Once again BLZBUB is prepping for a road trip, so let’s just plunge on into the recap and ‘get’er done’.
Worn-up Round
1. The city of Gloucester, Massachusetts, is home to a famous statue of a: FISHERMAN. 2. Which elder statesman of world politics just published ‘World Order’? HENRY KISSINGER. 3. A chemist would probably know that the ‘N’ in TNT is short for: NITRO. 4. Which fictional detective was created by the late Robert B. Parker? JESSE STONE. 5. What is the famous British attraction that is located on Salisbury Plain? STONEHENGE. 6. Marin Cilic, winner of this year’s U.S. Tennis Open, represents this country: CROATIA. 7. Lemonade or ginger ale mixed with ___ is called a shandy: BEER. 8. The military conflict known as the Great Locomotive Chase took place during the: CIVIL WAR. 9. ‘The Disasters of War’ is a series of prints made in the early 19th Century by: FRANCISCO GOYA. 10. ‘Dipthong’ is a term used in: LINGUISTICS.
The Ragged Rascals had no problem with any of the above questions.
Ground-down Round
1. In contract bridge, the partner of the declarer is the: DUMMY. 2. Channel and blue are the most familiar forms of ___ in North America: CATFISH. 3. Yukon Gold is a variety of: POTATO. 4. ‘The Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy’ and ‘The Underworld USA Trilogy’ are by this writer: JAMES ELLROY. 5. La Palma and Tenerife are two of the largest ___ Islands: CANARY. 6. The 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk was the first treaty between Russia and: CHINA. 7. In the world of DC comics, murdered scientist Alec Holland comes back to life as: SWAMP THING. 8. Parejos and figurados are the main types of: CIGARS. 9. ‘The Laziest Gal in Town’ and ‘Lost Liberty Blues’ are songs by: COLE PORTER. 10. Histology is the study of: TISSUES. 11. Both a scientific law and a ___ are named after George Ellery Hale: TELESCOPE. 12. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish: NEW YEAR.
Only three queries stymied the group for tonight’s Countdown. They were GD’s 4, 6 and 9. The rest fell easily.
Scatology Round
S1. WOMEN SCIENTISTS v Food and drink Henrietta Leavitt is regarded as having paved the way for this pioneer of science: EDWIN HUBBLE. {DUFF made the call.}
S2. GEOGRAPHY v Roman poets The country of Georgia borders this body of water: BLACK SEA. {I believe SCOTR made the call.}
S3. CIVIL WAR BATTLES v strange animals The Union Army crossed the Rappahannock River at the Battle of ___December 1862: FREDERICKSBURG. {BLZBUB beat the history brain trust to the front lines.}
S4. ROMAN POETS v women scientists Between The ‘Ecologues’ and the ‘Aeneid,’ Virgil wrote this work. GEORGICS. {thanks to Duff, we scored here.}
S5. Strange animals v GEOGRAPHY Solomon Islands is a country that is a part of this subgroup of Oceania: MELANESIA. {Unfortunately, we confuse Melanesia with Micronesia.}
S6. Food and drink v CIVIL WAR BATTLES The 1863 Battle of Chickamauga was fought in this state: GEORGIA. {CHILL pre-called this one.}
Ordinarily five for six is pretty good for this round, so we’ll take it.
Frightening Round
1. Cork comes mainly from the bark of the cork: OAK. 2. In South Africa, a verdict of culpable homicide is the same as ___ in the U.S. INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER. 3. John S. Chen of Hong Kong is CEO of this famous company: BLACKBERRY LTD. 4. Mbalax is a West African: MUSICAL FORM. 5. You make meringue out of: EGG WHITES. 6. September 16 is celebrated annually as ___ Independence Day: MEXICAN. 7. Retching is also known as: DRY HEAVING.
Evidently Blackberry is less famous than we thought, or at least their CEO is less famous. Also, we seem to have no ‘world music’ aficionados on the team. So there went the points on F 3 and 4. The rest were not as bad.
Py-Ram-It Round
P1. This animal is a small, spotted cat that lives in the trees of Central and South America: MARGAY. {Against all odds, BLZBUB was the first to call this god-damned-pink-fuzzy-venomous animule.}
P2. In which year did the colonial history of Australia begin: 1788. {BLZBUB makes up for his earlier success with a stunningly bad call on this one.}
P3. This novelist wrote ‘The Good Soldier’ and the ‘Parade’s End’ tetralogy: FORD MADDOX FORD. {DUFF and MEERA with a simultaneous call, got this one.}
P4. The Estelada, or Lone Star Flag, is the unofficial flag of ___ separatism: CATALAN. {We got suckered into Basque, until the last five seconds on the clock.}
P5. John Ray, the scientist who first applied ‘species’ to biology, was born in the: 17th CENTURY. {This one was too difficult.}
FINAL TRAGEDY, on the Topic of: GREEK MYTHOLOGY
In Greek mythology, the Nereid Thetis is the mother of:
1. Odysseus 2. Achilles 3. Jason 4. Ajax 5. Heracles
The order of the eliminations was 3, 5, 4, and 1, leaving #2, ACHILLES, as the correct answer. Fortunately DUFF was able to pre-call this answer, so we salvaged some pride after that awful Pyramid Round.
The top six boxes squeaked out an average of 44,880 points. This was the average of boxes on 47743, 44967, 44781, 44145, 44011 and 43635 points. These scores placed us at SEVENTH in the Mt/Pac Zone of play and TWENTY-FIFTH system-wide.
CK’s Tavern of Phoenix, AZ was best of the West. Our friends at Danny K’s of Orange, CA finished third. System-wide the honors went to The Fellowship, playing at Buffalo Wild Wings in Kent, OH. Congrats to them and all other teams that played unaided by little silicon buddies.
_________________ }}}--( (x) (x) )---> Oh my gawd, they killed Ken Z. You bastards!
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