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by John Nolan

Behold, the future!

February 5, 2012 in Interactive, Quizzes

Here it is.  The buzzer with which my team took part in last Friday night’s quiz in Ballyhaunis Golf Club.

The quiz was a fundraiser for Gorthaganny National School for, as the headmaster said at the end of the quiz, it’s now a case of “back to the ’80s” in the schools sector with fundraising events becoming common once again.  The money raised at this event will go towards the purchase of the this very buzzer system.  If it provides the school children with as much entertainment value as we got on Friday night, it will be money well spent.

The quiz itself was broken up into four sections: 40 trivia questions, 10 picture questions, 40 trivia questions and 10 music questions.  The trivia questions were, as I predicted, just like questions on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, with four options.  The picture round was funny but a tad easy, as each question showed a famous person and a professional look-a-like, with us having to enter A or B to identify who was the real deal.  The music round showed off another of the buzzer’s modes.  Each of the songs featured a number in the title and we had to type this number into the device.

On the whole, it was a very enjoyable quiz which is testament to the school staff who created it.  The first 40 questions dragged on a bit as no time limit was enforced on the participants.  However, after the interval, they did introduce a limit of 30 seconds on each question so they obviously had noticed the slow pace themselves.

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by John Nolan

Let’s try something different: answers

February 3, 2012 in Gilligan's, Quizzes

The answers to the picture round included in Let’s try something different are posted after the Read the rest… link.

I must tell you all how I’m quite excited about a quiz I’m due to attend this evening.  It’s for the local national school and it’s taking place in the local golf club but neither of those facts is very interesting.

No, what will make this quiz special is: buzzers! As part of its teaching equipment the school has 30 buzzers, each containing four answer buttons.  I haven’t seen them yet so I don’t know if they’re different colours or A-B-C-D. At tonight’s quiz, each table will have one of these devices and will be asked to simply press a button after each question is called out from the floor.  Presumably there’ll be a time limit on each one as the system will have to move on to the next question.  Calls of “Could you repeat question four again please?” will notably be absent tonight.

While enforcing a time limit on teams might seem hard, this will be offset by the fact that each question will be followed by four potential answers.  I feel sorry for the poor question setter who, after coming up with each question, also had to think up three other (believable) answers!

Of course, I’ll report on how it went over the next few days.

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by John Nolan

Let’s try something different

February 1, 2012 in Gilligan's, Interactive, Quizzes

The post title refers both to this site and to Gilligan’s Tuesday Quiz Night, which was a little different this week as it served as a fund-raiser for the Claremorris Boy Scouts.

We had all the table quiz regulars – even a raffle!  Still, when push came to shove the quiz was the same as ever, with questions being provided in a humorous manner by Joe, the night’s host. The fact that he won a raffle prize himself during the night only added to his good mood. :-)

I was teamed up with Aidan and Andrew and our three heads did quite well, as we ran out winners on a terrific score of 93/102.  A good start was half the battle and we didn’t get a question wrong until #7 of round three!

Back to the blog and I’m going to try something new in this post.  Our new system allows for the creation of interactive quizzes so, instead of my normal posting of the questions today and then the answers whenever tomorrow, I’m going to use the system to both provide the answers and to test you all out. :-)

Let’s hope it works.  As an added little something, if you do the quiz whilst logged-in, it files your score away.  I’ll then collate all the scores throughout the year and produce a ranking table.

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by John Nolan

Tablequiz.net Version 3

January 31, 2012 in Housekeeping

Welcome to the new-look tablequiz.net.  It’s the third version of the site and promises to be the most exciting yet.  From this day forth, we’ll have full social media features, forums and even (shock!) quizzes!

All these snazzy new features are available following my (belated) decision to move the site from WordPress.com to a stand-alone host.  However, a slight drawback to this move is that your username and password from the last site (which were only used for comments anyway) are no longer valid.  (Well, strictly speaking, they are still valid for your WordPress.com account.) You will have to register here. Just once, I promise, and it will allow you to do way more than just comment on articles!

The site is now three-and-a-half years old and I’m still finding stuff to talk about.  That said, the new system will allow anyone to bring something to the party: a web page or site, a video, a tricky question, almost anything. Let’s hope we all enjoy it!

Talk soon,
John.

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by John Nolan

2012: Not the end of the World

January 25, 2012 in Housekeeping

Right, as trailed at the end of my earlier post, here is a list of my plans for the future of the site – and perhaps for quizzing in Ireland.  I know that probably sounds a bit grandiose but read on. Judge me afterwards.

I drew up this to-do list over the Christmas holidays:

  • Enter the Pioneer Superbrain competition.  Alas this one is already a non-runner.  I got in contact with Michael Keane, Chairman of the Association’s National Leisure Committee, and it turns out that the competition is no longer open to non-members of the PTAA. It used to be open to all comers but the rule was changed in 2009.  Unfortunately, their website hadn’t been updated to reflect this (it will be now).  Anyway, I’m afraid I’m no Pioneer, so that’s the end of this particular road. :-)
  • Report on Mastermind Ireland. Well, it is happening.  I had a chat with one of the production staff involved in the show. It is due to be filmed during the month of March.  If you were hoping to give it a shot, I’m afraid you’re probably out of luck*.  It’s going to be Celebrity Mastermind.
  • Enter the Scór quiz.  This is happening.  I’ve been in contact with Hugh, the local GAA club’s Scór organiser, and he’s keen on my taking part. It will be happening from mid-February on.  I’ll keep you informed.
  • Host an Irish heat of the World Quizzing Championship. I’ve volunteered to be the organiser of an Irish heat for the World Quizzing Championships.  This event happens in June each year with quizzes taking place in several venues throughout the world on the same day (32 countries last year).  I’d hope to have an event in a central, easy-to-reach location.  Whether that will be Dublin, Athlone or Limerick Junction, I haven’t decided yet. If anyone would like to help out (or take part in the discussion over venues), please mail me at quizmaster@tablequiz.net.
  • Set up an Irish quiz federation.  Our trip to Bruges last November was put together in a very ad-hoc fashion. We were willing to go and they were glad to have us.  There is no Irish quiz body which can select an Irish team to travel to such an event.  Up to last year, one could have selected one based on the results of the Rehab All-Ireland table quiz.  Alas, that has gone now. So let’s get a group together and fill this vacancy.  A volunteer body which could organise national quizzing championships for both individuals and teams and also nominate (and perhaps even fund, all going well) a team or teams to travel to the European championship. I had figured I’d get the wheels rolling on this right away.  I’ve since reconsidered and now think that perhaps the evening of the Irish heat of the World Champs would be the best time for an inaugural meeting.  Surely, we’ll have more Irish quizzers in the one place that night than on any other?! Again, if you’d like to contribute, contact me on quizmaster@tablequiz.net.
  • Return to the European Quizzing Championship. If things go to plan with the previous point, I guess I’ll have to try and qualify!

* I say “probably” but perhaps I’m discounting the site’s heretofore silent celebrity readership? ;-)

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by John Nolan

The first cut is the: answers

January 25, 2012 in Gilligan's, Quizzes

Here’s a very quick post with the answers to the questions posted over the weekend in The first cut is the…

I don’t have anything else to tell you… so let’s get on with it!

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by John Nolan

The first cut is the…

January 21, 2012 in Gilligan's, Quizzes

It’s not often that you can pin down which question in a quiz is the hardest.  Over the course of a few hours, the questions asked at the start of the quiz fade away from your short-term memory, being replaced by their more recent counterparts.

Not so on Tuesday night last, when I attended the weekly quiz night in Gilligan’s, Claremorris.  Question 1 it was.  The very first of what would turn out to be 104 questions.  I doubt anyone in the room got it right.  That said, the team whose answers we were marking did manage to get the first names right so perhaps I’m being quick to judge.

After that, things got considerably easier.  The winning team’s final score of 92 points making this pretty clear.  My team trailed in second, on 88.

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by John Nolan

Defeat from the jaws of victory: answers

January 19, 2012 in Quizzes

Here are the answers to the (sports) questions posed earlier in the week in Defeat from the jaws of victory.

I’d like to tell you about one more unpleasant thing that happened at this quiz.

A member of a team who are, apparently, in the hunt for victory each year in this quiz copped on pretty early that we were a serious team.  This chap got in to the habit of coming by our table after each round to see how we’d got on.  We were sitting near the bar so I guess he could claim that he was (always) just on his way up for a drink but we thought his intention was clear enough – he was worried about how well we were doing.

Now, whenever I’m doing a quiz I tend to put my phone out on the table.  I don’t think there’s any need to deny that I own a phone.  Also, I’m not doing anything surreptitious with it, so what have I got to hide?  At the midway interval, your man came over to see how we’d got on with the previous round.  We told him we’d definitely missed the Italian scorer in the Premier League question below.  “Are ye sure?” he asked. “Yeah, we’ve just looked up the answer on the phone,” we told him*. He did a very dramatic ‘Tut, tut’ thing and moved on.

Anyway, so what, you’re asking.

Well, after the picture round, when we weren’t at our most ebulient, he arrives over to see how we’ve done.

“We’re out of it” we tell him. “We only got seven of them.”

“Seven?!” he said, his tone indicating that they’d done much better.  “Well, I guess ye couldn’t look them up on the phone.”

What. A. P&:<k.

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