Category: Happenings

Wrestling Quizzo This Sunday!

Alright, rasslin’ fans, this one is gonna be real to you, damnit! My buddy Bryce is a ref for Chikara Wrestling and we’ve been talking forever about doing a wrestling quiz. Well, now’s the time. In anticipation of their huge High Noon Event on November 13th at the Asylum Arena at 7 West Ritner, we’re going to do a pro wrestling quiz this Sunday. Questions will cover all aspects of pro wrestling, from finishing moves to entrance music to great matches. All pro wrestling will be covered, but there will be an emphasis on the 1980s and 90s, primarily WWF and WCW. But don’t worry, underground fans, we’ll work the AWA and ECW into the mix as well.

Action goes down at the POPE this Sunday at 7 p.m. In addition to prizes for our winners, we’ll also have prizes for best Wrestling outfit and best wrestler impersonation. This is gonna be a ton of fun, or my name ain’t Johnny “The Mouth of the South” Goodtimes.

JGT Power Rankings for Week of November 1st

After the wildest week in JGT quizzo history, things are all sorts of insane. Not a single team in last week’s Top 12 won this week, and only four of them even finished in the top 3. Here are the latest rankings.

1. Vacant. There simply is no-one to put here after last week. All of our top teams should be happy about this, as the position is obviously cursed. The Top ranked team has lost every single week following their #1 ranking so far.

2. L. Ron Hubbard’s Diabetics. (Ugly American) No-way they can keep the title after losing by 9 points, but their 2nd place finish at least keeps them in 2nd on the big board. Last week: #1

3. Duane’s World. (Black Sheep) Hard to believe that a 3rd place finish could move a team up in the rankings, but compared to how our other perennial champs did, it was a major victory. Last week: #4

4. Madame Butterface (The Vous). Came into the Vous on Wednesday and sent a message at our toughest bar, loud and clear. Was it a flash in the pan, or is this team for real? We’ll find out soon enough. Last week: NR

5. Wet Bandits. (O’Neals). Dominate at O’Neals with a 116. As with all of the teams this week, hard to know if they’re for real or all about the 2 G’s. Last week: NR

6. Million Dollar Robot Baby (City Tap House). Stay put in the rankings thanks to a mere 8-point loss and 2nd place finish at CTH. Last week: #6

7. Steak Em Up (Bards). Not even a Top 3 finish. They get in on name recognition alone. Last week: #3

8. Do It Live (City Tap House). Who are they? Why are they here? I have no idea, but I’d like to see them play again to see if there is a new powerhouse at CTH. Last week: NR

9. The Jams (Rendezvous). Normally a 109 has you closer to the top of the list. This week, it just got the Jams a 7 point loss. Last week: #11

10. That’s Just How Quizzo Go. (Black Sheep). That’s just how quizzo went last week. A huge win at the Sheep. Last week: NR

11. Queen of Hearts is a Nice Piece of Ace (Bards). Love teams like this. Been playing forever, never took home top prize, and finally on one night, all of the stars aligned and they win at a packed bar. Awesome. Last week: NR

12. Mustard Gives Me Gas (Ugly American). Look damn impressive, a 3-player team knocking off the #1 Diabetics. On a normal week, they’d be even higher, but last week wasn’t a normal week. Last week: NR

13. We Got Fracked (North Star). Another team with its first ever win after playing for a long time, they take home the trophy at the North Star bar and move into our power rankings for the first time ever. Will #13 be lucky for Fracked? Last week: NR

The Original iPod…in 1979

We had a question at quizzo this week about a device that was invented in 2001 and had sold 300 million copies, but which looked eerily similar to a device that was invented in 1979 by Kane Kramer. The answer is of course the iPod. Here’s a bit of the backstory to that question.

You fans of The Wire surely remember the scene where DeAngelo explains that the guy who invented the Chicken Nugget isn’t rich, but working in a basement for Mr. McDonald for minimum wage. Well, his tale of Mr. Nugget is similar to that of Kane Kramer. Kramer was the 23 year old inventor who, in 1979, came up with the concept of the mp3 player. In fact, he built a working model at that time. But like the computer and Charles Babbage, there was very little technology at the time to support his invention. He could have stored 3.5 minutes of music on the device. He was unable to get the money keep his patent, which Apple later scooped up and used to help create their iPod. Kramer is none the richer, despite the fact that he’s the father of one of the most popular devices of the past decade. Here’s some more info from Wired.com:

Kramer came up with the idea for a pocket-sized, portable solid state music player with a friend, James Campbell. Kramer was 23, Campbell 21. The IXI System had a display screen and buttons for four-way navigation. In a report presented to investors in 1979, the IXI was described as being the size of a cigarette packet. Is this sounding familiar yet?

Back in 1979, a memory chip would store a paltry three and a half minutes of music. Kramer fully expected this to improve, and confidently foresaw a market for reliable, high quality digital music players which would be popular with both consumers and the record labels. It could actually be argued that he was still ahead of Apple after the firat iPod went on sale — that had a hard drive and Kramer had moved onto flash memory years earlier.

Much has been made of Apple somehow “stealing” the technology. But the patent did what all patents do, whether used or not. It lapsed, and whether Apple took the idea from there or from somewhere else, it was all perfectly legitimate. In fact, when Apple was suing (and counter-sued by) Burst.com in 2006 it cited the invention as “prior art” to dispute Burst’s patents. Apple even called Kramer in to give evidence.

But anyone can dream up a magic futuristic gadget. That’s where James Campbell came in. Campbell was an electronics whizz and between them the men came up with four prototypes. According to Kramer’s website, a fifth, pre-production unit actually went on sale at the APRS exhibition at Earls Court, London.

Here’s some more cool stuff from Kramer’s pitch to potential investors. This was written in 1979:

Record albums and/or singles issued by recording companies are fed in digital form into a computerised Central Data Bank. This data bank is connected by telephone lines to all retailers. The computer holds this digital information and upon receipt of coded instructions from retailers terminal, will transmit the requested music instantaneously to the terminal, where it is then programmed onto a blank IXI CHIP. It calculates and bills the retailers account, splits the relative apportionments of PRS, Artists Royalties, writers and record companies share, all in a matter of seconds.

Is This the Worst Song in the History of Music?

 

This week’s question of the week was, WHat group had an album called “I’m Not a Fan But the Kids Like It”? The answer was Brokencyde. They are above. Now before you watch this, a word of caution: Once you watch it, you can’t unwatch it. It will take a up a small sliver of your brain forever. And make no mistake: listening to this song will make your life worse. Not a lot worse, but it is worth noting before you watch. I’ve head Celine Dion, I’ve heard Nick Lachey, and I’ve heard Creed. Hell, I’ve even heard Aqua. And this is, improbably, worse than all of them.

JGT Power Rankings for Week of October 24th

1. L. Ron Hubbard’s Diabetics (North Star and Ugly American). A narrow win at North Star followed by a blowout win at UA takes them to the top spot. Last week: #2

2. Philliez Nutz (Bards). Wanna get to the top of the rankings? Beat Steak Em Up 3 times in 4 weeks and I can guarantee you a spot in the Top 3. Last week: #5

3. Steak Em Up (CTH and Bards). A first place and a 2nd place keep them in the 3-hole. Last week: #3

4. Duane’s World (Black Sheep). Recent losing streak caused them to call in reinforcements. Don’t know if they even needed them in a 27-point shellacking at the Black Sheep. Last week: #12

5. Honey Badgers (Locust Rendezvous). Well, they already had the superlative “loudest team” pretty much locked up, but now you can finally put a win on their resume. Huge win for the Badgers. Congrats! Last week: NR

6. Million Dollar Robot Baby (City Tap House). At first glance, a 2nd place finish is nothing to be ashamed of. Until you see that they fell by 25. And the curse of the #1 rank continues. Still no team has remained #1 for two straight weeks. Last week: #1

7. Mysterious Mr. Mapother (O’Neals). 2nd win in 3 weeks for Mapother at O’Neals. Now that the Ear seems to have folded, Mapother has established itself as the team to beat at O’Neals. Last week: NR

8. Mister Lippers (Ugly American). Picked a good week to take a week off. With so many top teams losing, they only drop two spots in the rankings. Last week: #6

9. What’s Good for the Puma (Black Sheep). A third place finish at the Black Sheep keeps them holding steady at #9. Last week: #9

10. Inglorious Barristers (Vous). I started posting the top 3 quizzo scores at each bar in June of 2009. Since that time, there have been over 100 quizzes at the Vous. And not once, not once, did the Barristers, Jams, or Magnus all fail to finish in the Top 3. Until this week. Pretty incredible. Last week: #4

11. The Jams (Locust Rendezvous). There is no tougher team in quizzo when they are hot, but they aren’t hot right now. A rare Top 3 miss for the Jams. Last week: #7

12. What’s Good for the Puma (Black Sheep). Another Top-3 finish, but they are hanging onto a Top-12 standing by a thread. Last week: #9

Also receiving votes: Specific Jawns, Firehouse, Taking it to the Max, Popesack, Magnus ver Magnusson, Madame Butterface, 1022, Why Can’t Us, Missing Heads, Team Boyle

JGTAI Scores After 4 Weeks

Here are our JGTAI scores after 4 weeks. The Top 15 are posted below. Here’s the deal: you’ve got 4 more weeks to get your team in gear. If you’re joining us late, never to fear. You’ve got plenty of time to get into the mix. You can start by scoring some points in our new physical challenge. You can earn up to 8 points this week and put your team righ tin the mix, even if you haven’t played yet. You can get your team into the top 3 this week at quizzo (most winnable spots right now? Probably O’Neals or Ugly American). Or you can win one of the upcoming special events quizzes, which are worth double points. I’ll keep you updated on when the next one of those is going down. Hope to see ya this week!

  1. Mysterious Mr. Mapother 28
  2. Madame Butterface 26
  3. L. Ron Hubbard’s Diabetics 23
  4. Steak Em Up 22
  5. Popesack 13
  6. Million Dollar Robot Baby 13
  7. Inglorious Barristers 13
  8. What’s Good for the Puma 12
  9. Specific Jawns 12
  10. Duane’s World 12
  11. Champs 12
  12. Philliez Nuts 11
  13. Jiff and the Choosy Mothers 11
  14. Jams 11
  15. Toots and the martells 10

Relive the 1911 World Series in Real Time (plus 100 years)

Working on a very cool project over at phillysportshistory.com. I am currently recreating the 1911 World Series exactly as it unfolded, 100 years to the day, as if I were a writer at the time. I am featuring the pitchers of each game, plus  using a cool online tool that allows you to “watch” each game live, exactly 100 years to the hour after it happened. Tons of cool info and some really incredible old photos I have dug up. If you are a baseball fan, or even just a history buff, I think you are really going to get a kick out of this.

Twin Peaks Quizzo This Sunday at POPE!

It was one of the most brilliant shows in television history. (Well, for a season at least. Then it kind of flew off the handle.) But that first season was so brilliant, so strange, and so much fun that we’re dedicating a whole quiz to it. (Well, almost. We’ll also do a round on David Lynch himself, some questions on Fire Walk WIth Me, and some of his other work.) This quiz is going to be a lot of fun. It’s going down this Sunday at 8 p.m. at POPE and is sponsored by Evil Twin Brewing Company. I don’t know where this quiz will lead us. But I have a definite feeling it will be somewhere  both wonderful and strange.

JGT Power Rankings Extended to Top 12

A weird week last week, as the Phillies games had us scrambling to reschedule and move around quizzes. Nonetheless, we continue to have a lot of parity, with teams rarely winning on back to back weeks. It really has made for a lot of movement on the Power Rankings.

1. Steak Em Up (Bards). A loss at O’Neals with a small team, but an easy win at a crowded Bards pulls them into the top spot. But it wasn’t all good for the Steak. Nate “Facepaint” DiGiorgio had to watch the Eagles blow it again, then had his fantasy football team crushed by mine. Last week: #3

2. What’s Good for the Puma (Black Sheep). Two wins in a row for the Puma at Black Sheep has really put this fairly new squad on the JGT radar in a hurry. Last week: #6

3. Team Popesack (North Star). Only two teams showed at North Star thanks to Phillie fatigure, so we just went ahead and had a friendly. It actually turned out to be a hell of a lot of fun, and we even got live music at the end of it. Popesack won, though it doesn’t count in the Invite. Hopefully, they’ll test their mettle against some tougher competition this week. Last week: #2

4. The Jams (Locust Rendezvous). A 3rd place finish at the Vous, but that was rather deceiving. The change in days left them with only two players. I fully expect them to bounce back this week. Last week: #1

5. Million Dollar Robot Baby (City Tap House). Cruise to an easy win at  CTH, and coupled with another loss by Duane’s World, they make the move into the Top 5. Matt’s daughter also played in her first soccer game this week. And judging from the facebook pictures, I have extremely good news to report: the little girl looks like her mother. Last week: #10.

6. Mysterious Mr. Mapother (O’Neals). A huge win over Steak Em Up, plus John gave me some quizzo pens for free. Any team that donates pens to the cause gets a bump in the rankings guaranteed. Also, money will work. Last week: NR

7. L. Ron Hubbard’s Diabetics (Ugly American). Survive in OT at the Ugly American. And rumors of a “Hopalong” Cliver sighting at tonight’s quiz. I hope his 8 year rehab from that knee injury is almost over.  Last week: NR

8. Why Can’t Us (Ugly American). Heartbreaking loss in OT @ UA.  OMG. LOL. Last week: #7

9. Duane’s World (Black Sheep). Another 2nd place finish at the Sheep coupled with several new winners last week has this former #1 slipping down the rankings, though the housework JohniE and Mike did for us this past week keeps them in the Top 10. Last week: #5

10. Magnus ver Magnusson (Locust Rendezvous). About damn time. Last week: NR

11. Inglorious Barristers (Locust Rendezvous). Adam couldn’t make it on Thursday because he had band practice. Seriously. I’m guessing it’s a Backstreet Boys tribute band, but I could be wrong. Last week: #4

12. Madame Butterface (Locust Rendezvous). A 2nd place finish at the toughest bar on the circuit earns the Butterface a top 12 finish. Last week: NR

Also receiving votes: Taking it to the Max, Specific Jawns, Ruby Tuesday, Philliez Nutz, Jews for Tom Cruise, You Don’t Know Jack