New Scaratings

And we think the changes at buzztime have been bad over the years...

Here was an actual trivia question on our local radio station this morning for prizes:

Pittsburgh is the 2nd largest city in Pennsylvania. But what is the largest city in Pennsylvania?

Aaaaargh

What were the choices?

Cleveland.

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RABBIT

I'm not bad -- I'm just drawn that way.

Toronto?

Punxsutawney. (If you're a ground hog!)

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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...."

Cleveland.

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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

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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!!!!!

Carlsbad?

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/```\
(o\_!_/o)

I'm going with 3 on this one, but I'm stabbing...

Unless France is one of the choices!

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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...."

There is no question, NTN is definitely dumbing down trivia, but this is nothing new. On the original "ScaRatings" we talked about this at length. NTN wants to attract new, younger players, who don't know the answers to serious, grown-up questions, that they should have learned in high school or college. So NTN is putting more and more questions up there that are about current pop culture. NTN knows that old folks, who actually know shit, will be kicking the bucket before long, and they want to have a new crop of players, who know all about Rap music, and other stupid nonsense to replace them.

I have suffered through so many games that have asked pretty much nothing other than current pop culture questions, that I should probably have gone out on a two hour cigarette break when they started.

.................................

.......................................... Let me know when they get back to grown-up questions.

p.s. Just watch Leno's "Jay Walking" and you will understand what I am talking about.

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"The game is afoot."

Not picking on you guy, but I see your name in the rankings all the time; usually in the top ten so you are like in the top 0.1% and as such don't represent the norm. True, like you I think BT does a disservice to all players when the choices are Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles and London instead of all Pennsylvania cities, but BT's major account is Buffalo Wild Wings with lots of children playing. There needs to be a few gimmes for the masses. The irrelevent pop culture questions are another matter.

I have always felt that NTN/Buzztime throws in an easy question or two to generate interest in the games, to let everyone think that they have a chance. Seldom are the questions so ridiculously easy as the Philadelphia question asked at the one radio station, but I can think of a few cute examples. The one I can most easily remember (from about four years ago) was where the American Spelling Bee was held. The five choices were Shicago, Bahstin, Noo Yawk, Filadelfia, and Washington, D.C. Although this was around the time that Duh! was one of the games, I think this was actually a Countdown question.

Last Thursday's Topix (Alaska) was challenging enough that only three people on the NTN network had 90% of the highest possible score, with nothing even close to a perfect game. Yet one of the question thrown in was "What flows through the Alaskan Pipeline?"

-- 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...."

That's not true. The question was:

A MASSIVE DEPOSIT OF
THIS SUBSTANCE WAS
DISCOVERED ON ALASKA'S
NORTH SLOPE IN 1968:

The choices were oil, gold, uranium, coal and silver.

Tom, thank you for the correction.

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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...."

This is why "Buzztime" is dumbing down trivia...

NTN has done their homework. Their researchers have spent months on this, and this is what their demographic studies have found to be the people, whom they need to target in the future:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXRjmyJF ... re=related

Funny as this is, I worry that it is true.

p.s. I borrowed this link from the "Obscure Movies You Like" thread, but somehow I think it applies to this thread. The movie that you need to see to understand what NTN is doing is "Idiocracy".

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"The game is afoot."

The one that had me last night during The Season was something like, "What color are the penalty flags in an NFL game?"

Seriously? (Although I guess that one goes back to Jim's point about little kids playing the game).

POMAN, you need to watch the movie,"Idiocracy", and you will begin to understand why NTN is doing this to us. Though American stupidity creeps forward slowly, it is the way of the future. The reality TV shows that seem to dominate network television these days, should only confirm the direction our culture is going.

(Seriously, watch the movie, "Idiocracy", and let me know what you think...)

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"The game is afoot."

Brawndo it has what plants crave.

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

LEWSER, you've seen the movie...! I am greatly impressed...! Do you think there is any hope for the rest of them?

Let's take a moment to watch the "Brawndo" scene once again:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 485033927#

Darn this video cuts off too soon, but I guess if it went on, it would have told the uninitiated too much about the movie. Maybe we can get them all to watch "Idiocracy", before it is too late.

p.s. After watching this film clip, anyone, who knows FSHMAN, will have to agree that Joe looks remarkably like FSHMAN. Yeah, perhaps a somewhat younger FSHMAN, but I'm pretty sure that is Andy saving the world 500 years in the future.

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"The game is afoot."