2003 - Viva Las Trivia

This year our team finished 16th out of the 75 teams in the 50-hour contest ending with a total score of 12335. We scored 57% of the total points, which is 1% less than last year. There were three reasons why we feel our performance decreased this year. We played A LOT more computer games, thanks to addictivegames.com. We were missing one star player and captain, Tom, who was in China. And we had a slow start with a bare bones crew and setup still going on during the contest. We had to work our way up from 37th place after the second hour. If we remedy those three factors we should end up in the top ten next year! Go team!

Thanks to everyone who came out and those who played from remote locations. We had a great time as usual! We hope to see you all next year so we can finally break the top 10!

Make sure to put a trivia reminder on your 2003 calendar in late December to reserve the first weekend in February, 2004.

Over and out!
Your Pull-Start Diesel Captains,

Sara and Darren McKeever
Tom Lanz (who will hopefully stay in the U.S. next year)
Adam & Joe Lanz

*Our awesome performances on the audio speed rounds thanks the Joe, Murphy and Luke and all the other kids raised in the t.v. generation!!!
*The five, highly decorated 100% hours.
*The 94% audio trivia hour – duh, it’s the Adam’s Family!!!
*The lack of pranks partially due to the threat of 60 days in jail if Loren pulled any pranks at his parent’s house, the headquarters of our rivals Feelin’ Comfortable. But mainly because of the fear we put into them with our revenge last year. You’d better watch out if you mess with Pull-start Diesel!
*The roulette hours when KVSC DJs spun the roulette wheel to determine how many points each question would be worth.
*Belle and her love for Jerry.
*The rendition of The Breakfast Club starring Joe as Bender, Ben as Claire, Tom Kain as Andrew and Brian as Brian.
*Can you say www.addictivegames.com?
*The very polite Kevin Fuller calling all the Foleys in Chagrin Falls, Ohio to ask if they had a daughter named Madeline. The girl’s family telling us the wrong name, Beatrice, which we’d actually guessed already! But they still wouldn’t tell us. Another team must’ve gotten to them.
*Murphy talking with a Plaziak in Rice to find out about his company’s 120th boat.
*Loren was commenting how he thought a woman was attractive (no one else thought, so). Darren’s reply: “You stay away from my dog!”
*Pancakes!!??
*Loren looking out the window of the dimmed basement: “It's bright outside?!?”
*Yay! I love money, Yayyyyyyy!
*Our low point in hour two when we were in 37th place.
*Hour 5 – the first speed round and our first 100% hour which put us in the top 30 at 28th place!
*The time we moved into 21st place, higher than we’d been in 17 hours!
*The time we moved into 17th place, finally breaking into the top 20!
*The suspense of sitting at the awards ceremony hoping to still be in the top 20 and then waiting as four other teams were called before us. We finished 16th!

Our yearly trivia awards given out in many categories.
Biggest Question: 480 point math runaround question about the Brady Bunch wedding in Las Vegas. The question was WAY too long to write here! It was a blast to work on. We get closer to getting the big point questions every year. Just wait until next year.
Biggest Question answered by one person: 270 points by Mike “During the 1999-2000 theater season, the US Bank at the Ordway featured 9 events. Give the exact name of each event.” We’re so glad you’re a packrat, Mike!
Biggest Questions by TEAM effort: We had a tie between these two 150 point questions:
The Crayola Crayon online store offered a special crayon for the Fourth of July 2002 if you placed an order of $35.00 or more. What was the name of this color? True Blue Hero (Thanks to Sara, who guessed blue and got a partial and Josh, who was then able to pick out the color from a list.)
And the question that depended on our bookkeeping skills and our memories requiring us to put together the second words of two earlier answers. What did we get? Rick Springfield!
Best internet searcher: Tonya Sand – you really know how to milk those internet sites for information. If we ever need to know the wedding certificate number for someone married in Las Vegas again, we know who to turn to.
Best book searcher: Sara McKeever – the World Almanac you buy every year finally paid off!
Best remote player: Mike Szafranski’s mom for finding the US Bank Ordway performances in Mike’s Ordway brochure for 270 points.
Biggest know-it-all: Joe Lanz with 215 points pulled and Aaron Murphy with 190 points pulled! How do you guys think of this stuff???
Best guesser: Loren Ament – Guess two!!!
Best phoner: Danielle Johnson – Between calling bookstores and the answer line Danielle logged a lot of telephone hours for us!
Best on the dispute line: We need Tom back because we didn’t get any points from the dispute line, but during a lull moment Sara argued on religious grounds that the answer “God” should be the same as “one that has always existed.” Along with “a carnivore is NOT the same as an omnivore.” But the question writers would not be convinced.
Best phone bank worker: Boobs! “I heart boobs!” – Sean Connery, SNL
Work that database: Darren spent most of his waking hours entering information on the database not to mention the time spent programming it.
Best computer contribution: Cory Storms who helped set up the network and contributed four computers (poor Big Red), a router, and numerous cables.
Biggest lifesaver: EMR Innovations – Thanks for lending us a projector that actually worked!
Worst question: It was an audio trivia of Gloria Steinem from a book she published in 1997, but the book was actually published in 1987. We had the answer but never called it in because it was the wrong year. Thankfully, the question was thrown out!
Best answers: Yayyyyyyyy!!!! and “We’re not gonna take it. NO! We ain’t gonna take it! We’re not gonna take it anymore.”
Worst answer: “It’s all fun and games until someone gets humped by a dog.” Phone bank worker: “That’s when the fun just begins.”
Most sleep: Bob Craven – on the couch, in the papasan…. was there anywhere Bob didn’t sleep?
Least sleep: Loren Ament - with a grand total of 2 hours all weekend! Wow!
Best sleeping position: Joe - with the dog’s tongue in his mouth
Longest distance traveled to come to trivia: Kevin Fuller who drove up from Nebraska to experience trivia for the first time, bringing Scupper the Sailor Dog with him! Too bad that wasn’t a bigger question!
Best team improvement: Team t-shirts!!! Big thanks to Joe for getting them made, Chris Beck for the artwork and Peter Wocken for helping design the artwork.
Worst addition to our team: addictivegames.com I’m not coming up with anything on this question, I’ll just “Spank the Monkey.”
Best meal: Barb McKeever’s taco soup!
Best host: Sara McKeever who gathered up a lot of garbage, emptied out a lot of warm pop, made countless trips to the garbage can and did several loads of dishes. All to keep those search engines hopping!

Tom and Sandy Lanz - pocket breads for dinner Friday night, a perennial favorite
Storms - treats, cereal and milk for Saturday morning and delicious pizza on Sunday
Johanna and Laura Honkomp - hot beefs on Saturday
Barb McKeever and Ron - taco soup Saturday and egg bake and MUFFINS on Sunday
Leah McKeever – veggie tray
Tara and Breanna Franzwa - awesome salsa dip & chips and puppy chow!
Josh’s mom – malts, caramel corn and white chili Saturday night
Chris Tackle’s mom - amazing, warm chocolate chip cookies that lasted about 5 minutes!

Everyone who fed themselves and others! I’m sure we’re forgetting things because a lot of food went through this house and there were only a few empty containers and crumbs left over!

Everyone did a great job this year! This is a nice long list of names! And there were so many questions that took a team effort to get or that everyone answered at about the same time that our TEAM total continues to go up! Thanks to everyone who contributed! We beat the 17th place team by only 10 points! This goes to show you that EVERY question counts!
TEAM 4355 (Our team score improves every year!)
Tonya 985
Luke 860
Mike 830
Tom k 695
Sara 635
Josh 465
Ryce 425
Bob 320
Joe 320
Murphy 285
Loren 250
Brian 205
Steve 195
Jerry 180
Danielle 170
Jeff 165
Cory 165
Adam 160
Ben 95
Boom 95
Heather 60
Nicole 60
Darren 50
Peter 20
Mike lahr 20
Matt 15
Kevin 10
Tom Sr 10

POINTS BY SOURCE:
Net 8865
Pulled 2485
Phone-a-friend 570
CDs 100
Books 80