Sporcle is the world’s greatest time sink – it’s filled with trivia quizzes on every topic imaginable. I have wasted a lot of time on this website. Although I like to think of it as educating myself since sometimes I work in a geography quiz or something.
Another really fun one is Books by Their Covers! There are also A TON of Harry Potter quizzes. Some of my favorite quizzes are the ones with song snippets like 90s music without lyrics.
Enjoy! Feel free to let me know about good quizzes, so I can take them. 🙂
in the hotel room, trying to figure out what pizza to order…
Lindsay: “WAIT. If we order now, won’t the pizza come right in the middle of iCarly?”
Amber: “…”
Jen: “…”
Jill: “…”
Lindsay: “…”
Sheila: “I’ll get the door.”
So I woke up early to get the dishes done before work, and then tonight is my late night so I was EXHAUSTED when I got home…so dishes done, check! Taxes, ummm not yet 😦 and once again I am too tired to write a proper blog post. Seriously, I can barely keep my eyes open. And I have one I really want to write! Tomorrow–I am going to be Supergirl tomorrrrrowzzzzzzzz.
so here is a quikie:
Need something to give a classy bookworm or hip design enthusiast? Give them a shirt (or a gift certificate which is what we usually do) ala Out-of-Print Clothing! They put classic book covers on shirts. Simple as that. And they are super-duper nice and give great customer service 🙂
I wanted to be a book jacket designer for a while…maybe I should just do it for a hobby like Matt over at New Cover…except not like his, because his are really really good.
Awards–Won the Best Documentary at the Westchester Film Festival, 2006
Won Best Feature Film at the Wisconsin Film Festival, 2006
Summary–Shows what goes on in Stevens Point, Wisconsin for one weekend every April, when they host the biggest trivia contest in the world.
My Thoughts–I loved this movie so much!!!! I think it is my favorite documentary that I have watched in all the many I have seen recently. This subject holds a special place in my heart because I recently started playing on a trivia team with my dad and sister. It is nothing like the contest in Stevens Point, there are only 50 teams instead of over 400, but we did come in first once. It was glorious!
The contest in Stevens Point takes place over 54 straight hours and is hosted by the local college radio station. Over 11,000 people take part every year. The questions are read over the radio and each team has the length of two songs to call in with the correct answer. Teams can use any method they choose to find the answer. Some use multiple computers, while others refuse to use the internet, preferring the old fashioned way of books and notes.
Watching this documentary was absolutely fascinating to me. First of all, these people are extremely hardcore. They don’t just do this one weekend a year, they train for it all the time. They take notes during every movie they see and even during commercials. They save wrappers from candy, cereals, and cookies. They do this because the questions are not general knowledge questions. They are crazy, obscure, pop culture references that are so specific that they are ridiculous.
One of my favorite scenes involved a question that was something like “in a movie, character x gives his wife a book after having kidney surgery. What is the name of the book he gives her.” The question actually had a few more details than that, but not many. One of the teams found the name of the movie and realized they had a copy of the movie out in their car. There is a very suspenseful scene where a woman runs out to her car, brings back the DVD, and as they are fast forwarding through the movie they are all screaming at the tv. They are yelling “Open it, you bitch!!” Because of course, she has to unwrap the present. They finally get the name of the book just as the second song ends. That is what makes trivia awesome.
The filmmakers spend a lot of time introducing several different teams that take part in the competition. Many of the teams have been doing this for over 25 years. There is Network, which is the team that has won 16 times and everyone wants to beat. There are the Cakers, who are basically the party team. Every time they are on screen they are downing more Guinness or going on a liquor run. There is Norm’s Stool, which play a very serious game and seem to be pissed off all the time. There are the ladies of Dyslexics of the World Untie, one of whom happens to be married to the man who makes the questions. Then there are the Knights of Neek, who look like one great big family with kids and grownups working together.
I loved seeing just how much the trivia contest was a part of people’s lives. It literally is a huge part of who these people are. Some of them take the contest very seriously, but most of the teams do it just to have fun. Many people point out that most of the people who do the contest no longer live in the area, but they come back every year for one weekend to see their friends and be a part of this amazing thing.
Final Verdict–If you enjoy trivia, or nerds, or things that are awesome, you have to check out this documentary!
Jen
P.S. The contest is actually taking place this weekend. Go to their official website to listen to the questions over the internet.
Sooooo I am really really disappointed in myself. This song has been out for awhile and I JUST HEARD IT–you may remember MC Chris from his NERDGIRL anthem? as seen here in this Nerdgirltalking post titled Our new Anthem and our new Musical God. Anyway, so Steve and I were driving to Kohls the other day:
Steve: Oh! I have to show you a song that you will get stupid about.
Amber: Yay!
Steve: It’s an MC Chris song that Nick (Steve’s friend) had me listen to.
Amber: yeah, I’m already feeling stupid about it.
Steve: It’s all Harry Potter…
Amber: SQUEEEEEEEEL play it play it!
Steve: Is there some character that is good with plants or something?
Amber: NEEEEEVIILLLLLLLE! OMIGOD! YES!
Here it is:
so Neville as a “drug” dealer? Hmmm, I see Seamus as being more of the class’ supplier of recreational medicines. or, well, the Weasley Twins since that is kinda what they already did! Either way, I get super duper excited at any mention of Harry Potter in surprising places (I SWEAR there is a Mac Miller song that mentions Hermione, but I couldn’t find it in any online lyrics… speaking of Mac Miller, I am addicted to Knock Knock right now.)
So somehow I seem to have forgotten about Mousercise for the last 20 years until the library started a wellness program where we have to stretch every morning. And since my supervisor is awesome, she interlibrary loaned the Mousercise soundtrack for us to listen to while side-bending and lunging. I totally had a mousercise VHS tape when I was little and felt totally AWESOME when I did my own work-outs. (I also did the Jane Fonda tapes with my mom which made me giggle uncontrollably) I actually don’t remember too much of it, but several of the librarians actually remembered whole routines–I am in such awe of my coworkers.
Not much. But BEDA is coming up and I figured I needed to get back into practice since I haven’t blogged here in oooooh several monthy months.
um…
ummm…
Oh gosh, only two sentences in and I have already run out of things to say! Hmmm, this sound like a job for BRIEF RANDOM BULLET POINTS!
● I have been really into tucking in my shirts lately–into my trousers, my jeans and even my pajama pants. I imagine it makes me look more glamourous and deliberate like this:
● I am suddenly checking out LOTS of magazines from the library. So I always checked out the US Weeklys, Vogues, Martha Stewart Weddings, Mental Floss, House Beautiful, Kiki, etc…but now I am also unable to pass up a Wired, Technology Review, Newsweek, or Bloomberg Businessweek. Weird. I think I finally realized that this is how I must stay informed since I am no longer in high school when I used to actually watch news programs, no longer in college with lots of free access to newspapers during mealtime, and no longer in grad school where I was constantly exploring online. Bloomberg Businessweek and Wired always have lots of fun graphs! No plans on reading the Paris Review or the New Yorker anytime soon. Once I grabbed the New York Book Review…never again. It was all frowny and wordy; I don’t think they have heard of graphs or bullet points. I wish this whole bullet point as a graph…If I were you I would have skipped from Shirt-tucked-pants to Disney Video, this was by far the least brief of the brief random bullet points.
● I watched this about ten minutes ago:
Magic magic magic magic magic magic magic main street electrical parade magic
I make it a habit to shop for used stuff as much as I can. Not only does it make me feel like a good person when I save stuff from a landfill, it also works out nicely because I am poor. Well the last two places I went yielded absolute gold! First I went to Stuff, Etc. and found this on the DVD shelves:
Oh heck yes!!! I ADORE the Lizzie McGuire show. I can’t wait to bust this out on a Saturday and have a marathon! Also, I only paid $3.71 for it!
Then yesterday I went to the library book sale while I was home visiting my parents. It was pretty convenient because they live across the street from the library. I wasn’t expecting much because I had been to one of their other sales and was not all that impressed. I literally squealed out loud and embarrassed my sister when I saw this hiding among the videos.
OMG!!! My personal quest in life is to accumulate all of the original Baby-Sitters Club videos. I used to watch them all the time when I was little, but only the ones that my hometown library had….and I don’t think I have ever seen “Jessi and the Mystery of the Stolen Secrets!” I have no doubt that this will change my life…I haven’t watched it yet because my parents don’t have a VCR.
But that is not the end of the story…..a little ways down on the table I found this:
Now my collection includes all of these titles–
Jessi and the Mystery of the Stolen Secrets
Stacey Takes a Stand
Dawn and the Haunted House
Mary Anne and the Brunettes
Dawn and the Dream Boy
Claudia and the Missing Jewels
The Baby-Sitters Special Christmas
So, who’s up for a marathon. Now, just because I can, here are the opening credits from one of the shows to bring back fond memories for all of you (and get that song stuck in your head).
Inspired by Amber’s post, I am embracing my own lack of coolness and turning it into unique awesomeness. I am also the type of person who hides out in corners and smiles silently (except when hanging out with awesome nerdgirls – thank goodness for them!) Here’s tonight’s evidence of why I’m a nerd and don’t fit in the cool kids (and am ok with that).
Tonight I’ve discovered more of Michael Buble’s music, which I enjoy – possibly because sometimes I’m a 45-year-old woman (other times I’m 12 or 83, but that’s another story). The one I’m currently in love with is called “At This Moment” and it’s a cover of an ’80’s song. The song reminds me of my childhood, and I think it’s because I associate it with Time Life Music infomercials – WHICH I LOVE!
Seriously, Time Life Music infomercials are awesome. My parents don’t have cable, so those infomercials are what came on late at night. I have definitely sat and watched an entire half an hour episode(?) before. I have a vivid memory of one night in high school(?) working on homework one late night in the living room while my dad “rested his eyes.” The tv was on and I couldn’t turn it because of course that would wake him up so I left it and a ’60s one came on. Fabulous. I love the old music video or singer/band clips, the songs flashing on the screen, the testimonies from customers who are so happy that they have all their favorite old music in one great collection, and the “famous” musician hosts. I love finding out who the singers are if I don’t know (that’s gotta come up on Jeopardy sometime, right?) and counting how many songs I know. I’ll pretty much watch any of them, but the best ones are probably any related to the ’50s and ’60s. I wonder if they have a ’90s one yet…
Am I alone in this unique awesomeness? Either way, that’s what I’m calling it. 🙂
So sometimes I feel bad for my husband (yeah, I said HUSBAND–I am totally married now. maybe I’ll post about it later…) because his friends’ girlfriends are SO MUCH COOLER than me. Like really. I totally feel like I come off as Fregley when I’m around them (I have to remind myself “please don’t show the freckle please don’t show the freckle”).
How I appear when I'm around cool people.
Trust me. I know. I have hung out with these cool people and I usually sit in the corner and smile silently and hope that they won’t even remember that I was there and that I blurted out something random about my wand while they were discussing their latest poetry project or something (hmm when they read this, they will probably be like “what poetry project?! but that is how I choose to remember it. sidenote: I took a poetry class once–I wrote a poem about Buffalo Bill’s brother being buried in the Long Grove cemetery. big surprise.)
ANYWAYS the whole point of this post was to show you the proof of their awesomeness– –awesomeness that I appreciate, mind you– –as in I saw this video on facebook made by one of Steve’s best friend’s girlfriend’s best friends for Steve’s best friend’s girlfriend and clicked the “LIKE” button:
AHHH I know. totally adorable and brilliant and… like really high quality, right?!
Not to say that the video of me filming Lindsay doing the States of Matter Dance wasn’t high quality, but it is obvious that it wasn’t. (Still being used in middle school science classes around the country BOOYAH **high five with Lindsay** ELBOWS )
Wanna know what I’m thinking right now? I’m thinking that the sounds in the car commercial playing on the TV in the other room sound like the beginning of Britney Spears’ song Stronger. LOVE that song.
so Neville as a “drug” dealer? Hmmm, I see Seamus as being more of the class’ supplier of recreational medicines. or, well, the Weasley Twins since that is kinda what they already did! Either way, I get super duper excited at any mention of Harry Potter in surprising places (I SWEAR there is a Mac Miller song that mentions Hermione, but I couldn’t find it in any online lyrics… speaking of Mac Miller, I am addicted to 
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