Double your pleasure, double your fun

Preparation for quizzing began Saturday night. Since we had to take double material in, we decided to have double practice. We read and had four practice matches Saturday night. It was around the new material. My performance was slow, including a near error out, but I was able to bring out quiz outs. On top of that, I felt like I forgot the cancelled week's material. After four matches, I needed a break from quizzing. I stayed overnight, along with Christine, Jai, and Mike. We first watched the old quizzing videos. Lol, I could sing along with the 2004 video and recite the 2004 Top 50 Quizzers List Introduction. We then stayed up to 1 AM playing card games. When we began playing bull, some of us got so many cards, we could predict the bull. "Don't even bother laying down kings." lol. Gotta love those guys. I listened to the material one more time before going to sleep.

After 6 1/2 hours of sleep, I got up at 7:30 AM. I read the snow week's material again. Mike got up a half hour later. We got ready to get for church. During the Sunday School hour, we met up with Bekah for some more practice. This practice was on the snow week's material. We did great. Our first practice match there was only one error, our second had zero, and our third had two. Each error the bonus was picked up, not a wrong bonus. A boost in confidence.

After the church service, we left immeadiately. In the van, we ate lunch. The van ride was funny. I told some of you guys this story. I had a Talking Stitch for my quizzing buddy (from the movie Lilo and Stitch). It has a microphone in it so when you say some choice phrases to it, it replies. However, Stitch is very sensitive. When talking to it, one must be loud and clear, pronouncing every syllable carefully. One of phrases Stitch recognizes is "I Love You" and Stitch will reply "I love you, too." Well, Bekah (our youngest quizzer, and it shows) spent about an hour telling this stuff animal "I Love You" but never got any reply. It must've not understood Bekah's "valley girl accent" or how Bekah talked, because it would not respond to it. A few time when Bekah said, "I love you" it replied "Whatever!" ("Whatever is what Stitch says when it can't register what was said, or when time has passed without anything being said to it.) Jai says, "That's a typical guy. A girl pours her heart to him, and all he says is 'Whatever'." After the hour, Bekah just gave up. So Bruce decided to try Stitch. He says "I Love You" and on the first try Stitch replies "I Love You Too." Well, of course, Bekah had to try for another half-hour.

We got there with 15 minutes to spare. After quick announcements and a cheesy joke, quizzing began. In the first half (snow week material), we had 3 matches. Our first match was against Akron 1. We were able to get team bonus. I was the only one to quiz out. We won 95 to 65. We had two matches between this match and our next match, so I watched future oppenents. Both of the matches were with Hope Comm. 4 in it. I hope they didn't think I was stalking them. The last match I saw was E-Town 2, our next opponent, get a smackdown. A #6 team was being beaten by #27 team. I knew that this double week made no assumption safe. Every team was to be taken as a hard team. But that didn't change for playing E-Town 2. In our match, they had 2 error outs, one of them from a quizzer who had errored out the last match (2 consecutive error outs). I got my first two bonuses of the year from him. I quizzed out that match as well. Our team won with a score 90-45

The match against E-Town 2 was the first of a consecutive match. Now we had to go against Good Shepherd 1, the no. 1 team in our league. Now I know that the placement meant nothing for the doubled up days, but it did have us nervous. Waiting for the judge to come back from his bathroom break, I got to talk to one of the quizzers from Good Shepherd 1 (naturally, being in seat 1). That helped gete rid of some tension. Then the quizzing began. I did quiz out, but late. We did good, but Good Shepherd just out quizzed us. We lost the match 90-65. Here's the irony: last year, when we quizzed against the number 1 quiz team, Maple Grove 1, we lost 90-65. Creepy! It was upsetting to lose, but they were a hard team. We put up a good fight. While not winning, we did prevent Good Shepherd 1 of getting to their average.

We roughly ended the first half at 5 PM. We got dinner out of the way so we could practice more. Bekah finally got Stitch to say, "I Love You" back at her, so she did it non-stop for awhile. I had to take Stitch away from her, so Mike or Christine would not fulfill any of their threats. After dinner, most of the quiz team went out to play tetherball. After a half-hour they came back in. We read over the week's material, and did rounds of questions. That practice that I felt was sticking actually did. I felt better about know the material. We then went to praise and worship. After worship there were a few announcements. There are a planed 91 teams going to the Invitational Tournament 91 TEAMS! They also made some rulings harder. "Spirit" alone is incomplete. Disciples are automatically assumed to be Jesus's, otherwords must be specified as John the Baptist's disciples or the Pharisees' disciples. My favorite: The Apostles and the Twelve are interchangeable, but disciples is only SOMETIMES interchangeable. I know it makes sense, but it is soooo hard.

Spring City's first match in the second half wasn't until round 4, so I watched a few matches. I wanted to watch matches of future opponents, but Mike wanted to watch Hopewell matches to find a certain girl, and Christine wanted to watch Hope Community matches to find a certain guy. So I pretty much watched my matches alone. I saw Neffsville 1 twice. They only have 3 quizzers, but one always seemed to quiz out. I want to sit across from him next week. I also watched Blainsport vs. Good Shepherd 1. Once again, Good Shepherd was unable to get their score in the triple digits. This will hurt their average, givin hope to our placing.

Our first match of the second half of the day was against Hopewell 2. They are team #22 in our league. I thought I hadn't seen this team before, but apparently I had. It the remained of Dennis Willman's Hopewell 4, just without Krystal and Jason/AJ. It Bryant and Mike. I wanted to sit across from Bryant in seat 1, but coach wanted me in seat 4, so I sat across from Mike in seat 4. Christine sat across Bryant in seat 1 (and she didn't want to). Easy, right? Not exactly. We struggled. I managed to quiz out. In the end, we lost to them 90-75. Not who I was expecting to lose to.

We had to wait for the last round to get our final match. It was against Goods 1. I quizzed out again, making that my fifth quiz out for the day. Bekah got a bonus, and I was so sure she'd have 20 points at the end of the day, but she missed it. We barely won with a score of 80-75. While the win was nice, it killed our average.

Quizzing Question of the Post:
From whose blood to whose blood will all this generation be responsible for?