Learned League 74 - Official Thread

[RichmondJ]

Unrelated, is there any reason why I should know what the Seoul skyline looks like? I really don't see anything that makes it special.

More than any other geography-ish question I can remember, I felt like defending this question boiled down to "has [MD opponent] been to [place]." Namsan Mountain, and Seoul Tower and the other towers on it, are very prominent and smack in the middle of the city. But I don't think they're prominent in a lot of non-Korean media. Unlike many other skylines, if you haven't seen this one in person you are not likely to recognize it. So I put the 3 on it.

Apparently my MD opponent has been to Seoul.

[RandyG]

Not that I got this one right, but Taipei 101 has a very distinctive appearance.

Is it wrong to say it reminds me of the shape of a bunch of Chinese takeout boxes stacked on top of each other?

On that comparison, it seems appropriate to pose this query:

Didja ever notice that on TV and film, whenever somebody or a couple has Chinese takeout at home, they always eat it with chopsticks right out of the boxes? Do any of you actually do that? My wife and I have had a long-running commentary on this whenever it comes up, which is actually quite often.... just last night, once again. Neither of us thinks that we've ever eaten takeout that way.

P.S. I got lucky by guessing Seoul, having ruled out all the other options that were mentioned here.

[econgator]

Unrelated, is there any reason why I should know what the Seoul skyline looks like? I really don't see anything that makes it special.

More than any other geography-ish question I can remember, I felt like defending this question boiled down to "has [MD opponent] been to [place]." Namsan Mountain, and Seoul Tower and the other towers on it, are very prominent and smack in the middle of the city. But I don't think they're prominent in a lot of non-Korean media. Unlike many other skylines, if you haven't seen this one in person you are not likely to recognize it. So I put the 3 on it.

Apparently my MD opponent has been to Seoul.

True. My first thought was, looks a bit like Montreal (bright city, hill in the middle, towers on the hill, darker on the opposite side). Of course, it isn't a national capital, so that was right out

[clprez]

Re: Seoul--I was sure the skinny tower in the background was a minaret. A tacky one, but one nonetheless. That led to a whole bunch of free associating that eventually ended in a guess of Jakarta. <sigh>

I went through the same thought process, but ended up putting Ankara.

I was surprised that the Voyager question's answer rate wasn't higher. I know that its missions past Jupiter happened a while ago, but over the past few year it has been in the news because there's been lots of discussion about whether Voyager I was still in our solar system or in interstellar space. The question had the word "interstellar" in it, so I thought that a lot of people would get it from that angle. I guess I'm more of a NASA nerd than the average llama.

[patkav]

Unrelated, is there any reason why I should know what the Seoul skyline looks like? I really don't see anything that makes it special.

More than any other geography-ish question I can remember, I felt like defending this question boiled down to "has [MD opponent] been to [place]." Namsan Mountain, and Seoul Tower and the other towers on it, are very prominent and smack in the middle of the city. But I don't think they're prominent in a lot of non-Korean media. Unlike many other skylines, if you haven't seen this one in person you are not likely to recognize it. So I put the 3 on it.

Apparently my MD opponent has been to Seoul.

<sad trombone>

That's a drag.

[hbomb1947]

Unrelated, is there any reason why I should know what the Seoul skyline looks like? I really don't see anything that makes it special.

More than any other geography-ish question I can remember, I felt like defending this question boiled down to "has [MD opponent] been to [place]." Namsan Mountain, and Seoul Tower and the other towers on it, are very prominent and smack in the middle of the city. But I don't think they're prominent in a lot of non-Korean media. Unlike many other skylines, if you haven't seen this one in person you are not likely to recognize it. So I put the 3 on it.

Apparently my MD opponent has been to Seoul.

I was in Seoul briefly a couple of years ago and I didn't get this one. I remember that there was a tower you could go up to for a view of the city, and I normally do things like that, but for some reason I didn't. Had I done so, I surely would have recalled the hilltop location of the tower and the skyscraper-dense appearance of the surrounding area.

[reddpen]

Thus concludes my weirdest LL season to date. My finish (3rd in A Cont) ties my best result ever, while my TCA was my lowest yet. Congratulations to No. 2 finisher ElendilPickle and future TOCer Jason Sterlacci, who won the Rundle.

Your post sent me first to the A Cont standings--where my thought was '115 TCA is your worst ever? Holy sh**!'--and thence to your Stats page. Seems you've forgotten LL63, when you put up a lousy 112 TCA... one better than my all-time high of 113 last season. Props on the MD24 squeaker, btw.

Now that we're (OK, I'm) talking about me again, my DE this season was nearly 150 points below my average before the season began (.712). I used to take some pride in being among the top 200 all time in DE on the History page, but that's ancient history now. Second worst in A Cont, ahead of only the serial forfeiter. Thankfully my get rate was actually 40 points above my career average and even above the rundle average of .708.

On the skyline picture, I thought I saw a minaret on the mountain so had Kuala Lumpur in the box, till I realized I couldn't see the Petronas Towers anywhere. Then I was trying to think of a clearly massive, probably Asian city and through process of elimination settled on Seoul.

Those of you fretting about bouncing between rundles, it's not so bad. I've done it multiple times. Dropping down a level gives you a realistic shot of winning or at least bouncing back up. Once you're up in A, that shot is almost nonexistent for most of us. Round about MD7 I made the hubristic, universe-goading error of thinking 'Hey, I'm only two points out of first. Maybe I could win this thing!' Commence freefall.

On the outside chance anyone else shares my predilection for spending way too much time poring over LL stats in the off-seasons (as if, with three MLs starting soon), I've long been curious what's the record for most different positions in the standings for one season. I was in 15 different places this season, which I think is a high for me, but see that WhitlockLA (who bested georgespelvin for tops in D Laguna Div 2) was in 17. Has anyone ever occupied all 25 slots in one season? That oughta keep some of you busy.

[boson]

I missed the Seoul question (said Taipei based on a tower in a modern-looking warm city without an obvious river/port) but I liked it. There were a couple of seasons where Thorsten left out multimedia questions to be more inclusive of those who can't see or hear well. I think that was misguided - leaving out visual or auditory clues necessarily narrows the types of questions. This question had huge number of clues just by one picture, and it was a fun challenge to try to figure it out. I'm sympathetic to those who can't see or hear well, but I hope technology can help them in other ways to tackle this sort of question, rather than banning them from LL.

Congrats to those promoted! Regrets to those relegated! A toast to the LLamas!

[Volante]

Didja ever notice that on TV and film, whenever somebody or a couple has Chinese takeout at home, they always eat it with chopsticks right out of the boxes? Do any of you actually do that? My wife and I have had a long-running commentary on this whenever it comes up, which is actually quite often.... just last night, once again. Neither of us thinks that we've ever eaten takeout that way.

Yep. Why, do you dirty plates or something?

[barandall800]

My, was it great to be back playing LL this season. My second season in E is my last there for now, as I got second place (!!!) in my rundle and will go back up to D, for my sixth go-around at that level. I set personal records for most wins in a season, most total match points, most TCA, highest correct answer percentage, and tied my record for most three-pointers. Plus I was leading my rundle for nearly half the season (10 days, though not all of them were consecutive), and on the last match day beat the leader (though did not unseat them). No idea why this season went so much better for me than normal (the season of rest can't have helped THAT much ), but I will definitely take it. Here's to another season of getting roughed up in D Rundle.

[barandall800]

Unrelated, is there any reason why I should know what the Seoul skyline looks like? I really don't see anything that makes it special.

I had to piece through that one. Let's see ... lots of new skyscrapers, mountains in the back. Gulf countries or Far East. No, none of the Gulf countries would have mountains in the background. Riyadh? No, not populous enough. Tokyo? No, doesn't look like that? Singapore? No mountains, so eliminate that. Beijing? Doesn't look like it, though. Seoul? Hmm ... could be. I got nothing else, let's go with Seoul.

ETA: I originally thought of Sao Paulo, and then I smacked myself and said "Brasilia!"

I did the same as you going to Sao Paulo and then Brasilia (it doesn't help that one of my roommates served a religious mission in the former city, and has talked at length about how huge it is). The problem was, I stuck with that answer.

[RichmondJ]

More than any other geography-ish question I can remember, I felt like defending this question boiled down to "has [MD opponent] been to [place]." Namsan Mountain, and Seoul Tower and the other towers on it, are very prominent and smack in the middle of the city. But I don't think they're prominent in a lot of non-Korean media. Unlike many other skylines, if you haven't seen this one in person you are not likely to recognize it. So I put the 3 on it.

Apparently my MD opponent has been to Seoul.

<sad trombone>

That's a drag.

Oh, not really. Just making a joke. All I cared about as of yesterday was not blowing my Sandra lead (defense being the only thing I did well this season). This only cost me one point compared to optimal defense, so I hung on.

[dnbguy]

This was an odd season. I got off to a horrible start the first week, with only 6 TCA in the first 5 match days, including a dreaded 0(0) on MD3. I was closer to my average the rest of the way (including a 9(6) on MD18), but I still ended with only 70 TCA, my worst showing in eight seasons. Despite that, and despite the fact that I led C Pacific in CAA, I still managed to finish in the middle of the pack with a record of 11-11-3.

Congrats to econgator for his promotion to B, and congrats to my wife for her promotion to D!

[trainman]

My streak of 11 non-losses in the middle of the season had me as high as 1st in B Alpine. Aaaaaand then I ended the season with a 1-6 run to drop me to 11th.

Meanwhile, I'm proud that my refer-ee finished first in R1 Alpine, despite one early forfeit (for which he profusely apologized). Over in R2 Alpine, his first-place counterpart had what must be one of the greatest LL seasons of all time, with 15 9(6)es. Hmm...

[econgator]

Over in R2 Alpine, his first-place counterpart had what must be one of the greatest LL seasons of all time, with 15 9(6)es. Hmm...

And won the Maso and had 11 more TCA than anyone in A. Hmm, indeed.

[ouachiouat]

Is it wrong to say it reminds me of the shape of a bunch of Chinese takeout boxes stacked on top of each other?

Nope, I've heard people from Taipei say the same thing

On that comparison, it seems appropriate to pose this query:

Didja ever notice that on TV and film, whenever somebody or a couple has Chinese takeout at home, they always eat it with chopsticks right out of the boxes? Do any of you actually do that? My wife and I have had a long-running commentary on this whenever it comes up, which is actually quite often.... just last night, once again. Neither of us thinks that we've ever eaten takeout that way.

I've eaten Chinese takeout at home plenty of times back when I lived there. It never did come in the boxes like in the States, though--usually was just in a plastic container or, depending on the noodle shop, just a bag. But yeah, ate it straight out of the containers all the time if it was just noodles. And dang you, RandyG, now you're making me miss Chinese food even more! Haha.

Re: Seoul: I've been on that tower, have taught a not-insignificant number of students from South Korea, and I think I've seen that exact picture or one really similar on a student presentation--so yeah, that was about as instaget-ty as could be for me for an "identify this skyline picture" unless the picture is of 1) a city where I've actually lived or 2) a chili cheese coney from Skyline.

This was a weird season for me--my lowest TCA ever, lower defense than normal, and I somehow still managed to hang on to stay in B. Looks like I'll flirt with relegation again next season.

ML schedules are out. 190 groups for the JI: Movies. Wow! I'm in group 188 for that and group 11 for the 1960s. Forgot to register for the Middle East, so I'll be sitting that one out.

[teapot37]

Whew, my group for the 1960s ML is a murderer's row! FoderaB, UsuiW, ValadaC, and GarveyJ2 (osxpert).

[sarisson]

If you had told me I'd have a five-game winning streak and a winning record in my first season in B Rundle... well, somehow it happened. Congrats to Blue Lion on winning the division.
My 60's group has Alan Lin (who will be in the upcoming TOC) and Kevin Marshall, both superchamps. My Greater Middle East group has TOC winner Fritz Holznagel. I know assignments are random, but this is ridiculous!

[Bamaman]

I finished second in my rundle to earn a spot in D for next season.

For the MLs, I am in...
Middle East #14
Movies #45
1960s #3

I only recognize two names in my groups, though there could be others I know that don't ring a bell for me. In Movies, I am in a group with McNittS. (Can you bet 4000 in LL?).

Then I get to face BahnamanS on Day 2 of the 1960s. At least I get that butt kicking over with early.

[hbomb1947]

Whew, my group for the 1960s ML is a murderer's row! FoderaB, UsuiW, ValadaC, and GarveyJ2 (osxpert).

You're in my Middle East group.