I like to post entries about happenings shortly after they occur, so that I can record details while they're still fresh in my mind. Typically, I try to post no more than a week later.
Oh well.
So, here's New Orleans, Part Two, or as they'd say it down there, N'awlins, Part Deux. Part One, for those who missed it.
After the initial awe of standing in the auditorium, imagining the theme from "Rudy" playing in the air, it was Quiz Bowl as usual—your typical pre-tournament delays, confusion, and gawking. We marveled at how much nerdier everyone else seemed than us (no doubt, other schools were thinking the same thing), and wondered at our chances of success.
After the usual formalities were out of the way, the teams were directed to proceed to Newsom Hall across the quad for tournament play. With that, over 250 players,coaches, and fans marched across a grassy expanse, a great parade of the nerdiest of the nerdy in all of North America.
The 32 teams in our division were split into 4 round-robin pools. After playing each team in our group, we'd be reseeded into 4 new round-robin brackets based on our initial records. The top two teams after the first 14 rounds and assorted tiebreakers would vie for the national title.
We did remarkably well that first night, notching a 4-2 record. This is even more remarkable when you consider the fact that, for whatever reason, UCDavis had not won a night game since 2003. It was good to get that monkey off our back.
Custom signature opportunity: My favorite buzz of the night was a question on a number one single from the 1985 pop charts (who ever thought knowing 80's music would get me somewhere in life?). What song was it? There are clues everywhere in these New Orleans posts: Quiz Bowlers and people who already have custom signatures are not eligible.
The last game of the first round was rescheduled for the morning, but we still left campus after 10pm. We waited at the streetcar stop with two Canadian teams (Macalester and University of Ottawa), chatting about nothing in particular.
The St. Charles Street Massacre
The streetcar back up St. Charles was an equal mix of Quiz Bowlers and tourists heading to the French Quarter. It's kind of funny that you can always pick the Quiz Bowlers out from the crowd.
At one stop about halfway up St. Charles, our car picked up four local college students—two guys and two tipsy girls. They were loud and dressed to party, and definitely did not look like your typical Quiz Bowlers. One of the girls was particularly talkative, and I'll admit, pretty cute. After getting bored with shouting across the aisle at her friend, she turned to a young man sitting in front of her. His glasses, attire, and shyness screamed "Quiz Bowler!" and the tipsy Southern belle easily recognized that he was an out of towner.
"So," she half-shouted with a friendly drawl, "Where y'all from?"
She was loud, and her voice drew the attention of everyone on the streetcar.
He seemed a little stunned that she was talking to him. "Um…upstate New York." His voice was soft.
"New York? That's cool! Y'here with friends?" She gestured to other Quiz Bowlers sitting across from her. "These your friends?"
He gestured to some of them. "Yeah, I'm here with them."
"With them? Ok…you don't know them?" He shook his head. "Ok, they're just random people!" She laughed loudly, which seemed to make him uncomfortable.
That seemed to please her. She leaned forward. "So—what are y'all doin' in New Orleans?"
I cringed. I looked over my shoulder at Ruwan—he was cringing, too. Beside me, John was silent. A number of ladies have assured me that they think that being a Quiz Bowler isn't something that a guy should be embarassed about, but nonetheless, every male Quiz Bowler on the streetcar was noticeably distressed in empathetic anguish.
The young man looked just a little terrified. "Um…Quiz Bowl."
Oh gosh. My whole body twitched; Ruwan was shaking his head, a hand over his eyes, half-smiling. John had a funny look on his face.
The Southern belle sat up and smiled politely. "Oh."
The conversation continued from that point, but I was having too much fun watching Ruwan laugh in sympathy to pay attention.
Update: Meh. At this point, I'm really disinclined to continue this entry. It's been too long since the trip, and this has been sitting in Draft form for over a month now. So I'm just going to publish it and be done with it.
can you at least report the final results of how you guys did? record? overall place? without giving the fleshed out story.
and is it "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner?
Let me give you my account of the St. Charles Street Massacre. (Keep in mind, I'm nowhere near as nice or polite as Aliotsy is.)
That night on the streetcar, I was actually napping. I was pretty tired from the day, and was working on about three hours of sleep for the past 22 hours, and a lot of walking and stuff. My adrenaline had been depleated and I was definitely running on fumes. I was sitting behind Aliotsy in the street car, and John was sitting across the aisle from Aliotsy. I was napping, but opening my eyes every now and then to check out the girls that I could see were getting drunk and partying on St. Charles Street. Imagine my surprise when some of them boarded our trolley. I was instantly alert, but soon fell alseep as she sat out of my line of sight (Aliotsy or John was blocking, I can't remember). I didn't really care that much anyway, and dozed off again. I could hear her talking to the Massacre Victim out of the corner of my ear. Then she asked the question: "Why you guys here?" I snapped to attention, and in my mind, I was yelling "NOOOOOOOOOO....". In the few seconds it took him to answer, I was praying that he'd say something cool.
In my mind: "Please say football, say you're a football player/fan/waterboy whatever! Don't say Quiz Bowl, Don't say Quiz Bowl. Say you're just here hanging out, trying to get laid, Burbon street, say something about that! Say you like gumbo! Anything but Quiz Bowl!"
And then he said it.
My heart sank. Literally, it came to rest on my stomach, and was pushing down on my diaphram... It hurt. I was hurting for him. I could see his friends cringing. I could see Aliotsy's shoulders sink to the point where I thought HE was going to die of embarrassment for this poor fool. (I was already dead, brought to life, and ready to die again, I was so mad.) John immediately brought his hand up to his mouth to stifle the grin. My eyes grew wide, I looked up at the roof and tilted my head back in disbelief. And then I cried on the inside.
This fool was talking to, with all likelihood, the hottest girl he ever would, and he had just blown it. Not just blown it, but brought down the apocolypse on his shot with this girl. He had maybe a 0.1% chance with her (0.001% if she was totally sober), and by opening his stupid mouth, obliterated that chance to something less than negative infinity. In all honesty, he would've been better off peeing on her leg.
As she lost interest in this doofus, I could not believe what I just saw. I was so ashamed for him, and for all Quiz Bowlers. Even John and Aliotsy were shaking their heads. I could do nothing but laugh (and cry on the inside) for this poor, nerdy Quasimodo who just blew any chance with the only Esmeralda he'd ever meet.
Yeah...that was pretty easy Al...."I want you to show me" come on, as soon as I got down to the custom opportunity, and read that and saw your title, I was like...oh geez Foreigner.....lucky me I already have a custom avitar. Eh...whatever, maybe I thought it was easy because I am an 80's freak, or possibly because that song was slow-skated way too many times in my adolescent years that it is seared forever in my mind, devoid of any romantic meaning.
Ruwan....you are FABULOUS...that was the hardest laughs I have ever had on this site....wow...I am still belly-laughing so hard my roommate in the OTHER room whose door was shut, knocked at mine, to ask me what was so funny....of course I had to share, and then we both laughed ourselves silly.
Agreed. Nice story telling ruwan. =)
Alan gets the custom siggy. Yup, it was easy.
We ended up with a 7-6 record, good enough for 13th overall (outranking Stanford and Dartmouth, woohoo!)
And yeah, Ruwan told that story a lot better than I did. Also, I should note that he gets the credit for naming it the "St. Charles Street Massacre."
Speaking of custom signatures, where do they appear? I don't see them any more.
Poor Quiz bowler.
I dont really understand the concept. But we have geeks here in Australia too.