Outlets for my useless random knowledge
Feb. 9th, 2009 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trenchkamenYeah, so, this is where I was this weekend:
Friday
Not much happened. We got to LA, I discovered that I had my own room with two beds (vagina score), and we ate at this awesome little Indian restaurant down the street. The weather was AMAZING, though, rainy and cool. I walked to the Shell just to have an excuse to walk around in the rain in a city. Very urban decay.
Saturday
I was woken from a strange nightmare at 6:30 AM by my phone going off. Somehow got downstairs by 7, piled into the partyvan (surprise, no candy), and had a long drive down to UCLA. Why we got a hotel half an hour away I will know, but I was not in charge of reservations.
UCLA has a lovely campus. This was my first time actually going there, so I was rather enchanted by the sheer grandiose nature of the buildings, the trees, the complexity. ASU is red brick and more red brick. We finally found where we were supposed to meet and were somehow the first group there. I played Disgaea DS and tried to wake my brain up.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
skuldchan showed up, as she had volunteered to read questions.
The competition itself was, eh, long. My team (ASU Wolfmanpack, more commonly called the B-team) got fifth overall out of 11, so for a first-timer team I guess that's not so bad. We had five people, so one of us had to rotate out each round. The A-team tied UCLA for first and apparently went into double-overtime during a tiebreaker round. I did not see this firsthand, because Skuld and I had already left for In-n-Out, but apparently NOBODY OUT OF EIGHT PEOPLE could recognize the song "Sympathy for the Devil" given the lyrics. What the shit. I probably would have run up there and kicked somebody in the back of the head. Apparently UCLA won by a slim margin, though that is being contested. Long story short, we're not going to Nationals. Oh well.
This was when the real fun started. Skuld and I ate, went back to her apartment, and watched the first two episodes of One Piece because I have not seen it and she is probably the world's most dedicated fan. We went tofabula_umbrae's new house, which is pretty slick, and did more nerdish stuff. Skuld drove me halfway across town back to the hotel, and I crashed promptly after I got back.
Sunday
Given that none of us had visited the La Brea Tar Pits, we got up an hour early to go to the museum, except it was closed. Apparently the hours on the website are not up-to-date. We just walked around the external lake and took pictures of the sculptures of mastodons. We got to the airport early and sat around a lot. A woman tried to brush past the people checking boarding passes with her gigantic roller-bag, but she was chased down and told she would have to check her bag. She had a breakdown and told the employees that if they lost her bag, she was seriously going to "lose her shit", which I know from my sister really means go crazy or something like that. I'm always awed that people actually behave like that. I thought that was only on reality TV.
I find it amusing thatmiwasatoshi is still spoken of as something of a legend with a degree of reverence among the team members. Apparently he's Gandalf, or something. I only caught the tail end of that conversation.
I spent the rest of yesterday frantically finishing my fellowship proposal to renew my SOLUR grant. I get to turn it in today. Thank God; I'm really fucking sick of it. Three exams this week and a paper due. Yahoo.
Friday
Not much happened. We got to LA, I discovered that I had my own room with two beds (vagina score), and we ate at this awesome little Indian restaurant down the street. The weather was AMAZING, though, rainy and cool. I walked to the Shell just to have an excuse to walk around in the rain in a city. Very urban decay.
Saturday
I was woken from a strange nightmare at 6:30 AM by my phone going off. Somehow got downstairs by 7, piled into the partyvan (surprise, no candy), and had a long drive down to UCLA. Why we got a hotel half an hour away I will know, but I was not in charge of reservations.
UCLA has a lovely campus. This was my first time actually going there, so I was rather enchanted by the sheer grandiose nature of the buildings, the trees, the complexity. ASU is red brick and more red brick. We finally found where we were supposed to meet and were somehow the first group there. I played Disgaea DS and tried to wake my brain up.
skuldchan showed up, as she had volunteered to read questions. The competition itself was, eh, long. My team (ASU Wolfmanpack, more commonly called the B-team) got fifth overall out of 11, so for a first-timer team I guess that's not so bad. We had five people, so one of us had to rotate out each round. The A-team tied UCLA for first and apparently went into double-overtime during a tiebreaker round. I did not see this firsthand, because Skuld and I had already left for In-n-Out, but apparently NOBODY OUT OF EIGHT PEOPLE could recognize the song "Sympathy for the Devil" given the lyrics. What the shit. I probably would have run up there and kicked somebody in the back of the head. Apparently UCLA won by a slim margin, though that is being contested. Long story short, we're not going to Nationals. Oh well.
This was when the real fun started. Skuld and I ate, went back to her apartment, and watched the first two episodes of One Piece because I have not seen it and she is probably the world's most dedicated fan. We went to
fabula_umbrae's new house, which is pretty slick, and did more nerdish stuff. Skuld drove me halfway across town back to the hotel, and I crashed promptly after I got back.Sunday
Given that none of us had visited the La Brea Tar Pits, we got up an hour early to go to the museum, except it was closed. Apparently the hours on the website are not up-to-date. We just walked around the external lake and took pictures of the sculptures of mastodons. We got to the airport early and sat around a lot. A woman tried to brush past the people checking boarding passes with her gigantic roller-bag, but she was chased down and told she would have to check her bag. She had a breakdown and told the employees that if they lost her bag, she was seriously going to "lose her shit", which I know from my sister really means go crazy or something like that. I'm always awed that people actually behave like that. I thought that was only on reality TV.
I find it amusing that
miwasatoshi is still spoken of as something of a legend with a degree of reverence among the team members. Apparently he's Gandalf, or something. I only caught the tail end of that conversation.I spent the rest of yesterday frantically finishing my fellowship proposal to renew my SOLUR grant. I get to turn it in today. Thank God; I'm really fucking sick of it. Three exams this week and a paper due. Yahoo.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 07:49 pm (UTC)*hangs head* I'd feel more pathetic if it weren't for the fact that I love it so much and think that it is totally deserving of all of my adoration.
We just walked around the external lake and took pictures of the sculptures of mastodons
I love how the daddy mastadon is sinking into the tar pit and the baby is totally distressed about it. That's grim and morbid, man. ¬_¬ If I was a little kid looking at that scene, I would have been traumatized for life. Or at least really, really sad.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 05:31 am (UTC)Also, yeah, that sculpture made me sad.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-11 04:36 am (UTC)Paw pads!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 08:05 pm (UTC)THAT'S BEYOND DEPRESSING.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 09:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 10:12 pm (UTC)... Even I know that and I'm not exactly well versed in names of songs or artists. >_>
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 10:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 05:32 am (UTC)...even worse, why did I know it?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 05:48 am (UTC)* - obviously cool is subjective. Somebody thought it was cool to write a Nickelback question. >:( AUGH.
Nickelback
Date: 2009-02-11 04:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 09:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-10 05:31 am (UTC)Why I'm Gandalf
Date: 2009-02-11 04:34 am (UTC)LAWL.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-11 06:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-01 07:39 am (UTC)My half of the expedition was put into that hotel because our sponsors wanted to keep us in a nice hotel in a nice area and that was the one they could find at a reasonable price. I figured it best to keep everyone together.
We ended up replaying the game with UCLA (they were sportsmanlike enough to play again instead of accepting a victory-by-protest) and they won 170-160 after running out of questions. "Sympathy for the Devil" was the last tossup (so in hindsight we could have given them a big headache if only we got that one and then bageled the bonus... but it didn't happen). At least we got 18 more minutes of the best practice anyone could ask for.
Actually in my reckoning miwasatoshi would be Dumbledore, not Gandalf. (I have a whole Harry Potter analogy worked out in my head, actually, and there's also a football one. I can't figure out the Lord of the Rings one, though.) But yes, to me he is a living legend. Had we still had him, we would almost certainly have been West Region champions.
I've requested a club website, and when we get it we'll have miwasatoshi listed as our first Medal of Honor recipient for his macrohistorically important contribution to our quizbowl program.
I'm glad you had a good time there, though, as that makes my mission a success as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-01 09:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-05 06:21 am (UTC)Nice blog, though. (Especially for someone with such an extensive "real" life.)