Your World Series soundtrack

The Randoms "Let's Get Rid of New York"


Fear "New York's Alright (If You Like Saxophones)"

More harmful bullshit from the so-called "National Trivia Association"

... which is in reality precisely one douchebag named Andrew Weilgus. Long-time blog readers might recall this particular turd from this post or this one, in which we learned that Andy W. makes a series of farcical and questionably legal claims to other quizmasters in an attempt to extract money from them in exchange for, in effect, nothing.

Last week I received a call from local magician and quizmaster Michael W., who works in Andy's backyard, the Jersey Shore. You should check out his cool magic and quiz site here. Michael reads the blog and was aware of my previous run-ins with the so-called NTA, and wanted to share his tale and ask me what was up with this fruitcake.

Michael took Andy at his (sometimes) claim that the NTA is just there to help promote the game across the board, and sent a nice little email asking if it would be possible to list his games on the site. The response was two emails from Andy containing his unique brand of semi-literate insult, abuse, idle threat and fiction-based braggadocio.

Exhibit the First:

"Sorry i'm not advertising competing games, many people have been confused thinking you were working for us and have relayed their disappointment when they found out it was not NTA. Good luck with your en devours."

I seriously doubt that any one person at any time has ever even noticed that a quiz was or wasn't affililiated with the NTA, let alone "many" people, and the idea that this spelling- and grammar-challenged douche is writing better quizzes than most of us is laughable.

Of particular amusement to me is the pseudo-French phrase en devours, no doubt intended to mean the English word endeavours. There isn't a French word "devours." This from the man who writes a far superior quiz to the rest of us according to his website!

Not content with this display of ignorance, Andy W., clearly worried that someone is doing a better job of running quizzes than him in his own backyard, sent a second email attempting to threaten Michael with ruin and entice him with fictional employment via the NTA:

Exhibit the Second:

"We cant work with you on Laguna because we have a no compete in that town but if you wanted to consider switching to our game for the Fridays show i could talk to you about taking a role with us and training you as an alternate in the region, you would have to not use the game in brigantine though. I can tell you since we ve been running quizzo since 2000 down here we've seen a ton of independent games come and go because they can't offer the level of game we can nor can they match the nation wide tournament aspect of our game which includes our nation finals in atlantic city. Depending on what you were getting from Fridays i'd be willing to discuss a deal."

Michael is effectively telling Andy to stuff it through ignoring him, as is appropriate. I doubt that Andrew with his shaky grasp both of the English language and reality could "train" a working stage magician and actually bright fellow on how to do a better quiz than he does now. "Nation finals" ? Not "National Finals"? I've taught many an ESL student who knew better than that.

Let the quizmaster and quiz player beware; this is how the "NTA"/ Andrew Weilgus, with no legal right to even the name quizzo and as a relative latecomer to the quiz biz, does business. A "no-compete" for quizzo? Seriously?! That's like having a no-compete for darts or pool... or beer.

Incidentally I recently re-cleaned up the Wikipedia entry for Quizzo, which frequently morphs into a semi-literate, inappropriate series of ads for various quizzes in the rules section if we let it. I keep having to repost a link at the bottom of the entry in the more appropriate Links section to this site, which is the only link serially removed, likely by Andrew, who has done so in the past. This fucktard is clearly so insecure in his ability to do this job that he needs to attempt to ham-fistedly censor and threaten anyone else doing it within 100 miles.

Phillies' continued success severely curtails quiz schedule

Keep in mind that any rescheduled World Series games owing to weather or what have you can alter this at any time. Currently the Phillies are scheduled to beat the Yankees on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

Tuesday, October 27, 9:00pm

El Camino Real

1040 N. 2nd St.

(2nd St. below Girard Ave.)

Subject Round: 10 SUCKY THINGS ABOUT NEW YORK

Philly's Phinest

Obviously at the moment the Phinest would be those hard-hitting Phillies. Aside from this, my (try to follow the social chain here...) fiancee's best friend's sister, who is from here and married a guy in Northern Ireland, has opened Philly's Phinest sandwich shop in Omagh, Northern Ireland.

I'll try to get more info on what they serve and what they're doing for rolls and meat in future. Never been to that corner of the world, no idea what the roll situation is.

Jon Weisman's outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers and baseball ...

... is the title of an actual, regular column in the Los Angeles Times.

Your Phillies-dependent, truncated quiz schedule, Week Three

Keep in mind that any rescheduled games owing to weather or what have you can alter this at any time.

I'll likely be watching tonight's Blanton/Wolf contest at Ray's Happy Birthday Bar if anyone wants to stop by. Go Phils.

I continue, incidentally, to be supremely irritated by people who moved here within the past few years - even less than a year - and are all into (or pretend to be into) the playoff run and use the pronoun 'we.' The actual "we" lost 14 consecutive NL East titles to Atlanta, and lost the '83 and '93 series, the latter in spectacular fashion. Harumpf. Where were you then? Many of these same folks negate my votes and overrun the places I used to enjoy now that they are 'hot.' Can Philadelphia please be unpopular again? It was so much cooler when purportedly uncool.


Tuesday, October 20, 9:00pm
El Camino Real
1040 N. 2nd St.
(2nd St. below Girard Ave.)
Subject Round: 10 SUCKY THINGS ABOUT LOS ANGELES

Thursday, October 22, 9:00pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
(Temple University campus)
Subject Round: 10 MORE SUCKY THINGS ABOUT LOS ANGELES

Quiz schedule directly tied to Phillies' schedule

Dependent upon how well the Phils do, what time MLB in its infinite wisdom schedules Phillies games to the maximum inconvenience of Phillies fans, and the weather, the quizzes will or won't happen.

Phils game at that time? No quiz. No Phils game? Quiz. Thinking about shooting for post-game quiz at El Camino, time allowing... assuming there is a game tomorrow night at all... otherwise, quiz normal time.

I was so hamstrung with the schedule last week that I ended up not posting anything, seeing as quizzes were called off and then called back on again, and in one case switched twice.

"Thank you, Bud Selig!" And hey thanks from all the kids in the Philadelphia area who had two Phillies games scheduled while they were in school with the third ending 2:15am on a Monday. Thanks a whole damn lot, you Scrooges! Maybe the Phils could get a better schedule if they won the World Series the previous year..?

Obama won the fuckin' Nobel Peace Prize?! Where's my Miss Universe crown?

Seriously? Holy crap. You usually have to spend a decade or so killing people before you get one of those. They usually don't give 'em out in anticipation of killing people, or just at the tip of your death iceberg. Zero has changed since Bush left office... at least zero for the better. We're ramping up drone attacks in two countries that can't attack us and which we haven't declared war against, we're threatening Iran and Venezuela, we've ramped up military aid to Colombia, we're tacitly supporting the coup in Honduras, nothing has changed with Israel/Palestine, we have another record amount of spending on weapons this year even as unemployment soars, most of the economy flatlines and our federal deficit is huge. We continue occupying Iraq and building permanent bases there. We still have the world's largest nuclear arsenal and we have military bases in most of the world's countries. Guantanamo is still open for business.

And this clown wins the fuckin' Nobel Peace Prize?

After you give these things to Henry Kissinger, Rabin and Arafat, Woordow Wilson and Teddy "Shoot the Swarthy Spaniard in the Gut" Roosevelt, parody lies bleeding.

Here's a short encapsulation of why this is a 1984-level doublespeak decision from Paul Craig Roberts, a member of the Reagan Administration who is in effect far to the left of Obama. Consider that for a moment...

Here, if only to confirm my own sanity, are a few images from the past few months of the O-bomber bringing peace to the world: