Feb. 26th, 2005
So, SciBowl...
Feb. 26th, 2005 06:14 pmTeam: Me (captain), Mark, Josh, Emi
I arrived at the school about 7:15, perhaps a bit late. Everyone else was already there... except Mr. Gupta. Thankfully he arrived before we tried anything crazy like calling Dr. Galitskiy.
Time passes, we arrive, we find Anton is there, and he chases me in circles trying to poke me. Nobody else we recognize.
We notice High Tech has entered. "Oh... boy..."
High Tech, if you don't recall, is a school we had never seen in any tournament until Millburn, last year - where they completely destroyed everyone, including all the usual top teams.
Pingry isn't there, so we don't get to play them...
So... round 1. In the room listed as "Theory" (actually T168). Which is where? We try just about every wrong direction possible in getting there, since the actual way to it is not remotely guessable at all. (And none of the maps show enough to lead you to it.)
The tournament is double-elimination - you start out in the no-loss bracket; upon losing, you get knocked down to the one-loss bracket. Lose there, you're out; at the end, the winner of the no-loss and the one-loss have to play each other - though of course, the one-loss winner has to beat the no-loss winner twice in order to win.
Round 1: Vs Highland Park B. Easy win. They get no points at all in the first half, while we have 116. They start cheering obnoxiously when they get the first question of the second half right. They didn't seem to quite know the rules; they often forgot to wait to be acknowledged, and they got called for conferring once. Mark gets annoyed as I consistently beat him on the buzzer. WIN, 172-44.
Round 2,3: Bye. We sat and watched Watchung Hills beat Princeton Day School (not to be confused with the Princeton High School teams) easily, then PDS beat Highland Park B. All this in Theory, since we were going to be there for Round 4 anyway.
Round 4: Vs Watchung Hills. Another easy win. They got an entire 4 points during the first half. WIN, 178-50.
Round 5, Lunch: Bye. We were no longer going to be in Theory, so, rather than watch Watchung Hills play WWPSA[0], we went and ate lunch, which, it turned out, was free, which was nice. After Round 5 was lunch, so we... ate more lunch. Or wandered around. Or went and copied the giant score-tree down. "I think we have a good shot at beating High Tech." Next we were to face Princeton A, Anton's team.
Me, to Anton: We're probably facing you next.
Josh or Mark: We *are* facing you next.
Anton: How did you do?
Me: Win 172-44 first round, win 178-50 secound round.
Anton: Wow. I'd hate to be facing you next.
Me: ...you *are* facing us next.
Anton: Oh. Well.
[The conversation then turns to Anton's memory.]
Round 6: Vs Princeton A. As it turned out that was wrong, Anton was on the B team, and was facing WWPNA next. Match against Princeton A was nothing really remarkable. WIN, 184-82.
Round 7: Bye. Stayed in Commons, watched Princeton A play New Providence. Anton chased me around trying to poke me again.
Round 8: Vs East Brunswick, the people who won last year. Pretty close during the first half, they lead 50-32 at the end of it. Things only got worse in the second half, though. LOSS, 58-90.
So, it's down to the one-loss bracket (kshunk!), which also means we have to play more games.
Round 9: Vs WWPSA. Another close game, we're down 50-68 at the half, but we WIN, 94-80. We also find out that High Tech has been knocked down to the one-loss bracket... and in fact, we're playing them next!
Round 10: Ah, High Tech. This should be interesting. Our biggest problem so far has been not being fast enough... time to really play aggressively. ("Remember: If we win this, we at least get a trophy.") Well, it seems they're hardly the fearsome beasts they were back at Millburn, WIN 132-60, as buzzing in sooner than normal pays off.
Round 11: Vs WWPNA. If we get past this, we have to beat East Brunswick twice to win... first we have to worry about winning this, though. We don't. LOSS, 62-90, we're eliminated and take 3rd.
Question of the day: First round. Our bonus. Name the largest organ in the human body. Josh: "The femur?" Mark: "It's the skin, it's always the skin. It's a trick question." Me: "I think it's the liver." We can't seem to come to any consensus, so I go with the liver. "No. It's the skin." Mark gets annoyed and acts like he's going to slap me. Much later, against High Tech, a tossup asks for the largest *internal* organ. Emi correctly buzzes in with the liver.
-Sniffnoy
[0]I have no clue what WWP is, but there were 4 teams from it - WWP North A, WWP North B, WWP South A, and WWP South B. I'll refer to them by these 5-letter abbreviations. The existence of 4 teams, and named so strangely, caused quite a bit of confusion.
Me: We're playing North next.
Mark: What?! North was destroyed, I was told!
Me: Maybe that was North B?
Mark: They have a B team?
--
"REPAINT VERSION
This is not a new product at all. The Edition of us
whom it is already on market were painted again in the new method,
hi-skill and a point of view."
-engrish.com
I arrived at the school about 7:15, perhaps a bit late. Everyone else was already there... except Mr. Gupta. Thankfully he arrived before we tried anything crazy like calling Dr. Galitskiy.
Time passes, we arrive, we find Anton is there, and he chases me in circles trying to poke me. Nobody else we recognize.
We notice High Tech has entered. "Oh... boy..."
High Tech, if you don't recall, is a school we had never seen in any tournament until Millburn, last year - where they completely destroyed everyone, including all the usual top teams.
Pingry isn't there, so we don't get to play them...
So... round 1. In the room listed as "Theory" (actually T168). Which is where? We try just about every wrong direction possible in getting there, since the actual way to it is not remotely guessable at all. (And none of the maps show enough to lead you to it.)
The tournament is double-elimination - you start out in the no-loss bracket; upon losing, you get knocked down to the one-loss bracket. Lose there, you're out; at the end, the winner of the no-loss and the one-loss have to play each other - though of course, the one-loss winner has to beat the no-loss winner twice in order to win.
Round 1: Vs Highland Park B. Easy win. They get no points at all in the first half, while we have 116. They start cheering obnoxiously when they get the first question of the second half right. They didn't seem to quite know the rules; they often forgot to wait to be acknowledged, and they got called for conferring once. Mark gets annoyed as I consistently beat him on the buzzer. WIN, 172-44.
Round 2,3: Bye. We sat and watched Watchung Hills beat Princeton Day School (not to be confused with the Princeton High School teams) easily, then PDS beat Highland Park B. All this in Theory, since we were going to be there for Round 4 anyway.
Round 4: Vs Watchung Hills. Another easy win. They got an entire 4 points during the first half. WIN, 178-50.
Round 5, Lunch: Bye. We were no longer going to be in Theory, so, rather than watch Watchung Hills play WWPSA[0], we went and ate lunch, which, it turned out, was free, which was nice. After Round 5 was lunch, so we... ate more lunch. Or wandered around. Or went and copied the giant score-tree down. "I think we have a good shot at beating High Tech." Next we were to face Princeton A, Anton's team.
Me, to Anton: We're probably facing you next.
Josh or Mark: We *are* facing you next.
Anton: How did you do?
Me: Win 172-44 first round, win 178-50 secound round.
Anton: Wow. I'd hate to be facing you next.
Me: ...you *are* facing us next.
Anton: Oh. Well.
[The conversation then turns to Anton's memory.]
Round 6: Vs Princeton A. As it turned out that was wrong, Anton was on the B team, and was facing WWPNA next. Match against Princeton A was nothing really remarkable. WIN, 184-82.
Round 7: Bye. Stayed in Commons, watched Princeton A play New Providence. Anton chased me around trying to poke me again.
Round 8: Vs East Brunswick, the people who won last year. Pretty close during the first half, they lead 50-32 at the end of it. Things only got worse in the second half, though. LOSS, 58-90.
So, it's down to the one-loss bracket (kshunk!), which also means we have to play more games.
Round 9: Vs WWPSA. Another close game, we're down 50-68 at the half, but we WIN, 94-80. We also find out that High Tech has been knocked down to the one-loss bracket... and in fact, we're playing them next!
Round 10: Ah, High Tech. This should be interesting. Our biggest problem so far has been not being fast enough... time to really play aggressively. ("Remember: If we win this, we at least get a trophy.") Well, it seems they're hardly the fearsome beasts they were back at Millburn, WIN 132-60, as buzzing in sooner than normal pays off.
Round 11: Vs WWPNA. If we get past this, we have to beat East Brunswick twice to win... first we have to worry about winning this, though. We don't. LOSS, 62-90, we're eliminated and take 3rd.
Question of the day: First round. Our bonus. Name the largest organ in the human body. Josh: "The femur?" Mark: "It's the skin, it's always the skin. It's a trick question." Me: "I think it's the liver." We can't seem to come to any consensus, so I go with the liver. "No. It's the skin." Mark gets annoyed and acts like he's going to slap me. Much later, against High Tech, a tossup asks for the largest *internal* organ. Emi correctly buzzes in with the liver.
-Sniffnoy
[0]I have no clue what WWP is, but there were 4 teams from it - WWP North A, WWP North B, WWP South A, and WWP South B. I'll refer to them by these 5-letter abbreviations. The existence of 4 teams, and named so strangely, caused quite a bit of confusion.
Me: We're playing North next.
Mark: What?! North was destroyed, I was told!
Me: Maybe that was North B?
Mark: They have a B team?
--
"REPAINT VERSION
This is not a new product at all. The Edition of us
whom it is already on market were painted again in the new method,
hi-skill and a point of view."
-engrish.com