It's all good at Goods

I arrived at Spring City around 12:30. Since I hadn't been at school since noon of Thursday, I had been studying like mad. I was aiming for three quiz outs. When I arrived, every one was there. Last time everyone was there was two Sundays ago. We started practicing after eating and opening secret sponser gifts. I got a kitty marionette (is that spelled right? I could never spell correctly in foreign languages). In three practice quiz matches, I only quizzed out on one. I needed to study more.

For dinner, we went to someone's house who served us dinner of baked ziti, salad, garlic bread and cupcakes. I only ate a little ziti. While the rest of them goofed off, I studied some more. Then we headed off to Goods. It was a 90 minute drive. Yikes! It had to be one of the farthest drives we had. The whole time we got rapid-fire questions. When we arrived, I chose to get more questions. I nearly answer all of them correct. I reviewed situation, numbers, and hard-to-pronounce places. I was ready as ever.

We had the first match. It was against Hope Community 1. Hope Community 1 is the third place all-boys team. The match started out close. We got team bonus, but then Hope Community 1 did as well. The only points I scored were the ten from helping with the team bonus. They gave a bad question at the end, which we should have contested. Hope Community won 120-70.

Our second match was in the middle. Is was against Goods 1, who was in sixteenth at the time. We once again got team bonus. Both Brandon and I quizzed out. I had a scary buzz. I buzzed in on, "What did the three hundred men in thirty companies...". I started with "trumpets", then paused. The quiz master kept looking at his book and up at me. I continued with, "...in their right hands..." Still looking at me and the book, so I went on with "...and in their left hand was empty jars...." Same looking at me and his book. I finished what was left in my brain with, "and torches." Time ran out. He looked at his judges. They nodded back. "Correct" he said. We won with 125 points. Later on, he told me he wasn't sure if I had to specify whose trumpets. But I didn't, so I was right.

We wrapped up the night with our last match. It was against Hope Community 3. Hope Community 3 is a second-to-last all-girls team. I quizzed out first. Brandon began with 2 errors, but later on quizzed out. It was scary. No team bonus this time. We won 70-45. I can't believe it! The coach wanted a foul on Michael for buzzing in too early. He thought Michael buzzed in early, making it impossible for one of the quizzers to quiz out. That's unbelieveable. First, Michael was totally unaware that she could have quizzed out or that he buzzed in early. Second of all, Michael was the only one preventing us from team bonus. Of course he would buzz in fast. Third of all, his wrong answer was in the right vincity of review text, not just a wild guess. Fourth of all, I think Michael is incapable fo doing such a block, both mentally and psychologically.

Reflections: I did exceptional. I would have liked three quiz outs, but only got two. I'm happy that the quiz match I didn't quiz out I at least scored 10 points. I think I shouldn't hurt my personal score too bad. With the team scoring 265 points, I don't think we'll either move up or down on the team standings. There are two questions we should have contested, but at the same time, twice Goods 1 could have contested our answers.

Quizzing Question of the post:
When did Samson take a young goat and go to visit his wife?

Down to the 5 last matches

Well, we are at the second to last week and the last 5 matches. After 14 matches, I have 360 points and 8 quiz outs. I beat my quiz out record. Now I all I need is 2o points to beat my record and reach my goal. I am 41th quizzer, still in the Top 50.

I've been studying all week. Practice on Wednesday was OK. I quizzed out all four matches, with two error outs. I missed all Situation questions. But when I went home and reviewed them, I got them all correct! It must have been jumping the buzzer too soon. Nonetheless, I studied the remainder of the week. I feel like I got all my situations and numbers down. I still don't feel confortable with it though, despite reading it 8 times, twice today. I need more practice with buzzers. I need practice with other quizzers trying to get in before me. That'll happen tomorrow.

Tomorrow we quiz at Goods. I got three matches tomorrow. First one is the the first match of the day. It's against Hope Community 1, the third place team. It won't be easy, but I think we can take them. If a #8 team can only lose by 25 to a #1 team, twice almost beating them, then a #7 team has a fighting chance against a #3 team. Our next match is in the fourth round. We play #16 Goods 1. We got a triple digits score against the #16 team last week. Our last match is the last match of the day. It's against Hope Community 3, the second to last team in League B. I hope we can take them.

There are countless ways I can still remain a top 50 quizzer. It's still to soon to tell. Once Monday comes, it will be more conclusive. All that matters is I remain a top 50 quizzer for the rest of the year. But now I am focusing on more important things. Krystal is 110 points ahead of me. Just like I have beaten Josh Moss, I must beat Krystal!! If I quiz out 3 times, and get 10 points one of two other matches, and Krystal scores zero points in her last 3 matches, I have won. If I quiz out all five remaining matches, I won, even if Krystal quizzes out one more time. I will try to aim for 5 quiz outs.

Quizzing Question of the post:
What was the riddle Samson told Samson's thirty companions?

Quizzing Joke:
Q: What did Samson say when he saw the honey in the lion's carcass?
A: Sweeeeeet!!!!!!

Week 6: Quiz meet at Hopewell Elverson

With the fear of the dreaded snow in our mists, quizzing was moved back 2 PM. So I had to be at Spring City for practice at 9 AM. We read the material and had two practice rounds. Aubrey got six errors, 5 in one match, 3 of them situation questions. Then we had worship service. At the end of service, we had a fellowship meal. I had a bowl of salad with a Full-Throtale Energy Drink (a product of Coca-Cola). It tasted like Mountain Dew, the best tasting energy drink so far. Most of us were cramming like mad. We had one more practice round then got in the van to drive out to the matches. Along the way, we went through questions.

We got their and went to worship. Then announcements. They changed some rooms around, so now we didn't have to play in the cursed room. Thank the Lord! We got a cheesy joke from Merv via Fred, then we went off to quiz.

Since Good Shepherd was having car problems, there was no match starting in the room we were quizzing in. After some free time in the room, we started our first match. It was against #4 Paradise 3. I got an error early in the match. Then later I scored 20 points, one on a buzz, one on a bonus. We won the match. The score was something like 70-55 to 80-55.

Second match I played was against Rivercorner 1, in 16th place. I watched their previous match. In that previous match, they started out well, but lost in the end. We played in the Jr. Youth Room, and played behind a bar and bar stools. It was very uncomfortable. I started out with two errors, both on situation questions. I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I slowed down. But my team wanted me to get for team bonus. I didn't want to. But after that I officially knew the Lord is God, and there is no other. I quizzed out on the last three questions, all review, all buzzes, with 2 errors. That was definiately not me, but the Holy Spirit. I didn't want to, but the Lord told me it was OK. He gave me all the answers. I will never stop praising the Lord's name all week. We won, scoring points in the triple digits.

We had the last match. It was against Maple Grove 1. Brandon quizzed out. I got ten points through buzzing in. We would of gotten team bonus, but Michael's answer was contested and granted. Ugh! That was so evil. Michael said, "Ang-Horses and chariots of fire". They contested Michael by saying he said Angel first, and they must except the first angel. We rebuddaled, saying Michael changed his answer in enough time. And the granted the contest! GRRR!!! We could have team bonus and won. But, noooo!!!! (I had to get that out). Then we had a chance to tied it up. It was 75 to 65 at the end of question 14. Aubrey buzzed in, but didn't get it. He gave the bonus to someone who quizzed out. Final scored Maple Grove: 90, Spring City: 65.

Last week, it "made my week" by beating Zion and Josh Moss. This week "made my week" by talking to Fred. He knew me by name, he was interested in how well I quizzed, and wanted to know where I was quizzing. the most impressive is when he said he uses my questions! Fred Hertlzer, the master quizmaster, used my questions for practice! I am honored!

Reflections: I am on spiritual high. I am so happy that the Lord gave me that quiz out. I will forever sing his praise. Now I realize all I do in quizzing his through Him. Thank you, Jesus. Like I said, for the rest of week, I will be happy because Fred knows me. My quizzing was OK. I beat my quiz out record! Yay! I was 5 points short of tying me record, 10 points short of breaking it. I will do so next week. I have an average of 26 points per match. That should be enough to help me stay on the Top 50 Quizzers List. It was impressive that the No. 8 team beat No. 4 Paradise 3. Even though we lost against Maple Grove 1, we only lost by 25 points. We lossed by more against Blainsport 55 points. That's pretty good for Spring City. I remain hopeful for our team.

Halfway through the quizzing season

Well, the second matches at LMH officially mark halfway through the quizzing season, not counting the tournaments. BOO HOO!!! It's going to fast! After about 3-5 weeks, it'll all be over! No more buzzing, no more large gatherings of quizzing, no more wild cheering, or no more crazy practices. It'll be back to boring off-season practice. It can't go! It's too soon! Slow down, quizzing, slow down!

Now, that we are halfway through, let's look at where I am. Spring City is in eighth, the highest all year. I have re-entered the Top 50 quizzers list once again! Yes! I am 34th, the highest all year. I have scored 295 points, only 80 points away from beating my record. I have tied my record for most quiz outs. I have this feeling that I must stay in the Top 50 quizzers list and not fall out, for if I fall out, I fear I may never enter again. This doesn't mean I have to quiz out every match, but I must do my best. Let's look at how well I kept my resolution for the New Quizzing Year. Okay, forget being perfect for three weeks, I blew that week one. I am one quiz out short of 8 quiz outs and 85 points short of 380 points (goal points and quiz outs for the year). I have been on the Top 5o Quizzer List for 3 weeks. If I want to keep with my goal, I need to stay in there for....the rest of the year. Oh well, it is a bit hopeful.

Now let's take a look ahead at next week. We will be at Hopewell Elverson. I'm scared. We play Maple Grove 1 (1st place), Paradise 3 (4th place), Rivercorner 1 (16th place). These won't be easy matches. The match against Rivercorner 1 is in the Jr. Youth Room. It is small, tight, warm and has a curse on it. Gasp! A curse! Why, you may ask. Everytime I quiz in that room, my team always loses. I have also seen the 3 Moss Bros. error out in that room. Yikes! But I have to do my best next week because it is possible for me to break 2 of my records. If in 2 of the 3 matches I quiz out, and in the third one I score at least ten points, I will have broke my record for most points and most quiz outs in a season. I only need one quiz out to break the quiz out record, but need 80 points to break the point record. Wish me luck!

Quizzing Question of the post:
What did Elisha's servant see the hills were full of?

Quizzing Joke:
Q: Why did it get quiet when the King of Israel sent the enemy away and they returned to their master?
A: Because after that the bands of Aram stopped raiding Israel (you know, like marching bands)

LMH round 2

I arrived at Spring City around 12:20. We started by having lunch. My consisted of a slice of cheese pizza and Monster energy drink. The energy drink tasted like cough syrup, but it did the trick. By 5:30 PM, I felt so energized I had to run laps around LMH to get it out of me! Josh wasn't able to come. Practice started a little because Mike was like in the bathroom for 20 minutes! (Okay, so maybe that was an exaggeration, but he was in there for a long time!) Practice matches were OK. My first one I only got ten points, then errored out on question 15. But after that was able to quiz out the last two matches. Between practice and dinner some of them threw around a football. I practiced buzzing. (buzzing seemed like my weakness in practice). We had a dinner of tacos and fruit. Then we left.

We arrived at LMH around 5:30 so our coaches would make it in time for the coach and staff meeting. Like I said, that Monster drink was really in my system, so I did laps around the school to get rid of the extra energy. I crammed in last some last minute studying. At the same, I felt overstudied and understudied. But I had the feeling I would quiz out twice. Before the match, I met up with Josh Moss, who quizzed with me for Ark all 3 years and is a quizzer from Zion. I went to him and said, "Let's make this match a little more interesting. I'll sit across for you. You get my bonuses, and I get yours." Josh said, "If you want to, sit in seat 3." Then came the usual. We had worship service, announcements and Merv's Joke. Then off to the matches.

We had the first match. It was against Zion. It was along awaited match. All the studying was for this match alone. I could screw up the rest of the season, but winning this, or quizzing out before Josh Moss would make nothing else matter. Zion came in loud and crazy. There was saying/singing something about a llama. The more I wanted to win now. I did as Josh said and sat on seat 3. Sure enough, he sat on seat 3 as well. The match started, and man, did we take off. Brandon, Michael, and I quizzed out. We also got a team bonus. On Zion's side, things weren't as bright. Kairsie errored out without any points. Josh got 10 points, but got two errors and was pulled. I did get ten points off one of those bonuses. In the end, Spring City beat Zion 135-20. I was soooooo happy! That made my day, maybe even my week! I think that also may have made several other's day.

We had the second match as well. It was against Reading 1. Brandon quizzed out. I quizzed out. Aubrey could have quizzed out, but his answer was contested, and the constest was granted. Not only would he have quizzed out, but we would have gotten team bonus as well because Aubrey's previous two were bonuses. We could have had two matches with 135 points, but nooooo!!!!! I got over it. We won with 100 points.

Third round I watched Rockville 2 vs. Maple Grove 1. I promised Julie, who I met online (due to a bad answer, typical of me) I watched her match. It was also good scouting because our last match next week is against Maple Grove 1. I remind you that Maple Grove 1 is first and Rockville 2 was seventeenth. It was a good match. They tied at 75 points. Rockville 2 also prevented Maple Grove 1 from getting team bonus, what they are so famous for getting. I was inspiried. If Rockville 2 can tied Maple Grove 1, so can we!I watched Maple Grove 1 play Petra 4.I knew Petra 4 could get team bonus as well as Maple Grove 1, despite the age difference. In the beginning,it looked like Petra 4 would stop the team bonus from Maple Grove 1 again, but Maple Grove came back, got team bonus and won.

The next match I watched was Conestoga 1 vs. Reading 2. Quizmaster Jaime Detweiler was a little late to the match.We started the match late. After the first two questions, Reading was winning 20-0. Then everything went downhill from there. Reading 2 is a team of 5 quizzers. Every quizzer got 2 errors, no one errored out. Reading 2 got a total of 10 errors! The final score was in Conestoga 1's favor 110 to -10. Ouch! If quizzing kept record, I think Reading 2 may have set a new record for most errors and lowest score.

Reflections: I can not be happier with my performance! Two quiz outs. I beat Josh quizzing out because he didn't quiz out.My team did beat Zion, even though it didn't seem to shut them up. I accomplished what I wanted. I feel like this is a come back. I feel I will do just as well next Sunday at Hopewell Elverson. I did some quick figures. I now have an average 28.18. I should be around 20th-35th quizzer. My team scored 235 points this meet. Our new average is 80. This should be enough to get us back into the top ten. We'll have to wait.

Quizzing Question of the post:

Situation question. Who said this and to whom? "Go."

It will be the quiz match of the century!

Bigger than Red Sox vs. Yankees .....
Bigger than Red Sox vs. Astros.....
Bigger than Eagles vs. Falcons......
Bigger than Eagles vs. Patriots.....
IT'S SPRING CITY VS. ZION!!!!!

Two teams in the same league. They are pretty well matched up. One in 13th, the other in 18th. Each have two top fifty quizzers. Each have two members from Ark 2004. Old friends will become new rivals. Before it was fun and games. Now it's down right serious. There will be no going easy. It's time for people to prove themselves.

I'm feeling good about Sunday. I have read the material at least eight times. I quizzed out all three practice matches (the only one who did). Our match against Zion is during the first round at LMH in classroom 206. I encourage everyone who can to come to watch the match, especially Hopewell 4 and Reading 2. It will be one for the century.

Quizzing Question of the post:
From what were the twenty loaves of barley bread baked?

Super Quizzing Sunday

Sunday started as usual. I went to Spring City Sunday School because we had practice. Then, I stayed for service (the speaker was really good). After service, we headed off to Conestoga. On the ride up, I had a lunch of Amp Energy Drink, a product of Mountain Dew. It has this funky citrus flavor.

We arrived at Conestoga an hour early. So we sat in a little preschool (with cute, little seats) and went through rounds of questions. I did pretty good, even though I couldn't feel my legs under the preschool-level table. After the practice, I went to the worship. I met up with my parents and 2 families from my church (not Spring City), who came to cheer my on. Afterword, one of them realized how I can answer questions in his Sunday school before he completed the question. :-) I always think the more fans, the better. A loud cheer is always better than a short applause. Then we heard announcements. THE INVITATIONAL IS IN PENNSYLVANIA! ACKPTH! Yes, I hate the bad news. This will be my fourth invitation, and now I'll have 2 in PA and 2 in OH. Despite the bad news, I went to my first quiz match.

We had the first quizmatch, literally. It was against Hopewell 3. I was siked (sp?) and ready for the quizmatch. I started. Halfway through, we were losing. Coach Dave made some substitutes to help get team bonus. Team bonus seemed to be the only thing to help win. However, it was not needed. Brandon and I made a comeback. We both quizzed out. My quiz out came at the last minute in question 15. We just won. The final score was 90-80.

Second match was halfway through the rounds. It was against Blainsport. Blainsport is 5th place in our league. It was very intimadating. We tried to forget it, but it was apparently hurt us. They seemed to be buzzing in 1-2 words before we could! So we decided to buzz at their speed. But it didn't work. It seemed like we buzzed at the same speed. But everytime they got in, they got in at a key word. Everytime we buzzed in, it was like, "How many..." or "Who cannot..." Nothing was key! It caused Aubrey to error out. Brandon just managed to quiz out. I only got 10 points. I could have gotten 20, but I got a mean question and I only got 3 of 5. Isn't "What did Pharaoh do to Gezer?" a mean question??!! We lost 100-45. It's not like we didn't know it, we were just slow and got mean questions.

Our third match was the second to last round. It was against Hopewell 1. We tried to walk off the loss, but with no success. Brandon errorred out, with zero points. I quizzed out, though. Nonetheless, we still lost.

When I checked out my stats, I was satisfied. The team is in thirteenth. I am tied with many for 44th. I'm back on the Top 50 Quizzers List! Brandon didn't drop too much. He went from 1st to 13th. I'm happy our team and Brandon didn't drop too much. I'm very happy that I moved up.

Reflections: I think we did okay. Even though we lost twice, we made a good comeback our first match for a win. I am satisfied with my 2 quiz outs and 10 points against Blainsport. I am also glad because I am the only one on my team to score all three matches. Wow. I LOVE MY SECRET SPONSER. I got Nutty Buddies, Lays Stax and a hat. Awesome!

Quizzing Question of the post:
Who was with the reapers?

Quizzing Joke:
Q: Who were the first people to discover that marijuana was fatal?
A: The company of the prophets, because they said "There is death in the pot!" (For those who don't know, a slang term for marijuana is pot)

Where I stand

They updated the standings. The good news is my team in tenth place in their league. We have an average of 75 points per match. Now the bad news. I dropped from 38th to 55th. I am no longer a top fifty quizzer. I can still get there with some help of people above me....

People accuse me of an act which they consider immoral or evil or etc. But is it really? They say it is wrong for me to wish people ahead of me do worse. Is it? I don't think it is. Think about it. You are guilty of the same "crime" if you wish to go up on the standings. The way the system is set up, the only way to advance is if you do good AND the people ahead of you do bad. If you did good, and your opponet did just as well as you, nothing changes. They are still ahead of you. So I still think it's not bad. It's all how you view it.

Quizzing Question of the post:
What is the prophets of Baal to prepare first?

Quizzing Joke:
Q: Why are the deserts around Horeb so clean?
A: Because of the broom trees