New Scaratings

For the following month:

April 5 - In Your Backyard
April 6 - Dr. Seuss
April 12 - The Titanic
April 13 - Leonardo DiCaprio
April 19 - Baby Animals
April 20 - 80's Music
April 26 - Midwestern States
April 27 - Seinfeld

The above is not a cut and paste, so I did not repeat BT's typo for 4/13. Any typos are mine and mine alone.

Offhand, the only one I'm looking forward to is 4/26, although I am curious about 4/6 and 4/12.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

I like most of them after Dr Seuss. Titanic will be fun.

No Titanic or Leo.

Rest will be fine.

If the Titanic is about the historical Titanic, I might enjoy. If it's about that godawful turdstain of a movie, well, I think not.

Ah, those wacky Zogfield Follies!

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/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

And pengwn wins this month's Find The Typo contest and wins the Grand Prize: a no-expense paid, one way trip to Calgary, Alberta!!

Seriously, I type so many things into my tablet that I'm surprised I don't make more typos. I have never figured out how to use a spellchecker on this thing.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I went into that moving with the idea of making fun of it, but ended up liking it. It's a bit cheesy, but at the time, the visuals were quite impressive. And the old woman did quite an amazing job of acting.

Could be better could be worse. Baby animals and Midwestern states may be fun, and the Titanic should be okay but I have learned my lesson about playing weekend topics: I would be willing to play a Dr. Seuss game if I were not convinced it would be a third or 50% movie related as was the Hunger Games. Certainly no interest in the backyard game or any of the other weekend games.

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Please forgive any strange typos or grammar errors. I am typically using voice recognition software to enter text, and sometimes editing works differently from how I expect.

Titanic game recap, as reconstructed from very brief notes scribbled in the margin of my New York Times crossword:

1) She was built for the British (White Star) Line
2) Her sister ships were the Britannic and: (Olympic)
3) Builders Harland & Wolff were located in this city: (Belfast)
4) On April 10, 1912, she sailed from: (Southampton, England)
5) A massive ship, she measured just over: (882 feet)
[This one was a little tricky. The word "massive" led me to expect gross tonnage]

6) Which part of the ship measured 78 feet high and 15 feet long? (Rudder)
7) After sailing from England, she next stopped in (Cherbourg), France
8) This man captained Titanic: (Edward J. Smith)
9) She sunk about 400 miles off the coast of: (Newfoundland)
10) This hymn is widely rumored to be the last song played by the orchestra: (Nearer My God To Thee)

11) Which tycoon [of the five listed] perished in the sinking? (John Jacob Astor IV)
12) What nearby ship rescued the survivors? (Carpathia)
13) Survivor Dick Williams went on to become a famous: (Tennis player)
[This was the iceberg that sunk many games, including my own]
14) A Franco-American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel and Robert Ballard found the wreck in: (1985)
15) The Titanic lies at a depth of just over: (12,000 feet)

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/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

pengwn, your West feed questions appear to be very similar, if not identical, to the East feed questions that we received. I recall that September 1 was part of the question asking for the year the wreckage was found; you showed this as Q14, which is about right.

I had thought that the East and West feed questions were supposed to be slightly different.

Although I hear some groaning on a couple of forum threads, I thought it was a very good game.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

Wish I could have played. I knew all the answers except Dick Williams. I was doing my Income Tax.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

Anyone even vaguely interested in the subject knew all the answers except Williams though - that's why it was a game good for padding averages but useless for finding out who had a better knowledge of the topic.

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Please forgive any strange typos or grammar errors. I am typically using voice recognition software to enter text, and sometimes editing works differently from how I expect.

You sound upset.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

I just read the Wikipedia write-up on Dick Williams (tennis player). His tennis credentials (Davis Cup, Grand Slams, Olympic Gold medalist) suggests that he was famous enough in his own time that his mention on the Topix on the Titanic was, in my opinion, quite fair. The question was undoubtedly meant as a toughie to "separate the men from the boys."

A very well-written game, as far as I can determine. In fact, I give kudos to those BT staff in charge of the Thursday Topix in general.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

Which is welcomed, but a 15-question game should have around a half-dozen such questions

The writer(s) did avoid any of the contentious material and stuck to indisputable facts for the most part, and I for one appreciate that. In the case of the hymn question, that's a well-established rumour, and the wording made that clear. Nothing at all concerning the various Titanic movies, or prescient literature published prior to 1912, which I was quite pleased about

I do think they could have dug a little deeper, such as:
A question concerning the engine room, such as number of boilers or daily coal consumption
"Who was the most senior officer to survive Titanic's sinking?", listing five of the eight command officers
"What was the name of the lookout who first spotted the fatal iceberg?"
"What was Titanic's radio call sign?" CQD and RMS would be decent distractors
"Which amenity was *not* available on board?" Wrong answers there could include Swimming pool, Turkish bath, Post office, Barber shop and Gymnasium

Okay, I'm going to stop myself here. These are merely 15 question games, after all. This one I think I would grade B- at best

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/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

Actually, pengwn, I am in partial agreement. But there should have been one or two more tough questions, not a half-dozen. The questions were easy enough after finding them on Wikipedia. But this afternoon, I asked some of the questions of a co-worker who is reasonably intelligent but not about the Titanic. He would not have done well at last night's game. Nor would most people. Most people wouldn't know where the Titanic was assembled, let alone the highest-ranking surviving crew member.

I would have graded last night's game a B or B+.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

Upset? No. Disappointed in BT's continuing inability to put together a Topix that is interesting, challenging, discriminating and free from irrelevancies for people who know the topic though.

As an aside I'd be genuinely interested in why you think so though as it's not the first assumption like that about posts I've made - no profanity, insults, hyperbole that I can see here. PM if preferred.

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Please forgive any strange typos or grammar errors. I am typically using voice recognition software to enter text, and sometimes editing works differently from how I expect.

Well I'm sure Al ansewered a majority of the questions and I'm sure you took full advantage of the game. would say nice job, but I m sure your sandbagging instinct took over

13 of the 15 ansewers were softballs. The tennis player question was tough as I have read pretty much every book, article, TV program about the Titanic and never heard of Dick wiliams except he was a manager of the Oakland A's in the 70's. I lost myself on the final question which I should have nailed.

I agree as i my previous post 13 of the 15 were softballs, I could ansewer most of the questions you just posted, i did lose a few on the rudder question as I started with boiler 1st.
2nd officer Lightoller
Frederick Fleet
CQD, then changed to SOS
daily coal consumption would have been tough, because of the coal strike Smith did not order 2 of the boilers to be lit up, as coal was a commodity that couldn't be wasted.
ther was a gym, turkish bath and pool, proabably a barber shop. I do not believe there was a post office, but being RMS (Royal Mail steamer) they did carry alot of mail, which was one of the 1st places flooded when Titanic hit the berg.
overall a good, but frustrating game for me

Well, you weren't there, were you? Ask Al about the game next time you see him.

Dante, the above comment is clearly inappropriate.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

Upset and disapppointed are similar to me. I get dissapointed and upset when things or people do not rise to my expectations.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

Sorry Zog, just know your history, something that will hang around you for a long time. But I apologize if I hurt your feelings. Maybe see you on Thurs.

Ah gotcha - personally I see the former as having a more emotional aspect that affects one's overall state, and the latter merely a negative assessment of something's quality compared to the quality anticipated. In your usage I could indeed be said to be both, but not in mine.

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Please forgive any strange typos or grammar errors. I am typically using voice recognition software to enter text, and sometimes editing works differently from how I expect.

Last night's Midwest Topix was fun, with one major exception, and that was the population question near the end of the game; I think it was the 13th or 14th question at least on the East feed. It is rare, at least in my experience, for BT to blow a Thursday Topix question, but they definitely blew one last night.

Although Adams Mill was 7th in the East feed, and the 2nd highest among bars not in the Midwest, we should have done better. I recognized Kool Aid as a correct answer in time to score about 350 points, for instance.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."