Carleton Undergraduate Tournament, 3/2/02

Results: Northwestern A (Joy Ride)
(Robert Flaxman, Jan Zasowski)

    One of the most fun things about Carleton is it doesn't have particularly difficult questions.  This means I can power things that aren't geography or trash-related.  Just look at last year, when among my 11 powers were Arachne, Joseph McCarthy, Adlai Stevenson, and Henry David Thoreau.  It actually didn't hold true as much this year, though my ability to get questions I wouldn't get at a tournament with harder lead-ins was still in full swing.
    Last year we sent five people and rotated around.  This year we sent six people, but it was three teams of two.  I played with Jan, and we fully expected to do well, which we did, finishing fourth.  It was a little lame because we were first through the round robin, and then we couldn't even get a trophy (top three).   But it was one of the better finishes I've been part of (considering there were 28 teams), so it wasn't terrible, even if the tournament didn't end until 8-fucking-thirty at night.
    Favorite Tossup: Probably teleprompter.  Shades of "postage stamps" in the 2000 RUAT final; it sounded right but I was going on little more than instinct.  Now you know how the really good quiz bowl players power so much shit.
    Favorite Bonus: Friends guest stars.  Who played Phoebe's twin sister, Chandler's dad, and Chandler's mom?  Lisa Kudrow, Kathleen Turner, and Morgan Fairchild.  I was proud of myself for remembering the latter, though it was more fun watching Jan think I was nuts for saying Kathleen Turner for the middle one.
    Worst Neg: Farthest off neg was probably Paul Prudhomme for Nero Wolfe... remind me not to ring in when it's such a damn guess.   Most annoying neg was Gogol for Pushkin... we read them both in Russian Lit, and I would have powered it if I could have remembered who they were talking about... and then I said the wrong one just as they were actually starting to name works.  Grrrr.
    Most Ludicrous Power: They give some lines of longitude, then mention Mt. Erebus, so I ring in and say "Antarctica," though that was clearly dumb since they were obviously looking for something more specific.  Amazingly, they prompt me, so I say "Ross Ice Shelf," which of course was right, for power no less.
    Best "Heard It" Moment: I don't think I've ever heard a question on Lake Okeechobee that didn't begin with "a remnant of the prehistoric Pamlico Sea..."  Hence why I powered it yet again.
    Most Disappointing Moment: Losing to a freaking one-man team in the third-place game.  A win would have gotten us a trophy; instead, we stayed there as long as anyone else and didn't even have anything to show for it.

West Division - Full Round Robin

Round One: Northwestern A 355, Grinnell Cake 210
Round Two: Northwestern A 260, Iowa State "I am the Walrus" 260
Round Three: Northwestern A 405, Northwestern C 80
Round Four: Northwestern A 470, St. Olaf B 130
Round Five: Northwestern A 320, Wisconsin B 135
Round Six: Northwestern A 315, Carleton Han 270
Round Seven: Northwestern A 405, Carleton Sung 200
Round Eight: Northwestern A 395, Iowa A 245
Round Nine: Minnesota A 290, Northwestern A 215
Round Ten: Northwestern A 245, Wisconsin C 215
Round Eleven: Northwestern A 270, St. Thomas 220
Round Twelve: Northwestern A 280, Carleton Ch'ing 265
Round Thirteen: Northwestern A 270, Carleton T'ang 195

Prelims Record: 11-1-1

Single Elimination Playoffs

Quarterfinals: W1) Northwestern A 300, E4) Wisconsin A 165
Semifinals: E2) Iowa State "Walter, what's a pederast?" 395, W1) Northwestern A 280
Third-place game: E1) Carleton Chou 320, W1) Northwestern A 210

Final Record: 12-3-1, fourth place

Personal Stats: Questions Answered

   No one's asking you to care about it.  Powers are in bold, neg-5s are in italics with the real answer following.  Anything in plain text was just ten.

Round One
Bobby Knight
Legionnaire's Disease
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Fountain of Youth
William Tell
Operation!

Round Two
Boers
Trees
Québec (City)
Fiona Apple (really Macy Gray)
Pledge of Allegiance

Round Three
Gamaliel
Divine Right of Kings
Texas Rangers
WUSA
Potomac River
Lord Cornwallis
Sydney
Xylem (really phloem)
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

Round Four
James Thurber
Washington Wizards
Lake of the Woods
Boxing Day
Edgar Allan Poe
John Tyler
Borneo
Vicente Fox
Ambrose Burnside
Ariadne

Round Five
Sri Lanka
Pancho Villa
Pronoun
Earl Warren
Teleprompter
Trent Lott

Round Six
John Venn
Kublai Khan
Lake Okeechobee

Round Seven
Lyrical Ballads
Cal Ripken Jr.

Round Eight
Lake Placid
Ross Ice Shelf
Bangladesh
Lake Chad
Charles Foster Kane
Hack

Round Nine
Isle of Wight
Ground zero
Lake Huron
L. Frank Baum

Round Ten
Gordie Howe
Isle of Man
Gore
Georgia
Nikolai Gogol (really Alexander Pushkin)

Round Eleven
Leopold Bloom (really Stephen Dedalus)
Remus
Walt Whitman
San Andreas Fault
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Black Hole of Calcutta

Round Twelve
Paul Prudhomme (really Nero Wolfe)
Grenada
Australia
Winter Olympics (really alpine skiing)
Gingivitis
Nuit
Lake Ponchartrain

Round Thirteen
Rasputin (really Alexander I)
Apocalypse Now
Macedonia
Turkey
Carmen
How Do I Love Thee?

Quarterfinals
Houston Rockets
Hackysack
Namibia
Baleen
I've Been Workin' on the Railroad

Semifinals
El Dorado
Kuwait
Rests
Mars

Third Place
Pitcairn Island
D'oh
Rockin' the Suburbs

PPG: 52.19