This blog is back up (please say you noticed it was down), and much writing will follow. But first, an important pending task: here is the link to the NED Open Quiz 2010. It contains all the audio, all the video, and all the answers. This makes it a massive download, but based on the feedback, I think you’ll find it’s worth it.
The NED Open 2010
March 25, 2010An important announcement: The NED Open Quiz will be held this Sunday (that is, March 28) in three different cities. Questions have been prepared by me, Kodhi, and Wimpy with inputs from Baada, Aisha, and Gaurav. We’ve prepared this with loads of louw, and it will show in the quality of questions. So please do come.
Times and Venues below.
Chennai: 10.00 a.m., at 30, 1st Cross Street, R A Puram. Teams of three. We will do prelims+finals. Will be conducted by Kodhi and me. Conducted under the auspices of the QFI. You need to be a QFI member to participate, but you can enrol over there.
Mumbai: 2.45 p.m, at the Pinstorm office in Santa Cruz (W) (Directions here). Conducted as a Bombay Quiz Club ranking quiz. You show up, and get assigned to a random team. No prelims here, so we’ll make the prelims a written round. Monkee will conduct.
Bangalore: 4 pm, at the Institute of Agricultural Technology, Queens Road. This will count as a KQA Ranking Open, I believe. Teams of 4 members. Prelims+Finals, to be conducted by Wimpy.
We hope to see you there, and that you’ll enjoy the quiz when you come.
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Super Saturday
August 18, 2009This Independence Day, I achieved two long-standing dreams.
The first was at the Landmark Quiz Chennai. We (me, Skimpy and Kodhi) won it.
The three of us have been taking part in the Landmark or Odyssey quizzes since 2004. We’d do our August 15/ January 26 pilgrimage to Chennai and just miss qualifying, or qualify and then come last. This year, we qualified. We didn’t get knocked out. And we were on brilliant form, cracking questions throughout the quiz and peacefully winning.
We then went into the all-India finals, and ended up losing by one question, but so it goes. No Enthu Da is now established as a quiz team. We have a reputation. Another couple of years like this, and we could start getting name recognition like QED or Mama Machaan Mapillai. Sooner or later, we’ll win the national round too.
That was dream one. The second dream got fulfilled just after the Chennai round, when the three of us were interviewed by the Chennai local news channel.
Reporter: How does it feel to win?
Kodhi: One of the things in life’s to-do list has been checked off.
Reporter: So have you been quizzing lots before this?
Wimp: Yes, we’ve been coming here and trying to win for five years now.
Reporter: So how do you feel on Independence Day? What does Independence Day mean to you?
Me: Freedom is awesome! It’s great that we have freedom and now we should help other countries with freedom too. To the north you have China being high-handed so we should support free Tibet.
Why was this fulfilling a dream? Well, the news channel is a joint venture between NDTV and The Hindu.
Abusing The Hindu in The New Indian Express is one thing. Expressing pro-Tibet opinions on a Hindu owned media outlet is one of the greatest hacks I’ve ever pulled. Now, as with the Landmark Quiz, it’s time to raise the game – the new goals are to win the national Landmark, and to somehow write an anti-China or anti-CPM oped in The Hindu itself.
10 Comments | MSM, Personal, Quizzing | Tagged: chennai, china's national newspaper, chindu, landmark open, landmark quiz, no enthu da, professional quizzer vinod, qed, samanth, swami the ht commie, the hindu | Permalink
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Blogging and a Quiz
December 11, 2008The absence of regular posts has been because I was busy getting a quiz ready. In the time since my last bout of regular posting, armed motherfuckers shot up my city, I quit my job, multiple people I know got married, had babies, or celebrated their birthdays; and I upgraded WordPress to 2.7. So it goes.
As for the quiz – it’s been done by me, Skimpy and Kodhi; and Aishwarya, Beatzo, Gaurav and Kunal have helped with vetting the questions. To make things more joyous, it’s being conducted in both Bombay (by me) and in Bangalore (by Baada). Both quizzes will take place on Sunday afternoon.
For details on where and when in Bangalore, head here. For Bombay details, head here. The short directions for Bombay are – 2.45 pm, Pinstorm Office, next to the Kotak Mahindra Bank branch on Linking Road in Santa Cruz. Do show up, the quiz will be fun.
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Kids These Days
October 3, 2008Skimpy has not one but two posts where he abuses the students of these days who are useless and lazy incompetents who don’t speak IIMB lingo and don’t organise the IITM open.
Although “these days” are just two years after “back in our days”, it’s never too early to abuse your juniors. It’s one of the great natural processes of life, rolling on through the batches. It gives people who miss college and are annoyed at work an opportunity for some pleasing schadenfreude. And in this sterile modern world of ours, it’s the closest substitute for the tribal elders performing ritual circumcision on the young and grumbling about how they can’t take it. In our day, of course, Lord Kamaala was the tribal elder.
The role of grumpy old men in any society is a greatly underappreciated one. Fortunately Skimpy is carrying it out with aplomb.
Leave a Comment » | Links, Quizzing | Tagged: back in my day i used to walk ten miles to school!, barefoot in the snow!, grumpy old men, IIM Bangalore, IITM Open, ritual circumcision, tribal elders, uphill both ways! | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
Reaving and Slaying
March 24, 2008While in Calcutta, I went for a litquiz with Aishwarya and Pradipta. Despite four self-overrules in the prelims, we qualified; and despite a Bong-funda heavy first half, we ended up winning the quiz. I think the margin of victory was at least three questions, and probably four or more. Apparently, it’ll be reported in the Telegraph’s equivalent of Bangalore Times and stuff.
Pradipta informs me that this is the first time in years that anyone has ever beaten the runners-up (a team called the Inmaniacs), and that this will therefore cause ripples of shock and awe across the Calcutta quizzing circuit (such as it is). This was of course prophesied long ago by davenchit:
The Jin in the time of Genghis Khan were noted for their many defensive walls- rotting, all but useless against true foes, these were symptoms of inner decay. The infrastructure of Calcutta resembles that of the Jin- reflections of past glory. Reckless drinkers, weakened by the Irish influence, they are ripe for conquest. Securing this key littoral will complete the preparation for the final assault: Bangalore.
Indeed, the shock that is currently reverberating through the cul-de-sacs of the City of Dretful Night is comparable to the
wounds North India suffered after the initial Turkic and Persian invasions, the crippling blows to society faced by Great Britain after the Viking raids, and the sack of Rome by Attila the Hun. A mere raid has exposed the society’s decay and corruption; annihilation and conquest cannot be long away. Soon, Bombay and Bangalore’s quizzers will overrun Calcutta, grabbing pole positions in every quiz that takes place, crushing the locals, and hearing the lamentations of their women and children. The old order of sleazy pubs and Ambassadors shall be shattered, as new watering holes and real taxis spring up to serve the needs of Calcutta’s new masters. The Pax Quizzica shall return Kolkata (faugh!) to the state which it was always meant to be: Calcutta for the Marwaris!
Leave a Comment » | Quizzing, Racism | Tagged: attila, attila the hun, Bangalore, bombay, calcutta, city of dretful night, davenchit, genghis khan, jin, kolkata, north india, quiz, Quizzing, starmark, the telegraph, viking | Permalink
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My KQA Debut
November 15, 2007I’ll be conducting my first ever quiz for the Karnataka Quiz Association this Sunday. It’s a ranking open, with a History, Geography, and World Culture theme.
(The World Culture has been thrown in for the sole purpose of letting me sneak in general questions in case I run out of history and geography fundaes).
Before leaving for work this morning, I had 31 questions made, which leaves me with 59 to make by Sunday afternoon. Difficult but doable.
In case you’re in Bangalore, and interested, drop by. The prelims start at 3 p.m., and the finals at 4 p.m. The venue, as is usual, is Daly Hall on Nrupathunga Road.
Leave a Comment » | Bangalore, Quizzing | Tagged: daly hall, geography, history, kqa, nrupathunga road, open quiz, quiz, Quizzing, ranking open, world culture | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
An Irritating Trend
November 2, 2007Qualifying easily for a Landmark Quiz and then getting rodded on stage.
What makes it worse is that Derek continued the grand tradition of chucking teams of stage (we were #7, and the first to leave), and that the Bangalore Landmark had no prizes for 4-8 (but Udupendra got a consolation prize for just missing qualifying).
The one decent thing that can be said about the quiz is that the very worst question – the Rand ‘connect’ wasn’t quite as bad as the very worst question of Derek’s Pune Landmark – the ‘Revisited’ connect.
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Infinite Rampage!
October 9, 2007Beatzo-san is conducting the Graphics Rampage comics and graphic novels quiz for the KQA this Sunday.
I’m very excited about this. For starters, I missed the original Graphics Rampage (in my defence, I was thulping calamansi juice in Singapore) back in December 2005. That Graphics Rampage is one of the watersheds in quizzing history. It was the quiz where Beatzo finally hit the sweet spot, and came up with a quiz that was accessible while at the same time not compromising on fundaes.
Also, as Beatzo-san’s pointed out in that post, he’s been away from quizzing (participating and mastering) for a while. Which makes this extra special – like a Western where the grizzled old sheriff is convinced into putting his boots back on and pulling out the old Colt .45. Such returns are epic.
I’ve already slimed Wimp and Baada for the day’s Open and the Vista Biz Quiz (I have a Mandarin class, need to iron my clothes, prepare the Open Quiz which I’m supposed to master in November, and go house hunting) but I’m sorely tempted to make it in the morning for Infinite Rampage. There is the minor problem that JK and Udupendra are teaming up, and will steamroller all opposition, but still. A Beatzo-mastered Graphics Rampage is worth seeing for itself.
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The Stuff Sports Movies Are Made Of
August 14, 2007I’m off to Chennai tomorrow to compete in the Landmark Open Quiz. I’m going with Kodhi and Wimpy. We’re calling ourselves NED (No Enthu Da, for the uninitiated).
We will be up against formidable opposition. Most formidable of all will be our ex-teammate Swami the HT Commie’s current team, QED. And even without QED, enough brilliant teams from both Bangalore and Chennai to make life sticky.
However, we’re riding on a long shot – the God of Cliches, if he (or she) exists , is probably going to be on our side. Because, let’s face it, out of the contenders, none is as underdog and beaten in spirit as we are.
One of us hates his job and can’t think of where else to go. The other two don’t quite hate theirs’, but wouldn’t mind something more suited to their strengths, and which would give them more time to write. Also, in the past month, two have found out in unavoidable terms that they are The Other Man. And all three of us are going through teenage angst or a quarter life crisis.
So we shall go in as the team which has nothing to lose. And if the God of Cliches does his stuff, we will fight an agonizing battle to the last question, which we shall win on buzzer.
That’s the theory, anyway.
(On a serious note, I’ve been improving at Landmark ever since I started. Landmark Chennai 2004 – didn’t quali. Landmark Bangalore 2004 – just missed qualying. Landmark Bangalore 2005 – made it to the final 8. Landmark Pune 2007 – made it to the final 4. Hope are there.)
Update: The God of Cliches deserted us! We made it to the finals and then finished last. Bah.
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Posted by Aadisht