my freshman year roommate in college played classical guitar, and insisted on practicing it after he finished his homework, even if i was trying to sleep six feet away
tbf he was good and at least it wasn't bagpipes or something, but i will neither forget segovia nor forgive p___ v_____
― mookieproof, Sunday, 13 December 2020 01:41 (three years ago) link
I had no idea there were OQL USA / WQC folk on ILX but it seems inevitable, somehow (also, turns out portentous pepper is on an OQL USA squad with a friend of mine, argh small world)
oh ha - i've seen your posts a bunch over the years on ILX and never made the connection. i4in is a really nice guy and an extremely strong quizzer and it's been delightful having him on my OQL team.
best of luck later today; it should be an incredible match :)
― the portentous pepper (govern yourself accordingly), Sunday, 13 December 2020 16:05 (three years ago) link
It was very much an incredible match of me being terrible at second-guessing what a category might be and i4in being absolutely awesome! Great fun though, and so far today alone I have Zoom quizzed against like two of the two three in the WQC and the sixth highest Jeopardy total winnings earner of all time (and that's not even counting also doing the final against T & S and others, which was recorded yesterday)
― ailsa, Sunday, 13 December 2020 23:35 (three years ago) link
nevertheless, congratulations! it was an amazing team effort on a couple of brutally hard packets.
being terrible at category choice is a feeling i completely understand - if there was a chance to catastrophically misjudge the content of a category based on title, my team did so during this tournament. ("music and transport" and "ball sports" were the big two for which i was personally responsible, the latter leading to impossible questions about rugby and squash.)
it's kind of uncanny how many of our matches, win or lose, came down to somebody picking a trap category or the wrong mystery box, but i really enjoy the quirks of this format, and scotland did amazingly well. defeating the caliber of teams that you did has little to do with luck.
― the portentous pepper (govern yourself accordingly), Monday, 14 December 2020 00:40 (three years ago) link
Oh, I lucked out on a few early doors, and picked up a few where others misjudged - sheer luck has what's seen us through. Was ball sports the one that ended up being a 50/50 between Jansher and Jahangir Khan? That seemed ill-judged for the format.
― ailsa, Monday, 14 December 2020 01:47 (three years ago) link
I absolutely thought Kids might include MGMT, just didn't think it'd go as deep as "what album is Kids on" - was hoping for some kind of Kids in America / Kids Are Alright (film or song) / actual film Kids with Chloe Sevigny as the trash categories weren't what I expected so thought that might have been secret trash. None of those things. Was just weird.
― ailsa, Monday, 14 December 2020 01:50 (three years ago) link
Oh, definitely, that's a way deeper pop music question than what they normally ask. (In hindsight, there were three questions about AC/DC that I can remember in the playoffs - what was the deal with that?!)
― the portentous pepper (govern yourself accordingly), Monday, 14 December 2020 02:13 (three years ago) link
I know. I think in the final you can actually hear me ask if that was the same question they asked in the semifinal. Actually, I noticed a lot of category crossover, and I think that was because they clearly wrote sets of three, and not all of the third questions made it into the mystery so they just used the third to base a new category on. Like how last week Savage Garden came up in duos not Australian bands, but you'd think they'd have separated them into different weeks at least.
Like, I usually do food and drink categories (so don't ask why I didn't pick spices, I have no idea). One week was about which island caponata was from. Then it was the other way round, which Sicilian dish is blah blah and I totally didn't say caponata because it had already been a thing. Little did I know....
― ailsa, Monday, 14 December 2020 02:25 (three years ago) link
Like Panama and waterways were categories in the same week...
― ailsa, Monday, 14 December 2020 02:26 (three years ago) link
Congratulations ailsa! Fun match to watch. :-D Agreed about the cross-cat question clustering.
― anatol_merklich, Monday, 14 December 2020 09:07 (three years ago) link
With yesterday's win, I've avoided relegation! Whew, so I can go though this drama next season.
― Stone Cold Steve Ostentatious (Leee), Tuesday, 15 December 2020 16:44 (three years ago) link
Ha, my approach was: the only way out of this drama is through it.
― Robert Gotopieces (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 15 December 2020 16:47 (three years ago) link
Relegation is still a possibility for me, though it would require me to lose while three people below me won.
― jaymc, Tuesday, 15 December 2020 17:43 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZarmRLa2p9Q
― Robert Gotopieces (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 15 December 2020 17:47 (three years ago) link
I think you're onto something! My QPct tends to be slightly below C-rundle average, so I'm usually going to flirt with relegation unless luck swings in my favor.
― Stone Cold Steve Ostentatious (Leee), Tuesday, 15 December 2020 19:14 (three years ago) link
My TCA is incredibly low this season, think only one person here is worse and only then by one point. Tomorrow that might even invert.
― Robert Gotopieces (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 15 December 2020 19:22 (three years ago) link
I just did some random searching through old threads on their message board and stumbled on the one for Glass's "Knee Play 1." The nigh-universal dismissal really hurts me as I find the excerpted song to have an ineffably religious quality to it.
― Stone Cold Steve Ostentatious (Leee), Wednesday, 16 December 2020 02:02 (three years ago) link
Well, I lost yesterday's match but just barely avoided relegation. Phew!
Probably could've done better had I not posted my worst defense in my entire 31-season career (.577).
― jaymc, Wednesday, 16 December 2020 16:02 (three years ago) link
i had a bad december
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 16 December 2020 16:19 (three years ago) link
lol, exactly 75 out of 150 correct. i am a very average player.
― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 16 December 2020 16:32 (three years ago) link
I had lousy defense this season too, I wonder if the seasons vary a lot in mean DE
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 16 December 2020 16:40 (three years ago) link
Just looking to blame someone other than myself
i ... did well? finished second in our group. i'm not sure exactly how. the questions did seem a little easier/more in my wheelhouse this go-round but i also know i got lucky with some guesses and defense, since i usually end up right in the middle of the pack in C. i'll be moving up to B next season where i expect to be slaughtered and relegated back down to my rightful place.
― na (NA), Wednesday, 16 December 2020 17:01 (three years ago) link
I am a firm believer that defense is mostly luck. I think some have done statistical analysis showing there is very little correlation year to year.
― justfanoe (Greg Fanoe), Wednesday, 16 December 2020 17:49 (three years ago) link
I am extra firm in that belief because this was the 2nd worse defensive efficiency I've had in my 18 season LL career.
― justfanoe (Greg Fanoe), Wednesday, 16 December 2020 17:50 (three years ago) link
Barely missed reaching 0.500, but ended up in 18th out of 36th, so dead average. This season's questions felt a lot harder to me than the last one, even though I only had one more correct answer in LL86 -- but then my CAA went from 83 to 90 for LL87.
― Stone Cold Steve Ostentatious (Leee), Wednesday, 16 December 2020 19:27 (three years ago) link
Looks like a bunch of us are signed up for A Feast of Food and Drink.
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 02:38 (three years ago) link
I missed registering for it!! bah
― is right unfortunately (silby), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 02:44 (three years ago) link
I signed up for it but expect to do terrible.
― justfanoe (Greg Fanoe), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 03:26 (three years ago) link
Same.
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 03:32 (three years ago) link
yep
― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 04:21 (three years ago) link
Some good 1DSs right now
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 8 January 2021 03:21 (three years ago) link
I highly recommend today's Not-Quite-Infixes ODS to the crossword fans. I'm still working on it, but it's an appearlingly meaty challenge.
― Sammy Agar-Agar (Leee), Tuesday, 12 January 2021 01:30 (three years ago) link
THanks!
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 12 January 2021 01:33 (three years ago) link
*appealingly
― Sammy Agar-Agar (Leee), Tuesday, 12 January 2021 01:36 (three years ago) link
Oof! 13th percentile!
― Sammy Agar-Agar (Leee), Tuesday, 12 January 2021 22:12 (three years ago) link
Forks' and my ODS is tomorrow!
― RandPaul's Drag Race (Leee), Friday, 29 January 2021 20:54 (three years ago) link
excited!
― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Friday, 29 January 2021 20:55 (three years ago) link
i dunno if there's some reason we shouldn't say which one is ours?
Only from an abundance of caution and I guess the conventions we're following in this thread, but for any registered LLers, it'd be pretty easy to figure out which one is ours.
― RandPaul's Drag Race (Leee), Friday, 29 January 2021 21:01 (three years ago) link
i dunno, maybe we're into umbrellas now
― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Friday, 29 January 2021 21:05 (three years ago) link
There's only one that's got two smiths!
― RandPaul's Drag Race (Leee), Friday, 29 January 2021 21:09 (three years ago) link
that's the kind of lateral thinking that shows why we're in learned league
― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Friday, 29 January 2021 21:14 (three years ago) link
So about The White Album 1DS.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 February 2021 01:42 (three years ago) link
Although maybe only anatol and na did it.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 February 2021 14:51 (three years ago) link
I playtested so didn’t compete. Thought it played pretty easy, although I missed Q6 and Q12, same as na, which turned out to be the hardest two. Seems like more than 70 people went 12/12.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 February 2021 15:03 (three years ago) link
The African American History & Culture ML was really great. I only got 5/12 in the Championship but moneyed all of them, so I didn't do too badly.
― jaymc, Saturday, 13 February 2021 16:36 (three years ago) link
Quite enjoyed the White Album one, but it seems my calibration was way off regarding difficulty of Snoop Dogg juice drink vs sheep dogg song title.
― anatol_merklich, Saturday, 13 February 2021 18:03 (three years ago) link
Will belatedly check out the African American History & Culture thing as well, thanks for recommendation jaymc!
― anatol_merklich, Saturday, 13 February 2021 18:05 (three years ago) link
i scored 8 of 12 for Black American History but was one question right away from 5th. That's LL for you!
― That's not really my scene (I'm 41) (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 13 February 2021 18:12 (three years ago) link