The Looming Sickness

It's good to be back, kids.

So after the fabulosity that was Oscar weekend, I did sort of disappear from the blog a little bit. In all fairness, I was sick. And yes, it was the kind of sickness that effects manual dexterity and motor skills, thereby leaving me unable to move my fingers. Thank you for thinking.

But most of the ill effects wore off for the weekend, where I got to spend some time with some real salt of the earth people. Dorks. Nerds. The kind of people who think nothing of travelling hundreds of miles to compete in a trivia tournament. You know, the cool kids from high school.

Trivia tournaments (and let's not kid ourselves, even college brain bowl events are trivia tournaments, except without bartenders) are great places to hang out. The people are genuine, fun to talk to, and there's almost always someone there who gets laid less frequently than you. But if there's one area in which we really shine, it's arguing whether a question is right or wrong. There's nothing better than the protest. Someone's probably going to end up upset. Someone's ego will end up being deflated, because either their protest isn't upheld, thereby proving they're wrong; or the almighty question writer, with a library of reference materials at hand, will have to admit they screwed up.

In my days of playing and moderating at these events, I've been on both sides of the coin. Most of the time, due diligence spent in writing and editing questions would eliminate most protests. AAAARGH!! This was and is always what killed me. How in the hell can we fix our economy when the dorks of America aren't setting the right example for our children? If anal-retentive nerds don't take the necessary steps to fix problems before they happen, what hope does the world have?