New Scaratings

Showdown Recap for 9 May 2017 at BWW Gibson in ABQ

Huge gusts of wind graced the Land of Entrapment on Tuesday. Reports of tornados and hailstorms bounced around the airwaves as New Mexico broadcasters tried in vain to pump up awareness of the evil conditions. “In vain,” you say. Yes, it failed to alert one of our stalwart krewe to the danger, and he was in a traffic accident while commuting from Santa Fe to the ABQ for Showdown. Fortunately, there were only minor injuries.

However, there were to be major injuries to our egos as a result of the brainstorms encountered while playing Showdown, starting with the…

Worn-up Round

1. ‘En passant’ is a French term used in this game: CHESS.
2. Who wrote the lyrics to such songs as ‘Mack the Knife’ and ‘Alabama Song’? BERTOLT BRECHT.
3. Which term listed refers to a structural safety device: BULKHEAD. {It is difficult to safely dance around a bulkhead. And if they don’t dance, they’re no friends of mine.}
4. Princess Pauline Borghese was the favorite sister of this famous man: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. {Sacre Bleu!}
5. Which adjective would best describe a forgiving person? MAGNANIMOUS.
6. La Serenissima, or The Most Serene, is a name applied to this medieval republic: VENICE.
7. In Celtic myth, Tristan was the name of a: KNIGHT.
8. Roberta Peters, born in New York City in 1930, went on to become a world famous: OPERA SINGER. {Once again, our team’s lack of a culture vulture comes back to bite us.}
9. Which of these would a pharmacist most likely use: EXCIPIENT.
10. Ciudad Juarez is a Mexican city that sits on the U.S. border across from: EL PASO.
{The team employed 5-way splits on WU’s 4 and 8, which counterbalanced good pre-calls on WU’s 1, 5, 6, and 10. The other four were answered by process of elimination.}

Ground-down Round

1. Kustom Kulture refers to the art work and lifestyles of ___ and custom car devotees. BIKERS.
2. Which National Monument features a block of granite known as the Stone of Hope? MLK, JR. MEMORIAL.
3. Mahgrebies are inhabitants of: NORTHWEST AFRICA.
4. The C Melody ___ is larger than an alto and smaller than a tenor. SAXOPHONE.
5. What the heck is a pademelon? SPECIES OF MARSUPIAL. {Ahh, run away, run away!}
6. The popular resort island known as ‘Le Levant’ is just off the coast of: THE FRENCH RIVIERA. {We fell hook, line, and sinker for the alterative choice ‘Israel.’}
7. The first ___ made its debut in New Haven, Connecticut in 1878. TELEPHONE DIRECTORY.
8. The onager is also known as the ___ Wild Ass. ASIATIC.
9. In current economic speak, ‘Dark Money’ refers to money given to: NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS.
10. The Book of Job features a huge creature named: THE LEVIATHAN.
11. A holiday favorite, Linzer cookies feature: RASPBERRY JAM FILLING.
12. The senior member of a class or group would most likely be called a: DOYEN.

{Other than the 5-way split/third clue saves on GD’s 5 and 6, the team ran the board on this round. That’s way better than a normal Countdown Round finish for us.}

Scatology Round

S1. VOCABULARY v Italy
To ___ something is to make it impossible to happen: PRECLUDE. {MEERA presciently pre-called preclude.}

S2. Classical music v FOOD
Pesto sauce usually includes all of these ingredients except: PICKLES. {Greek chorus}

S3. Poetry v LEGENDARY ATHLETES
Jacques Plante was one of the 20th Century’s greatest athletes. What was his game? HOCKEY. {CHILL, with the slap shot for the goal.}

S4. Food v VOCABULARY
Which word is closest in meaning to ‘unmitigated’? ABSOLUTE. {DUFF had run off a short list of synonyms before the choices appeared. He was not an unmitigated bore.}

S5. LEGEN(wait for it)DARY ATHLETES v classical music
This Australian was one of the Twentieth Century’s greatest middle distance runners: HERB ELLIOT. {We needed the third clue to save us here.}

S6. ITALY v poetry
In business, Italy’s Creminelli Family is associated with: FINE MEATS. {This question made minced meat of us, requiring a third clue save to cure us.}
{The team went four of six for 1000 points, but finished the round limping.}

Frightening Round

1. Navient is the largest U.S. ___ provider. STUDENT LOAN.
2. A 2017 United Nations report ranks Norway as the world’s ___ country. HAPPIEST.
3. A forest consisting primarily of cone-bearing trees is a ___ forest. CONIFEROUS.
4. In the world of sports, the France Family is known as the first family of: NASCAR.
5. Which musician would have been 50 years old in 2017? KURT COBAIN.
6. The Bitterroot Range and Bitterroot River are in this state: MONTANA.
7. In the nursery rhyme ‘This Little Piggy,’ the third piggy ate: ROAST BEEF.
{Woohoo! The team nailed all of these questions…a minor triumph of late.}

Py-Ram-It Round

P1. Kate Croy, Merton Densher, and Milly Theale are literary characters created by:
Choices: Pablo Neruda, Sinclair Lewis, Henry James, Hemingway, Joseph Heller
A: HENRY JAMES. {After much Hemming and hawing, the team settled on James.}

P2. The tuatara, native only to New Zealand, physically resembles a:
Choices: Parrot, Kangaroo, Muskrat, Giraffe, Lizard
A: LIZARD. {BLZBUB took the whole team to Hell with a wrong answer here.}

P3. Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Kilroy were found guilty for their role in the:
Choices: Great train robbery, Teapot Dome scandal, Defenestration of Prague, Patty Hearst kidnapping, Boston Massacre
A: BOSTON MASSACRE

P4. It deals with the force interacting between static electrically charged particles:
Choices: Doppler Effect, Coulomb’s Law, Bell’s Theorem, Von Neumann Paradox, Archimedes Principal
A: COULOMB’S LAW. {Although both BLZBUB and DUFF thought the question awkwardly phrased, they had no difficulty calling this answer.}

P5. Romantic painter Henry Fuseli’s most famous painting is of a woman asleep and a:
Choices: Baby beside her, Full moon outside, Demon atop her, Dog beneath the bed, Burglar in the room
A: DEMON ATOP HER. {DUFF made this call with an assist by MEERA, allowing the team to finish the round at 4 of 5 correct. BLZBUB disavows any resemblance to that demon as being coincidental.}

FINAL TRAGEDY
Topic: ASTRONOMY

In what decade did astronomers first observe pulsars?

1. 1940’s
2. 1900’s
3. 1920’s
4. 1960’s
5. 1980’s

The order of the eliminations was 3, 2, 5, and 1, leaving #4, 1960’s, as the correct answer. Prior to the appearance of the five choices BLZBUB and DUFF had already arrived at this answer. Everyone on the team scored the maximum points available.

The top individual scores for the night were 51528, 51055, 49788, 49714, 49591, and 49051.

The team average score was 50,121 points.

The team’s ranking was SEVENTH Place, including the cheat-sheet-sneaks using little silicon buddies to get answers. In the wetware-only division, the Ragged Rascals apparently came in FOURTH. We were behind Tailgate (MN), the Fellowship (OH), and Mad River (NYC), and one spot ahead of Teaser’s (IL).

Congratulations on a hard-fought game to all of the above-board, wetware-only teams. Sack cloth and ashes to the Borg collectives.

_________________
}}}--( (x) (x) )--->
Oh my gawd, they killed
Ken Z.
You bastards!

S1. vocabulary vs. ITALY
Camorra is to Campania as MAFIA IS TO SICILY.

S3. POETRY vs. legendary athletes
"Let Us Compare Mythologies" and "Flowers for Hitler" were written by LEONARD COHEN.


--Rick Magnus
RickM, Blue Goose

S4: FOOD: It is a primary ingredient in a Linzer Torte: Caroline pre-called butter, but swiftly corrected to LEMON. We at the Tailgate were all in for a grand.

S5: CLASSICAL MUSIC: The Surprise, the Schoolmaster*, and the Hallelujah* are among his symphonies: JOSEPH HAYDN.

I may have mis-phrased both of these questions. " * " would indicate uncertainty regarding the entries. Haydn has more nicknamed symphonies than Beethoven and Mozart combined. I'd like to think I'm a reliable distributor of fake news, and soon to be fired from a job I've grown to detest, but this news is pretty close to the truth. I think.

**I was astonished to see this question, since the Final Showdown of the previous week was (or close to), "Which of the following composers spent most of his career in the employ of the Esterhazy family?" FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN. Apparently lightning can strike twice.

Thanks for posting the quiz, BLZBUB. It's good to have you back down here among your acolytes, fanning the flames.

The first classical music question asked what instrument plays the theme of the wolf in "Peter and the Wolf" (FRENCH HORN).





I believe the other two were the "Military" and the "Drumroll." I am glad we took this over the other Legendary Athletes question. The vote was actually pretty close.



Or three times. Remember that just a week or two before that, there was the pyramid question asking for the person associated with Ferdinand Esterhazy. I led our team straight to perdition by precalling Haydn, which showed up as one of the choices, and of course we were chagrined to see Dreyfus appear as the answer.

I sometimes wonder if the content folks at BT are just messing with us. I guess they have to have some fun, too.

_________________
Anon
"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."

Two linzer questions in the same round?

_________________
Merkin

It's been many times observed, that if you want something done right, ask a busy man to do it.

Oh for God's sake, MERKIN, don't tell me I screwed that one up as well! Wasn't Anton Bruckner a native of Linz? Somewhere I have a half finished story entitled "Bruckner's Revenge," and now I'm convinced, paranoia being its own justification, that you know how the story actually ends, while I'm still trying to puzzle it out.

The Tailgate was outperformed by Gig Harbor and Torrey Pines. BLZBUB, in granting my site, the Tailgate, pride of place, dismisses both of the higher scoring sites as "borg collectives."

I have no special wisdom. I was unpleasantly surprised that the lead player at Torrey Pines identified himself as FLILJL. This handle demonstrates, not so much excellence at trivia, as a failure of social boundaries. The notion that his group were cheating becomes secondary.

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liljol, still residing in a humble lil abode in Buzztime's Backyard, San Diego County, in The Horribly Site-Poor Golden State, California...

<--805 NTN Buzztime sites visited as of 11/13/2018...

F CUBS!!!!! FBOSOX!!!!!

FPDRES!!!!! FCHGRS!!!!!

Thanks for the correction, Joel. I was intending to book a flight to Las Vegas, packing a baseball bat. But as you've taken it with good humor, I might yet hitch-hike there, equipped with a fly-swatter.

There is a difference between having the handle and then backing it up on the ratings.

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Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.