Games On

And the Powerball Numbers Are... 12/16/2006	5	17	28	36	51		5
x 4

Brooke has chosen the next event... PowerBall! Baby. We'll have to check with Andy to figure out lottery ticket availability in Alabama, but assuming he is able to buy them at home, then Saturday's Powerball drawing will also be a SeegerOlympic drawing. Everyone gets a ticket, then the person with the most right numbers. Tiebreaker will be closest to the correct Powerball number. Play along at home (note: anyone winning Powerball jackpot as a result of reading this blog is, by law, obligated to donate 2% of all Powerball revenues to the SeegerOlympics... With the money we'll buy a nicer trophy, play some events at more exotic locales & buy more liquor. (so it's non-profit).

It is now Andy's pick.

It's Good

The Seeger Olympics rolled along this Thanksgiving day, as all 5 competitors are in Clinton for the holiday. Brooke called a field- goal- kicking competition, which necessitated a trip down to the Cougar Dome. We played three events down there (the next two chosen by andy & jen). Our warm-ups were a bit embarrassing, but when the competition started, andy started off strong, nailing two of three. Jen & Brooke failed to make the kicks, but tim came up and hit all three. Joel was the last to go. He kicked his first one and it hit the bottom crossbar, and bounced in. His next kick was low and to the left (he took his eye of the ball), then his third one went deep through the uprights. Tim won the event.

Andy picked a punting competition. Joel & Tim literally exactly tied with their first kicks, and they had a punt-off. Tim's kick was impressive, back farther than his first had been, and joel miss-hit his next punt. It almost rolled for the length, but tim won it again and went up by two in the overall game. Jen next selected a cart-wheel competition. Andy actually went over the top, then joel looked very impressive, but flubbed the landing. Brooke opted for a somersault (thus immediately being eliminated), jen then nailed one perfectly & tim kind of did one, sort of. Jen was awarded the win by the distinguished panel of judges, Jim & Emily.

In other news, joel won a MS Solitare match against andy and extended his skunk-y lead. Should be an exciting weekend of events.

Turn Your Radio On

Brooke & joel competed in yet another event, resulting in the tying up of their two-way competition. Brooke selected (granted, with a bit of pressure applied by joel) “the radio game” as their next event during a far-too-long car ride from Omaha to Clinton. Joel is generally terrible at the radio game, mostly because he thinks and reacts much slower than the average human. Brooke skipped out to a lead by possibly correctly identifying a song as a Goo-Goo Dolls piece (joel subsequently guessed Gin Blossoms & Foo Fighters & while we’re not 100% sure it was the Goo-Goo Dolls, it didn’t seem hard enough to be fighting foo & it was far too recent to have been a Gin Blossoms song)… Joel had a couple close misses, including an instrumental piece that may or may not have been “Octopus’ Garden”, then Joel scored by identifying David Sedaris’ voice on NPR. (note: there is some disagreement as to whether identifying a non-song item on the radio, but I’ve long argued that it should be allowed). We listened to the end of the piece about death & then continued on. The game was tight, with brooke jumping ahead, then joel catching up, until joel nabbed two in a row, winning on correctly identifying Dire Straits as the singers of “Money For Nothing”. While there were several questionable calls (possible non-titles as answers and the dreaded Phil Collins or Genesis question), the point went to joel who came back to tie the brooke v. joel games & now has the next selection. Should be an exciting weekend in SeegerOlympic matchups.

In other SeegerOlympic news the poetry contest judges have been finalized (and all but one told that they are involved). The poems will all be sent to the Commissioner, Shane, then anonymized and forwarded to three judges, Mom Seeger, D-Force & Eric. A rubrick is still to be released, but the format is decided.

Toss Up

An exciting weekend in Seeger Olympic Play. Jen extended her lead in the Joel /Tim / Jen games & joel kept pace with tim in their one-on-one competition.

On Friday night we three competitors had dinner at Jim & Pam's house and got in a few events between dinner, child-wrangling, and (grand)parenty-chit-chat. Joel & Tim played a game of the as-yet-unnamed hand-slapping balance game (SeegerOlympic blog contest boys, girls & hamsters... the game is played by two people standing in front of each other about a foot apart and push forward against the other player's hands trying to unbalance the other player... the winner is the last one not to take a step... OK, so the contest is to name this game. 3 finalists will be selected by the competitors, then we'll have a vote on this website. Winner will be awarded a brand new, and probably unused rice cooker. Please post entries to the comments section), which joel won. Joel & tim & jen then competed in a quarter-rolling contest. Joel started out with an impressive roll, most of the way across the room. Tim's started well, but turned left suddenly and hit a piece of furniture. When jen made her play, however, she showed her true skills & blew both the other competitors away. A big win for jen, who retained first place, extending her lead. Tim then devised a ball tossing game, a variation on the frisbee game where if it touches you, you need to catch it. Joel took a 2-0 lead in a game to 3, but tim successfully came back to win.

On Saturday more events were played between joel & tim, but the overall result was tim retaining his one match lead... Tim won paper football after joel won his first ever game of Ker-Plunk, the game that takes just a minute to play, but a lifetime to set up... Joel also won a ball-kicking game where the other player served as keeper, with the living-room as a goal. Tim won a ball-kicking golf-type game. In the end, each player had more wins, but the state of affairs was unchanged.

Jen also hinted at a tim v. jen event that she won, but i haven't scored it here, yet, because it was unconfirmed.

Point that thing someplace else

Tim took over the lead in the Joel vs. Tim competition last night with back to back darting victories at the Rose & Crown Pub. After a round of Beefeater & Tonic for joel & a Guinness for Tim we played a game of 301 (joel's selection) followed by a game of Gotcha!, a 301 variation where players can send each other back to zero by hitting exactly the same score as another.

Tim won 301 fairly soundly, fairly trouncing joel. Another round of drinks was ordered, tim switching to a Colorado Bulldog & joel sticking with the gin and tonic. The game of Gotcha! that we played next seemed a bit tighter at the beginning, though tim jumped out to an early lead due to actally being better at darts. Tim failed to close out the end of the game and joel came back, eventually passing him and closing in on 301... Tim was able to hit joel's exact score, however, and send him back to zero, paving the way to his eventual victory as joel scrambled to catch up.

Well played games by tim & an excellent evening in SeegerOlympic competition.

a lot of action...

Last night, Sunday the 8th of October, there was a lot of SeegerOlympic action going on. Leads changed and changed back & new threats emerged. Sadly, there was almost too much that went on to be able to discuss it all in one entry (if fellow competitors want to {and can figure out how to} add their own descrpition of any events i pass over, please do).

The major movement happened in the five-person overall competition. Tim briefly tied up with brooke at 3 points - a - piece with a victory in the Seeger Weight - loss Challenge, successfully dropping 6 whole pounds, but then Brooke went back up, by standing on one foot longer than any of the other competitors could. By the end of the night, though, tim had tied up again with a huge victory in the standing broad jump.

The evening was full of competitions between a wide array of combinations. With games ranging from indoor soccer-style games (all of which joel won) to balloon games to how fast you can pull someone's sock off (Jen & Kris, take note). The zerbert match between Joel, Brooke & Jen was completed, with joel winning 3-0-2, respectively). Anyway, a lot of scoring changes, so take note.

Pucky comic relief

A rare evening occured this Saturday, when all five of the Seeger-Olympics competitors were together in one room. While only one event was completed, it was an epic battle, ranging all night and all over the... table.

We played andy's air hockey tournament, with each competitor playing against everyone else. The top two in round 1 (round robin) played for the championship. Joel, Tim & Andy were the early leaders, each beating brooke & jen, but tim was able to defeat both of his brothers (andy 3-0 & joel 3-2) to come out of round 1 as the clear favorite. Joel defeated andy & went on to play the final match against tim (this time, to 10 instead of the 3-point mini-matches we'd played up to this point).

Tim & Joel were neck & neck, pretty well trading points, with joel going up two, then tim tying & going up one, then tying again. It was 6-6, when Tim took over the game, scoring 4 straight points to win the event. Tim comes closer to the overall lead with this rare 5-person event victory. The weigh-out for the Seeger Weight Loss Challenge is tomorrow evening, so another point will be awarded then. Jen is next to select an event & brooke's poetry-writing event was clarified a bit, with the judges being named as David Tillotson, mom/ Hope Seeger, and Eric Friedericks. Shane will receive all the poems (at the due date yet to be determined) and distribute them anonymously to the judges.

In other SeegerOlympic news, joel currently holds a 2-1-0 lead over jen & brooke (respectively) in the 'zerbert' name that tune challenge (played to 3). Joel correctly identified "The Farmer in the Dell" & "How Much is that Doggie in the Window" to take the lead.

Also, Andy won a game of Trivial Pursuit : Millenium Edition, after Joel missed a potentially winning pie-question. Andy won with the correct answer Francoise Mitterand (though he was unable to produce the French leader's first name). Brooke passed out after accruing 4 pies.

Poet Lariat

Brooke has declared the next SeegerOlympic Event will be... A poetry-writing competition. All submissions will be judged by a blind panel (that is not knowing whose poem is whomse, not actual blind folk). Judges and timeline and rubrick will be determined, but she has selected, which turns the pick to Andy.

And i will also announce Andy's choice - assuming he is sticking with it - as he told it to me. An Air Hockey competition where each competitor will face each other competitor and the overall winner gets the point. Play at your leisure, though, of course, the joel & brooke basement currently houses an air hockey table.

More details to come & competitors can update their event selections in the comments or with another entry (see your inboxes again to figure out how to register & blog your own entries).
And now, the selection turns to Jen for the 5-person contest.

Yahtzee!

Brooke jumped out to a slight lead in the joel vs. brooke games... Joel selected a game of Yahtzee! and thought he had it wrapped up when he rolled five 5's, but brooke took the game back into her own hands, then successfully scored the very rare 2nd Yahtzee (an obscure rule i didn't know about), sealing the game.

Brooke went on to win an incomplete game of dominoes (chickenfoot, in fact) as we watched the Emmy's, but she didn't want to declare it a SeegerOlympic event, so her lead remains one point.

NOTE: An earlier scoring update has also been changed. The Brooke v. Joel v. Andy contest began w ith a Tim selected event, naming the business that was formerly situated next to Brewsky's, an event which Brooke won.

Swim Race

Today Brooke and i went to the beach. As true Seegers, we took advantage of the natural terrain and played a couple SeegerOlympic Events. First i ill-advisedly chose a swimming race, which brooke soundly defeated me at, because i just dog paddle. But then Brooke showed equally bad judgement choosing a foot-race through the water. She was convinced that my height gave me the unfair advantage to win the race (because less of my body was logically being held back by water), but i'm convinced it was my natural, remarkable ability.

So, two events down in Joel v. Brooke & it's all tied up.

Event 2 (&3&4&5&6&7)

Event 2 happened back during the World Cup, actually, and was won by Tim. It was picking the first team to score in the U.S. / Ghana match at the end of round 1, with the tie-breaker being the minute in which the goal was scored. Both Tim & Brooke chose Ghana to score first, but Tim picked the earlier time, so he won the point.

Last night (Tuesday) we played a series of events.

Event 3 was to see how many reverse crunches we could do consecutively. Brooke won the event soundly, doing 100 in a row. Jen came in a rather close 2nd at something around 60. Andy, Tim & Joel all collapsed after 30 or fewer each.

Event 4 was selected by Andy & was the great Seeger Weight-Loss Challenge. When Andy is next in Omaha (early October) each of the competitors will re-weigh themselves. Whoever lost the most weight will win the point.

Jen then chose a round of UNO as event 5, which Joel won, scoring his first point of the competition.

Next, Joel created a ball-rolling event for event 6 in the living room, using various child playthings and a small bucket. Balls (and the disc) were given various point values for scoring based on difficulty of getting them in the bucket. Joel scored first with only 2 points (out of a possible 32). Tim & Andy both scored 0, then Jen got 5 and looked to be the winner until Brooke, with zero points, rolled the disc in from across the room scoring 10 points.

Tim then devised Event 7. Handing each of us a random book off the shelf, we each scoured the book in search of the word "very." First one to find it won the event. The Five People You Meet in Heaven seems not to use the word very, so Brooke won the event (though i can't remember with which book).

The Scoring System

After much deliberation (and some procrastination posting about the results of the deliberation) a finalized scoring system has been adopted by we the competitors of the SeegerOlympics.

Participants winning an event involving all five of us will be awarded one point (so far, only tim) and each other incarnation of the SeegerOlympics will result in a single point for the overall competition... So, joel v. brooke is for 1 point, joel v. tim v. brooke is 1, jtba olypics is one, etc... I have no idea how many points that will throw into the mix, but it will be substantial...

So that's how we roll... Updated scores soon to come.

Event 1

To start off year 4 of the SeegerOlympics joel selected a throwback to the first ever SeegerOlympic event. Predicting the winner of the U.S. / Czech Republic World Cup match, the final score and the first U.S. goal scorer. Sadly, every one of us chose the U.S. to win (though joel did predict a tie until the last moment, when he changed his prediction). At first, the points seemed to have gone to Brooke, who predicted a 1-0 win for the U.S. Eventually though, it was realized that there was a 4-way tie for the winner, being a total of 4-goals off for the winner. Although the decision is still a bit under discussion, the discrepancy is due to the fact that there was no terribly clear difference on the first tiebreaker. In one sense, brooke's 1-0 prediction gives the U.S. a 1 goal spread, whereas the game ended up 3-0 against the U.S., so in the end brooke's score would have been only 4 goals off (-1 + 3). On the other hand, though, the U.S. scored 1 goal & Czech Republic 3, so brooke was 1 off for the U.S. & 3 off for Czech Republic. Several competitors chose a final score of 2-1, which were 2 off for the U.S. & 2 off for the Czech Republic, both amounting to a total of 4 goals off in their prediction. Anyway, pending the dispute, no points were awarded in the first event of the Year 4 SeegerOlympics.

How boring.

Scoreboard?

In the past 3 years of SeegerOlympic competitions, scoring hasn't been much of a problem. With just 3 competitors we were able to play events and simple chalk up a hatch mark for each victory.
Now with year 4, though, and two more competitors, a complication has arisen. Getting all 5 of us together at once, and able to compete in an event of someone's choosing may prove fairly difficult.

One suggested solution is that competitors are awarded 1 point for each individual they defeat, so in events involving all 5 competitors, the winner gets 4 points. This idea, though, would necessitate sub-rules, possibly such that each sub-set of players competing in events can only make up only half as many points as there are available from all 5-person events.

So, as of right now, we 5 have played two events (one ending in a tie, and one in a victory for Tim), making the total number of points up in the air 8. So, if, for example, jen and joel were to compete in an event one day, we could only play up to four games (making the maxiumum score for either player 4, half of 8). If tim, brooke, and andy played some events, they could only play 2 at this time (winning 2 points each, total of 4). While this scoring seems complicated, it's not andy's year to keep score, and i now have a master's degree. So, it should be fine. Please comment with further suggestions, though (we could just have a low-scoring competition, with fewer chances & an extra point awarded for each sub-group {joel vs. tim, joel vs. andy vs. tim, etc).

Year 4 Begins

The SeegerOlympics enters its fourth year (endlich) with a boing. Thus far two events have been selected with only one of them awarding any points. Several changes abound in this, the fourth year of the SeegerOlympics. First off, there are two new competitors. Jen and brooke have decided to compete for the coveted Dick Koch trophy this year. With the added players, there has been talk about complicating the scoring system, but nothing official has been decided. Thus far, all that we are sure of is that joel selected the first event, which nobody won, and tim chose the second, which he won himself. More on scoring (and the first two events) later. For now, welcome to the new blog. The blog will be a rather open forum, with any of the competitors able to submit (as well as some guest commentators, perhaps {such as the Commissioner}) and we will try to have a running tally on the side. Comments are, of course, welcome as are event suggestions. (Submitted events will be played pending a 3-out-of-5 vote by the competitors).