It's a pretty good read.

http://tvgameshows.net/gscdiary1.htm

But God, does Mark Richards look old. Anyone know how old he is?

I agree. Nice read, but Steve namedropped everybody who showed up.

It sounds like that they all had fun and everything, but I have a question. Just how many people showed up for this thing? It's not a popular national event like a comic book convention. Steve doesn't give any attendance numbers in his articles, so I'm suspecting that only a hundred people showed up.

Is anyone here seriously considering going to next year's event?


P.S. By sharing the letters "GSC," do we have to make a distinction between the Congress and our fan-based "Conventions"?




Dean Scungio
dscungio@worldnet.att.net
AIM & Y!: dascungio (Note the "a"!)

"It's not how much we give away,
it's the way we do it." -Monty Hall

I think this is another example of needless Steve-bashing. For one thing, this isn't his event. He certainly championed it on his fan site, but he was just another attendee. And sure, my guess is that there were probably about a hundred people there (a couple of our members attended and could give us a more accurate total). That's still about 85 more than ever attended any one of the original Game Show Conventions, to say nothing of the fact that there were some serious names worth dropping.

It sounds like it was a wonderful, intimate event. I'd be very interested in attending next year.

QUOTE (Matt Ottinger @ Aug 5 2003, 11:44 AM)

I think this is another example of needless Steve-bashing.  For one thing, this isn't his event.  He certainly championed it on his fan site, but he was just another attendee.  And sure, my guess is that there were probably about a hundred people there (a couple of our members attended and could give us a more accurate total).  That's still about 85 more than ever attended any one of the original Game Show Conventions, to say nothing of the fact that there were some serious names worth dropping.

There were about 75 people who were there for the TRASH tournament. About half of those were interested in the Congress, the other half weren't. In the sessions I was able to attend (other times I was off playing in the TRASH tournament), there were about 80 people in the room. So, if you figure between 30-40 were TRASH people, the number was between 110-120 total. Clearly not the Computer Associates convention that was rolling through town, but a decent showing.

SB got most of his facts right. But he's not the only one messing up the facts. Gordon Pepper has Kevin Olmstead as the Spokesman for TRASH, which is not true. James Dinan (Millionaire and 2 Minute Drill contestant) is.

There will be a third Congress, it's time and location TBA. Don't be one to knock it, you might actually *gasp* have fun.


--Mike Burger
3-time National TRASH Champion

QUOTE (mmb5 @ Aug 6 2003, 10:35 AM)

--Mike Burger 3-time National TRASH Champion

Y'know, as soon as I saw "Mike Burger" I was ready to go into MG98 bashing mode again.

And I agree with everything he said.

Mike,

I have to say that I was seriously impressed with your Game Show T*R*A*S*H set up as was everyone else there including Bob Boden. Folks, if you ever get a chance to see the game that Mike devised, it is amazing.

Mike has a computer version of MANY game shows that you can play in a quiz bowl format. I was amazed. I have to say it was definitely a highlight of the weekend for me.

I had no idea that was you or I would have said hello. I was playing on the first team with Steve Beverly and Jason Block. I was that guy on the end with the glasses, lol!

Great job on that Mike, really great!

Tim :-)

P.S. As Mike said, this was not Steve's event. The two particular names that come to mind are James Dinan (who is the TRASH master extraordinaire and Paul Bailey who ran the GSC2).

QUOTE (Timsterino @ Aug 6 2003, 04:03 PM)

I was playing on the first team with Steve Beverly and Jason Block. I was that guy on the end with the glasses, lol! Tim :-)

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but how did your team fare in the tournament, Tim?

QUOTE (CBSJokersWildFan @ Aug 6 2003, 03:39 PM)

QUOTE (Timsterino @ Aug 6 2003, 04:03 PM) I was playing on the first team with Steve Beverly and Jason Block. I was that guy on the end with the glasses, lol! Tim :-) I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but how did your team fare in the tournament, Tim?

This was just the team for Mike Burger's game. It was Steve Beverly, Jason Block, Mike Leger (NTN player who won the million point Play it prize twice) and myself. We played against David Legler, his dad, Ben Tritle and Mark Richards. Our team won, but not by much. We played Pyramid, Blockbusters, Match Game and Family Feud.

In the TRASH tournament it was just Jason Block and I "Millionaire Boyz". We did not fare to well. That was my fault because I was sick at the time (no excuses tho ;-))

Tim :-)

Is there a web site where I can find out more information about TRASH (format, where/when, etc)?

- Peter

QUOTE (Peter Sarrett @ Aug 6 2003, 10:23 PM)

Is there a web site where I can find out more information about TRASH (format, where/when, etc)? - Peter

Here you go, Peter:

http://thetrashzone.blogspot.com/

Tim :-)

Thanks Tim, but not quite what I'm looking for. Aside from the incredible slowness of Blogspot and tendency to get Page Not Found errors, the content of the blog seems to be obsessed with the Vegas event but doesn't actually describe TRASH itself.

I'm looking for information about:

How is the game itself structured?
What's the player makeup like? (college students vs. post-college adults)
When and where are events held?
Costs? Rewards?

Basically, all the information that someone who just heard of TRASH but knew nothing about it would want to know. I'm surprised there isn't any web site for this kind of thing.

- Peter

QUOTE (Peter Sarrett @ Aug 7 2003, 01:16 PM)

Thanks Tim, but not quite what I'm looking for.  Aside from the incredible slowness of Blogspot and tendency to get Page Not Found errors, the content of the blog seems to be obsessed with the Vegas event but doesn't actually describe TRASH itself. I'm looking for information about: How is the game itself structured? What's the player makeup like?  (college students vs. post-college adults) When and where are events held? Costs?  Rewards? Basically, all the information that someone who just heard of TRASH but knew nothing about it would want to know.  I'm surprised there isn't any web site for this kind of thing.   - Peter

Peter,

Here are the TRASH rules:
http://members.aol.com/TRASHionals/trashrules.html

The game is structured in a Quiz Bowl format with a buzzer system (usually). It is usually teams of four on four but sometimes there may be less than four players (which puts the team at a disadvantage).

The questions are based on pop culture. Including current events, sports, movies, television etc. There are no academic questions in a TRASH tournament. The player makeup is mixed (at least at Viva Trash Vegas). More often though it is comprised of college age students. Our team was playing people who were a lot older and people who were just in college.

Events are held in different locations throughout the year. I believe the consideration for the National Tournament right now is in April and possibly in Los Angeles. When I played with Jason in Las Vegas it cost our two member team $60 for a place. You are also required to write a packet (a group of 20 TRASH formatted questions) along with your entry.

The prizes are all glory. There are no real monetary prizes (that I know of). I am sure Mike Burger could better answer that question. His team ended up winning "Viva Trash Vegas" this year.

A TRASH question is about a paragraph long. It starts out vague and gets more detailed as the question goes along. As soon as one of the team members know it they can buzz in. But if they get the question wrong the team loses 5 points and the other team has a chance to answer the question after the entire question is read. The tournament is played in a round robin tournament, With the best scores advancing to the semi-finals, finals. The matches are moderated by the question giver and scored by another person (or the moderator will score as well). There are 20 questions per game. Best out of 20 wins the match. There are also bonuses if your team gets the question correct. You can also help your team on a bonus although regular questions that you buzz in on can only be answered by the individual.

I hope that answers some of your questions. I may have gotten a couple of things confused (I only did TRASH one time) so I hope others will correct me if I am wrong.

Tim :-)

Hmmm.....the sentence idea sounds kinda like "Hollywood's Talking," where the celebrity clues would start vague and get clearer as time ran out [and the value of the subject dropped]

QUOTE (Matt Ottinger @ Aug 5 2003, 05:44 PM)

I think this is another example of needless Steve-bashing. For one thing, this isn't his event. He certainly championed it on his fan site, but he was just another attendee.

I respectfully disagree.

This wasn't the first Game Show Congress; the first was an overtly Beverley-organised event. I think he chose the name. It seems unlikely to the point of being negligible that he didn't know about atgs' established Game Show Conventions in the past and the fact that we have long used the initials GSC for something very specific. Due diligence would have pointed out the term's reserved status. Every event he calls a GSC is an insult to the memory of the GSCs we have been enjoying for almost a decade now. GSC 1, GSC 2(-East!), GSC 3 and so on have had nothing to do with him. He could've attended any of the GSCs he liked, but he never did. Heck, he could possibly have asked for the online community's approval to bring his events into the GSC numbering system, but crucially acknowledging that people had long been organising events before him.

If he had called his event GameShowPalooza, or Game Show Symposium, or Game Shows '02 (now '03), or GameShowFest, or any of a hundred other names, then I would have no objection. However, I take his use of the combination of letters G, S and C in that order as a deliberate middle finger to atgs and the established online game show fandom at large. While I agree there that some of the Steve-bashing from time to time is needless, this is one situation in which I think he has been deliberately petty and for which opprobrium is deserved.

Rant mode disengaged. I might possibly be overreacting irrationally here (!) but I stand firmly by the point within.

QUOTE (dickoon @ Aug 7 2003, 12:41 PM)

However, I take his use of the combination of letters G, S and C in that order as a deliberate middle finger to atgs and the established online game show fandom at large.

I agree with all of the points in your post, particularly this one, but at the same time I ask you: what do you expect?

We _know_ he at least lurks here, if he's not an outright member. Too much of the news broken here eventually makes it to his site for it to be mere coincidence. And while he seems to have good relationships with select members of this group, I'm sure he knows, on the whole, that we generally and for the most part think he's a dink. (Me, I think he's an outright member whether he's registered here as a user or not, but that's another story for another time. ;))

So I figure: if we don't like him, he certainly has every right to not like us. And it's not like anyone went down to the patent office and slapped a copyright on the "GSC" abbreviation.

So his theft of the "GSC" concept (and the F-U that comes with) might strike you as somewhat childish. Sure. It is. There's been childishness on both sides of this feud. But it shouldn't be really surprising.

Tim: Your earlier comment:

QUOTE

I have to say that I was seriously impressed with your Game Show T*R*A*S*H set up as was everyone else there including Bob Boden. Folks, if you ever get a chance to see the game that Mike devised, it is amazing. Mike has a computer version of MANY game shows that you can play in a quiz bowl format. I was amazed. I have to say it was definitely a highlight of the weekend for me.

made it sound like TRASH was an amalgam of multiple game show formats, but I must have misunderstood. I'd like to hear more about Mike's system.

- Peter

QUOTE (Timsterino @ Aug 7 2003, 01:47 PM)

The prizes are all glory. There are no real monetary prizes (that I know of). I am sure Mike Burger could better answer that question. His team ended up winning "Viva Trash Vegas" this year.

Prizes won by Winners of the National TRASH tournament include:

A Coleco Adam! (1998 tournament)
Champagne Glasses! (2000 tournament)
Vegas-related prizes (comp tickets to see Ronn Lucas, buffet comps)! (2003 tournament)
A real ECW Champions Belt -- this is like the Stanley Cup, it goes from team to team.


The one thing Tim got wrong is that this is the first tournament that TRASH has run that requires packet writing. All other TRASH tournaments were written by the group themselves. Tossups are somewhat lengthier than they were in the old College Bowl days, now they resemble either the Biography question from Sports Challenge or if Trebek Double Dare clues were read as one long question. TRASH doesn't post their questions on-line, but a good example of what the questions pretty much look like is available here, although mine tend to be shorter.

Trash or "pop culture" tournaments got their start in the early 90's as a parody of a College Bowl splinter group which mandated rigorous academic content which really pleased those who knew the answers and horrified the ones who didn't. Besides the two (or three) tournaments TRASH runs yearly, there are many invitational tournaments held throughout the year. The two largest are Charlie Steinhice's Trashmasters, which is held at UT-Chattanooga the first weekend of December and my Ann B. Davis, which is held at The University of Michigan on the day before MLK Day in January. In these, the people who write for TRASH play, and they are quite the formidable teams. Charlie doesn't have a web page for his tournament, I only keep one for announcements and can be found here and here. Please note the picture of Michael Burger on the second one is not actually me, I have a face made for radio.

As far as how hard it is, the team I used to win the Vegas tournament was two people from the National team (me and Craig Barker, 1996 College Jeopardy! Champ), a person who usually leads these tournaments in scoring and a fourth who was just along for the ride. The caliber of play was roughly equivalent to what one would see at a typical invitational tournament or a TRASH regional, but below that seen at either a TRASH national or my tournament. The Beat the Geeks people once entered an invitational tournament and held their own (not winning, though), partially because they might play 5 games in a day, we generally play 10-14.

Some of the current "Trash" scene is made up of alumni like me who can't seem to get enough of it, while the remainder are students. The upper echelon of players is mostly alumni, since college students aren't quite up yet on the full range of popular culture you need to know to win these things. If you're looking for a place to play, College Bowl programs which are friendly to Trash-style questions include Michigan, Pitt, UT-Chattanooga, Georgia, Boston University, USC, Cal-Berkeley, ASU and Texas A&M. What many alumni do like myself is you read for the academic tournaments (and get your game show host fix out of the way) and play in the trash questions.


--Mike Burger

QUOTE (dickoon @ Aug 7 2003, 12:41 PM)

However, I take his use of the combination of letters G, S and C in that order as a deliberate middle finger to atgs and the established online game show fandom at large.

The motivations for doing so being what?

(I'm several years late to the party... but if I'm gonna be reading all this stuff I like to know the history.)

QUOTE (melman1 @ Aug 7 2003, 05:20 PM)

QUOTE (dickoon @ Aug 7 2003, 12:41 PM) However, I take his use of the combination of letters G, S and C in that order as a deliberate middle finger to atgs and the established online game show fandom at large. The motivations for doing so being what? (I'm several years late to the party... but if I'm gonna be reading all this stuff I like to know the history.)

Not sure which question you were asking, but if you mean ATGS, let's just say it is now pretty much a cesspool, spam ridden Newsgroup that is dead for good.

QUOTE (melman1 @ Aug 7 2003, 02:20 PM)

(I'm several years late to the party... but if I'm gonna be reading all this stuff I like to know the history.)

Well, in this case you may well have to learn to live without it, because unless you want to do some research on Google Groups, the whole tale is simply too much to be boiled down into a post or two.

QUOTE (Peter Sarrett @ Aug 7 2003, 03:29 PM)

Tim: Your earlier comment: QUOTE I have to say that I was seriously impressed with your Game Show T*R*A*S*H set up as was everyone else there including Bob Boden. Folks, if you ever get a chance to see the game that Mike devised, it is amazing. Mike has a computer version of MANY game shows that you can play in a quiz bowl format. I was amazed. I have to say it was definitely a highlight of the weekend for me. made it sound like TRASH was an amalgam of multiple game show formats, but I must have misunderstood. I'd like to hear more about Mike's system. - Peter

Sorry about the confusion Peter. Mike Burger's game took place at the end of the Game Show Congress. It was not part of TRASH. It was set up in a quiz bowl TRASH format. It was four on four. Team #1 would start and click a mouse to stop the "whammy" board. Whichever game show your team lands on is the one played for that round and so on for each subsequent round. Your team starts first. Then you actually play that game show. Mike has an elaborate set up which truly amazed us all. The team with the most points after 30 minutes (I think) wins.

I think the wildest thing for me was to watch Bob Boden and his team play Lingo. It was classic.

Tim :-)

QUOTE (HSquares2003 @ Aug 7 2003, 02:28 PM)

QUOTE (melman1 @ Aug 7 2003, 05:20 PM) QUOTE (dickoon @ Aug 7 2003, 12:41 PM) However, I take his use of the combination of letters G, S and C in that order as a deliberate middle finger to atgs and the established online game show fandom at large. The motivations for doing so being what? Not sure which question you were asking, but if you mean ATGS, let's just say it is now pretty much a cesspool, spam ridden Newsgroup that is dead for good.

I knew that atgs died due to severe troll infestation., yes.

But what I was asking, though, was why SB would make a "deliberate middle finger" to the atgs "regulars". Yes, I'm sure it's a sordid and complicated story but I was hoping there was a simple explanation.

QUOTE (melman1 @ Aug 7 2003, 06:00 PM)

I knew that atgs died due to severe troll infestation., yes. But what I was asking, though, was why SB would make a "deliberate middle finger" to the atgs "regulars". Yes, I'm sure it's a sordid and complicated story but I was hoping there was a simple explanation.

Simple. From what I understand, it's because a noticeable amount of ATGS harshly criticized his method of running his website, whether it was deserved or underserved. A lot of us realize that Beverly is one of the few major outlets online for everything about game shows. His site is comprehensive, and covers everything about game shows, and does it daily, a huge feat to accomplish. I'll admit, Beverly does have some rather annoying biases which are just not journalistically professional in the least. (It's even worse since he's a jornalism prof. A lot of the stuff he does would probably get him booted with a quickness at Northwestern University's Medill.)

But I don't really care that much... because it's his site, and he can scratch whatever itch he wants to on his site. And not a single person can do a thing about it. So, as Chris explained, if ATGS doesn't like him, he doesn't have to like ATGS. Fine.

With that being said, he's not my arch-rival; I'm pretty sure he's not an evil person in real life or anything. And to tell the truth, it's not really my place to say he shouldn't do a lot of what he does on his site (unless, of course, it's slanderous or doesn't give people credit). I go to his site to look at what I want to, and I get a lot of my info here.

So I hope that serves as partial explanation, and if I'm way out in left field, I would hope someone would correct me. But I've been in ATGS for three years, and that's what I've known it to be.

Brandon Brooks

QUOTE (melman1 @ Aug 8 2003, 12:00 AM)

But what I was asking, though, was why SB would make a "deliberate middle finger" to the atgs "regulars". Yes, I'm sure it's a sordid and complicated story but I was hoping there was a simple explanation.

Short answer: he and his site have a long history of utter pretentiousness and of deliberately distancing himself from the rest of the game show fandom. Worse than that, in the funocracy that is the Internet, he's just not really good enough at what he does - not nearly an entertaining enough writer - to be able to get away with breaking the unwritten social rules of interacting with a community.

Come and play with us, Steve; show some backbone and some humility. Then we'll want to come and play with you.

This is my last word on the subject in this thread, barring sufficient provocation to make me decide to want to eat those words, because I recognise we're getting increasingly off-topic and I recognise that I've probably done more than anyone else on this thread to get us there.

QUOTE (Brandon Brooks @ Aug 7 2003, 05:21 PM)

So I hope that serves as partial explanation, and if I'm way out in left field, I would hope someone would correct me. But I've been in ATGS for three years, and that's what I've known it to be.

I think that's part of it. I think another part is the fact that he's never been part of "our" community...like I said, he lurks here, I'm sure, but he never posts. He takes, but he doesn't give back. That chafes at me some.

Yet, at the same time, because he's enginneered the press to think so, he's anoited himself King Of The Game Show Geeks, and that's reaffirmed every time 20/20 or whoever grabs him for a sound bite on whatever story might be pertinent.

So: he uses us for his own gain, though he gives off an air of being too cool for the room, unless of course a camera is pointed at him, when he becomes our Fearless Leader.

If he chose to do so, he might do well to make his presence known in here and answer the hard questions his detractors have been asking about him all of these years. Maybe he has good explanations. I'd certainly be willing to listen with an open mind.

Tim: That sounds very cool.Mike, any chance of making your app available to an interested party?

QUOTE (clemon79 @ Aug 7 2003, 08:06 PM)

QUOTE (Brandon Brooks @ Aug 7 2003, 05:21 PM) So I hope that serves as partial explanation, and if I'm way out in left field, I would hope someone would correct me.  But I've been in ATGS for three years, and that's what I've known it to be. I think that's part of it. I think another part is the fact that he's never been part of "our" community...like I said, he lurks here, I'm sure, but he never posts. He takes, but he doesn't give back. That chafes at me some.

It seems as though Steve posted on a.t.g-s in the early days (I've seen his name on Googled archive posts) and on GS-L when that was a more active list, back in the days of the Turkish server. The last post I seem to remember him making on GS-L was way back in 1998, when a new poster asked for the rest of us to describe ourselves and if we were going to the GSC that year in Cleveland. Steve complied and then said that he would not go to GSCs because of the "immature, foul-mouthed" participants or something to that effect (as if you wouldn't expect anything else from a group of men, mostly heterosexuals, together for a week--sorry kids, but when the girls aren't around, we tend to talk dirty).

Be it as it may, Steve decided to be his own voice away from the established forums then (it was around the time his site adapted its current format) and has pointedly chosen not to have any kind of regular message board, probably because he doesn't want to traffic-cop it to keep with his principles. Which, of course, is his choice.

QUOTE (Peter Sarrett @ Aug 7 2003, 11:52 PM)

Tim: That sounds very cool.Mike, any chance of making your app available to an interested party?

Information on what Tim has been talking about can be found here:

http://www.mikeburger.com/gsr.html




--Mike Burger

QUOTE (dscungio @ Aug 5 2003, 11:11 AM)

I agree. Nice read, but Steve namedropped everybody who showed up. It sounds like that they all had fun and everything, but I have a question. Just how many people showed up for this thing? It's not a popular national event like a comic book convention. Steve doesn't give any attendance numbers in his articles, so I'm suspecting that only a hundred people showed up. Is anyone here seriously considering going to next year's event? P.S. By sharing the letters "GSC," do we have to make a distinction between the Congress and our fan-based "Conventions"? Dean Scungio dscungio@worldnet.att.net AIM & Y!: dascungio (Note the "a"!) "It's not how much we give away, it's the way we do it." -Monty Hall

QUOTE

Is anyone here seriously considering going to next year's event?

I am thinking of hosting of the HOMETOWN GSC. School is out, the studios are mostly free, and I am an employee of the station. Plus, there is some props that are sitting in storage. I could bring them out and play with them. Hmmmmm....

Charles

QUOTE (dscungio @ Aug 5 2003, 11:11 AM)

Is anyone here seriously considering going to next year's event?

Yes!

Tim :-)

QUOTE (mmb5 @ Aug 8 2003, 10:13 PM)

Information on what Tim has been talking about can be found here: http://www.mikeburger.com/gsr.html

That's a very nice looking system you have there, Mr. Burger. :-)