IWS #133 - Results

[QuikSand]

I’m With Stupid #133 – Revealed!

Well, by now (I hope) you’ve come to expect challenging IWS questions from me, and this set seemed to deliver. The real challenge here was not necessarily picking the right answer… but first deciding where to draw the line between “major” and “mid major.” In some cases, it certainly seemed to pay off to just forsake any effort to artfully draw that line at all, and to instead just go ahead and pick Duke.

So, here we are with the answers…


#1 – Name a college basketball program that will be the next to make the jump from “mid major” to a consistent power team

Gonzaga 12
Wichita State 6
George Mason 4
George Washington 3
Memphis 2
Missouri State
Bradley
UW Milwaukee

Well, here those who apologized for “just trying to guess with stupid” were rewarded. This just in, Gonzaga was kinda who the author had in mind when he used the phrase “next”… as in, who will be the next Gonzaga? Alas… I don’t get to decide what’s right or wrong, Stupid does. Those who were with him were rewarded here.


#2 – Name a college football program that will do the same

TCU 9
Fresno State 3
Louisville 3
Utah 3
Marshall 2
Boise State 2
UTEP 2
Miami of Ohio
Texas tech
Ohio State
Memphis
West Virginia
Toledo

Meant to be a bit tougher (without a live set of brackets to reference) and it was. Horned Frogs turn out to be the strongest option, but with fewer than a third of the total entries.


#3 – Name a well-known “mid major” U.S. newspaper

Chicago Tribune 4
Atlanta Journal Constitution 4
Washington Post 2
Boston Herald 2
Chicago Sun Times 2
Wall Street Journal
Kansas City Star
Boston Globe
Cleveland Plain Dealer
NY Times
Wichita Eagle
NY Post
Fresno Bee
LA Times
Miami Herald
Sacramento Bee
Des Moines Register
NO Times-Picayune
Denver Post
SJ Mercury News
Detroit Free Press


I just love cultural literacy questions. This one, however, probably was just too tough. To me, the Trib is to American newspapers what, say, Indiana is to college basketball – if not at the very top, certainly very close. And the Washington Post is probably Kentucky. I did like the idea of the “second paper in a big city” but the several attempts at this managed to be too scattered (Herald, Sun-Times, NY Post) to win. Alas… probably just too tough to recognize where the line ought to be drawn, even for Stupid.


#4 – Name a current “mid major” country that will be a big international player in your lifetime

India 8
Brazil 4
Japan 3
Iran 3
China 2
Canada 2
Iraq 2
Venezuela
Korea
Argentina
France
Pakistan
Syria


Geopolitics isn’t exactly Stupid’s strong suit, either. Fair distribution, I think… but tough to know where Stupid would draw the line. I personally would have missed this badly, but in retrospect, I think Stupid might have done better than I would. A proposed motto for this game: “None of us is as stupid as all of us.”


#5 – Name a current “mid major” politician who has a shot to become U.S. President

Barack Obama 11
Mark Warner 5
Hillary Clinton 4
Condi Rice 2
John McCain 2
Evan Bayh 2
Mitt Romney 2
Jeb Bush
Bill Frist

At first, I was intrigued by some of the pretty savvy answers here – but then I remembered this had been the subject of a recent FOFC poll, where any uninformed participant could have easily taken Stupid’s temperature. That might have clouded the results here – though I still like the distribution here, especially since the question didn’t specify in 2008. Good luck to the skinny kid.


#6 – Name a “mid major” nationality/ethnicity whose food you enjoy eating

Thai 12
Mexican 8
Indian 3
Greek/Middle Eastern 3
Italian 2
Mongolian BBQ
Cuban

In my view, this is pretty much the perfect IWS distribution… Stupid tries to win it by picking the alleged mid-major “Mexican” (maybe the North Carolina of ethnic foods in this country…if Mexican food isn’t a major ethnicity for foods, what is?) but ultimately truth and justice, in the name of an honest mid-major in Thai food, prevails.


And with that… we are prepared to unveil the results.

Our honorable mention contestants will receive a complimentary copy of USA Today and a Chicken McNugget:

Chas in Cinti	                         6 
GoSeahawks	                      128 
Sir Fozzie	                      144 
Sublime 2	                      192 
Dark Cloud	                      240 
timmae	                      384 
albionmoonlight	                      594 
Toddzilla	                      720 
RFUS	                   1,152 
kingfc22	                   1,728 
MIJB#19	                   1,728 
EaglesFan27	                   1,728 
digamma	                   1,920 
Raven Hawk	                   2,112 
JeeberD	                   2,376 
Anxiety	                   2,376 
cartman	                   2,376 
LoneStarGirl	                   3,072 
Crapshoot	                   4,608 
Desnudo	                   6,336 
Coffee Warlord	                   6,336 
Vince	                   6,912 
st.cronin	                   7,128 

Our solid contenders will be awarded a Northwestern State XXL jersey, and a Citgo gas card:

BishopMVP	                 17,280 
kcchief19	                 20,736 
flere-imsaho	                 25,920 
Kwhit	                 27,648 
Celeval	                 28,512 

One heartbeat away from massive responsibility, our first runner up will receive an all-expense paid trip to Portugal… and tickets to all the rest of this year’s Knicks games:

Butter_of_69	                 38,016 

And our grand champion, which once again wells me with pride, will receive a fantasy dream date with Ashlee Simpson, 12th row seats to the NIT Championship, and the honor of being “in the conversation” as the greatest IWS player of all time:

panerd	                 57,024 

Congratulations to panerd, with a truly MAJOR effort to win contest #133!

[Butter]

Freakin' Gonzaga. They already ARE a consistent power team! The last few years near the top means they've already made it.

[JeeberD]

I screwed up in so many places on this one...

Edit: But I wasn't one of the people who chose UTEP. At least I got that question right...

[KWhit]

Once again, I finish close but fail to win. This time it was a politics question that tripped me up.

Fucking politics.

[Celeval]

Wow... might be the best I've done in an IWS. Good stuff. Congrats.

[Chas in Cinti]

LOL... Worst... Finish... Ever.... thanks for lumping Greek and Turkish together (which could get you shot some places) so that I wouldn't hit a deuce...

-Chas

[Raiders Army]

LOL. My worst finish ever; not even ranked. Quiksand chose to ignore my entry. I guess he was pissed because I said he was not as intelligent as he thought he was.

[Crapshoot]

In my defense, I predicted stupid's choice on geopolitics - but the nature of the game tells us to embrace it.

[GoSeahawks]

I predicted bottom 3 and nailed it.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Chas in Cinti

LOL... Worst... Finish... Ever.... thanks for lumping Greek and Turkish together (which could get you shot some places) so that I wouldn't hit a deuce...

I'm aware that the specifics of that decision could be hotly contested... but in terms of food, that would be pretty fair, I believe. And I wanted to help out a pal. So, it's done.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Bump... I'll likely get tot his either this evening or perhaps tomorrow morning.

As usual, if I have your PM when I gather them up, you're in. And if I overlook or omit you, tough luck.

You could've told me not to bother wasting my time sending anything in, snob.

[st.cronin]

Gonzaga?????

As hard I try, I could never be that stupid.

[Raven Hawk]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

I screwed up in so many places on this one...

Edit: But I wasn't one of the people who chose UTEP. At least I got that question right...

Lol, I chose UTEP solely for the fact that I knew you were in the game. I figured that it locked me with a 2 point vote at minimum . . . and it did!

I knew that I shouldn't have switched from Gonzaga to George Mason. I was staring at that question thinking "Gonzaga IS already a powerhouse, I'll take another cinderella from this year." Too smart for stupid here.

Chicago Tribune, a mid-major.

Major papers in my opinion:
Washington Post
New York Times
Wall Street Journal
Chicago Tribune
LA Times
USA Today

Silly, stupid.

[Butter]

I agree that the Trib is not a mid-major paper... but truthfully, who are you going to pick from the other 692 newspapers in the US to be the best known "second tier" paper. I almost picked the Detroit Free Press, but figured the Tribune, being in the Midwest, would be likely to get more votes.

[Vince]

Politics, the Geopolitical scene, and a Newspaper question. Pretty good on the rest (where I answered the question "incorrectly" intentionally to get a good score). Way to answer the easy ones, Vince

[Karlifornia]

Wow. These questions were definitely challenging. I must agree with everyone who thinks the Gonzaga answer was a killer.

[QuikSand]

I don't even remember who submitted it -- but I really like the answer of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for the first question. Won their NCAA opener two years in a row... that has to count for something.

I know, Stupid doesn't usually think that hard -- but if there were points for style, I'd have awarded a few there.

[cartman]

I'm in the realm of Anxiety and JeeberD.

[panerd]

Won't be able to get to this until next week. I do promise a set of questions and a quick turnaround then, but I certainly am not opposed to 2nd or 3rd place running the contest if they want.

Butter_of_69?
Celeval?

[Butter]

Whatever you want to do, panerd. If you want me to do it, I'll gladly do it, but I don't think a few day wait is a huge deal if you want to do it next week.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

Whatever you want to do, panerd. If you want me to do it, I'll gladly do it, but I don't think a few day wait is a huge deal if you want to do it next week.

Please, go ahead and do it. Next week really meant late next week, I was just making sure somebody would run with it so we wouldn't have the April 26th "IWS#133- Results" bump.

[SnDvls]

Originally Posted by panerd

Please, go ahead and do it. Next week really meant late next week, I was just making sure somebody would run with it so we wouldn't have the April 26th "IWS#133- Results" bump.

how about the March 31st bump?