Monday, April 14, 2008

Trivia: Conclusion

It's over. 54 hours chalk full of trivia goodness is over. We came in 133 place, and I didn't make it 48 hours.

I have decided that I can make 48 hours straight. I slept for about 7 hours of the 54 hour contest. From when I woke up on Friday, I was up for 59 of 66 hours. In the 48 hours I was planning to stay up, I slept for about 3 hours. I think that with the right planning, I would be able to do 48 hours. I have decided that Trivia is not the right time. Once I hit 35 hours I don't want to be responsible for thinking anymore, this can't be accomplished during Trivia.

As for the Trivia experience as a whole, I loved every tired, challenging, frustrating minute of it. I am eternally grateful to all of those who came up and helped. 133 place in our first Trivia tournament I think is a great accomplishment, and as a team, we couldn't have done it without any of you.

We were about 400 points out of the top 100. Here are a couple of things I think we can change to get into the top 100. If you don't care, stop reading. This really is more of a list for me to refer back to, than you to care about.

1. Schedule shift times. We did great when we had rested people, on computers, searching for answers. We struggled when it was only a few people, or only tired people. We ended up loosing ground early Sunday morning, when it was just two and a half of us.(Thanks for staying up with me Stacy, thanks for being in the room Jeff). Then again Sunday afternoon and night we lost some ground when it was down to three and then two of us.

2. Have Snoop run a class on how to maximize searches on the internet. This kid can search things like nobody else. If we had four Snoops we would make the top 50 no problem.

3. Devote people to things. Such as the music question and the Trivia Times. I know that if we could have gotten half of the music questions, and the Trivia Times we would have been close to the top 100. We saw big drops at times soon after the music question was handed in. I am sure this hurt us. Also we missed out on easy Trivia Times points, by not being as prepared in that area as we should have.

4. Recruit more people, and older people. At first I thought that it would diminish things if we invited 50 people over to play. I realized that we need to invite 50 people over and have them come in shifts. The core group, those here this weekend, can come and play the whole time. I just need to convinve people like my dad, to come over for the day on Saturday, and direct us in our internet searches. If he could point us in the right direction on questions he is familiar with, it makes finding things easier.

5. Play in our basement. This allows us to control the environment better. There is more room, and we can set up stations. A music station, a trivia times station, a food package station, etc. It also allows for people to hang out upstairs and get away from Trivia for a while. Over a long weekend people need a breather. It would be nice to have a Trivia free zone set up that people can just hang out in and recharge.

6. Take notes at the movie.

I think that about covers it for now.

So start taking notes when you watch TV, reading obscure comics, and taking pictures of snack food packaging. Trivia is only a year away.

2 comments:

quartergoddess said...

So, then you and Mandy actually made it until midnight? Way to take one for the team!
Jeff was out by 8-ish. I stayed up a little later, but slept for about 11.5 hours once I was asleep.

Mr Blume said...

Yep, I didn't want to pack it in early after all the hard work the team did. Snoop was with is until 9, it was only three more hours at that point.