Monday, December 31, 2012

Happy New Year quiz geeks!

Wednesday, January 2, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.

Subject Round: 2012: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
 
Owing to a paltry Boxing Day turnout last week I'll be reloading the planned Subject round all the regulars missed.

Thursday, January 24, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: TBA

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Another last minute update - final quiz of year

Wednesday, December 26, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: 2012: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Thursday, January 24, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: TBA

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

12 Steps Down quiz tonight; Spring term begins at Draught Horse January 24

Wednesday, December 19, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: 1980s NEW WAVE / POP

... which you're listening to on the stereo there all of the time anyway, right?







Thursday, January 24, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: TBA

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Final quiz of Temple term at Draught Horse this week

Wednesday, December 12, 7:30pm 12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: ALTERNATE & SUBTITLES OF FAMOUS BOOKS

Thursday, December 13, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: ALTERNATE & SUBTITLES OF FAMOUS BOOKS II: THIS TIME IT'S PERSONAL
 
Owing to the unusually early starting and ending dates for Temple's Fall term, this will be the last quiz of 2012.  I'll try to get a start date for the beginning of next term in time to announce it during this quiz.
 


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Back to Draught Horse after a little hiatus

Wednesday, December 5, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: EUROPE

Thursday, December 6, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: BEGINS WITH K

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Guest host Thursday night

Wednesday, November 28, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: ASIA

Thursday, November 29, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: ?
 
Hey Temple people - for the first time in 5 years I need to take the night off.  I'm doing some other-work-related travel.  Quizmaster John will be filling in for me using a quiz he wrote in the same format.  QJ is my go-to understudy, has played my quizzes since the beginning and has twice been a member of teams that have scored the highest scores ever in my format.  I expect you to give him the same general lack of attention and respect you give me.  I should be back at the helm - and with that room set up it seems literal - next week.
 

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Gobble up some quiz

Wednesday, November 21, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round:THE AMERICAN COLONIES

Thursday, November 22
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
 NO QUIZ - THANKSGIVING - BAR CLOSED
 
Unlike the Detroit Lions, you get a day off from losing.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Upcoming subject rounds

Wednesday, November 14, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: FAMOUS SIDEKICKS

Thursday, November 15, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Explore trivia this week

Wednesday, November 7, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: EXPLORERS

Thursday, November 8, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: BIOLOGY

Life imitates The Simpsons here in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Voting Machine Changes Obama Vote to Romney





We really shouldn't even have voting machines.  Paper ballots would be superior in any number of ways, and far cheaper.  Ireland just sold theirs for scrap.

At least the sensible Jill Stein button still works.  Also allow me to recommend Ms. Marakay Rogers for Attorney General, a great, gutsy and fair lawyer who helped me out pro bono several years ago when we were both filing papers in the same Harrisburg office.  I walked in the door not knowing her, she saw some state workers jerking me around and automatically volunteered herself as on the spot counsel.  Now that's service!  She should be behind a desk in Harrisburg.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Halloween brings a set of spooky, scary trivia questions

Wednesday, October 31, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: SPOOKY SCARY HALLOWEENY-TYPE QUESTIONS

Thursday, November 1, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: AMERICAN GOVERNMENT

Monday, October 22, 2012

Letter-specific subject rounds this week

Wednesday, October 24, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: BEGINS WITH Q

Thursday, October 25, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: BEGINS WITH Z

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Weekly subjects

Wednesday, October 17, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: GEOMETRY

Thursday, October 18, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: FICTIONAL REALMS

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

A few words on how cheating is handled

A couple of Draught Horse regulars mentioned some phone-based cheating to me last week.  That's appreciated as it is a large room - with 15-20 mostly large teams probably one of the larger regularly scheduled quizzes around - and I can only see so much from where I'm located.  So by all means feel free to snitch.  And please feel free to confront people yourself.

I'd just like to remind folks that it usually becomes evident to me after the fourth round who might be cheating.  It doesn't look like I'm doing much about it but that's by design.

The whole idea of the quiz is to fill seats and encourage people to stick around, presumably buying food and drink.  It's therefore my policy to let cheaters cheat without comment and continue conducting the game while the cheaters think they are doing well.  They get eliminated at the end of the quiz and the bar still gets their money, which is transferred to honest winning teams in the form of prizes, and to me in the form of... their money.

Sometimes it becomes evident a team has cheated on a few answers and isn't really very good or very motivated at that activity either, and won't be finishing in the prizes anyway.  Those people I just leave alone.

It's also an aim of mine that people who enjoy the challenge should feel that they aren't being cheated, and of course neither the bars nor I appreciate our honest customers getting ripped off.  Thus I'd just like people to know that I take a hard line against cheating, I do like to know when it's happening, and although it's mostly unspoken something is happening to defeat it.

Fortunately it's generally evident when a team is cheating.  People who underestimate the rest of our abilities to determine when they cheat are usually not bright enough to pull things off well either. Signs include:

- Teams who get 5 correct in the first round and then 8 in each of the last few. Possible but very unlikely.

- "Knowing" a difficult answer and then misspelling it, especially when it's not a difficult item to spell.  This is clearly happening when one person is looking up the answer and a different person is writing things down.  I tend also to have more confidence in sheets written in different handwriting, as team members slide the sheet around to the person who knows the answer, and who doesn't want to say it out loud.  Cheating teams generally assign one person - usually a female if they have one - as a scribe.  We are after all talking about lazy people.


- Always doing better at the beginning of the round than at the end, because there was less time to look things up at the end.  Again, these are lazy people, and if they were better at looking things up they'd have a skill set which might include knowing them offhand from the start.  Sometimes I deliberately make the last couple of questions in a round the ones that are more difficult to Google, and often this results in a team who was looking things up turning a sheet in earlier than other teams, there being no point in trying to brainstorm an answer, with all their correct answers front-loaded.

- Teams that get some difficult questions correct and then leave others in the same round completely blank - just no attempt whatever at an educated guess - make me suspicious.

- In the case of a generally younger crowd such as we have at the Draught Horse, getting a 1980s TV question correct but not a contemporary one.  Again it is possible but it draws my attention.

- Only getting the straightforward questions correct and never getting the complex ones correct that'd be difficult to Google.  An example of a straightforward question in this sense would be a sports record holder, or a capital.  Easily researched, and if I'm asking it there is generally one definitive answer.  If your team gets all of those correct, no matter how obscure, and can't answer anything correctly requiring multiple elements, or requiring a plot element from any book or movie... I'm suspicious.

- Getting most of the answers correct in the Secret Theme round but not even attempting to propose a Secret Theme.  This is especially the case when the questions were difficult but the theme more obvious should you have them to work with.  That one's a big red flag and usually these teams will miraculously go on to get 8 answers correct in the final round.

Most cheating teams do a combination of all or most of the above.  Usually they might as well just stand up and announce that they are looking up answers.

There are likely a few other things I'm forgetting.  Most of the time I'll just skip over a team name when giving the final scores when it's obvious cheating occurred.  And most of the time this takes place no one bothers to follow up with me about it, which is another sign that they did dirty.

Rarely people will have the temerity to challenge me on de facto accusing them of cheating, and this is usually easily handled by asking them simple follow-up questions - simpler ones in fact - about their answers.  An example from life would be asking a team who "knew" what Huck Finn's hometown was what primary character Huck was with during his raft journey.  When the team didn't know Jim after multiple guesses it was clear they didn't know the book.

Your weekly subject rounds

Wednesday, October 10, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: LESS FAMOUS WORKS BY FAMOUS AUTHORS

Thursday, October 11, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: MUSICALS

Monday, October 1, 2012

This week's quiz subjects

Wednesday, October 3, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: ORIGINAL PLACE NAMES

Thursday, October 4, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

Monday, September 24, 2012

Lil' Roy Breaks Their Own All-Time High Score Record by One Point

Some four and a half years after setting the all-time record in my quiz format at 189 out of an available 219 points, most of the Lil' Roy crew plus a lone (and temporarily abandoned) member of usual challengers Lady Snark topped that by a single point last Wednesday.

The team had a perfect 10 in the Easy round, but followed with only 16 of the 20 available points in the second frame.  They then scored an extra point on the Speed round by finishing first - very out of character for this group, and correctly answered 9 of those 10.  Eight of 10 in the final round and an outstanding Secret Theme round, naturally with the correct theme for the 8 bonus points, really put them over the top.

Job well done!  It took you guys nearly 5 years, about 250 quizzes, but I am impressed.

On the all-time leader board this makes the first appearance in quite some time of any team at 12 Steps Down a #1, drops their own previous mark into second, bumps everyone down a notch and eliminates the longest-running Draught Horse team, now going by the moniker Nudist Balloonists, from the board completely.  This also means that in its fifth year, the Draught Horse now has zero of ten scores on the leader board.  I'm looking to Nudist Balloonists, No Means Anal or the other name-changing, multiple-year veteran regulars to correct that.

Moving into tenth place (actually a tie for ninth) now requires 185 big points.


Philosophy and/or Original Place Names this week

Wednesday, September 26, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: PHILOSOPHERS & PHILOSOPHY

Thursday, September 27, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: ORIGINAL PLACE NAMES

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Movie stills ID rounds this week

Wednesday, September 19, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: VISUAL IDENTIFICATION: MOVIE EDITION

Thursday, September 20, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: VISUAL IDENTIFICATION: MOVIE EDITION II

Simple enough concept - I show you a still from a movie, you ID it.

Monday, September 10, 2012

This week's subject rounds are...

Wednesday, September 12, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Thursday, September 13, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: AMERICAN BOOKS & AUTHORS

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

This week's subject rounds are...

Wednesday, September 5, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round:  LATIN AMERICA

As promised/threatened last week.  If you're one of the regular teams with a Latina and she lets you down on this, a call to la migra is in order.

Thursday, September 6, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: FOOTBALL (AMERICAN THAT IS)

Great to see some old faces up at the Draught Horse last week.  We had a smaller than usual amount of larger than usual teams, so still a full house and one that gave a whole lot of patient attention to the quiz, including among the new faces, a harbinger of a great semester ahead.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Back in earnest to two quizzes per week; Fifth year at Temple begins!

Wednesday, August 29, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round:  EUROPEAN AUTHORS

Thursday, August 30, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: ANIMATED SIT-COMS

Monday, August 20, 2012

This week's subject round

Wednesday, August 22, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round:  #12 - ALL QUESTIONS INVOLVE TWELVE OF SOMETHING

Thursday, August 30, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: TBA

Sunday, August 12, 2012

The answers are questions in this week's subject round

Wednesday, August 15, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: THE ANSWERS ARE QUESTIONS

If your answer isn't a question, it's wrong!

Thursday, August 30, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: TBA

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

This week's subject round

Wednesday, August 8, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: ROMANCE LANGUAGES

Thursday, August 30, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: TBA

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

And the weekly subject is...

Wednesday, August 1, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: ISLANDS

Thursday, August 30, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: TBA

Monday, July 23, 2012

This week's subject round

Wednesday, July 24, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: 1960s ROCK

Thursday, August 30, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: TBA
 
I've had notification that we're going to start Year Five of the quiz up the Draught Horse on August 30.  Hope to see you there!

Monday, July 16, 2012

This week's subject round - Draught Horse quiz will start fifth year on August 30

Wednesday, July 18, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: COMEDY FILMS

Thursday, August 30, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore
Temple University Campus
Subject Round: TBA
I've had notification that we're going to start Year Five of the quiz up the Draught Horse on August 30.  Hope to see you there!

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Where better to spend a July night than an air conditioned basement?

Wednesday, July 11, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: ARTS & LITERATURE

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Your Independence Day quiz

Wednesday, July 4, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: AMERICAN HISTORY

What else would I be asking about today?

I'm assuming that you've got something to do during the day, you possibly have to return to work tomorrow and tonight is a good night to spend in an air conditioned basement.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Tonight's subject round

Wednesday, June 27, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: ITALY

Monday, June 18, 2012

This week's subject round

Wednesday, June 20, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round:MUSIC OF THE '70s

Monday, June 11, 2012

This week's subject round

Wednesday, June 13, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: MOVIES OF 1982

Monday, June 4, 2012

Second-ever Subject round crossword puzzle this week!


Wednesday, June 6, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: CROSSWORD PUZZLE

I'm putting together a crossword puzzle to be your fourth round.  It's been a few years since we've tried this out.  Let's see how it goes.  There will be a total of 40 clues and each complete correct word or phrase will be worth 1 point.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

This week's subject round

Wednesday, May 30, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: WORLD WAR II

Monday, May 21, 2012

Another visual round this week

Wednesday, May 23, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: VISUAL IDENTIFICATION AGAIN

Why not?  It seemed to go well last week and hopefully you enjoy me not talking for a bit as much as I enjoy ignoring you for 10 minutes.

Monday, May 14, 2012

A rare visual ID round this week

Wednesday, May 16, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: VISUAL IDENTIFICATION

It's been a little while since I've done one of these.  I provide the images, you provide the answers.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Tonight's subject round

Wednesday, May 9, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: ORIGINS OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

Pictured: your 12 Steps bartender Chris serving another satisfied customer.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Weird format for last Draught Horse quiz of this term owing to Flyers game

Wednesday, May 2, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: BEER

Thursday, May 3, 9-ish pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: ORIGINS OF FAMOUS AMERICANS
Management and I really didn't know what to do with the Flyers game starting at 7:30.  We've worked out the following.  The quiz will begin during the second intermission, which should fall at roughly 9:10 give or take.  I'll do one or two rounds, we'll let the third period play out and then finish the quiz.  Pull for no overtime.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Quiz returns to 12 Steps, pending next six rounds of NHL playoffs

Wednesday, April 25, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: SEA CREATURES
Finally!

Thursday, April 26, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: U.S. PRESIDENTS

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Flyers playoffs once again bump Wednesday night quiz

Wednesday, April 18, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: SEA CREATURES
We'll do this next week... I think.

Thursday, April 19, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. &Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: BEER

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

This week's quiz topics - BREAKING NEWS TONIGHT'S QUIZ CANCELLED FOR FLYERS PLAYOFF GAME

Wednesday, April 11, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: SEA CREATURES
We'll do this next week my friends.  Got a last-minute message that the bar is cancelling the quiz in favor of hockey playoffs.  I believe the NHL wraps things up in July.  See you next week!

Thursday, April 12, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: SEA CREATURES II

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

This week's quiz topics... (finally, I know... I know...)

Wednesday, April 4, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: 19th CENTURY WORLD HISTORY

Thursday, April 5, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: DAYTIME TV

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Treat yourself to a completely non-creepy quiz

Wednesday, March 28, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: MARCH MADNESS

Thursday, March 29, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: ADVERTISING ICONS

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Use your head in this week's Subject round topics

Wednesday, March 21, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: SECOND-LARGEST CITIES

Thursday, March 22, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: AMERICAN AUTHORS

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

12 Steps Down is not a dive bar... and Yelp is not useful

Curious as to the content of Yelp [note how I have my finger on the very pulse of the internet!], I figured I'd check out the reviews for a place I run a quiz once/week.  This would be, in effect, my gauge of Yelp.  Note that management hasn't put me up to this, I've just been hearing a lot about Yelp and was curious as to what was up with it.

The vast majority of Yelp reviews of 12 Steps Down contain the phrase "dive bar," with only one person using the phrase to note that this is inaccurate.

Most of the morons on Yelp have apparently come to the conclusion that any place without white tablecloths and/or a coat check is a "dive."

Dive bars tend not to have kitchens, and if they do they aren't carmelizing onions, nor are they doing anything with leeks.  They don't have microbrews available and there aren't paper towels in the bathrooms.  Heck, they probably don't have bathrooms in the plural.  They certainly don't serve fries with two dipping sauces, neither one ketchup.

For me a dive would be a place that hardened alcoholics drink because they can't afford other places and/or other places might not allow them in.  A dive would be not just a place where zombie Charles Bukowski might drink, but a place where he would drink by default because not drinking is not an option, and the bar he really wants to be in has banned him.  Dirty Frank's, for example, aspires to dive status, which requires the odd purge of functional customers.

A lot of the reviewers are 22 and recently arrived in the city from some suburb.  This becomes apparent when throwing around phrases like dive bar and ghetto when what is really meant is corner bar and urban environment.  And I don't mean "urban" as code for "black", I mean city.  Many people see rowhomes - sometimes half million dollar rowhomes - and assume that's automatically "ghetto."  This alone should disqualify the validity of any opinions from the same person on anything in a city such as this.

Several reviewers called it a "hipster bar."  I don't see it, not at all.

Bizarrely one other reviewer called 12 Steps a "sports bar."  Most of the time I've been doing the quiz over the past 4 years or so, despite being able to see most of the room, I have not even been able to see a TV from where I sit.  Stranger still this person was not complaining that 12 Steps is a terrible sports bar, but that it was possible to watch a game and that some people might have been doing so.

The secondary Yelp complaint about 12 Steps is that they card customers, expect valid ID and refuse to serve people who come in loaded.  Well, yes.  Yes they do.  The complaint, in other words, is that 12 Steps is compliant with the law and retains a liquor license!  Some other bars in the neighborhood could and should take note.

It's fine that people have their own opinions.  What isn't fine is when people create their own facts.  Unfortunately most people on the internet, reflecting American society on the whole, can't tell the difference between the two and don't care to make the effort.

What's sad is that the Yelp business model is to make money by giving any moron a megaphone to trash small businesses, and give this ignorance the imprimatur of validity.  Things are apparently bad enough that a Yelp Sucks site exists.

Incidentally only a couple of people mentioned the quiz.  One Roger Ebert wannabe thought it was too hard.  That's a good sign for me.  The quiz is not for morons.

Yelp: 0 out of 5 stars.  If this is the picture drawn of a place I'm in regularly I know to disregard the picture of places I've never been.



It's always a good year when no quiz falls on St. Patrick's Day

Wednesday, March 14, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: THE 1970s

Thursday, March 15, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: COLLEGE NICKNAMES & MASCOTS


Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Spring break at Temple means only one quiz this week

Wednesday, March 7, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: WORLD WAR II

Thursday, March 8
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: NO QUIZ, SPRING BREAK

Monday, February 27, 2012

Vocabulary rounds this week

Wednesday, February 29, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: VOCABULARY


Thursday, March 1, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: VOCABULARY II

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

This week's belated Subject round topics

Wednesday, February 22, 7:30pm
12 Steps Down
9th & Christian Sts.
Subject Round: AMERICAN HISTORY

Thursday, February 23, 9pm
The Draught Horse
Broad St. & Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Subject Round: AMERICAN HISTORY II

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

National Geographic Channel gives America's most potentially harmful idiots an uncritical national platform

In the sweepstakes for putting the most fucked up Americans on the telemuhbishun, C-SPAN in recent years has been edged out only by the TLC network. These jokers have a considerable lead on the field through a non-stop parade of the clown car-packed uteruses of homeschoolin' theocratic hicks and shrill semi-suburban litter-throwing harpies, with the odd family of little people thrown in so that medium people can gawk while pretending that a show only on the air because the average cast member is 3'8” is pretty much just The Waltons.

National Geographic Channel has upped the ante with their new show Doomsday Preppers, giving far too much legitimacy to people who are at best ignored... and in a few cases need monitoring by social service agencies, if not for themselves at least for the safety of their children and neighbors.

The concept of the program is as simple as its subjects. Individuals lacking science, math, economics and geography backgrounds to the point that they fear the inevitable and immediate arrival of a particular cataclysmic event that is almost certainly not going to happen share with a national audience their plan to get their families through that event (for reasons that go completely unexplained, given that the schemes are more likely to work if left unshared).

Bizarrely most of these plans involve “secret” caches of supplies and “unique” methods of escape (called “bugging out”) which are now being broadcast worldwide. By following the advice shared by these dimwits their stores of items for barter become immediately devalued. By following the advice of these dimwits and taking their martial arts training courses and buying the arsenals of guns they own, their tactical and arms advantages are immediately neutralized. At first glance this is mere stupidity, until one realizes that these folks share so much because their need to feel superior to everyone else around them is edging out their paranoia. Despite the repeated instance that this a “lifestyle not a hobby” - a refutation of an assertion I heard no one make – this is very clearly a hobby. What hobbyists always feel a need to do is show off to fellow hobbyists, else it's a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear. Some people have to show off the new electric train layout and others need to display the new child-sized gas masks.

When you share the same codenames for backpacks and exit tactics, and buy the same supplies from the same supply catalogs, you my friend have yourself a hobby.

Back in the pre-internet '80s I loved to read out-there publications like the Loompanics catalogs, which listed a number of what were then called “survivalist” publications. Survivalist publications tended to appeal to either libertarians or far-rightists who found Ronald Reagan a bit too commie. Mixed in with these was a bit of leftover hippie Mother Earth News type books and zines for those who also wanted to know how hook a pig up to a windmill to make cheese, or whatever the hell these people were doing “off the grid.” The publications were at once thrilling and frightening. My general rule of thumb from a young age has therefore been that if you're in a situation requiring your own shit as cooking fuel solely because of political affiliation, something has gone off the rails somewhere along the line.


At the time the fear of the rightists was that some combination of Soviets, the United Nations, the ZOG (that's the Zionist Occupational Government, the Washington DC Jew-puppets... but you knew that, right?) and sex-starved 'city blacks' were going to overrun the compound, burn the corn, slaughter the pigs, rape Ellie Mae, rape the pigs, eat Ellie Mae and then - most unforgivably - collect a capital gains tax. (I will admit however that small-scale solar and wind is something that would even work in the city for many, and more of us should be looking into same ... but not because of black helicopters and rapey commie Jewfrican-Americans).


Some of the lunatic preachers on shortwave radio also host paranoid political shows which just happen to be sponsored by advertisers selling seed banks and shelters for the coming Bad Times. How very convenient.  These days they push fear of Muslims and Washington DC and the UN; in the 1980s it was the exact same message with Soviets substituted for Muslims.


A quarter-century later large portions of the American public, the only industrialized country other than Ireland (assuming Ireland makes that cut) in which more than half the population believes in literal angels, and the only population among any industrialized country whose residents hesitate to find themselves on a world map while considering the ability to do so the work of fag-talkers, have decided that world is going to end in their lifetimes.


This is mighty convenient for the solipsist, and I noticed that most of the featured self-centered nutjobs were middle aged, meaning that as many of these people became aware of their own mortality they also naturally assumed everyone else would be coming with them. Apparently it's easier for some people to envision a supervolcano that's been dormant for 700,000 years blowing any minute now than it is to imagine the world continuing one second without them.


Interestingly no two people featured on the show think that the world is going to end the same way, and this is left unexplained and seems to trouble no one. This is a hallmark of the paranoid style in American politics, and seeing as this shared paranoia is after all a hobby it really doesn't matter why one thinks the world is going to end; it merely matters to believe that as a Superior Person, a survivor and not one of the Sheeple, one knows that this is true.


This trait is also shared with 9/11 “truthers”, who all have very different opinions as to how and why the World Trade Center fell. I've never seen one of them attack another one for obviously having a 180 degree opposite opinion on pet hypotheses, but all will always congratulate each other for being smarter than the people who have their story straight. (For example in any internet argument, assume one person claims that the CIA flew the airplanes into the towers, a second claims the CIA flew missiles disguised as planes into the towers and a third claims Navy SEALs planted explosives and the “planes” were just CGI. These three people will gang up on anyone who mentions that al Qaeda flew planes into the towers, and call that fourth party an idiot and/or government agent, and congratulate each other on their mutual brilliance. No mention will be made of their own discrepancies.)


Another shared trait of our 'preppers' and many of the 9/11 freaks is a low level of formal education. None of the people featured on this show seem to do any work requiring a college education. They are in most cases clearly in the 75% of American adults who both lack one and lack even the high school prep classes necessary to apply. This becomes painfully obvious when hearing their reasons for the impending doom.


One dopey lass in Houston is gearing up for the coming oil shortage. She isn't doing so by, say, leaving Houston (a far-spread city with worse smog than L.A. … and an oil company employment base...in which a car is pretty well essential to getting around and air conditioning is a prerequisite for breathing). She states matter of factly that society is about to collapse because “the Middle Eastern countries” will soon be cutting off “our” oil. Someone familiar with the statistics might point out that the vast majority of oil consumed in the US does not come from the Middle East, or that half of OPEC isn't in the Middle East either. One might also point out that the stagnant global economy has resulted in a worldwide oil production glut, not a shortage. (The “one” here that should be pointing this out is the editorial staff of a National Geographic production; they choose instead to be inaccurate and irresponsible by letting this assertion go unchallenged.)

Based in this set of wholly faulty assumptions, this loose cannon and her boyfriend have a detailed "survival" plan, Step One of which is to shoot their cats.  Fluffy had better hope no local radio station rebroadcasts War of the Worlds anytime soon.


Goofier still are the fucknuts in Texas who think that the highly unlikely realignment of the Earth's magnetic poles during their lifetimes will result in the immediate major shifting of the tectonic plates (how or why one would cause the other is left unstated – National Geographic ceased to have any respect from me from here on out beginning there). They have packed away 15 years' worth of food in Mason jars to prepare for this event, as if stacked shelves of glass jars are going to survive the sudden shift of all of the planet's continents several hundred or more miles in various directions. One of two moments in the show which made me laugh aloud was a confident declaration from one of these Texans that he is 100% sure that Texas was about to end up much farther south... or maybe north. And therefore the climate was certainly about to get much hotter … or, y'know, colder. Interestingly the one preparation I didn't see them address was the climate change itself, although they did have ten years' worth of venison jerky. Maybe sewing a venison jerky parka is in order..?


Part of the “bug out” plan for this heavily armed group was to take a convoy of surplus school buses to an even more remote portion of Texas. Thus while riding in surplus vehicles purchased from a local schoolboard, driven on state and federal highways, this posse lectured the rest of us on not relying upon government.


Friends, I've been several times to Libertarian Wonderland, or as it is more commonly known the Third World. People are free from most taxes and oppressive features of modern life such as health inspectors. They are also joyously free therefore from refrigerated meats, guardrails, compulsory education and the like. One outwardly visible sign that you're in an underdeveloped place is the use of surplus American schoolbuses to transport adults. When these go pitching off of hairpin turns, killing 70, it sometimes makes a minor news story here. Not the first choice I'd make as a 'survival' vehicle.


The Texan couple looked to be about 60. Assuming they have enough food for the next 15 years, one wonders if they've also packed a hospital, chemotherapy supplies, an MRI or even a two-year supply of Depends undergarments. Some among us have believed the old Maggie Thatcher lie that “there is no such thing as society,” which manifests itself in the belief in this case that one has better chance of living a healthy senior life heating 8 year old canned food and stockpiling ammo than making sure one's local hospitals are funded. Quel dommage.

The other dipshit who made me laugh out loud (the rare literal LOL!) was the suburban Phoenix cretin who worries that North Korea is going to disable America with an Electromagnetic Pulse, or EMP. This is not to be confused with Emerson, Lake and Palmer, or ELP, who did in fact debilitate large portions of the country for part of 1973. When North Korea attempts to provide electricity to themselves it results in knocking out their own power for most hours of most days. They have no ability at present to get a missile to the US, unless they mail it. I'm not certain they can afford postage.


Dude also worries China will attack us in this manner. We are the number one debtor to them by far. We are also the number one importers of China's shoddy and dangerous prisoner-child-produced goods. By far. There's an old banking expression that if you owe the bank $5 you are their debtor and if you owe the bank $5 million you are their partner; that is to say that the bank now has your best interests as their own. We owe China rather more than $5 million. Would you nuke your top customer as a borrower and buyer? (This aside from the facts that the US is the world's most lethal nuke power and the world's leading arms dealer.) The wave of social unrest the resulting economic collapse would have in China would make whatever resulted here look like a tickle fight.

 
My first suggestion to someone wishing to survive a societal collapse is not to live in a major city located - for no particularly good reason - in the fucking desert. Undeterred by the thought of living without electricity and with limited potable water as things stood, Einstein decided that the best plan of action was to take his wife and kids to a “bug out” location deeper into the desert.

There, while “teaching” his boys how to fire a semi-automatic rifle for the benefit of the cameras, HE BLEW HIS THUMB OFF. After less than a minute of beginning to “teach” his sons then – I mean, make it a teachable moment, right? - how to deal with BLOWING ONE'S OWN THUMB OFF, he went into shock and passed out.


Dr. Strangeglove (and yes in this case I intended the extra “g”) seems to think that moving his family into storage containers in the desert and arming them to the teeth is a good survival strategy. I rather like my odds still having two opposable thumbs. If you knock yourself down the evolutionary ladder “teaching” your sons something, it's time to rethink a few things. All we know this man is doing is traumatizing his children while introducing them to guns. What's the worst that could happen?

Sadder was the NYFD fellow – a 9/11 responder – who is evidently scarred by the experience. He now is preparing his Harlem family to survive the eruption of a mid-North American supervolcano which he – but not the scientists quickly quoted as an aside – is expecting to blanket Manhattan which eerily 9/11-like ash. The odds of this happening are close enough to zero to be zero. The odds of him passing the trauma to his children by having a Krav Maga instructor break into his house and mock attack the family with a knife are 1 in 1. Apparently this public servant and first responder is preparing to kill you should you, in the post-apocalyptic landscape, come knocking on his door looking for food or water.  He doesn't seem to be preparing to go to work and help people in emergency situations.

Stooge after stooge had their dimwitted plans “evaulated” by unseen “experts” in surviving the collapse of society (I can only assume this this refers to Russian immigrants who survived Larry Summers' economic plans for their country of birth) on an unexplained 0-100% scale.  Another hallmark of true bullshit, using exact numbers to measure the non-quantifiable poorly.

He was medevaced – at no small cost to the taxpayer – to a local hospital to get his stump mended. One could almost hear the NRA memberships go unrenewed by the thousand. Suddenly, when BLOWING HIS OWN THUMB OFF, there is such a thing as society. Imagine that. Note was taken that the family had no idea what to do in the medical emergency, a condition the fuckwit “rectified” by buying a very large first aid backpack, as if the backpack itself were the equal of access to a person with a medical degree.

 
In small snippets, usually one sentence, some but not all of the daft had their pet hypotheses about the Coming Calamity evaluated as to their likelihood. Tellingly the EMP/continental shift gambit went unevaluated, seeing as the odds are 0.  Almost all other events have a rather less than 0.005% chance of occurring anytime soon, if at all.


One fellow was 'prepping' for an event that is likely to happen at some point in the next century - a major southern California earthquake.  Amazingly this fellow would rather forage and eat edible weeds along what's left of the Los Angeles River than simply move to a part of the country less likely to have a 7.8 earthquake.  (Many Americans it should be noted would rather eat weeds than have to live in southern California...)

Just to review, people who worry about running out of food and potable water are living in the desert, people worried about running out of gas are living in Houston and people worried about earthquakes are living in L.A.  Next week we'll no doubt see people fearing lobster attack who choose to live on the Maine coast.

Encino Man carries with him at all times a store-bought bottle of salad dressing to make the weeds go down easier.  No word on what happens when that runs out.  He also carries a roll of Eisenhower dollars "for trade with the homeless who live beside the river."  Where to begin?  #1 That's called buying things and you didn't invent it.  #2 For younger people and immigrants coin dollars are the least likely to recognized as real money and #3 Why do you imagine that homeless people would be the best source for goods and services?

All of this aside from the fact that the entire rest of the country - even large parts of California - would still be intact, and stores of most goods are not going to run out in a period of a few days.  California is one of the world's leading agricultural centers, there is abundant food not at all far from the concrete banks of the Los Angeles River.  Maybe look there..?

Heavily-armed Americans are stockpiling their weapons for a variety of events that are severely unlikely to transpire. Aging, uneducated and increasingly bitter in a society that threw working people over the rail decades ago, my fear is that should reality intrude on people who spent their life savings on preparing for shooting the neighbors, some folks are going to start shooting the neighbors. People tend to act in the manner they prepare to act, whether the trigger event happens or not. Lord forbid you live near one of these clinically insane people when an actual earthquake happens; should you head to the store to stock up on Twinkies and you are in their “bug out” path you can expect to get your head blown off. These geniuses will make any natural disaster 100x worse, and for no good reason.

We should also expect some of these increasingly paranoid and heavily-armed clans to end it all in triple-murder-suicide fashion (especially once the credit card bills for the six tons of dried fruit come due), if not a gaggle of new Columbines.

These are the people who NatGeo decided to let tell their own story on national TV, without interjecting silly ratings-killling counterbalance.  Generally selfish, these wingnuts don't see that nearly all of the problems they seek to obviate by making themselves “independent of” society (hardly accurate!) could instead be solved by working harder to ensure that local institutions are properly funded and prepared to handle emergencies. Several decades of me-first political rhetoric are causing these morons to prepare to shoot hungry neighbors instead of preparing to feed everyone in the neighborhood.

I don't have a punchline for this one. Sweet dreams.


UPDATE 3/13: I wrote and posted this piece in February 2012.

Note the line "We should also expect some of these increasingly paranoid and heavily-armed clans to end it all in triple-murder-suicide fashion (especially once the credit card bills for the six tons of dried fruit come due), if not a gaggle of new Columbines."

The Sandy Hook shooter in December 2012 did in fact take his mothers' weapons from the house, and she was a Doomsday Prepper.  I dislike being correct about these things, but I done did told you so, didn't I?