal Citywalk on Saturday night. Other than that, we mostly just visited places that were accessible via the trains: the La Brea Tar Pits, the L.A. County Museum, and Hollywood. I wanted to go to the Getty Center, but there was no good way of getting there.

[grapesmoker]

I went partly because I was morbidly curious about whether it was really as bad as everyone claims, but mostly because it was a free trip to LA.

What does it gain a man to have a free trip to Los Angeles if he should lose his soul?

[pray for elves]

I went partly because I was morbidly curious about whether it was really as bad as everyone claims, but mostly because it was a free trip to LA.

What does it gain a man to have a free trip to Los Angeles if he should lose his soul?

Well, at least he'd fit in. Most people in LA already lack souls.

[Mike Bentley]

I went partly because I was morbidly curious about whether it was really as bad as everyone claims, but mostly because it was a free trip to LA.

Just to confirm: It was, right?

[Aaron Kashtan]

I went partly because I was morbidly curious about whether it was really as bad as everyone claims, but mostly because it was a free trip to LA.

Just to confirm: It was, right?

Are you asking whether the trip really was free, or whether the tournament really was as bad as everyone claims?

(The answers are, respectively: yes; and no, even worse.)

[dxdtdemon]

I agree that that tournament really sucked. I'm kind of jealous of the Florida team as they can get funding for non-CBI tournaments. At least our whining to the powers that be of not getting funding for the ICT and that it would have cost ~$2000 less than going to CBI nationals and stuff convinced them that lifting the ban on us hosting tournaments is a good thing, and we'll hopefully have money in the future in our club budget to go to the ICT if we qualify (please put the Eastern Canada SCT pretty close to Detroit every year).

[Aaron Kashtan]

I agree that that tournament really sucked. I'm kind of jealous of the Florida team as they can get funding for non-CBI tournaments. At least our whining to the powers that be of not getting funding for the ICT and that it would have cost ~$2000 less than going to CBI nationals and stuff convinced them that lifting the ban on us hosting tournaments is a good thing, and we'll hopefully have money in the future in our club budget to go to the ICT if we qualify (please put the Eastern Canada SCT pretty close to Detroit every year).

From looking at your previous posts, I see that you're from Ohio State. Aren't you within driving distance of tournaments in Michigan or Illinois or Pennsylvania?

[dxdtdemon]

We are in driving distance, but our yearly club budget is about enough to cover the SCT tournament fee and the gas money to get there. We are hoping to be allowed to do some fundraising next year, so we can go to more tournaments in good driving distance. Our club had been essentially defunct since 2003 or so, and so we are still in our rebuilding process.

[MahoningQuizBowler]

I'm glad they will let you host tournaments again, but why were you banned from doing so in the first place?

[dxdtdemon]

Essentially, our entire campus is undergoing the process of being rebuilt from 2001-10, and because of the number of events that go on at any given time, there just wouldn't really be any building with enough available rooms for a worthwhile tournament.

[BobGHHS]

Jonathan,
So am I to understand you will still be at OSU next year-- Just wondering because our only senior from our state championship team is headed there and he might be interested in playing.

[ecks]

Essentially, our entire campus is undergoing the process of being rebuilt from 2001-10, and because of the number of events that go on at any given time, there just wouldn't really be any building with enough available rooms for a worthwhile tournament.

So was it a de factor banning or did they actually tell you flat-out that you couldn't? 'Cause that seems rather.. well... dumb.

[Your Genial Quizmaster]

Dumb, maybe, but not unprecedented. From the mid-Eighties through about 1997, Tennessee (Knoxville) had one of the most active programs in the country, hosting two high school tournaments and maybe two collegiate tournaments a year when that was rare. In the fall of 1997, as I understood it, there was someone new in charge of student activities who wouldn't approve the use of university facilities for hosting quizbowl tournaments, not even the popular and well-attended high school ones. My impression was that the guy was confused by the existence of student organizations without Greek letters in their name. It's the whole reason TrashMasters moved to UTC -- I'd already agreed to take over editorship in 1997, but it was originally slated to be held in Knoxville as it was in '96.

It's been great to see UTK rebuild to where they're hosting tournaments again, but it's taken most of a decade for that program to rebound from one junior deputy administrator's whim.

[dxdtdemon]

I will officially graduate from Ohio State in August. It was supposed to be June, but the university made a stupid administrative error. I will not be playing next year, but we will have six returning players and two more who come to practice but have not yet competed in a tournament. Assuming that I get a job someplace in Ohio, I will still be somewhat involved with the team, and I already agreed to help read for any tournaments that they might be hosting. Four of them will be graduating in 2008, and two more have somewhat significant commitments to other clubs, so we really need new blood. The student involvement fair the past few years has been rained out for most of the time, and so the university finally realized that in case it doesn't last long again this year, that all the clubs can advertise in a student organization booklet that they are handing out at orientation. The best player on the team the past two years has been Matt Luby (Cincinnati St. Xavier 03'), and he still has another year before he gets his master's. The next two best players (Abe Kanter and I) will be graduating in the next few months, so any additional supporting cast is good. What subjects is this senior good at getting tossups in?

[Aaron Kashtan]

The student involvement fair the past few years has been rained out for most of the time, and so the university finally realized that in case it doesn't last long again this year, that all the clubs can advertise in a student organization booklet that they are handing out at orientation.

Just as a sort of tangential note... you're saying that the student involvement fair has been cancelled multiple times because of rain, and yet they're still holding it outdoors every year. And apparently they've also neglected to reserve an alternative indoor location in case it rains. It sounds like the university doesn't care whether the fair takes place or not.

[First Chairman]

Or more likely there's no space on campus to run it indoors. Either way it doesn't surprise me. Student Activities Fairs can be big productions, if not the most confusing ones.