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davidgoldfarbTo paraphrase mangle Cordwainer Smith:
"I was a fannishfan, and he was Tom Whitmore, a Master of Fandom, but I pitted my wits against him and I won."
Some of you may remember the show Win Ben Stein's Money. Well, Tom Galloway did an SF-trivia version called "Win Tom Galloway's Money". He was supposed to do it at ConJosé, but for various reasons it wound up not happening; he has done it at a couple of other cons.
I had the idea that since Tom Whitmore was Fan GoH at Denvention, and he's also terrific at SF trivia, it should be done there, with Tom Whitmore in the title role. This actually happened, with Tom Galloway standing in for Jimmy Kimmel. My reward for the suggestion was that I got to play in the first game (of two that were run). Instead of money, the prizes were books from Tom's collection.
For those of you who don't remember the show, here's a summary of the format:
Three rounds of play. In the first, three contestants compete. In the second, the low scorer from the first gets replaced by the host (Ben Stein or Tom Whitmore, respectively); the high scorer from the second faces off against the host in a sixty-second, ten-question duel.
There are five categories at any one time; each "category" has only one question and is basically an excuse to make a tortured joke vaguely related to the actual question. Ones I recall include: "SF Authorship Runs In Spider Robinson's Family, He Has The Writing Jeanne"; "My Lovecraft Is Full Of Eels"; "Neil Before Zod". (I hope to be able to post or link to the full list, later.)
I pretty much dominated the first round. Score wasn't kept for Tom in the second round, but I'm pretty sure I outscored him there, and easily made it to the lightning round. I managed to get 8 out of 10 questions. (Really it should have been 9 out of 10. I can't believe that I blanked on last year's Best Novel Hugo winner. My only consolation there was that Tom did, too!) He scored 5.
The eliminated contestants received low-value books as "lovely parting gifts"; the winners got better books -- mine was Aha! Gotcha, by Martin Gardner.
The grand prize was something special: one of only 500 copies of the Baen omnibus Cordelia's Honor (by Author GoH Lois McMaster Bujold) that had been bound in hard covers. Further, it was inscribed to Tom by the author. He estimates that it has a moderately significant monetary value.
So I won the first game, ahead of Tom. In the second game, Tom got 6 out of 10; the challenger got only 4. So as the only person to actually score better, I was awarded the grand prize. Tom graciously offered to sign it to me; he used Ben Stein's tagline, "You won it fair and square, you bastard!". Later on that day, I encountered Lois Bujold herself, and got her to inscribe it to me, so the book is now triply inscribed.
It was a fun game (and I'm not just saying that because I won!). Kudos to Tom Galloway for putting it together, and to Tom Whitmore for being a really good sport.
"I was a fannishfan, and he was Tom Whitmore, a Master of Fandom, but I pitted my wits against him and I won."
Some of you may remember the show Win Ben Stein's Money. Well, Tom Galloway did an SF-trivia version called "Win Tom Galloway's Money". He was supposed to do it at ConJosé, but for various reasons it wound up not happening; he has done it at a couple of other cons.
I had the idea that since Tom Whitmore was Fan GoH at Denvention, and he's also terrific at SF trivia, it should be done there, with Tom Whitmore in the title role. This actually happened, with Tom Galloway standing in for Jimmy Kimmel. My reward for the suggestion was that I got to play in the first game (of two that were run). Instead of money, the prizes were books from Tom's collection.
For those of you who don't remember the show, here's a summary of the format:
Three rounds of play. In the first, three contestants compete. In the second, the low scorer from the first gets replaced by the host (Ben Stein or Tom Whitmore, respectively); the high scorer from the second faces off against the host in a sixty-second, ten-question duel.
There are five categories at any one time; each "category" has only one question and is basically an excuse to make a tortured joke vaguely related to the actual question. Ones I recall include: "SF Authorship Runs In Spider Robinson's Family, He Has The Writing Jeanne"; "My Lovecraft Is Full Of Eels"; "Neil Before Zod". (I hope to be able to post or link to the full list, later.)
I pretty much dominated the first round. Score wasn't kept for Tom in the second round, but I'm pretty sure I outscored him there, and easily made it to the lightning round. I managed to get 8 out of 10 questions. (Really it should have been 9 out of 10. I can't believe that I blanked on last year's Best Novel Hugo winner. My only consolation there was that Tom did, too!) He scored 5.
The eliminated contestants received low-value books as "lovely parting gifts"; the winners got better books -- mine was Aha! Gotcha, by Martin Gardner.
The grand prize was something special: one of only 500 copies of the Baen omnibus Cordelia's Honor (by Author GoH Lois McMaster Bujold) that had been bound in hard covers. Further, it was inscribed to Tom by the author. He estimates that it has a moderately significant monetary value.
So I won the first game, ahead of Tom. In the second game, Tom got 6 out of 10; the challenger got only 4. So as the only person to actually score better, I was awarded the grand prize. Tom graciously offered to sign it to me; he used Ben Stein's tagline, "You won it fair and square, you bastard!". Later on that day, I encountered Lois Bujold herself, and got her to inscribe it to me, so the book is now triply inscribed.
It was a fun game (and I'm not just saying that because I won!). Kudos to Tom Galloway for putting it together, and to Tom Whitmore for being a really good sport.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-14 08:40 pm (UTC)And, yes, that does sound like quite a lot of fun.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 05:38 am (UTC)