MetaFilter posts tagged with bowl

Frank makes a bowl while Bonnie plays the cello

pjern — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 07:56:54 -0800

Gorgeous stop-motion photography of a wooden bowl being made.

The freezer makes my ice cream hard to scoop. Why try?

swift — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:41:14 -0800

The First World Problems Rap (SLYT)

Cannabis culture

twoleftfeet — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 05:00:25 -0800

Cannabis Culture

Zigguraticity, Pyramidality

curuinor — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:07:37 -0800

College Bowl was an American tradition for more than 50 years: two teams of four players each, who are read a toss-up question which anyone could answer alternating with a bonus question which only the team which got the toss-up question could answer. It was officially cancelled in 2008, due to a variety of factors. A strange new format dominates its successors: pyramidal quiz bowl. I link to a lot of packet archives here: all the ftp-looking folders with numbered .doc or .pdf files are packets of questions, and are filled with same. The term Quiz Bowl encompasses a variety of activities which have in common a lockout buzzer system which is used to answer questions about things: these things can be as narrow as the video games of the VAIN video game tournament and as broad as the generality of the Academic Competition Federation Regionals and Nationals. There are slightly frightening middle school tournaments and the frankly terrifying Chicago Open. Usually, a round is played for 20 questions or 30 minutes, depending on the format of the tournament: the tournament then goes on all day. The successors of the College Bowl include the Academic Competition Federation and the National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC, which is notable for also hosting competitions at the pre-college level. Some random man named Ken Jennings occasionally edits literature and mythology questions and occasionally reads questions to high-schoolers for them. For high schoolers only are the High School Academic Pyramid Questions. A sea-change in philosophy occurred during the change to "good" quizbowl: in addition to making you look smart by answering the questions, some thought began to go into making questions answerable and edifying. (Nearly) every toss-up question in every one of those tournaments is pyramidal, meaning that they are designed to be interrupted mid-question by an answer. In deference to the differing abilities and knowledge of the participants, the clues inside the questions go from hard to easy, hence the name pyramidal. For example: There were eight British soldiers not a casualty in this battle, out of fourteen hundred and eight. One side in this conflict was led to believe that the other side was fortifying Dusseldorf. Oscar Koch, however, correctly predicted a vast new offensive. In Operation Greif, Otto Skorzeny would cause confusion in Allied lines, and the command would be shifted from the Wolf’s Head to the Eagle’s Nest, along with Hitler. The Wehrmacht’s name for it was Watch on the Rhine and it was named for the shape it made in Allied defenses. FTP, name this German counteroffensive involving a siege in Bastogne. ANSWER: Battle of the Bulge, accept Ardennes-Alsace Offensive, or the Von Runstedt offensive The intended effect is to satisfy the trivia nut and the self-esteem-lacking dilettante alike and yet to differentiate people based on skill: skill at learning and skill at the game of quizbowl itself, a canon learned from by reading the packets of questions themselves. All fields of human knowledge goes in most tournaments, pop culture (lovingly called "trash") sometimes included. And sometimes, tournaments are just about trash. There's a wiki. There's specialized statistics software. And if you do not care a whit about any of this, it may just be nice to know that such large amounts of information are stored so lovingly in question form.

For those who think the ads are the best part

kevinsp8 — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:23:21 -0800

Watch the Super Bowl ads now.

tertium non data

klausness — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 13:27:25 -0800

Gülnur Özdağlar makes some amazing bowls and other artwork out of a surprising material... ...recycled PET plastic bottles.

Bomb, Blitz, Fumble, or Pass - Super Bowl Ads Go Long

taz — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:11:35 -0800

It's time to get ready for the Super Bowl... Ads! Adland has freely available archives of 37 years of commercials from the big game, over 2,800 ads - from 1969, when Winston, Salem, Camel, Tareyton, Pall Mall, and Silva Thins smoked up the Bowl *cough-cough*, all the way to 2008, when the best-liked ad was Bud's dalmation inspiration (how do we know it was best liked? SCIENCE!). Some highlights of the collection include: 1969 - Shall we take bets on the least expensively produced Super Bowl ad ever? I'll put my money on Gillette's Techmatic razor ad, but it's also cute and clever, and a great example of vintage animation of the period. 1973 - In what was probably the first Super Bowl "superstar" ad, "Broadway" Joe Namath is so excited because he's "gonna get creamed" by Farrah Fawcett. This is a landmark ad, and the only pre-'90s entry to appear on MSNBC's list of Sleaziest Super Bowl Ads of all time. 1980 - Scary-scary Mean Joe Green melted hearts with his "Hey Kid" Coca Cola ad, which weighs in at #1 on Gawker's list of most memorable Super Bowl ads, though ESPN claims it never debuted during a Super Bowl (see bottom note). This ad was such a winner that Coca Cola hopes to recreate the magic this year with a remake, featuring Coke Zero and Pittsburgh Steeler Troy Polamalu. 1984 - Apple's 1984 ad is certainly one of the most famous Super Bowl ads ever - and also one of the most expensive advertisements in television history, with with a budget of $900,000. It clocks in at #1 on a bevy of lists of best Super Bowl ads. 1994 - With his Wavy Lays ad poor Dan Quayle proved no more exciting in marketing than he was in politics, showing up on this list of television's most forgettable Super Bowl ads. zzzzzzzz. 1999 - A former Miss USA heats up the game with Ali Landry's 1999 Doritos ad, voted by Spike as number one in its list of Sexiest Super Bowl ads. This year also featured the offensive Kenyan Runner ad, called "the ad from hell" by Salon, and voted by Adland as number one on their list of the worst Super Bowl ads ever. 2007 - CGI wins the day with Coca Cola's Happiness Factory ad, chosen by DVICE as number one in its top 10 list of Super Bowl commercials featuring technology. 2008 - While now-President Barack Obama's regional campaign ad made history, Audi's Godfather ad got a heads-up on a lot of lists as #1 for the year, and Tide cleaned up with a (previously) Cannes award-winning spot. So... with the economic situation looking fairly desperate, can we expect 2009 Super Bowl ads to be fewer and less dazzling? Well... apparently, no? BloggingStocks says 2009 Bowl ad sales are strong (or are they?), and MSNBC reports that at $3 million, Super Bowl ad time is ... cheap? Either way, the Wall Street Journal advises Super Bowl ad-watching as stock strategy, and all we know for sure is that we won't be seeing PETA's Vegetarians Have Better Sex ad.

What? There were two black coaches in the Super Bowl?

AVandalay — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:37:50 -0800

Why having two African-American coaches in the Super Bowl is important. A postgame analysis of an over-analyzed subject.

Too tame to be fun

narebuc — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 13:23:26 -0800

Budweiser is pulling their "wardrobe malfunction" ad from the Super Bowl because they think someone might be offended by it. But, you can see the ad here: -- after going through their tough "age filter" and then clicking to the commercial. When you can't even make fun of stuff begging to made fun of anymore, that will be a sad day.