Nerd Olympics

Nerd Olympic Board

As many of you will know, we have decided to form an executive committee to decide the nature, content and venue of the Nerd Olympics, known as the Nerd Olympic Board, or NOB for short.

What we haven't discussed yet is a leader and forgive me if I am speaking out of turn, but I would like to nominate Marc as the head of this board. Would other nerd members please indicate if you think Marc is a NOB-head as well.

Marc should be the NOB-head	Marc should not be the NOB-head
Marc
Abi
Neil (Marc is a natural)
Lee

Participants

We need a list of definite competitors for the Nerd Olympics. It seems as though we may have a few new additions. All competitors should be willing to participate in the whole competition. The list of definitely competitors is as follows:

• Marc
• Lee
• Neil
• Abi
• Matt
• Elín
• Tim
• Sissy

We need to get this list finialised A.S.A.P.

Venue

The Nerd Olympics will be held at a variety of stadia around England. Each host should aim to hold about four medium sized events. People willing to host events are as follows:

• Neil / Abi
• Marc
• Lee (can I have Tetris?)
• Tim / Sissy

Round 1 - Hemel Hempstead Stadium

Is any-one interested in having round 1 of the nerd olympics this weekend? At our flat (Neil & Abi)? It'd just be a good excuse to play SingStar. Abi's working on Saturday but people could come round Saturday evening and have some events on Sunday morning? I'll have to hunt out a good pool pub. We could formulate a final list of events for round 1 in the meantime via the Wiki.

Note: Tim can't make this weekend, and doubtless other people won't be able to too, so we'd have to think of another date. Any ideas?

Note: Lee also can't make this weekend as she is moving house!!!!! Her room is now a moving mess, but it is all very exciting.

Next weekend is proms in the park

Maybe the weekend after that (22nd & 23rd) or in six weekends time?

22nd & 23rd is good for me - Neil

Note: Please don't have it without Lee. She really wants to play too...

Note: Can I play? - Elín

Yeah, of course! - Neil

Note: ^_^ - Elín

Elín will have to get bonus nerd points before even starting the competition for going through all the effort of typing that funny unicode character in her name everytime! - Neil

NEWS FLASH - What about having the first round on the 9th September? It is also my bifday weekend so we can have a piss up for that (and Elin's and Lee's bifdays as well if they want). Whaddya fink? Abi

Events

Specialist round

We could have a short quiz where everybody answers questions on somebody else's special chosen subject. We could agree the subjects beforehand to prevent people from picking stupid topics. We'd have to think of someway to stop people picking impossible to answer questions that nobody would ever know though.

Pool

Standard knock-out tournament, à la the world cup? I think the hotel across the road has pool but I'd have to investigate prices.

Death-tank

Simple - depending on number of players, everyone can just play at once

Neil, do you have Death Tank available at your house? How many players max? -- Marc

Death tank can do up to 7 players but as there are 8 competitors I propose a two-tiered competition. (8 is a convenient power of two which will make doing knockouts a lot easier right?). All eight competitors will be randomly split into two groups of four. Then each group of four will play five consecutive rounds of death tank. (The rounds are fairly short-lived and five is enough time for someone to save up enough to buy a Death's Head which makes it more fun :) The top two scorers from each of the groups will then form a new group of four who will play 10 rounds for the final. Before the final will be 5 play-off rounds consisting of the two bottom players from each group so that we can get a complete ordering. In the event a draw (not sure if that's possible or not) the players who have equal scores will play a one-round sudden death to decide who is better.

Singstar

Some kind of complicated system where you have home and away matches so that you get to choose the song on home matches or something

BTW - Abi is obsessed with SingStar and she's bought the Rocks! disc again despite taking two of them back for not working. This one seems ok for now though so with we've now got all of them. -- Neil

Neil at work

Typing

Take it in turns typing up a letter and deduct marks "according to the level of" accuracy?

Deduct marks for accuracy? How ironic -- Marc

Is that ok? -- Neil

I"ll b grate, woo hoo! - bAi

- ooh actually could we have an accurate punctuation test as well? We could combine it with spelling bee idea. I'll get Esty to set the questions.

We could type in Esperanto! Bonege! ahem..well...just a suggestion.. -- Elín

Ho jes, tiu sugesto plaĉas al mi! -- Neil

Wow, I was looking for a program that we could use to test typing speed and there's one called "Klavaro" which is Esperanto for keyboard! It's even been translated into Esperanto, how cool is that?

Tetris

The original GameBoy version, most lines in 10 minutes or something? - how about some sort of tournament involving head-to-head matches, as we did in A-levels?

I think we could do both types - a knock out tournament and most lines in x minutes -- Marc

We could collect points for each round with points for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.

Let's give everyone who participates points wherever possible. It'll encourage everyone to join in everything. -- Marc

Is this too anal to bother with? No. It'll be fun.

Matt's gonna win this one- I have an original gameboy with Tetris and Matt was obsessed with it for months! Thought I'd never get it back! --Elín

Tim and Lee are pretty good at tetris too though, it's a tough call. Hrmm... I wonder if we should take bets or have a sweepstake on the side? - Neil

Okay, I'll give you some odds - Tim and Lee 3/1 Matt 5/1 Marc and Neil 10/1 Elín 13/1 (haven't studied her form but could be a dark horse) Tom and everyone else 15/1 (no idea about their Tetris credentials) Abi 100/1 (I'm crap...)

Honest Abi's Bookies pays out in spirit shots so roll up roll up!

Matt's obsession with tetris was short-lived. Whereas Lee's was ongoing. But Matt can't be bothered to argue, so yes Matt's odds really are 5:1 - Go Matt Go!

I would put my own chances in at 100/1, which means Abi is my main competition for penultimate place *starts intense practice routine* I myself of course, will be rooting for Matt all the way. Go Matt Go!! -- Elín

Bonus rounds

Cracker eating test

Mental arithmetic

timing on Dr. Kawasomething's Brain Training on the Nintendo DS (go matt!)

Round 2 - Birmingham Stadium

Events

• Tetris
• Jelly Baby and Spaghetti challenge
• Hearts
• Something else I can't remember...

Scoring

I propose three different methods of getting points in the olympics: main rounds, bonus rounds and bonus points.

Main Rounds

The main rounds score the most points and everyone competing will get a point.

As Marc suggested it'd be nice if everyone gets some points for each round so I propose that for each round you should get 1 point for coming last, 2 for coming 2nd to last and so on up to the number of competitors, but then you should get one extra bonus point for winning the round. If there are any ties then all people who finished at the same rank get the same number of points which is the higher score, (eg, if there are five competitors and two people place joint second then the winner gets 6 points and the two second place people get 4 points each). If anyone doesn't take part in a round then they get zero points but the other players still score as if everyone was taking part. So for example if there are 5 total competitors but only 4 take part in a particular round, with two people placing equal third then the scoring would be as follows:

1st place	6 points
2nd place	4 points
3rd place	3 points
other 3rd place	3 points
Non-partaker	0 points

As an additional twist I think that each competitor should be allocated one joker card (like they do in pub quizzes). Any player can adopt to play their joker card for any round, although it can only be played once. After playing the card the competitor will get double points for that round, but the competitor must choose to play the card before the round commences. So for example if Abi thinks she will do particularily well in the SingStar round, she can use her joker card then and get twelve points instead of six.

Note: Marc: I agree with most of this (and like the joker card idea), but I think it might be best for the winner to get 10 points and count down to 1. If few people participate in the event, it's not fair for the maximum amount of points scored to be less than they otherwise would be.

Reply: Neil: I think that was what I was trying to describe, eg "but the other players still score as if everyone was taking part". So if there are 8 total competitors in the whole olympics and one doesn't take part in a particular round then the winner of that round will still get 9 points, 2nd place would get 7 and so on but the person who didn't take part would get zero instead of the free 1 point they could have gotten for just taking part and coming last. I guess it doesn't really make any difference if you count down from 10 instead of counting down from the number of competitors (unless there are more than 10 of course..) except that it would be slightly more of a punishment if you didn't take part because you would be down more than one point.

Query: What if someone is taking part in the overall Nerd Olympics but can't make it to that particular round? - Lee

I guess as there are only eight competitors we could avoid hosting a round unless everyone can attend? Otherwise as the competiton gets more serious someone will organise an event during a weekday just so that no-one can turn up and they'd get all the points :) - Neil

Bonus rounds

For smaller rounds, such as the water tasting test or the Brain Training test, the winner gets two points and nobody else gets any.

Bonus points

Bonus points can be awarded by the NOB-head whenever he sees fit although if this is perceived to be unfair there may be a mutiny.

Comment: I like the idea of bonus points, for natural displays of nerdiness. (points to be allocated by the NOB-head) for instance: 'Elín' - typing her name in that way, 1 bonus point, Neil - going on about the scoring system for ages - 2 bonus points. etc. - Matt

Rough Event Ideas

• Typing
• Arm wrestling
• Pin the tail on the donkey
• Swerve (fun, four-player computer, high-paced game)
• Variety of runs
• Cycle race
• Long jump (Long jump????????? - you what?)
• Tetris
• Spelin'
• IQ (or something like Raven's Matricies)- I must be very thick, what are raven matricies?
• Downing a pint - draught
• Not downing a pint and liking your ale in little sips test
• Dancing game
• Bop it
• Lung capacity
• General grammmar and punctuation test (with extra points for the vehemency of your convinctions)
• Pool competiton
• Taste test (is this before or after the curry taste test?)
• Curry taste test (if you can handle a vindaloo test)
• Count to 100 (one, two, miss a few, ninety-nine, a hundred)
• Middle C
• Specialist round (like on Mastermind)
• Pictionary
• Table tennis
• Table football
• Darts
• Spot the dots
• Sudoku
• Calculator speed relay
• The biscuit game
• Internet fact search
• Mallet's Mallet
• Name game
• Stop watch
• Banzai
• Guess the song
• Death Tank
• Skimming (boing boing boing - not with my phone)
• Staring
• Eating doughnuts (no licking lips)
• Eating crackers (no liquid allowed)
• Classing game, e.g. Street Firhget 2
• Lighting a fire
• Classic nerdy rock song lyric test
• The calcultor game
• ASAP
• Synonym game for rude body parts
• Super Mario Brothers on the Gameboy Color (remember that?)
• Scrabble! (so Abi can get some points..) - oi! I can get points! Maybe not in the biscuit game...
• Make a rocket like they did on Beauty and the Geek
• Complete the Red Dwarf quote
• Weight to height ratios (skinniest wins)
• Worst eyesight
• 'Success with the ladies' test
• Odd habits / phobias / general anti-social behaviour test
• Testo de povo kompreni esperantajn frazojn (A test of ability to comprehend Esperanto sentences? Facile! =D )
• Geocaching time trial!
• The great "can you taste the difference between bottled water, tap water and filtered water?" test - wot like they did on BBC Breakfast News?
• Singstar
• The guitar game

  What is the guitar game? Does that mean Tim is going to bring his guitar? Yay - Neil

  The guitar game is on the PS2, it is so so so much fun! Like dance mat style, but with a guitar (Tim should bring his guitar anyway though) - Lee

  Does the guitar game have real strings or is it just normal PS2 buttons in the shape of a guitar? Does Tim get extra points if he brings his guitar? - Tim

  YES - Lee (but must be confirmed by the NOB head)

  Is this the guitar game? - Neil

  YES!!! - Lee

• Krypton Factor style game
• Monopoly/ Psionopoly
• Some kind of sci-fi quiz?

Singstar song list

In case anybody wants to practice, here's the list of songs in Singstar.

Artist	Song	Game
A-Ha	Take On Me	Singstar
Alice Cooper	Poison	80s
Alicia Keys	Fallin'	Party
Annie	Heartbeat	Pop
Ashford & Simpson	Solid	Party
Ashlee Simpson	Pieces of Me	Pop
Atomic Kitten	Eternal Flame	Singstar
Avril Lavigne	Complicated	Singstar
Avril Lavigne	Sk8er Boi	Pop
Banarama	I Heard A Rumour	Anthems
Belinda Carlisle	Heaven Is A Place On Earth	80s
Beyonce	Crazy in Love	Pop
Bill Withers	Ain't No Sunshine	Party
Billy Joel	Uptown Girl	80s
Black Eyed Peas	Shut Up	Pop
Blink-182	What's My Age Again	Pop
Bloc Party	Banquet	Rocks
Blondie	Atomic	80s
Blondie	Heart of Glass	Singstar
Blu Cantrell	Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)	Party
Blue	One Love	Singstar
Blur	Song 2	Rocks
Bob Marley	No Woman No Cry	Party
Bonnie Tyler	Total Eclipse Of The Heart	Anthems
Bowling for Soup	1985	Rocks
Bucks Fizz	Making Your Mind Up	Anthems
Buggles	Video Killed The Radio Star	Party
Busted	Crashed the Wedding	Singstar
Busted	Year 3000	Party
Candi Staton	Young Hearts Run Free	Anthems
Carl Douglas	Kung Fu Fighting	Singstar
Charlene	I've Never Been To Me	Anthems
Charlotte Church	Crazy Chick	Anthems
Cher	If I Could Turn Back Time	Anthems
Coldplay	Speed of Sound	Rocks
Culture Club	Karma Chameleon	80s
Cyndi Lauper	Girls Just Wanna Have Fun	Party
Dandy Warhols	Bohemian Like You	Pop
Daniel Bedingfield	If You're Not the One	Singstar
Dead Or Alive	You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)	Anthems
Deee-Lite	Groove is in the Heart	Singstar
Deep Purple	Smoke On The Water	Rocks
Destiny's Child	Survivor	Party
Dexy's Midnight Runners	Come On Eileen	80s
Dido	Thank You	Singstar
Dido	White Flag	Party
Dolly Parton	Nine To Five	80s
Duran Duran	Hungry Like The Wolf	Party
Duran Duran	Rio	80s
Elton John & Kiki Dee	Don't Go Breaking My Heart	Party
Elvis	Suspicious Minds	Singstar
Elvis	Way Down	Party
Erasure	A Little Respect	80s
Erik B. and Rakim	Paid in Full	Pop
Europe	The Final Countdown	80s
Fairground Attraction	Perfect	80s
Foreigner	I Want To Know What Love Is	80s
Fountains of Wayne	Stacy's Mom	Pop
Frankie Goes to Hollywood	The Power of Love	80s
Franz Ferdinand	Do You Want To	Rocks
Franz Ferdinand	Take Me Out	Party
George Michael	Careless Whisper	Singstar
George Michael	Faith	Party
Girls Aloud	Biology	Anthems
Girls Aloud	Love Machine	Pop
Gloria Gaynor	I Will Survive	Anthems
Good Charlotte	Girls and Boys	Singstar
Good Charlotte	I Just Wanna Live	Pop
Gwen Stefani	What You Waiting For?	Rocks
Hard-Fi	Hard To Beat	Rocks
Hole	Celebrity Skin	Rocks
Hoobastank	The Reason	Pop
Jamelia	Stop	Pop
Jamelia	Superstar	Singstar
Jamiroquai	Cosmic Girl	Party
Javine	Real Things	Party
Jay Sean	Eyes on You	Pop
Jet	Are You Gonna Be My Girl?	Rocks
Joss Stone	Super Duper Love (Are You Digging On Me?)	Pop
Kasabian	Club Foot	Rocks
Kate Bush	Running Up That Hill	80s
Katrina And The Waves	Walking on Sunshine	80s
Keane	Everybody's Changing	Rocks
Keane	Somewhere Only We Know	Pop
Kim Wilde	Kids In America	Anthems
Kings of Leon	The Bucket	Rocks
KT Tunstall	Black Horse and the Cherry Tree	Rocks
Kylie Minogue	I Should Be So Lucky	Party
Kylie Minogue	In Your Eyes	Pop
LeAnn Rimes	Can't Fight The Moonlight	Anthems
Lemar	50:50	Singstar
Liberty X	Just A Little	Singstar
Little Richard	Tutti Frutti	Party
Madness	Our House	80s
Madonna	Like a Virgin	Singstar
Madonna	Material Girl	80s
Manfred Mann	Do Wah Diddy Diddy	Pop
Marillion	Kayleigh	80s
Marilyn Manson	Personal Jesus	Pop
Maroon5	This Love	Party
Maximo Park	Apply Some Pressure	Rocks
McFly	Obviously	Pop
Mis-Teeq	Scandalous	Singstar
Motörhead	Ace of Spades	Singstar
Natasha Bedingfield	Single	Party
Natasha Bedingfield	These Words	Pop
Nena	99 Red Balloons	80s
Nirvana	Come as You Are	Rocks
Outkast	Roses	Pop
Petula Clark	Downtown	Singstar
Pink	Get The Party Started	Singstar
Pink	Just Like A Pill	Party
Pussycat Dolls	Don't Cha	Anthems
Queen	Don't Stop Me Now	Rocks
Queen	Radio Ga Ga	Anthems
Queens Of The Stone Age	Go With The Flow	Rocks
Razorlight	Somewhere Else	Rocks
Rick Astley	Never Gonna Give You Up	Singstar
Ricky Martin	Livin' La Vida Loca	Singstar
Robbie Williams	Let Me Entertain You	Pop
Robbie Williams & Kylie Minogue	Kids	Pop
Ronan Keating & Yusuf Islam	Father and Son	Pop
Roy Orbison	Pretty Woman	Singstar
Run DMC	It's Tricky	80s
S Club	Don't Stop Movin'	Singstar
Scissor Sisters	Laura	Anthems
Scissor Sisters	Take Your Mama	Party
Simple Minds	Don't You (Forget About Me)	80s
Sister Sledge	We Are Family	Pop
Snow Patrol	Run	Rocks
Soft Cell	Tainted Love	80s
Sonny & Cher	I Got You Babe	Party
Sophie Ellis-Bextor	Murder on the Dancefloor	Singstar
Spandau Ballet	Gold	Party
Spice Girls	Who Do You Think You Are	Party
Starship	We Built This City	80s
Steppenwolf	Born to be Wild	Pop
Steps	Deeper Shade Of Blue	Anthems
Stereophonics	Dakota	Rocks
Sugababes	Round Round	Singstar
Survivor	Eye Of The Tiger	80s
Take That Featuring Lulu	Relight My Fire	Anthems
Tears For Fears	Everybody Wants To Rule The World	80s
The Beautiful South	A Little Time	Party
The Bravery	An Honest Mistake	Rocks
The Cardigans	My Favorite Game	Rocks
The Clash	Should I Stay or Should I Go?	Pop
The Cure	Just Like Heaven	80s
The Darkness	I Believe in a Thing Called Love	Singstar
The Foundations	Build Me Up Buttercup	Party
The Hives	Hate To Say I Told You So	Rocks
The Hives	Main Offender	Pop
The Killers	Somebody Told Me	Rocks
The Offspring	Self-Esteem	Rocks
The Police	Every Breath You Take	Party
The Pretenders	Brass In Pocket	80s
The Rolling Stones	Paint It Black	Rocks
The Scorpions	Wind of Change	Rocks
The Undertones	Teenage Kicks	Rocks
The Weather Girls	It's Raining Men	Anthems
Thin Lizzy	The Boys Are Back In Town	Rocks
Tiffany	I Think We're Alone Now	Party
Tina Turner	Simply The Best	80s
Tom Jones	It's Not Unusual	Pop
Ultra Nate	Free	Anthems
Vanilla Ice	Ice Ice Baby	80s
Village People	YMCA	Singstar
Westlife	World of Our Own	Singstar
Wham!	Wake Me Up Before You Go Go	80s
Whitney Houston	I Wanna Dance With Somebody	Anthems

Results

SingStar Round

Rank	Name	Song	Score
1	Abi	Jamelia - Superstar	9220
2	Matt	Billy Joel - Uptown Girl	8780
3	Lee	Petula Clark - Downtown	8700
4	Marc	Madness - Our House	8690
5	Elín	Ashlee Simpson - Pieces of Me	8240
6	Neil	Tom Jones - It's Not Unusual	7050
7	Tim	Hole - Celebrity Skin	2950
8	Sissy	(no song)	n/a

Death Tank Round

Rank	Name
1	Tim
2	Matt
3	Neil
4	Lee
5	Marc
6	Elín
-	Paul
7	Sissy
8	Abi
-	Opi

Typing Round

Rank	Name	Adjusted Speed	Raw Speed	Error Percentage
1	Marc	104.20	106.57	0.4%
-	Lil' Ae	80.00	80.00	0.0%
2	Neil	65.30	84.84	4.6%
3	Elín	50.58	58.32	2.7%
4	Matt	46.41	52.88	2.4%
5	Tim	44.76	43.02	0.8%
6	Abi	40.94	46.61	2.4%
7	Lee	34.60	46.81	5.2%
8	Sissy	29.54	43.52	6.4%

Sudoku Round

Rank	Name
1	Tim
2	Lee
3	Elín
4	Matt
5	Marc
-	Opi
(remaining competitors didn't complete the board successfully)
6	Abi
7	Sissy
8	Neil
-	Paul

Guess-A-Minute Round

Rank	Name	Time
1	Marc	00:55.71
2	Lee	00:51.70
-	Opi	01:11.07
3	Tim	01:12.90
-	Paul	01:17.57
4	Abi	01:20.58
4	Sissy	01:20.58
6	Elín	01:25.73
7	Matt	01:37.56
8	Neil	01:55.42