Right Now on iSportacus

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Great interview with a Blue Jay blogger about Roy Halladay.

I’ve still got a few baseball trivia questions that have gone unanswered.

Jay Wright approves expanding the NCAA field. BMT doesn’t.

Cole Hamels is looking great this spring. 

A lively debate in the comments section about how the Phils handled the Chan Ho Park situation. 

Baseball season is here, folks. Follow the best Phillies blog in Philadelphia!

Quizzo Tonight

Looks like this I Heart the 90s Quiz isn’t all that tough. We had a 118 and a 117 scored last night. I was rather liberal with what “90s” entailed, but that didn’t seem to present too many problems. As for tonight, we kick it off at the Vous at 6:15 p.m. This has become a hotbed of sexy quizzo action, as it is the most competitive quiz on the market right now. Then on to the Black Sheep, where there is without question the most parity in quizzo, with a new winner seemingly every week. That quiz pops off at 8 p.m. And I have both free wrestling tickets to whoever wants them for this weekend and sweet last place prizes. Hope to see ya tonight!

Quizzo Bowl Team Uniforms

Picture 3As I have stated previously, teams that wear uniforms/outrageous outfits will be given VIP seating. More importantly, it adds a certain geeky pageantry to the proceedings that I am a big fan of. If you are interested in getting uniforms made, might I suggest Triple Play Sports? This family owned and operated sports store at the corner of 9th and Christian has been serving the community since 1971, and I know some of the teams got their jerseys made their last year. I spoke with Dewey today, and he says that you can knock off 10% of any Quizzo Bowl order (and their prices are already extremely reasonable).  Just tell them it’s for Johnny Goodtimes Quizzo. I would try to get your jersey order in no later than March 16th. Another jersey idea? You could do what we did for Geek Bowl and get matching uniforms from our friends at phillyphaithful.com. 

Also, something I mentioned yesterday but want to reiterate: I know some teams are having trouble filling out their rosters. I also know a few free agents floating around. If you are in either one of those situations, please shoot me an email and I’ll try to hook you up with a team or a player.

Quizzo Bowl News and Notes

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  • The Quizzo Bowl after party will be right down the street from the event! We’ll be holding the afterparty at O’Neals, and Spoonie has promised to give us some good drink specials that night. We’ll be taking over the 2nd and 3rd floors. Should be a blast.
  • I have some free agents looking for teams. If you are a team that needs a couple of players or are a free agent or two looking for a team, please shoot me a message and I’ll try to match you guys up.
  • I met with Greg from the West Philadelphia Orchestra last week and the band is fired up to not only perform at the Bowl, but also to play. Gregg said that was the band’s one request (other than the money). Which means that you will literally be able to beat the band.
  • As for tickets they are selling well. We are at over 60 sold so far, ahead of last year’s pace, and pretty good considering that we still have 2 1/2 weeks to go. Do not wait until the last minute to buy your tickets. There is a good chance we will be sold out by Game Day, and if you buy them the day of, you’ll be spending more for your tickets. I will have tickets on me all week at quizzo. That is the cheapest way to buy them. (Oh, and Catdog or Yak Rodeo: one of you dropped a couple of your tickets on 16th street last week. I picked them up on my way home. Let me know if they were yours at quizzo this week.)

Quizzo For the Cause: Shelter 2.0

 
Every once in a while I use quizzo as a way to raise money for certain causes that I am a big fan of. This is one of those causes. It is called Shelter 2.0, and it’s original purpose was to give a roof over the head of the homeless. However, with recent tragedy in Haiti, it’s purpose has been somewhat moderated. I watched on the news Saturday night as they explained that with the rainy season coming to Haiti, the tent cities that have been created in immediate wake of the tragedy are going to be all but worthless. That is where Shelter 2.0 comes in (Fan it on facebook). Robert Bridges, a carpenter and a good friend of mine from high school, is one the men behind the idea. The goal of this week’s Quizzo for the Cause is not just to raise money (everyone playing this week will be asked to donate at least $1 to the cause) but to raise awareness of this project. The more money he can raise, the more of these units Robert can have shipped to Haiti. He is doing the handiwork free of charge, and the units can be shipped free of charge, but he needs money for materials. He has whittled down costs until now, so each shelter costs a mere $500 to build. I interviewed him to learn more about the project, and how we can help.

JGT: What inspired Shelter 2.0?

ROB: I was initially inspired by the amount of homeless people there are in the world as well as the growing tent cities around our country. According to a 2005 U.N. report there are 100 million homeless people in the world. To me this is a staggering number and if you live in terrible semipermanent places such as abandoned buildings, vehicles, hastily put together shelters or tents you weren’t even counted in this report.

About two years ago my friend Bill Young got me involved with a project that the MIT school of architecture was working on after Katrina and New Orleans, headed by Larry Sass. They were building a house that went together like a puzzle and could be put up quickly by volunteers with no tools. We cut one house that was on display at the MOMA in NYC and then did a couple of smaller buildings. The idea behind the first house to me was inspiring, it made me think of building in a way I had never thought of it before. Bill and I wanted that idea of helping others and making building more accessible to live on in our current Shelter 2.O project.

JGT: How does it differ from most current emergency shelters?

ROB: Shelter 2.0 is different from most emergency shelters in that it is completely open source. The files are available for download to anyone under a creative common license from our website. What this means is that anyone who wants to use it not for profit can have it for free. They can even make changes and improvements as long as they share their changes with us so that we can share them with the rest of the world. It’s not just it’s construction that sets it apart from typical emergency housing which are temporary only, where shelter 2.0 has the potential to be easily enlarged and made permanent but the ideology is different. The shelters are cut out by computerized routers which are all over the world. In the united states alone there are 6,000 of the brand that I have. We can send files for cutting shelters anywhere in the world they are needed or go into a disaster area with trailers loaded with machines and begin cutting. This whole thing is about teaching other people to do this so that they can then teach someone else and in ten years you can’t even recognize shelter 2.0’s design anymore, because instead of being owned by one person, it’s owned by the world and improved upon in real situations by the people who need it. It’s the people whose lives are turned upside down by tsunamis and earthquakes and economic hardship who know what they need, not some american sipping a latte in his cushy central air home. 

JGT: What do you need to get Shelter 2.0 out to the people who desperately need it in Haiti?

ROB: To be honest, the things we need now are money and raised awareness. We have volunteers willing to put the shelters together, and have people who will ship them to Haiti for free. 100% of the money we raise is going towards materials. The more of these we can ship, the more people in Haiti will have a roof over their heads and a floor to protect them from the upcoming rain. 
JGT: What are your hopes for Shelter 2.0?

ROB: My hopes for shelter 2.0 is that it helps people all over the world by not only giving them shelter but by helping us think outside the box about how we design, build and reach out to one another.