Been coming across a lot of stuff online about how cheating is ruining quizzo, and I want to address it. Lately, I’ve seen a ton of comments that say something to the effect of, “I used to play quizzo, but now with smart phones, it’s all cheaters so you can’t win anymore. So I don’t play any more.”

This is nonsense. I can’t speak for all quizzes of course. There may be some with a lazy quizmaster who doesn’t pay any attention, but speaking for my own quizzes and for any quizmaster who takes the quiz seriously (at least as seriously as one should take a pub quiz), cheating is simply a non-issue for a number of reasons.

First of all, there is the basic fact that very few teams cheat. Because the whole point of quizzo is to hang out with your friends and see how much you guys know, bringing Google into it kind of defeats the whole purpose. Most teams want to test their knowledge, not Google’s knowledge, and therefore don’t even consider cheating.

That said, I keep a close eye out for cheaters. The problem with smart phones is that they give off a very distinct glow that easily shows up on a person’s face when they turn it on, particularly in a dark bar. So if someone picks up a phone during a round, I start walking over to them. 85% of the time, they are texting or checking facebook. Even so, I ask them to put the phone away and they typically do without much fuss.

If they are cheating, they normally shuffle to put their phones away when I start walking over, so I know by the first round that they’re trying to cheat. I’ll tell them to put their phones away and then I watch them closely (and angrily) for the rest of the quiz. If they persist in cheating I simply stop grading their paper. There have been several quizzes where I’ve just stopped grading a team’s paper and given them a crappy random score that was out of the money. I’m not going to keep asking you to put your phone away. But cheating will be pointless.

Furthermore, there is enough of a community aspect in my quizzes that if a team appears to be cheating, one of the regular teams will let me know. It kind of polices itself. After that, I will watch that team like a hawk for the rest of the game, and will go over to their table the moment they even think about pulling out an iphone.

If there is a team I’ve never seen before doing extremely well after 3 rounds, I will look at their table during every single question of the final round. This isn’t to indict those teams of cheating…trust me, I want new good teams to play quizzo. And typically, those are just good new teams. But it is a flag raiser when a team that I’ve never heard of before leads after three rounds. I will watch them throughout Round 4 to make sure there is nothing untoward going on.

There is also the “Shame” aspect of cheating. It is so f***ing pathetic that any team caught doing it will be ostracized by the rest of the quizzo community. If a team wants to win a single quiz and then never play my quizzo again, it may be a tempting option. But for teams that want to be regulars, they would never be welcome back if they ever tried to cheat at quizzo, and there are some bars where they might end up having to fight their way out the door. It is not an option to be taken lightly, and if any of the top teams were caught, the shame would hardly be worth the $40 gift certificate.

Finally, there are occasionally times when teams are cheating and I kind of ignore it. I probably shouldn’t, but I do. Why? Because teams that cheat are normally about 60 points out of the lead by the final round and couldn’t win if they had Ken Jennings texting them answers. Perhaps I should be tougher on this, but the fact is I don’t want to keep interrupting the quiz to deal with someone who has no chance of affecting the final outcome. It’s just a waste of time and energy.

The bottom line is that there are few people on earth worse than quizzo cheaters (Congressmen and Illinois Nazis come to mind), and I can understand other players getting frustrated when they see them pull out their cellphones. But the odds are that they are either facebooking, are so far behind that it doesn’t matter, or about to get reprimanded or simply not scored for cheating.

That’s not to say that occasionally some team will figure out a master plan to cheat (a few years ago there was a team who would send a member to the bathroom after about 5 questions into the final round to look up the answers to those questions, then return to the table), but people who say that “Smart phones have ruined quizzo” are quite simply wrong, and it’s important that that perception gets nipped in the bud.

The following is the true story of the only catch of my high school football career.

I had noticed, on the previous couple of plays, that the cornerback covering me was paying me essentially no mind. It was hard to blame him. I was a 14-year old stringbean with average speed, hardly the second coming of Jerry Rice. And besides, we were just ramming it into the line on every play, grinding out 2 to 3 yards at a time as the clock continued it’s inexorable descent down to triple zeros.

Dyke, our strapping Senior QB, was slowly ambling back to the huddle to call the next play, which was certain to be another “32”, the fullback merely following the guard before being swallowed by a mass of bodies.

I had different ideas. “Hey Dyke,” I screeched out in my scratchy teen voice.

“Yeah,” he sneered back nasally, with a tinge of disdain he tacked on when he spoke to people below him, such as freshmen.

“Dude, that cornerback isn’t even covering me. I mean, I’m wide open over there. We could easily score.”

Dyke looked at me blankly, unsure of how to handle my request. He had been given specific instructions from the sidelines and our coach, Mr. Bynum, was a military veteran who equated deviations from the game plan with high treason.

Continue reading “The Lone Reception” →

Pretty awesome night last night at O’Neals.  Jonas and Susan, regulars on Bears are Scared of Jazz Hands, got engaged via quizzo answers, the 2nd time we’ve ever had that  happen at O’Neals. The first time was 8 years ago. It happened again at the Black Sheep in 2009; apparently this type of thing happens every 4 years. Regardless, I’m going to give the team a bonus point in the JGTAI, since Susan said yes. (Had she said no, I would be forced to take a point away.)

Here are the questions that led to THE QUESTION. The answers and how it all went down are posted below.

1. Fill in the blank on this 1987 musical hit: With or _______________.

2. A magazine, a cereal, and a board game.

3. The last name of Plan 9 from Outer Space director Ed.

4. What were the two initials of Mr. T’s character Baracas on the A-Team?

5. What is the 4 letter abbreviation for Mississippi?

6. What do you need to stab a vampire in the heart with to kill him?

7. What is the last name of conservative writer and baseball fan George, syndicated in over 450 papers?

8. The University of Miami is better known as the ___________.

9. She was queen of England from 1553-1558, and was known for her bloody persecution of Protestants.

10. What is the two letter abbreviation for Maine?

Bonus: Susan, please read the answers to numbers 1-10 and then give Jonas your answer.

Continue reading “Jonas and Susan Get Engaged Via Quizzo Answers” →

Here’s the scores after Week 1. Interesting what a difference these new wrinkles made in the scoring. The Savage Ear combined a win at O’Neals with 3 questions of the day on twitter to take the lead with 11 points. Meanwhile, Synchronized Trampoline was the only team to take advantage of the free point for tweeting or facebooking about JGT quizzo (If you’re gonna play the quiz, or you just played the quiz, mention it on facebook or twitter with either my name tagged or the hashtag #jgtquizzo to earn your team an easy point). And nobody took advantage of the Physical Challenge (Post a picture of you bowling) We’ll keep that as the physical challenge for this week. There are plenty of points out there for the taking. Your team just needs to take advantage.

And congrats to the Cracked Eggheads….they won the first invite to the Autumn Invitational with a win at the PHS quiz.

There are THREE DOUBLE POINTS QUIZZES this week. North Star tonight, O’Neals on Tuesday, and Industry on Thursday. It’s the only time all season we’ll have three in one week. So three shots to score big points early in the season. Get your team right and let’s do this.

A few new twists on the Autumn Invitational. First of all, there will be a DOUBLE POINTS QUIZ each week. This week it will be at Industry. Team that wins there will get 10 points, 2nd place 6 points, and 3rd place 2 points, twice as much as the regular quiz.

There will also be a lot more opportunities to earn points outside of the regular quiz. I will have a QUESTION OF THE DAY each day on twitter and on facebook, Monday-Friday. First person to answer on facebook and on twitter (different question on each) earns their team 2 points. Just post your team name next to your answer.

Speaking of facebook and twitter, anyone who posts a tweet or a wall post on facebook about my quiz will earn their team a point, for up to 5 points per week. Or you can earn a point if you take a picture at one of my quizzes and post it on Instagram. Just use the hastag #JGTquizzo or you can use my handle @johnnygoodtimes and then talk about the quiz. You can talk about the questions. You can talk about how your team did. You can tell everyone that “The @johnnygoodtimes quizzo gave me a nasty rash”. I don’t care what you post. But if it has to do with the quizzo, you will earn your team a point.

The team that collects the most points, between physical challenges, questions of the day, and my shameless marketing ploy above will earn a BITCHIN’ prize at the Invitational. I haven’t decided on what it is yet, only that it’s BITCHIN’.

There are also a couple of special quizzes in the works. Any team that wins a special quiz (other than the Jesters of Tortuga, who are currently on probation) will automatically earn an invite to the Big Event in November. The first one is this Saturday at the Navy Yard.

Oh, and the first physical challenge and question of the day have been posted on facebook, and I’ve asked what what themes you guys wanna see for the next few weeks.

 

Very cool event coming up this Saturday at the Navy Yard. Gonna be hosting a quiz as part of the Philadelphia Horticultural Society’s annual Fall Festival. The quiz will focus on fall and plants, though we’ll use that theme quite loosely (questions about Pumpkin beers and Daisy Buchanan will quite likely find their way into the mix.)

It’s all part of a very fun festival going down at the Navy Yard starting at 11 a.m. and running all day with live music, cold beer, scarecrow contests, and more. Admission and parking are both free, and the 17 bus runs right to the spot. The team that wins will get automatic entry into the JGT Autumn Invitational in November. The day starts at 11, and the quizzo starts at 4:30 p.m. Hope to see ya down there!

First of all, want to thank everyone who came out to our Fringe show this past Saturday night. We had a really nice turnout (with tons of quizzo folks) and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Perhaps the best came from Jon K., who said, “I don’t know anything about baseball, but it really didn’t matter. That was a really fun show.”

Well, the good news is that even if you missed it the first time, we’re doing it again this Friday. Once again, it’s at the Adobe Cafe at 8 p.m. It’s a mere $10 and you can purchase tickets here or at the door.